The release of Balibo seems to have sparked a round of op-eds discussing its historical perspective. I always find this interesting; some columnists seem intent on critiquing any dramatisation of historical events and identifying any faults or omissions. (Disclaimer: I have not seen the film and don’t intend to discuss its merits or weaknesses, but just to raise some issues about political and historical considerations when opinion writers are reviewing this type of film.)
Gerard Henderson viewed the film as “yet another example of left-wing alienation at work” – the type of alienation that Henderson sees expressed in “public broadcasters ABC and SBS, within universities and on stage and screen.” In fact, Henderson regards the film as reflecting such tendency toward blaming Australia that, in a true “enemy of my enemy” moment, he argues that:
Balibo presents Gough Whitlam’s Labor government in the darkest possible light. The film’s message is that Whitlam was complicit in Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor and callously indifferent to the fate of the six deceased journalists. In one scene, Jose Ramos-Horta, the leader of the Fretilin resistance movement in East Timor, views a photo of Whitlam with Indonesia’s President Soeharto and declares: “Two pieces of shit in matching shirts.” No alternative view is heard.
Paul Monk writes about the film in today’s Australian:
Neither the Indonesian nor the Australian government has been keen to see this story publicly aired. But what the film misses is that the battle for East Timor was waged for many years in the corridors of Canberra.
There has been a long and complex debate within Australian government circles since the 1940s about how to come to terms with Indonesian nationalism and the ambition of the Javanese to control the entire archipelago that had made up the Dutch East Indies.
…
It was into this vortex that the five journalists stepped, in mid-October 1975. The rest, as they say, is history. But only a small, all-too-human part of that history is captured in Balibo.
Monk’s is an interesting column and it demonstrates his expert appreciation of the international relations involved – in my opinion, a stark contrast from Henderson’s parochial Left-bashing piece. But this comment from Henderson raises questions about the standard these op-eds impose on the film:
Balibo received financial backing from a number of public sources … This would not matter much if Connolly presented his story as it is – namely, a fictional account of the fate that befell the journalists. But at the beginning of Balibo, viewers are informed that this is a “true story”.
It isn’t, but many who view it will regard it as a compressed, but authentic, account.
Is this really how film-goers tend to view a dramatic film based on historical events? Or would most movie-watchers understand that compressing and selectively presenting the historical events is an inevitable product of turning history into a coherent, entertaining experience that lasts a couple of hours? To what extent does being insightful and thought-provoking overcome any limitations in presenting a complete historical picture?
And is this tendency to critique the historical accuracy of such films a particularly conservative tendency – perhaps reflecting a stronger belief that history can be boiled down to certain essential and incontrovertible facts? I suspect I could list many examples of movies that have been criticised from the Right as historically inaccurate (half of Oliver Stone’s filmography, for starters) – is the fact that I can’t think of counter-examples my own limitation, a reflection of the fact that Hollywood is so Leftist, or something else entirely?
ELSEWHERE: For some other perspectives on Balibo, see reviews from Cinetology’s Luke Buckmaster, Kevin Rennie as well as Margaret and David. Luke Buckmaster and David Stratton both conducted interviews with writer/director Robert Connolly.
38 Comments
Hello Tobias,
I haven’t seen Balibo either, but I’d suggest that anyone wanting to know about any historical event would be far better served going to their local library and reading some books than by watching a movie, after all, movie-makers are not only condensing the events to within a couple of hours timeframe, but they are also trying to include a certain degree of entertainment content so that more people will find the film attractive.
It’s Friday and it’s been a long week for me so I might be being even thicker than I usually am but I’m not sure what you mean by “And is this tendency to critique the historical accuracy of such films a particularly conservative tendency – perhaps reflecting a stronger belief that history can be boiled down to certain essential and incontrovertible facts?”
Are you suggesting that history isn’t made up of essential and incontrovertible facts ?
What Henderson objects to, but is unable to articulate, is the politics of history-writing itself. Telling a forgotten, dismissed or marginalized story – any story – is a political act, because it operates against those very forces that have marginalized it. It is that fundamental political dynamic that causes Henderson and his ilk to fume and sulk and go on endlessly about “leftists” when events like those in Balibo are remembered and legitimized.
I would respect Henderson far more if he could articulate this. If he could say that the Balibo story should not be told because it runs counter to the dominant narrative of Australia-Indonesia relations in which the deaths of journalists, and thousands others, would be ignored and forgotten by Canberra and Jakarta in the name of “good relations”. But that would be asking him to think openly and critically.
“reading some books”
Gavin, have you read ‘Operation Certain death’ about the UK’s effort to free the Irish Guards who were held captive by the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone? I’m not sure you’d be into these sorts of books having lived it but if you are I can recommend it.
I saw the film at a special screening on Tuesday night and the film is very good. One thing that Tristan Milani (Director of Photography on Balibo) stressed was that the story was condensed for film, but the encense of the story is still intact. And that is something that Henderson wants to nit-pick over.
More (and a photo) at the blogocrats.
http://www.blogocrats.com/index.php/top-menu-sections/reviews/96-joni
Gavin asked my question. I, too, am intrigued by the comment, “some columnists seem intent on critiquing any dramatisation of historical events and identifying any faults or omissions”.
Are you saying they shouldn’t??
Look at Gone With The Wind. Rarely do you hear a mention of the outrageously deceitful portrayal of the treatment of the Slaves in that film. Those people were enslaved, branded, whipped and raped. They certainly were not given gold watches and looked to for advice.
And today the film is heralded as a “masterpiece” and a “classic” rather than being critiicised for its gross historical liberties. Just because nobody questions.
‘Balibo’ cover-up: a film’s travesty of omissions
Pilger gets stuck in..here
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9337
Hi Rob,
I haven’t read that one, I’ll definitely look it up though — All the time I spent in various African countries has given me a very keen interest in the place.
Gavin, being a Friday I didn’t communicate my meaning as clearly as I should have. At the very least, I should have said “a stronger belief that history can be boiled down to nothing more than certain essential and incontrovertible facts?”
I was referring to the question of whether history can be purely objective, or whether it’s inevitable that differences in perspective will lead to disagreement about the meaning of and reasons for historical events. Some conservatives – including Henderson, an appointee to the panel for Howard’s attempt at a national history curriculum – have advocated an approach to “narrative history” that might be regarded as suggesting a single (in the case of Australian history, white- and male-oriented) acceptable view of events. Indigo’s comment gives a good example of the criticism of that view.
It seems to me that if you take a view that we should all agree on not just what happened, but what were the most important causes and which issues should be given the most attention, you’ll be a lot more likely to find fault with historical dramatisations. I find myself wondering whether Gerard Henderson drafts similar columns about the Harry Potter films, listing the important parts of the book that were ignored and leave the viewer failing to understand why the characters acted as they did.
Thanks for linking to your post, Joni – I’ve fallen behind on my blog reading or I would have checkd Blogocrats. I wonder whether Henderson would agree that the essence of the story is intact? He seems to imply that what we’re really seeing is the essence of the Left – blaming and distancing itself from Australia (even Whitlam’s Australia, in this case). Glad you liked the film – I hope I’ll get to see it soon.
The actor on Q and A (can’t remember his name, Lapaglia I think) openly admitted that certain scenes were condensed versions of several discrete incidents. That is not history telling, this is entertainment. Once you start changing things for the sake of the movie as “an entertainment vehicle” you remove the historical accuracy and replace it with “eye candy” for viewers. If it was more important to tell the facts, they would have made the “13 hour documentary” that Lapaglia claimed would been neccesary. If you want to make an action/drama movie BASED on historical events, you are introducing artistic license into the mix and can therefore forget about it being a historical narrative based on facts.
It is either one or the other – you can’t have it both ways. The film Australia also committed this sin. What’s worse, some people who don’t study history will walk away from the movie and take it as fact – and thats dangerous.
I haven’t seen the movie either, but I am very farmiliar with the background history and all of the issues it raised between families, nations and political parties.
““Two pieces of shit in matching shirts.” No alternative view is heard.”
What was he expecting? Andrew Bolt to step out and provide his precious balance? Is he annoyed Howard forgot to stack Screen Australia with stooges that would have allowed this to happen?
What baldrick said. it’s a movie designed to entertain, not a lecture in history. I haven’t seen the movie either so can’t comment about content, but the events surrounding the balibo 5 are still unclear aren’t they(?), so whoever made a movie about it was bound to require creative license to fill in the gaps.
And i will take issue with pedro’s convenient neglect to remember that GWTW was made during a time in US film-making when undesirable historical circumstances were sanitised (as they were in Australia circa same time). I hardly think that movie is a fair comparison to today’s flicks, and I don’t see what that has to do with this issue in any case.
Henderson’s outrage has a curious resemblance to Bolt’s hysteria about the movie Australia which he felt, despite its entirely fictional plot, should of referenced his version of the history of aboriginals.
But wrt henderson, this demand for *balance* is getting out of hand.
“Are you suggesting that history isn’t made up of essential and incontrovertible facts ?”
He should suggest that, because if he is, he is correct.
“And today the film is heralded as a “masterpiece” and a “classic” rather than being critiicised for its gross historical liberties.”
A film can still be a masterpiece even if it presents abhorrent views. Both Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation are examples of this.
Of course you will take issue, confessions. That’s all you do.
But let me at least try and get your thinking straight:
Balibo is a movie “designed to entertain, not lecture in history”.
GWTW is not granted that pass because it was made 70 years ago.
Compare GWTW all you want with “today’s flicks” but Balibo will quietly fade into oblivion within a year. Yet the myth GWTW tried to convey will play on in movie theatres and on TV and in DVD sales for another 70 years to come. It’s not going away.
And if you can’t understand people analysing and questioning a film’s integrity – any film, regardless of when it was made – then I kind of get why you stick to your Fox & Friends.
Well, check out this site after you’ve seen the film and see what you reckon:
http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/hass/Timor/
Note that a 13-hour documentary would NOT have been long enough. Nor a 30 hour documentary. Lewis Carroll once wrote about a fictitious map that was so topographically accurate, it was as large as the country it was mapping. It had never been spread out, of course, because “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.” The question of accuracy often comes up in discussions about Balibo, a movie to which I contributed as Consulting Historian. Balibo runs for less than two hours but deals with real events lasting two months. The competing demands of accuracy, concision and aesthetics mean that one has to decide in advance what to leave out, what to leave in, and how to reenact certain events. This would be true even if we were talking about a 300 hour documentary.
Andrew Bolt claims that the Balibo story is of no interest to him because it happened while he was still a boy and consequently has very little knowledge. {Let’s not speculate on theories like that without proof — Scott}. It makes their apology to the blackfellas look rather shallow. It is truly our national shame.
GWTW is not granted that pass because it was made 70 years ago.
Once again in an attempt to attack me personally you show that you haven’t read at all. My exact words: “GWTW was made during a time in US film-making when undesirable historical circumstances were sanitised (as they were in Australia circa same time). I hardly think that movie is a fair comparison to today’s flicks, and I don’t see what that has to do with this issue in any case.”
What you think personally about the movie Balibo is irrelevent, as is whether it will prevail in the same way as GWTW. But you should at least ensure that when you are comparing historical distortions or sanitation in film that you are accounting for broader social and cultural/political contexts in which the film was made.
And if you can’t understand people analysing and questioning a film’s integrity
Again with the failure to read. My exact words again: “it’s a movie designed to entertain, not a lecture in history.” Having misrepresented my comment and attacked me personally you are hardly in a position to be doling out lectures about understanding people.
Henderson’s critique was extraordinarily weak. Sometimes writers criticise films for actually being historically inaccurate; the only line of attack on Balibo that Henderson can find is that it only tells part of the story. This is an idiotic criticism; every film only tells part of the story. According to the Henderson Principle, no filmmaker has the right to base his movie on true events unless he includes every possible event and every possible viewpoint that might have some connection to the issue.
“What was he expecting? Andrew Bolt to step out and provide his precious balance?”
Probably. I think he believes that in order to be more historically accurate, Connolly should have invented a fictional pro-Indonesian sidekick to accompany Ramos-Horta and Roger East across Timor, giving a counter-argument to every line of the script.
Pilger’s criticism seems similar to Henderson’s: “the movie doesn’t show everything I want it to show, therefore everything in it is untrue”.
What facinates me are so many people saying so much about a film they have NOT seen!
trizzie
Connolly could have then turned it into a buddy-comedy, thereby creating a film that everyone could enjoy.
Good point trizzie; personally, I have indeed seen it.
PEDRO: As usual, you come winging into any comment with a fixed, far right-wing view of politics, movies and I dare say, hopscotch. Here, I have at least seen the movie.
Pedro, have you not heard that movies are made for an audience and that such things as box office receipts have to be taken into account?
It is a fine movie, told with intelligence and compassion, through the eyes of about five people, a war between, as much as anything, Catholicism and Islam, war reportage, invasion and catastrophe.
How would you present a movie with an historical time-frame but to be told over a two hour time-frame? By including details such as the name of one of the protagonist’s dog, infighting between government bureaux-that really would make for a jolly two hours entertainment-and sundry other concerns?
The fact that Andrew Bolt chose to butt out of commenting should give you a hint as to the film’s worth.
As for your ludicrous statements about GWTW. Anyone calling it a masterpiece has to have rocks in their heads, a ‘classic’ yes, a masterpiece, no.
It was written by a Southerner, about a Southerner, a young girl growing up against a loose background of the American civil war, where the people concerned chose to believe that slavery was good. That today we find this belief untenable and we know the vast majority of slaves were treated brutally, has as little to do with movie truth as your statements in aligning it with Balibo have to do with movie truth.
In my limited experience it is the people of right wing convictions who fail to question anything. Reactions are the right-wing’s stock in trade. Not questions.
What on earth are you on about now, confessions. Attacked you personally? Once again? Where? Then explain how I can “misrepresent” your comments that are there for everyone to read and interpret as they will.
And please don’t give me this “failure to read”. I read, I chuckled, and immediately dismissed most of what you said as pure bollocks.
But since you insist. There is no less “sanitising” today than 70 years ago and in fact there are so few examples (which you might have tossed up) that indicates this was the norm in the 30s. Filmmakers have, to use your word, misrepresented history from the year dot and continue to do so today. Luhrmann’s Australia is an excellent example of that.
I had to read Gerontius’ piece a couple of times to confirm what he’d done; he was giving Great Gough a bye!! That’s got to be a first but, interesting that it happens on the the sole occasion when he was actually GUILTY! oh what strange bedfellows…
AR, he’s only opposed to Gough when the “other side” is right-wing Australians. But he’ll be damned if he’ll let anyone suggest that even a leftie Australian isn’t morally superior to a dirty foreigner like Ramos-Horta.
Daniel Ashdown
““Are you suggesting that history isn’t made up of essential and incontrovertible facts ?”
He should suggest that, because if he is, he is correct.”
I’m hoping you aren’t a history teacher Daniel.
The incontrovertible facts of history are the occurrence of historical events themselves and the times at which they occurred, the causes and ramifications of those events are what are sometimes debatable.
“The incontrovertible facts of history are the occurrence of historical events themselves and the times at which they occurred, the causes and ramifications of those events are what are sometimes debatable.”
But you’ve just conceded your opponents’ point. History contains incontrovertible facts; it is not “made up” of them.
The causes and ramifications are what make it history, Gavin. Even the question of what happened is usually a matter for conjecture. Raw facts are nothing more than a skeleton.
Well thanks for agreeing with me Gavin, I suppose.
“Is the fact that I can’t think of counter-examples my own limitation, a reflection of the fact that Hollywood is so Leftist, or something else entirely?” No. Given time, I am sure you could think up some counter examples.
One that springs to mind, because I watched it recently, is Clint Eastwood’s “Heartbreak Ridge”. I like Clint Eastwood, and despite the questionable politics contained in this film, I liked his performance. But the moment the DVD finished I went on to Google to try and find out what really happened in Grenada. I think we can safely say that that film presented a particular view of history which appeals to conservatives. But it was, in my opinion, a long way from the reality.
Struth,
Talk about wanting to pick an argument over semantics — the occurrence of an event and when it occurred is an incontrovertible fact, it can’t be changed or altered, the cause and effects surrounding a given event can be debated but there’s still only one true historical interpretation to these as well, the only question is what the correct interpretation actually is.
Wrong, Gavin. I’m not trying to be nasty or deconstructive or anything, but that is not the understanding that Historians have of History.
Events happened, true. And that things happened at a certain time and in a certain way is also true. But what matters to history is not what happened, but is as much what everyone thinks happened. When that event left physical trace, then this trace can be used to determine actual events, but even quite recent events are only knowable by what is remembered and recorded, and both of these can be quite unreliable. This is where we get into all sorts of awkward questions, which are well understood by historians, unknown to most people, and easily misinterpreted by those who haven’t thought about it very deeply.
Short answer: yes, things happen, and the facts of those facts don’t change. Our knowledge of what those facts are, on the other hand, is something else again. Figuring out, from what documentation and evidence is available, what the facts are most likely to have been is what the study of history is.
Put it another way: the Romanovs were killed by Bolshevik troops, the evidence is very strong that this is so. The bones of Tsar Nicholas have been found, and they show signs of bullet wounds. Someone shot him fatally, then. This is also a fact. The name of the man who shot and killed Tsar Nicholas? We know he must have existed, and that he must have had a name, but I don’t think we can know what his name was (unless it’s written up in some ancient Soviet archive somewhere). It is a fact that a particular person did this act, but we can’t know that fact.
History is by far made up of facts which we cannot know, and quite a lot of it is filled in through educated inference. Even recent history.
We know the Balibo Five were killed. We have a pretty good idea how and by whom. But these facts are not absolutely known, but are inferred from other evidence and testimony (another form of evidence).
The trouble with this comes when people decide that because there is a limit to how certainly we can know anything, that everything is arbitrary and relative, and that simply isn’t true either. We don’t exactly know precisely how the Balibo Five died, but we can be fairly sure that it was not by ninjas or dinosaurs. (Or even dinosaur ninjas.)
We don’t know exactly what they talked about amongst themselves, but we have a good idea that it wasn’t about the fourth Terminator movie.
History is built around facts, but it also has to take into account how certain our knowledge is about those facts, and that knowledge is rarely perfect.
Not if you’re Keith Windschuttle.
Hello Cat,
Agree with you entirely, it was only Daniel’s comment of – “He should suggest that, because if he is, he is correct.” – in answer to my question to Toby asking if he was – “Are you suggesting that history isn’t made up of essential and incontrovertible facts ?” – thus implying to me that he (Daniel), considered that History doesn’t contain incontrovertible facts.
Daniel,
I apologise if I misunderstood what you were saying.
Henderson needs to realise that a truer historical account of these events would be unbearable to watch. Thats what murder and disposession of a culture is like. Henderson borders on blaming the victims for their plight, because they were left leaning communists they somehow deserved it.
Here’s what the Coroner had to say about Pilger’s claim that “Australian intelligence had known 12 hours in advance that the journalists in Balibo faced imminent death, and the government did nothing.”:
“None of the witnesses who gave evidence at the inquest about sigint material they saw from 1975 onwards saw any material in terms of the alleged Murdani-Dading intercept. In summary, therefore,
a) there is no extant intercept or report referring to it;
b) no witness has ever seen such an intercept or report; and
c) those nominated as being able to validate its existence, namely, Messrs. Brownbill, Cunliffe and Cameron have specifically given evidence to the contrary.
Hence, there is nothing before the inquest to indicate that such a document ever existed.”