9 - Ned Kelly (1970)

Summary

NED KELLY: AUSTRALIA'S FIRST MULTIMEDIA STAR

Any representation of the figure of Ned Kelly (1855–80) – the ‘loud-mouthed, law-breaking, swaggering, son of an Irish convict’ (McIntyre 1982: 38) – is framed not only by the historical record but also by an intertextual relay that includes a vast array of novels, plays, operas, songs, comics, video games, and a long history of cinematic portrayals of the famed bushranger, beginning with The Story of the Kelly Gang (Charles Tait, 1906) and extending through to True History of the Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel, 2019) (see Gaunson 2013). While the depiction of Kelly in each version varies, sometimes considerably, depending on its principal source and approach – from the close attention to specific historical accounts in the TV miniseries The Last Outlaw (George Miller and Kevin Dobson, 1980) to outright parody in Ned (Abe Forsythe, 2003) – each attests to the cultural resonance, continuing power and local and international recognition of the Kelly myth and its foundational place in popular conceptions of Australian identity and its audiovisual heritage. It is this continued fascination, and the ability to use Kelly's story to address key aspects of Australian history and character, which has led to the production of over a dozen Kelly-related feature films and numerous documentaries, TV movies and series, and short films. The story and character have also proven attractive to filmmakers – both from overseas and locally – seeking an Australian and international audience (though, perhaps surprisingly, few of these films have been significant financial or critical successes). The themes of youthful anti-authoritarianism, liberation and social injustice that run through many iterations of the Kelly saga, may also have been particularly attractive to filmmakers in the mid-to- late 1960s aiming to explore revisionist and politically progressive variations on established genres and forms. At this moment, almost 100 years after his death, Ned Kelly may have seemed like a figure whose ‘time’ had well and truly come.

British director Tony Richardson's interest in making a film about the Australian outlaw was piqued by Sidney Nolan's celebrated series of Ned Kelly paintings that were successfully exhibited in London in the early 1960s.