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As others see usBy CATHERINE DUNCAN, who wrote and directed the first three films made for the Department of Immigration by the Australian National Film Board. The illustrations are by Peter Probyn. SOMETIMES, AFTER SEEING a programme of documentary films produced by the Australian National Film Board I have been tempted to make yet another film under title of As Others See Us. The commentary for the opening sequence would run something like this: --
"Australia is a country of vast open spaces and the
The beer is beaut, though the pubs close up in time It would have been an amusing experiment, especially if this familiar commentary had been matched with images more closely conforming to reality -- overcrowding in the cities and lack of suitable accommodation for thousands of families; soil erosion helped along by the sheep; strikes; shortage of man-power and, of course, Melbourne rain. For like all countries, we have our problems, too, in Australia, problems which are seldom allowed to enter the film's garden of Eden. For the tourist, perhaps, this optimistic picture does less than justice to a country which is one of the most beautiful and fortunate in the world to-day. The tourist has time to enjoy the vast, open spaces; he has money to spend; and so long as he doesn't expect the hotels to stay open after six o'clock or a flourishing theatre which will entertain him on Sundays, Australia will probably live up to his highest expectations. Promises-and warningsBut what about the immigrant? He has to live with us. Right from the start he has to face the practical problems of every-day living. How does he see us? What does he hope to find, and -what warnings or promises should he receive before setting out ? These were some of the questions which confronted me when I was placed in charge of the first three films to be made by the Australian National Film Board for the Department of Immigration. As an enthusiast both for immigration and for films as one of the best mediums to inform immigrants of their future, I tackled the job with an ignorant and blissful fervour. I found it difficult to understand the reaction of many Australians who remarked cynically: "Films for immigrants? The same old propaganda, I suppose. Come in sucker"! I protested firmly that these films would be different. We were going to tell the truth! I began then by reading hundreds of letters from prospective immigrants, noting down their questions as to living conditions and the reasons why they wanted to come to Australia. I suppose the British Education Department has brought its Australian history up to date, but one might suppose from many of these letters that we were still living in the good old days of Ned Kelly. Mothers wanted to know whether they should bring the children's warm coats and whether they could buy sewing machines and china in Australia. Fathers asked if there were schools, banking facilities, trade unions and hospitals? Farmers talked of buying a small farm. Or, perhaps, our past information had done its work too well. At least, nobody doubted that we had plenty to eat and that the sun always shone. Before this staggering lack of knowledge, it was difficult to know where to start and there were many conferences with the Department of immigration before the final programme was approved. It was decided that the first films should be directed toward immigrants most urgently needed-the industrial workers -- and that they should contain practical information on living and working conditions. Because of the lack of housing, preference was given to single workers who could stay with friends or be accommodated in hostels – the single man who would find a job in one of our "developing secondary industries"; the single girl who would work in a provincial city as a weaver, a nurse, a typist or shop assistant. The third film was on family life, contrasting conditions and traditions of a "Christmas Under the Sun". With this programme as a guide, I went forth with a cameraman to seek the Truth. "Straight" reportingThe first film seemed relatively simple. We had chosen as our single man a young British seaman who had taken his discharge in Australia and found a job in a dehydrating and quick-freezing factory. We wanted to say something about wages and conditions of work, the attitude of trade unions towards immigrants, the kind of board to be had, and some of the ways in which he spent his leisure. A straight case of reporting, it appeared. And so it might have turned out had we been content to report on this individual case. But our information had to apply generally, and it was not long before we discovered that the rare bird of truth was as difficult to find outside as inside the camera. This tedious instrument to begin with was selective. For it, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, didn't exist. By the very things it left unsaid it turned out to be the biggest liar of us all. It preferred, of course, to perpetuate the myth of Australia's eternal sunshine, staying inside on the many wet, cold days of winter. It liked places where it had room to move and where interesting action was to be found. It had a weakness for attractive people and decorative exteriors, making the excuse that drab realities stripped of their human context often seemed worse than they actually were. But if physical facts were obstreperous, verbal information proved even more unmanageable. There was hardly a general statement that didn't need footnotes. The attitude of the trade unions was sympathetic toward immigrants but . . . and then followed all the qualifications, the special cases, and the differences between the various unions. The same applied to rehabilitation benefits open to British ex-servicemen. Even the basic wage differed between the states, and changed to meet the rising cost of living just after the dialogue was recorded. We began to feel if our information was to be up to date the films would remain permanently in the laboratories. Somehow a mean had to be found, a compromise between the worst and the best, the lowest and the higher levels, the present and the future; although there were many times when we felt this half-truth was the worst misrepresentation of all. Nor did Australians themselves help matters. They had begun by raising the old objection that our "propaganda would crack up the country". The unfortunate immigrant, they were sure, would be as disillusioned as many of his predecessors. But when it came to the actual shooting, they were the ones who did the . "cracking up". Although we explained that we wanted to film them just as they were at home, when we arrived on the day of shooting, the house and family were frequently arrayed in their Sunday best. The excuse was always the same: "We couldn't let them see it like that in the old country". There were so many jokes about Andy's overgrown hedge that he finally rounded up a working bee of the neighbour's children to cut it for him. But we got our own back on that occasion, by filming them in the act. And there were the private words of advice on our choice of locations -- the best garden, the most modern house, the exceptionally gifted youngster. They were always disappointed when we chose something less than the best, for when it came to the outside world, these Australians, many of them immigrants themselves, took a tremendous collective pride in their country. Perhaps it was their attitude which made me reconsider the whole approach toward our programme of information. Were a selection of changing, and often misleading, facts really what immigrants wanted? Wasn't it more important to tell them something about our spiritual climate -- the free and easy friendliness of Australians, the possibilities in a country where everything is just starting and so many things have to be built from scratch? If immigrants simply hoped to change a hard life for an easy one by coming to Australia, they were in for a disappointment. If their happiness depended on pictures on Sunday or an evening in the pub, they should stay at home. But it seemed to me that those immigrants, who were prepared to pull up their roots and come to a country where there might not be even sewing machines or schools for their children, had a faith
and enthusiasm which should be matched by something more than mere facts. I was more than ever convinced of this during a week spent in Nuriootpa, a small town in South Australia. The people told me they had received hundreds of letters from British immigrants asking if-they could come out and settle there. Why? Why Nuriootpa in particular? There's nothing remarkable about the town itself -- the usual country town with its main road and straggle of shops and houses. The district's population is predominantly German, descendents of political and religious refugees who came to Australia last century. The first settlers lived in hollow trees or rough stone shelters no bigger than an oven. They worked hard and, in time, they turned the green Barossa Valley into a place of vineyards ', orchards of pears and plums, peaches and cherry blossom. They dried apricots in the sun, ran a few sheep and cattle, planted crops, churned butter and made the good, red wine of South Australia. But their lives were separated, dug back into the earth, and many of their children began drifting toward the cities. The people of Nuriootpa began asking themselves what could be done about it. What they've done and are doing is the reason why this little country town is a promised land not only to immigrants but to many Australians. These people have faith in themselves as a community. They discovered that by working together they could achieve seemingly impossible things. They could own, build and run a hotel. The could make a swimming pool and sports ground. The could establish a Technical School for adult education, libraries, a kindergarten. They could draw up the blue prints and put down the foundations of a community centre that embraces practically the whole township. These people haven't passed the buck of their future to government, councils or anybody beyond themselves. If something needs doing, they do it. And I am certain it is this pioneer spirit which appeals to many prospective immigrants. They are prepared make sacrifices and put up with hardships so long as feel they are building a richer and happier future. To-day, the faith has gone out of governments and somehow we have to rediscover it in ourselves. And to me a vision of possibilities seems the better propaganda because it attracts the kind of immigrant Australia most needs . . . tough citizens, as hardy pioneers as ever crossed the inland deserts from Adelaide to Darwin. Independent people, who won't expect anything more than space and opportunity for their energies. It needs some of the passion and persistence that cut the first farms out of virgin bush. It some of the rough poetry and comradeship of men round a camp-fire. Yet my ideas on what kind of films should be made for immigrants must necessarily be based on supposition until the problem is tackled scientifically. The film maker should have at his disposal a body of research which could tell him more exactly what immigrants want to know; the type of person who wants to immigrate, his social and economic standards; the reactions of audiences to the first humble and tentative films, and the reactions of the same people after six months in their new surroundings. It is a job for trained psychologists in both England and Australia, and their findings would be of tremendous importance not only to film makers. Without such a survey, the whole policy of information must remain, at the best, haphazard. There is also another side of the question which must be considered, and one which has not been overlooked by the Department of Immigration. If immigrants need information on Australia, Australians are equally in need of information on the whole policy of immigration. Half its success depends on the attitude of the ordinary Australian toward his new neighbour and, at the moment, I should say it was lukewarm. Here, again, one requires the more exact research of the psychologist. But judging by the people I talked to during the making of our films, Australians accept the idea of large-scale immigration in theory and resent it in practice. There is still the economic fear that the newcomers will take their jobs and lower their hard-won standards of living. The Englishman is always a "Pommy" and the European a "refugee", terms . either affectionate or contemptuous, depending on the person in question. This distinction is important, for I have met too many immigrants who came to Australia after the last war and found friends and work and happiness in their new home to believe that -this resentment is anything but superficial, and can't be overcome by personal contact. But small though our population is, immigrants can't make personal contact with every Australian, and the general attitude will remain unless it is informed and altered. We, like Englishmen, are suspicious of organised public information. To us it smacks too much of propaganda, an instrument of destruction as it became in Germany. Yet the quality of this weapon lies in the hand that controls it, and its strength can be used for constructive as well as destructive ends. In a world which is changing as rapidly as ours there is a constant need to revise outworn ideas and philosophies and to promote new understandings. To let others see us as we really are, and to see others in their true relationship to ourselves, is one of the main tasks of an information service organised on a national and international scale -- a service in which films can play a major part.
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