Movie_Deconstruction

The first film scene, I wanted to talk about today was a film made about our home land ‘Australia’. In Northern Australia at the beginning of World War II and English heir inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she joins forces with a rough- hewn, stock-man to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country’s most unforgiving land. The specific scene would like to deconstruct today is at the start of the film when Lady Sarah Ashley is on her way to her new cattle station. She was riding in the front of a truck with the rough-hewn, stock-man known as Drover as her driver. The scene starts with Lady Ashley spotting a kangaroo out of her window, quoting ‘Oh, a kangaroo, how lovely’. There is a lot of absurd humor in this. The honesty of Lady Ashley’s voice is one of the main elements that make this scene funny. She is a grown woman, seeing a kangaroo for the first time in her life, which is making her act like a child. This is where the dry humour is shown. As Drover is not used to this sort of behavior, he didn’t know how to react. At some point in the scene, Lady Ashley says ‘They’re jumping’ and Drivers automatic reaction was to mimic her quoting ‘They’re jumping’. The only difference between the two lines, were the way that they were presented. Lady Ashley said her with enthusiasm and excitement, while Drover’s was said with confusion and no meaning nor expression. The scene ended with the main hit of humour. One of the two aborigines that were sitting of the roof of the truck shoots one of the kangaroos with his shotgun. The camera shot used for this was very effective, with the car windscreen being the only thing in the shot, with blood trickling down it. Then suddenly the kangaroos paw dropping onto the windscreen. Another form of humor used was black humour. Black humour is a more serious form of humour, possibly relating back to our indigenous background. Showing right at the end of the scene, were the two aboriginals sitting back on top of the truck laughing and joking about slaughtering the kangaroo. Is some countries and religions this would be found being known as animal cruelty, but is believed not to be in Australia. But the thing is we would believe that being known as a stereotype as most people that love and live in Australia would also find that as animal cruelty as well. That’s on one hand; on the other hand does that mean that all Australian films come across to people in the same way. Well let’s figure that out by having a look at good old ‘Crocodile Dundee’. Michael J. Dundee is an Australian crocodile hunter, who lives in the Australian Outback and runs a safari business with his trusted friend and mentor. After surviving a crocodile attack, a New York journalist named Sue arrived to interview Mick about how he survived and learns more about the crocodile hunter. The scene starts with inexperienced Sue sitting around a camp fire; she suddenly hears wooden rhythm stick being hit together. She whispers ‘Mick’ but there was no answer. The camera shot moves, when an aboriginal man with his face painted traditionally. He moves out from behind a tree. Sue tries to movie backwards to get away. This starts to build the tension in the film. The shot them zooms in on the man again as a knife slowing moves in front o his throat.