The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, a film by Fred Schepisi from 1978, is set in Australia at the end of the 19th century. It tells of a young native Australian, an aborigine as they were called, named Jimmie Blacksmith, who is chosen specially by a missionary and his wife to be raised and educated, because he is half-white, and thus according to them more likely to benefit from their civilization. Over the years, he does everything he can to please various white bosses with farm work, and at one point even dons a uniform to help round up missing natives. Yet he is continually cheated and abused because of his race until, inevitably, he snaps.

Schepisi adapted a 1972 novel by Thomas Keneally which was based closely on the real story of an outlaw named Jimmy Governor. It took some guts for the filmmaker to tackle this subject, but the success of his previous movie, The Devil’s Playground, opened doors for him to producers and film backers who could help him create something big. At a budget of over a million in 1978, it was, although it’s hard to believe today for such a small sum, the most expensive Australian film up to that point.

Jimmie Blacksmith is played by Tom E. Lewis, an indigenous Australian discovered by Schepisi, who gives a performance of such power that it’s hard to believe he had never acted before. The cast is a mix of professional and non-professional actors, with most of the aboriginal actors new to film. It all flows with a natural intensity that creates a feeling of authentic turn-of-the-20th century behavior in New South Wales.

One of Jimmie’s bosses, for whom he makes fencing on his sheep farm, constantly shortchanges him. When he works for a constable, he is forced to brutalize other natives and conceal the abuse in order to keep his job, while at the same time the boss treats him with utter contempt.

At another farm he is joined by his uncle and his half-brother Mort, and meanwhile he scandalizes the farmer and his family by marrying a young pregnant white woman. The family tries to lure the woman, Gilda, away from her husband because they hate interracial marriage. One provocation leads to another, and the fateful result, initially unintentional, is an outburst of violence.

The Australian public seems to have been unprepared for this level of honesty in a movie. Native Australians had been depicted in films before. Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout from ’71 had raised vital questions about the gulf between aboriginal and white settler culture. Peter Weir had integrated elements of native religious practices in The Last Wave, from ‘77. But no film had dealt so directly as this one with the historical crimes and racist structure of Australian society. In addition, the violence against white people depicted here, although strictly based on the historical record, was shocking to audiences. The picture was also embroiled in the perceived controversy of a white writer and director trying to portray the experiences of indigenous people. In hindsight, it all seems like an overreaction to dealing with a subject long repressed in the mainstream. Schepisi went on to Hollywood for a while, where he had some success.

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, despite its mixed reception at home, was regarded very highly internationally, and it marked the culmination of that emergence of cinematic talent we’ve come to call “The Australian New Wave.”