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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, The: 30th Anniversary Edition (1978)

Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, The: 30th Anniversary Edition (1978)

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Released 3-Nov-2008

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama Main Menu Audio & Animation
Audio Commentary-Director - Fred Schepisi
Featurette-Celluloid, Gypsies, Making Jimmie Blacksmith
Featurette-Making Us Blacksmiths
Interviews-Cast-The Chant of Tom Lewis
Interviews-Crew-Q & A session with Fred Schepisi - hosted by Geoffrey Rush
Gallery-Photo-58 images
Theatrical Trailer
Teaser Trailer-Umbrella Trailers
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 1978
Running Time 116:53
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Fred Schepisi
Studio
Distributor

Umbrella Entertainment
Starring Tommy Lewis
Freddy Reynolds
Ray Barrett
Jack Thompson
Angela Punch McGregor
Steve Dodds
Peter Carroll
Ruth Cracknell
Don Crosby
Elizabeth Alexander
Peter Sumner
Tim Robertson
Case Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI $24.95 Music Bruce Smeaton


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Unknown English Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    After the success of The Devil's Playground, Fred Schepisi's next feature was an honest adaptation of Thomas Keneally's novel, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Schepisi wrote the screenplay with the aim of keeping the film faithful with the novel. There was no collaborating with the author during the process, however, Keneally was a very active participant in the production of the film and even played a small cameo role.

    At the time of production, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was the most expensive film made in Australia. Given the critical success of The Devil's Playground, raising the 1.2 million dollar budget for his second film was much easier for Schepisi. As was the case previously, some of the finance for the film came from Schepisi himself, together with investment from family and friends. However, the bulk of the budget came from the AFC (Australian Film Commission), the VFC (Victorian Film Corporation) and Hoyts.

    Most of the talented crew from The Devil's Playground returned to work on The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. This brought a strong sense of confidence and stability on the set, but one of the true challenges of this film actually lay in the casting. Fred and Rhonda Schepisi really struggled to cast the roles of Jimmie and his brother Mort. By pure chance, Tommy Lewis was discovered at a fog-bound Melbourne Airport and Freddy Reynolds happened to be a friend of Tom's. The story of their casting is well documented in the commentary and extras, so I won't go into detail, other than to say both played their roles with great distinction.

    At the time of its release, the racial themes in the film, together with some scenes of confronting violence effectively worked against the film on a commercial level. These scenes are vital components to the narrative and Schepisi didn't flinch from them, but there is little doubt they did have some negative impact at the box office.

    In 1901 a young half-caste aboriginal boy, Jimmie Blacksmith (Tommy Lewis) is being raised by Rev Neville (Jack Thompson) and his wife (Julie Dawson). They instill in Jimmie the importance of a strong work ethic and actively discourage his aboriginal heritage. Jimmie also learns from them that marrying a white girl and starting a family is the first step in eradicating that heritage.

    Jimmie leaves the Neville's care and begins work, constructing fences on farming properties. Although he produces a quality job and works hard, he is harshly exploited by the bosses simply because he's "a black". He moves from property to property, but quits fencing to become a police auxiliary. Working under the vile racist, Farrell (Ray Barrett), Jimmie is compromised into treating his aboriginal brothers with the same distain and violence. He soon realises what he has become and leaves the job.

    Jimmie marries a white woman, Gilda (Angela Punch McGregor) after she becomes pregnant and they settle in the small cottage that Jimmie built on Newby's land. Jack Newby (Don Crosby) and his family are big land owners and operate a large cattle station. Jimmie works hard for them, while building a life for himself and his devoted wife. When the baby is born white, the women on the property seem to get delight in showing Jimmie that the baby isn't his. Through his disappointment, Jimmie still forges ahead with building a life for Gilda and the baby.

    The arrival of Jimmie's brother, Mort (Freddy Reynolds) and his uncle, Tabidgi (Steve Dodds) begins to bring Jimmie down. His output of work starts to suffer and the Newby's cut off Jimmie's line of supply. When verbal negotiations fail, Jimmie and Tabidgi plan to frighten the women in the homestead. While the men are away, Jimmie and his uncle storm the kitchen with axes. However, the plan goes horribly wrong and in a frenzy of  violence, Jimmie and Tabidgi cause bloody carnage. This sets in motion a massive manhunt.While Tabidgi is captured quickly, Jimmie and Mort continue to avoid the law, moving from homestead to homestead in their personal quest for justice.

    Although The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith didn't fair well at the box-office, it was generally well received critically and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1978. The film also picked up an impressive twelve nominations at the 1978 AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, winning just three for Best Supporting Actor (Ray Barrett), Best Actress (Angela Punch McGregor) and Best Original Music Score (Bruce Smeaton).

    The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith remains somewhat of an underrated film. The passage of time hasn't diminished the impact of the racial themes in the film. While the violence is still confronting, it is perhaps not as shocking as it was on its initial release. I strongly recommend a retrospective look at this film; it remains one of Fred Schepisi's best films to date and this two-disc collector's edition does it great justice.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     In common with Umbrella's release of The Devil's Playground, the print used in this DVD transfer of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith comes courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive.

    The film is presented in the correct aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is 16x9 enhanced.

    Thankfully, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith has been given an excellent transfer to DVD. Despite some inherent softness, sharpness levels were very impressive throughout. Blacks were strong and clean, with shadows displaying a fine degree of detail.

    The beautiful earth tones of the Australian outback are predominating in the colour palette. All colours are superbly balanced on the disc, with no adverse saturation issues.

    There were no MPEG artefacts in the transfer and film-to-video artefacts were not an issue. This restored print delivered a very clean image, with no obvious film artefacts.

    Unfortunately there are no subtitles available on the DVD.

    Disc one is a DVD 9 dual layer disc. The layer change was perfectly placed at 65:17 and was very difficult to locate.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio transfer is faithful to the source and also delivers an excellent result.

    There are two audio tracks on the DVD, English Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s) and English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    Dialogue quality was consistent and clear throughout.

    There were no obvious problems with audio sync.

    The original music score by Bruce Smeaton is excellent and suitably enhances the atmosphere of many scenes. In my opinion though, it never reaches the heights of his score for The Devil's Playground.

    The surround channels and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    

Menu

    The main menu is animated with scenes from the film. It is 16x9 enhanced and features a looped sample of Bruce Smeaton's score.

 

Disc One Extras:

Director's Audio Commentary - Fred Schepisi

    This is another wonderful commentary from Fred Schepisi. It's obvious that Fred enjoys recording these commentaries, by his enthusiastic approach to the task. He discusses all aspects of the production and offers great insight into the making of the film. With minimal pauses, Fred talks about his memories of the film's production, relaying many interesting anecdotes along the way.

Theatrical Trailer

    The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (2:19)

Umbrella Trailers

  • The Devil's Playground (2:36)
  • The Fringe Dwellers (2:10)
  • We Of The Never Never (3:47)
  • Travelling North (2:54)

    Disc Two Extras:

    Featurette - Celluloid Gypsies, Making Jimmie Blacksmith (36:20)

        Produced this year (2008), this is a series of interviews with Fred Schepisi, Tom Lewis, Brian Kavanagh and Ian Baker. Their dialogue has been incorporated with a collection of brief grabs from the film. Much of the information in this piece is duplicated from Fred Schepisi's audio commentary, but it's still worth a look.

    Interview - The Chant of Tom Lewis (25:33)

        This is an extension of Tom Lewis' interview from the previous extra. Tom talks about his life before and after Jimmie Blacksmith. He also talks about his culture and speculates about how his life would have been so much different, had he not have made the film.

    Featurette - Making Us Blacksmiths (10:22)

        This short "making of" doco was produced in 1978 and concentrates on the casting and preparation of Tom Lewis and Freddy Reynolds for their roles.

    Q & A Session with Fred Schepisi - hosted by Geoffrey Rush. (34:05)

        This was recorded at this years 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival. Geoffrey Rush hosts a question and answer session with Fred Schepisi after a retrospective screening of the film. Some audience questions are also answered.

    Stills Gallery

        A collection of 58 non-descript images relating to The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

    R4 vs R1

    NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

        There is a R1 edition of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, which was also released in November of 2008. This edition was released by Industrial Entertainment and is a single disc edition. The R1 edition has only two extras, Celluloid Gypsies, Making Jimmie Blacksmith and The Chant of Tom Lewis. I'm confident these are exactly the same extras as those on the Umbrella release. At the conclusion of both extras, a copyright logo is displayed which states, "Industrial Entertainment 2008", so the assumption would be a strong one.

        The aspect ratio on the R1 edition is reported to be 1.66:1, although I couldn't confirm this. This is way off the correct Cinemascope ratio of 2.35:1, which the Umbrella edition proudly boasts.

        There seems little doubt that the Umbrella, all region, two-disc collector's edition of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is the best currently available.

    Summary

        After thirty years The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith remains a relevant and compelling film. It still stands as one of Fred Schepisi's best films.

        The transfers are excellent and do the film great justice.

        The selection of extras is comprehensive and will certainly please admirers of the film.

     


     

  • Ratings (out of 5)

    Video
    Audio
    Extras
    Plot
    Overall

    © Steve Crawford (Tip toe through my bio)
    Monday, December 08, 2008
    Review Equipment
    DVDJVC XV-N412, using Component output
    DisplayHitachi 106cm Plasma Display 42PD5000MA (1024x1024). Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080i.
    Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with THX Optimizer.
    AmplificationPanasonic SA-HE70 80W Dolby Digital and DTS
    SpeakersFronts: Jensen SPX7 Rears: Jensen SPX4 Centre: Jensen SPX13 Subwoofer: Jensen SPX17

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