Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, The: 30th Anniversary Edition (1978) |
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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 |
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Rating | |||
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) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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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 |
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.
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.
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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.
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The main menu is animated with scenes from the film. It is 16x9 enhanced and features a looped sample of Bruce Smeaton's score.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A collection of 58 non-descript images relating to The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
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.
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.
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Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | JVC XV-N412, using Component output |
Display | Hitachi 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 Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
Amplification | Panasonic SA-HE70 80W Dolby Digital and DTS |
Speakers | Fronts: Jensen SPX7 Rears: Jensen SPX4 Centre: Jensen SPX13 Subwoofer: Jensen SPX17 |