Sound in the Aboriginal Australian films of Rolf de Heer
(2008) Sound in the Aboriginal Australian films of Rolf de Heer. Screen.
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Abstract
While his alternative-styled cinema is more main-stream than avant-garde, Rolf de Heer’s films often feature an unusually elevated presence of sound over the visual mise-en-scene, at times raised to a level of dominance amongst the numerous interactions informing the narrative and this has been acknowledged in the literature. Cat Hope comments: "each of de Heer's films merits a detailed treatise on the way they feature innovative sound ideas in the scripting and production stages, resulting in some of the most challenging and exciting cinema made in Australia today." Anna Hickey-Moody and Melissa Iocca invented a new name for the cinema-goer at Bad Boy Bubby (1993) when they wrote: "In de Heer's film, the viewer is primarily a listener, or aurator, and secondly a spectator" and I have argued the label 'aurator' can also be used for the person experiencing Ten Canoes (2006). This film features dialogue recorded entirely in the Ganalbingu language of the Indigenous Australians it stars, and is a prime example of what I would suggest can be labelled 'The Aboriginal Australian Films of Rolf de Heer.' The Tracker (2002) and Dr. Plonk (2007) have also included depictions of Aboriginal Australians and each of the trio utilizes Hope’s "innovative sound ideas" to present what I argue is an aural auteur's signature revealing a post-colonial Australian world-view that privileges the justice system and spirituality of Aboriginal Australia.