The Banjo and the bard

Australia, 1987

Film
A still image from The Banjo and the bard

A poetic debate between Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson ran over several weeks in the Bulletin magazine of the 1890s. The subject of the debate was the Australian bush. Paterson, who spent most of his life in more affluent surroundings than Lawson, saw the bush as a place of romance and adventure. Lawson saw only the hardship and struggle. To earn themselves some money they convinced the Bulletin to print the poems they each wrote disclaiming the other’s point-of-view. The story is filmed entirely in contemporary settings with Paterson and Lawson, in their period costume, as the only references to the time-frame of the Bulletin articles.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

Bill Bennett

Duration

00:58:00:00

Production places
Australia
Production dates
1987

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

324266

Language

English

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

MOV file ProRes4444; Digital Preservation Master - overscan

MPEG-4 Digital File; ACMI Digital Access Copy - overscan

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

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If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/80259--the-banjo-and-the-bard/ |title=The Banjo and the bard |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=15 October 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}