From a penal colony’s early lawbreakers to modern gaols and detention centres [...] Our foundation heroes on film were jailbirds and bushrangers, starting with Ned Kelly in 1906. The bushranger film genre was so popular in Australia in the first decade of the 20th century that it was banned in two states, New South Wales and Victoria, because the police thought it was encouraging lawlessness. Paul Byrnes argues that Australian cinema has never forgotten the nations penal colony origins, on his new essay Prisons on film.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:34:37 +0000