AmericaniZation

Newsfront (1978) – Phillip Noyce

So I came into this course with an open mind, intending to be flexible with my reception of Australian cinema and television. There is a good chance this attitude may have stemmed from a slightly guilty conscious about my lack of involvement and participation in our national film industry. But having said that, when I watched Newsfront, I could appreciate it, but still did not enjoy it very much. I compliment the characterisation and the acting within in the film which I relished, but found the episodic structure of the film and the loose ends within the narrative a bit harder to handle. One of the main points of this for me personally surrounded the character of Bryan Brown, Geoff. I was quite intrigued by his character who then it appeared suddenly up and left for England after one short conversation with a fellow employee about it. As an audience member, I personally prefer at least some sort of closure for endings, and even for smaller conclusions within the narrative. It also puzzled me how the theme associated with Newsfront for this week was Americanization and I don’t quite see how Geoff’s fleeing to England played a significant role in the storyline, particularly when the temptation was supposed to be America which was juxtaposed with the main character, Bill Hunter’s Len Maguire, and represented him as being old fashioned (at least in comparison to America and its advanced technology and modernity). I thought the main obstacle for the industry within the film was more to do with the introduction of television and its consolidation of market share, not so much the lure of America. Although when the two news reel companies were in competition and one ‘going international’ was seen as superior, we are lead to believe that the remaining company still had relative success whilst marketing itself as the only pure ‘true’ Australian news company. All these differences between the two alternatives comes to a head when Len is going into the boss’ office with his letter of resignation because he was offered a job in the US with his brother, but then changes his mind when offered a large national task.

Within any Australian film we see the stereotypical characteristics portrayed in different ways, subtly or not, and Newsfront is no exception. It is with this exact scenario we see evidence of Len’s loyalty, not only to his company and colleges, but also to his country, when in the final scene he argues with his own brother about keeping the footage in Australia and not sending it overseas to America even when offered a significant and tempting amount of money. I appreciate the fact that he represents an attempt not to ‘sell out’ to Hollywood and America in general, but I did feel that television as a technological innovation was a larger problem for the companies than the threat of the American industry.