Rosemary Neil; 27/6/09
Film and television have started to tackle the indigenous crisis in remote Australia head-on but novelists are still dodging the issue Gonzo is a career drunk with a bushranger beard, a sociable manner and a liking for tinned spaghetti. He lives under a cement bridge in central Australia and is the most charismatic character in the award-winning feature film Samson and Delilah. Gonzo is based on real-life alcoholic Scott Thornton, who also plays him. Scott is the brother of S&D’s indigenous writer-director Warwick Thornton. “He actually owns that character,” Warwick says in the film’s production notes. “Under the bridge; mad as a cut snake; alcoholic; all of that sort of stuff. That is my brother, he actually is that person.” Scott Thornton went into rehab to prepare for his role, in which he excels as the only stranger to show Aboriginal teenagers Samson and Delilah kindness once they flee their broken-down community. In a rare, sunlit scene, Gonzo tries to warn Samson off the petrol he is sniffing, all the while suckling on the foil udder of a wine cask. “You wanna cut that shit out. It’ll f..k up your brain,” he counsels without irony. That Warwick Thornton has a brother with a serious drinking problem; that Rowan McNamara, the 15-year-old indigenous actor who plays Samson, lives in the rancid town camps of Alice Springs and has a sister who is a sniffer: these facts are significant, for they help explain S&D’s fearlessness in amplifying the indigenous-related problems other artists tend to ignore, downplay or project on to outside influences.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25678679-16947,00.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Racsim