A critical introduction to The Nightingale: gender, race and troubled histories on screen

ABSTRACT

Acclaimed Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s film The Nightingale has generated intense debate since its premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Set during the Black War in Van Diemen’s Land in 1825, the film is an unflinching depiction of colonial and sexual violence. Kent told The Saturday Paper that she ‘wanted to tell a story that is relevant to my history and my country’. Her vision of British colonisation, and its consequences for those caught in its wake, taps into a conversation with a strong presence in Australia’s public, political and cultural life over the last three decades. This article critically introduces The Nightingale as an historical film; that is, a film set in the past which offers an interpretation of history. We ask: how does The Nightingale represent the past? How might we situate it within longer traditions of historical representation of frontier conflict, and the convict experience? How did audiences respond to the film? And finally, how might we situate The Nightingale in the moment of its reception? What does it mean to make a film about colonial violence at the same moment as the Uluru statement called for truth-telling about our history?

KEYWORDS:

• Australian film
• Australian history
• settler-colonial studies
• history wars

Acknowledgements

James and Michelle would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful reports on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Michelle Arrow is Professor of Modern History at Macquarie University, Sydney. She has written widely on the history of Australian popular culture, the history of Australian feminism, and history on film, television and radio. Her books include The Seventies: The Personal, The Political and the Making of Modern Australia (2019) and Friday On Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia since 1945 (2009).

Dr James Findlay is a historian with interests in media history, convict transportation, Indigenous history and settler colonialism in Australia. He has lectured History at the University of Sydney, the Australian Catholic University and is an Honorary Associate at the Centre for Media History atMacquarie University. Before undertaking his PhD, he worked extensively in film and television production for companies and broadcasters including the BBC, ABC, Beyond Television and Film Australia.

ORCID

Michelle Arrow http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3522-5712

James Findlay http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4117-881X