![]() Write it yourself, don’t let some Englishman write it or he’ll f*** it up and steal the proceeds.” “When a man leaves this world all that’s left is his story. The keeping of journals is a habit imparted upon Ned as a young boy by Harry Power (Russell Crowe), a bushranger who buys Ned as an apprentice. Harry Power (Russell Crowe) at the mercy of a young Ned Kelly (Orlando Schwerdt). Not the version told by his British enemies: a scruffy, uncouth, murderous savage that died spluttering at the end of a noose. The chosen framing device is Ned writing his life story for the benefit of his daughter, so that she may learn the version of him that he would have her remember: a victim of brutal colonial oppression and valiant warrior against the crown. True History is, at its core, a story about stories. This direct contradiction, this discord between author and character, emphasises the one honest-to-god truth in the film: narrative takes pride of place above any notion of epistemic rigour and any attempt to unpick the truth from the fiction is folly. They are instantly rendered suspect by Ned Kelly (George Mackay) in voiceover, swearing on his immortal soul that no word of his tale would be false. Those words, the first of True History, are a thesis statement, casting suspicion over the film to follow. Mythology is the operative word here, and it is foundational to oppressed communities because it provides a stronger cultural bedrock than something as weak and flimsy as facts. For today, however, I would like to focus on the feature which appealed to me most: how True History illuminates the ways shared fiction gives form and mass to rebellion, and how cult mythology acts as the cornerstone to revolt. It is dense with semantics, with more than enough material to satisfy the foreseeable lifetime of this column. It is a gorgeously radical trip of a film which I cannot recommend more strongly. True History of the Kelly Gang (henceforth abbreviated to True History), directed by Justin Kurzel and starring George Mackay, Nicholas Hoult, Essie Davis and Thomasin McKenzie, is an ahistorical retelling of the life of notorious Aussie outlaw and folk legend, Ned Kelly. This Article contains spoilers for True History of the Kelly Gang
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