Analysis Of Lantana Directed By Ray Lawrence And The Novel...

Australian landscapes have long been used to place fear and anxiety in the Anglo-Australian’s psyche. This anxiety and the requirement for Indigenous peoples to negotiate white ideals is reflected in current Australian literature and cinematic identities. This essay will discuss the critical arguments of what makes the chosen texts Australian literature. This discussion will be restricted to the critiques of the film Lantana directed by Ray Lawrence and the novel Biten’ Back written by Vivienne Cleven. The will firstly look at the use of landscape as a crime scene and how this links to the anxieties caused by the doctrine of terra nullius and the perceived threats from an introduced species. It will then look at the Australian fear of a different ‘other’ followed then by a discussion around masculinity and the need for Indigenous people to negotiate white ideals. The essay will argue that Australian literature and film reflect a nation that still has anxieties about the true sovereignty of the land and assert that Indigenous people have a requirement to fit in with white ideals. Landscape as a crime scene is a familiar trope in Australian literature and cinema, and one which has been used within the film Lantana. One aspect of this trope sees white women and children disappearing into the bush, desserts and mysterious rock formations, and where men die seemingly killed by nothing but the landscape (Duncanson 25). It is here that Lantana sits amidst a paradigm of