Zane's Notes

The Tracker English Panel Discussion

Zane Fitzgerald, Oct 01, 2023

name: Week 7
filter: "search: English 9"

Marking Key

ANALYSIS of Theme, style and choice of visual/written language to construct meaning and shape your response. Produces articulate, concise and cohesive analysis of the chosen theme. Provides insightful and sophisticated analysis of the films Purpose, Audience and Context, Language Features, Text Structures, Generic Conventions, and Stylistic Features made by Rolf De Heer. Communication Skills Presents all ideas clearly and coherently during the panel discussion. Engages in active listening and responds thoughtfully to all questions from other panellists and the audience.

Planning

Yassin - Power and AUthority Tyler - Racism and Colonialism Zane - Justice and Morality Tyson - Nature and Landscape

####### Second Massacure

Order

Intro - Tyson
  • Yassin - Powe and Authority
  • Tyler - Racism and Marginilisation
  • Tyson - Nature and Landscape - Talking about paintings
  • Zane - Justice and Morality - First Massacure / Fanatic Hang ing Link from Tyson paintings (maybe through lack of painting in fanatic death) Justice & Morality Juxtapose Aboriginal / British Justice
  • Tyler - Racism & Morality
  • Tyson - Nature and Landscape - Pebble Scene The Inexperience of the follower is used to highlight the tracker’s skills
  • Zane - Justice And Morality
  • Yassin - Power & Authority
Outro - Yassin

Working

How is right and wrong are explored in the tracker.

e.g. what Language Features

The Hanging Scene
name Hanging Scene
type command
action Obsidian Webviews: Open gate Hanging Scene
class mod-cta

The hanging scene strongly depicts the theme of Justice & Morality;

  • Justice & Morality is a powerful theme within The Tracker, throughout the film we see the traditional colonialist british traditions of delivering justice, which are displayed through the two massacures, when we see the fanatic taking on the role of a
Justice & Morality Juxtapose Aboriginal / British Justice
  • we see colonial australian justice from point of view of the tracker / aboriginality

The paintings are often a Transition point between what I view as the central themes of justice & morality, these themes are centarl to the pursuit of the given authorial context of The Tracker being a 2002 Revisionist Western, right in the midst of the history wars, a time where Australia’s own prime minister spoke out against Aboriginal Reconcilliation, and denied an Official Apology, it makes sense for Rolf De Heer to attempt to envoke empathy, guilt, and remorse in the contemporary audience through the exploration of Australia’s horrific colonial injustices, and the morality of the characters who involved. A prominent example of this is in the First Massacure, where the follower’s morals are subdued as an authority figure, the fanatic, encourages him to join in the unjust mocking / Interrogation of innocent aboriginals, who can’t speak english, over their posession of a police coat. Throughout the scene the music builds as The Fanatic escalates them both from vocals to guns, until the fanatic eventually fires his weapon, and the follower follows suit. Injustice is followed by morality, The audience is shown the morality of each of the characters through their archetypal reactions to the Massacure, closely parallellign their descriptions at the beginning. we see the follower from a slight high-shot on the ground, defeated as his courage has failed, he could not cast off responsibility for what he has done, the tracker pacing in circles, the veteran, from eye level, having failed to intervene, who later expresses regret for the fanatic’s actions and the fanatic from a is depicted from a low shot to emphasise his authority & power, is polishing his gun, “Caring not about the consequence” of the murders he just commited.

explain effects of event on each of the characters, showing their morality. except for the fnaatic he “Care not about the consequence”, and is hung. Metion how both follower / veteran show regret for their actions.

Rolf De Heer’s The Tracker expresses the twin themes of justice & Morality through the film’s presentation of Morally Just, exerted most prominantly by the fanatic in the the First & Second Massacure, and re-enacted by the Tracker in the Hanging. These are reconciled with themes of the morality

Linking from Tyson - Nature and Landscape - Pebble Scene The Inexperience of the follower is used to highlight the tracker’s skills

The follower questions the tracker’s skills referring to him as “only following his nose” following through on a motif from Archie Roaches lyrics prior to this where aboriginals are compared to dogs e.g. “Chained like a dog”, and “Worse than a dog”, this is transformed into the follower’s acceptance of the tracker’s genuine skills & ability unparallelled to any white of the time, allowing him to move beyond the moral facade that aboriginals are only savages, that need to be “put in line” as is stated by the fanatic, and fostered by Colonial Australia as whole as indicated by the fanatic’s claims that he’ll be “given a medal for this”, “this” referring to the fanatic’s unjust murder of an aboriginal elder in the second massacure whom the tracker mourns, and the fact that he would be given a medal implies that the Australian government not only provided him with the means to hunt for the fugitive with lethal forces who only allegedly murdered a white women, but would reward him for further murder of the aboriginal population. This signals to the contemporary audience the role of the Australian Government in the injustices we see on screen, especially pertinent to the context of the films release in 2002 as John Howard, Australia’s PM spoke out against a official apology the aboriginal people.

Rolf De Heer’s further’s this in the leadup to the fanatic’s hanging were the tracker conducts a british-style mock trial using terminology associated with british faith and the british legal system, like “Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis”, meaning “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, with the scene concluding with a harrowing image of the fanatic hung in front of a sun-rise. Unlike the rest of the film, this scene does not hide violence behind a painting. Rolf De Heer deliberately depicts the brutality to emphasise how the british misrepresent Justice, which it then shortly after contrasts with the, supposedly “savage” aboriginal’s justice traditions, that we see shortly after in the films final segment, in which we see a depiction via painting of the Tracker striking the fugitive with a spear, The Follower questions the validity of the Tracker’s Christian / British values, saying “Don’t you offer absolution”. This envokess themes of Justice & Morality as we compare the murders & brutality of the British Legal System who at the time hanged those who had done wrong, like the tracker did to the fanatic as an act of ”justice”, comparatively just aboriginal reparations paid by the fugitive in the form of a spear to the leg.

  • On all sides we see people skeptical of the mistreatment of the aborigianl people.
    • The Veteran, despite being apart of the older generation like the fanatic, condemns “the killing of the natives” in the first massacure.
      • He says “You shouldn’t have killed those natives”
      • When the tracker is chained up, the Veteran also apolagises to him, saying “Sorry” to the tracker,
    • The Follower also initially seems hesitant to engage in the mistreatment of the aboriginal people. Only partiicpating in it after both the tracker and the fanatic have done so as-well, kind of like he is awaiting their approval. This demonstrates the theme of Justice & Morality through the clear sense of morals these people appear to possess at a fundamental level, they don’t, with the exception of the fanatic, enjoy mercilessly killing aboriginal people.
Hanging Scene
  • The Theme of Justice & Morality can be seen in the juxtaposition of the
Why the follower questions the tracker

in [[Tracker Analysis#[The Follower questions the tracker ](https //clickv.ie/w/n7Pv)|the scene where the follower questions the tracker’s tracking abilities]], (pebble scene) the follower takes an assertive, fanatic-like stance, while critiscizing the tracker, accusing him of “following his nose”, and that “anyone could see he’s not really tracking”, the follower mirrors the fanatic’s as a result of his inexperience in the field, causing him to lean on the Fanatic as a role model. However, he backs down from this position after the tracker proves his abilities, from this point morals guide most of the followers decisions, he does not seek the external validation of the fanatic, like when he threatens to shoto the fanatic since he is “shooting innocent women and children” in the second massacure.

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