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Adapted from James Vance Marshall's novel The Children, Walkabout begins with a father-of-two driving his fourteen-year-old daughter and six-year-old son into the desert. Overwhelmed by the pressure on his life, he plans to kill them and then commit suicide, but his plan goes wrong. The siblings wander the desert aimlessly until they meet a young Aboriginal boy who is on a solitary walkabout as part of his tribal initiation into manhood. The three become travelling companions. Gradually, sexual tension develops between the girl and the Aboriginal boy. When they approach white civilisation, the Aboriginal boy dances a night-long courtship dance, but the girl is ignorant of its meaning. When she and her brother awake in the morning, they find the boy dead, hanging from a tree. The brother and sister make their way to the nearby mining town, where they receive a cool welcome from the townsfolk.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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10 Years of Homegrown Horror Hits : Talk To Me and the Golden Age of Aussie Horror
2023
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 August 2023; -
How the World Spins
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Inside Story , March 2021;'Mark Baker recalls an encounter with David Gulpilil in 1998'
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David Gulpilil Could Be Remembered As a Man Doomed Between Two Worlds - Or As a Man Who Brought Us Joy, Life, and Art
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , December 2021; 'The film director Rolf de Heer, reflecting on his friend and collaborator, David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu, said the actor struggled between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds.' -
David Dalaithngu's Screen Presence Changed Australia's Film Industry Forever. Here's a Look at Some of His Major Roles
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , November 2021; -
y
Packing Death in Australian Literature : Ecocides and Eco-Sides
London
:
Routledge
,
2020
19932417
2020
multi chapter work
criticism
'Packing Death in Australian Literature: Ecocides and Eco-Sides addresses Australian Literature from ecocritical, animal studies, plant studies, indigenous studies, and posthumanist critical perspectives. The book’s main purpose is twofold: to bring more sustained attention to environmental, vegetal, and animal rights issues, past and present, and to do that from within the discipline of literary studies. Literary studies in Australia continue to reflect disinterest or not enough interest in critical engagements with the subjects of Australia’s oldest extant environments and other beings beside humans.
'Packing Death in Australian Literature: Ecocides and Eco-Sides foregrounds the vegetal and nonhuman animal populations and contours of Australian Literature. Critical studies relied on in Packing Death in Australian Literature: Ecocides and Eco-Sides include books by Simon C. Estok, Bill Gammage, Timothy Morton, Bruce Pascoe, Val Plumwood, Kate Rigby, John Ryan, Wendy Wheeler, Cary Wolfe, and Robert Zeller. The selected literary texts include work by Merlinda Bobis, Eric Yoshiaki Dando, Nugi Garimara, Francesca Rendle-Short, Patrick White, and Evie Wyld.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
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Iconic Moments in Cinema : Australia, Part 1 : Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971): New Wave and New Beginning
2008-2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , no. 49 2008-2009;
— Review of Walkabout 1971 single work film/TV -
Skimming the Surface : Walkabout by Louis Nowra
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , July - September no. 32 2004;
— Review of Walkabout 2003 single work criticism ; Walkabout 1971 single work film/TV -
Untitled
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , April-May no. 13 2001;
— Review of Walkabout 1971 single work film/TV -
y
Walkabout
Sydney
:
Currency Press
ScreenSound Australia
,
2003
Z1039055
2003
single work
criticism
'Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout opened worldwide in 1971. Based on the novel of the same name by James Vance Marshall, it is the story of two white children lost in the Australian Outback. They survive only through the help of an Aboriginal boy who is on walkabout during his initiation into manhood. The film earned itself a unique place in cinematic history and was re-released in 1998.
In this illuminating reflection on Walkabout, Louis Nowra, one of Australia's leading dramatists and screenwriters, discusses Australia's iconic sense of the outback; and the peculiar resonance that the story of the lost child has in the Australian psyche. He tells how the film came to be made and how its preoccupations fit into the oeuvre of both its director and cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, and its screenwriter Edward Bond.
Nowra identifies the film's distinctive take on a familiar story and its fable-like qualities, while also exploring the film's relationship to Australia and its implications for the English society of its day. He recognizes how relevant the film is to the contemporary struggle to try and find common ground between blacks and white.' -- Currency Press (2003)
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Shared Dreamings Waiting to be Filmed
2005
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australian , 31 May 2005; (p. 15) -
35 Years on, Walkabout Still a Feather in His Cap
Thirty Five Years on, Walkabout Still a Feather in His Cap
2005
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 20 August 2005; (p. 3) -
Tracking Gulpilil on Screen: Changing Representations of Indigenous Identity
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Credits Rolling: Film & History Conference, Canberra Australia 2-5 December 2004 : Selected Papers 2004; (p. 43-48) -
Desert Hauntings, Public Interiors and National Modernity : From 'The Overlanders' to 'Walkabout' and 'Japanese Story'
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 67 no. 1-2 2007; (p. 410-422)
- Sturt Plain, Mataranka - Tennant Creek area, Central Northern Territory, Northern Territory,
