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Secrets of Samson and Delilah

1:11am Saturday, 15th May 2010

When he heard at church that the movie Samson and Delilah exaggerated
aboriginal living conditions, Dave Griffiths decided to investigate.

With a number of awards, including three AFIs and a Golden Camera from Cannes in its swag, the filmmaking credentials of the Australian film, Samson & Delilah, are without question; however the film has also sparked an interesting public debate about whether the harsh living conditions for NT aborigines were accurate.
I heard comments at church like “we really don’t need to fund missions in the NT anymore because I read it’s not as bad as Samson & Delilah says it is ... it’s all a beat up.”
Warwick Thornton, the film’s director, has stopped giving interviews but made an exception for Eternity. He gives a straightforward response, when I ask him what his reasons were for making Samson & Delilah.
‘‘This is a really personal story for me,”he explains. “I grew up in Alice Springs and I didn’t like school so I pretty much grew up on the street. This is a bit of a life journey. I had the opportunity to make a bit of a feature film, which is a bit of a ying-yang thing. I could make a film that says something or a typical Hollywood film. I decided to show a story that is unique. A story no-one has ever seen before. I think there is a hunger for indigenous stories. People are interested but they don’t want to see it as the one-sided Sixty Minutes story. They want to see it and they should … it’s a beautiful incredible story. Samson and Delilah’s challenges and struggles are inspired by what I see every day as I journey through my own life here in Central Australia. It is real!”
He is also honest about whether Marissa Gibson (Delilah) or Rowan McNamara (Samson) were actors or if the film was shot on a sound stage. “Basically these kids live in an Aboriginal community and have had 14 years rehearsing there roles. They are untrained actors who knew the lives Samson and Delilah lived and they were able to draw on that reality. The camera and design reinforce this reality: hand-held, raw, real. No grips, no gaffers, no cranes, no tracks, not too many lights. I shot the film myself to have nothing between me and the actors”
NT Missionary Steve Etherington agrees that the film is realistic: “The film DOES use some confronting aspects of Aboriginal community life which are close to reality, especially the dysfunctional caring role of the young woman for the grandmother, and the old lady’s funny, sexual politicking over the love interest, and then particularly, the violence towards the girl when her grandmother dies. The violence between the brothers is just a snapshot ofthe high levels of real life violence in communities”
This is also supported by David Morland, a Baptist minister who recently visited the Aboriginal communities of Kalkaringi and Lajamanu (about 550kms southwest of Katherine). “The community portrayed in Samson & Delilah was smaller than either Kalkaringi or Lajamanu but that aside the Samson & Delilah community was pretty much what we saw and experienced: houses with minimal furniture, sleeping outside the house, no gardens, abandoned cars, dust everywhere, long empty days, the unrelenting heat, and the realisation that you are a long, long way from anywhere.”
He is also quick to admit that community-living does change from town to town: “We saw no evidence of substance abuse. More, the strong presence of Christians has guaranteed that both Lajamanu and Kalkaringi are dry communities. What the film does capture is the emptiness of the outback and the lack of meaningful ways to fully employ the undoubted skills and talents of locals.”
Samson & Delilah is currently available on DVD.