Ahistorical visions: race and the influence of the Hollywood epic in Baz Luhrmann's 'Australia'

The opening title card of Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008) bills its setting as an almost mythical land: one of 'crocodiles, cattle barons and warrior chiefs, where adventure and romance was a way of life'. The description sounds more Indiana Jones than historical epic, filtering facts through a Vaseline lens to present a beautified, cinematic country. This approach comes from a wide variety of influences, but most notably from one (now relatively unproduced) type of film: the lavish historical epic. Australia appears to borrow liberally from films such as Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939), Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985), Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980), Once upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) and Red River (Howard Hawks and Arthur Rosson, 1948). These extravagant works place their white protagonists in historical contexts - for instance, the American Civil War or a period of European colonial rule - that are in opposition to both their harsh surroundings and the passionate romances in which they find themselves. The lushness in these works often feels voyeuristic and uncomfortably tourism-focused for films based on much more historically unsettling realities. Due to their concealment of less glamorous facts, these films are littered with insensitivities and romanticised depictions of colonialism. These are problems that reverberate in the way they influence other films. The role of these influences on Australia must first be considered through its plot and aesthetics, before looking at their overall effect on the film and whether Luhrmann's directorial choices critique or reflect their politics. Does Australia transcend its predecessors' colonialist ideology by communicating a message about white Australia's imperialist history, or does it merely replicate it