Module A: Elective 1
Sample response: One Night the Moon
Response by: Kate Murphy
The question
(2014 HSC)
How do the qualities of distinctive voices create interest and draw us
into the experiences of others?
In your response refer to your prescribed text and ONE other related
text of your own choosing.
Prescribed Text: One Night the Moon by Rachel Perkins (film)
Related Text: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (prose fiction)
Opening
sentences relate
to the topic of
the Elective
References to
techniques relate
to the focus of
Module A
Links between
texts are
introduced
Topic sentence is
general as the
explanatory
sentence links to
a key film
technique
The film script is
linked to visual
techniques
Characterisation
is discussed with
quotations from
the text
The unique voices of individual characters engage the responder and
create a sense of empathy and interest through exploring their feelings
and predicaments. Such distinctive voices can have a didactic purpose
and aim to explore the experiences of diverse characters. In One
Night the Moon, issues relating to culture and social class are
examined through the perspectives of different characters as they
confront a tense and divisive situation. Perkins explores the characters’
relationship with a spectacular and terrifying outback landscape
through a series of emotive songs and stark, evocative film shots
which create a grim and haunted atmosphere. Similarly, du Maurier’s
novel Rebecca examines the narrator’s experiences in the foreboding
and formidable English countryside by using a subjective tone and
vivid imagery. The female characters in both texts are troubled and
distressed by the dramatic incidents which happen to them, and the
composers use their experiences to explore themes relating to loss,
fear and silence.
The differing perspectives created by voices allow the responder to
empathise with and understand the way in which our culture and
social class determine our values and experiences. Whilst the diverse
voices of the white parents and the black tracker in One Night the
Moon rarely engage in dialogue, the camera frequently cuts between
the two perspectives in a manner which emphasises their difference.
Perkins uses the episodic nature of the musical form to switch
between the characters as they voice their opinions, with Albert’s
clear-sighted recognition that ‘you only fear what you don’t
understand’ juxtaposed with a shot of Rose shutting her window, an
action which symbolises her closed-minded attitudes towards
Indigenous Australians. In the film, the opening high-angle shot of a
seemingly disempowered, broken man sitting at a decrepit table near
an empty bottle questioning ‘what was wrong and right’ suggests that
Jim Ryan’s values have been challenged and that he is unable to cope
with the consequences of his decisions. The incongruity of carrying a
loaded gun into a child’s empty bedroom symbolises the breakdown
of order in Jim’s life even as his sorrowful voice-over and despondent
guitar music emphasise his despair. Eventually realising that he doesn’t
‘know anything anymore’, Jim’s eventual suicide results from his
failure to acknowledge his mistakes or reconcile with his embittered
and melancholic wife.
Voice is linked to
purpose in the
topic sentence
The theme of
racism is
explored
Characters’
perspectives are
considered
This paragraph
takes an unusual
approach in
analysing the
effects of silences
in evoking a
sense of voice
through film
techniques
The connections
between two
characters Rose
and Albert are
explored
Narrative voice
in the related text
is mentioned
The voices in Perkins’s film have a didactic purpose: in examining the
consequences of a white man’s racist attitudes through his
unwillingness to use a black tracker’s expertise to find his missing
child, the film suggests that everyone in the community loses when
xenophobic beliefs separate us. A series of close-up shots of the
tracker, Albert, create a sense of empathy as they demonstrate his
devastation when his skills are dismissed and he is not permitted to
guide a search on the land he belongs to. The irony of the Ryans
attending a sermon preaching about the ‘brotherhood of man’ even as
they fail to acknowledge Albert’s common humanity is not lost on the
responder, and the refrain of ‘unfinished business’ echoed by Rose
and Albert is both poignant and tragic. Perkins deliberately juxtaposes
the Ryans with Albert’s family on their arrival in a long shot where the
tracker’s child waves at Emily, whilst a grim-faced Rose stops her
daughter from waving back in greeting as they silently pass by in a
carriage amidst sombre music and a background of jagged primordial
rocks. Walking in the dust, Albert’s family are immediately portrayed
as having a stronger connection to the land, whilst the Ryans are
shown in an awkward manner as diegetic sounds emphasise the
clattering of the carriage on uneven ground.
Interest is created in the plight of others through voices which reflect
their individuality, uniqueness and emotional responses to their
experiences. In One Night the Moon, silences and instrumental
interludes are as often as powerful as dialogue in conveying a sense of
mood and atmosphere. Rose’s shawl and her haggard expressions are
depicted in a series of silent close-ups, and she is often shown in
windblown weather to accentuate her vulnerability and intense
fragility. Perkins’s use of brightly coloured hues in flashback shots of
Rose with her daughter present the past in a nostalgic and jubilant
light compared to the family’s present misery. Rose’s emotive
declaration that ‘every day I’m with the child’ and the camera’s focus
on her anguished eyes creates a sense of interest and pathos through
her distinctive and often silenced voice. Likewise, Albert is portrayed
as silent and tormented as he sits in the midst of a gathering of
Indigenous people and broods on his inability to help with the search.
The lack of dialogue emphasises his quiet agony and despair, drawing
the responder in and demonstrating the effects of racial prejudice.
Effective internal monologues are achieved through songs in One
Night the Moon, and through a strong sense of narrative voice in
Rebecca.
The nameless narrator in Rebecca creates a distinct individual voice
through her recollections of her own past behaviour and her
susceptibility to the opinions of others. The uneasy and often silent
protagonist portrays her experiences in a distinct and contradictory
manner: despite presenting herself as shy and timid, she willingly
conceals a murder and displays unexpected strength and courage.
The issue of an
unreliable
narrative voice is
discussed
Direct
comparison (like
Rose) with the
prescribed text is
embedded in the
discussion
At the end of the
body of the
response, a link
between the two
texts is
mentioned
A brief
conclusion
summarises the
topics explored
in the response
and links back to
the set question
Acknowledging that she once possessed ‘a rather desperate gaucherie’,
the narrator distinguishes her current personality from her past
mistakes, and acknowledges that ‘I am very different’. However, these
differences may make her an unreliable narrator, as her declaration
that she would ‘lie and perjure and swear...blaspheme and pray’ sits
oddly with her previously ‘blind despairing’ attitude and ‘hopeless
sense of inferiority’. The narrator’s voice undergoes an intriguing shift
after learning that her husband murdered his first wife, and the
courage she finds within herself causes the reader to empathise with
her predicament and feel sympathy for her previous shyness and ‘little
cowardices’. Like Rose in One Night the Moon, the narrator of
Rebecca is frequently shown as entrapped by her domestic
circumstances and unable to voice her true feelings as a woman in a
patriarchal society. Both texts contain mysteries which must be solved,
and both female protagonists step outside their conventional role in
order to do so; through Rose’s willingness to seek out Albert and Mrs
de Winter’s defence of a husband who she knows to be guilty, the
characters are able to voice their concerns and convey an emotively
engaging message to the responder.
Distinctive voices create compelling narratives which captivate and
beguile the responder, engaging them in the characters’ lives and
dilemmas. One Night the Moon and Rebecca create a strong sense of
setting as the characters explore and reflect on the landscapes which
surround them. Perkins’s film examines the impacts of racism in a
remote community where separatist attitudes have tragic
consequences. Through exploring the impact of culture and society
upon an individual’s perception, Perkins and du Maurier depict
characters whose traumatic experiences inspire sympathy and whose
voices are both distinctive and powerful.