John Gorton didn't own a movie camera.
PM John Gorton, 10 January 1968 - photo Bruce Postle
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Robert Menzies did own a movie camera - something that John Howard seemed impressed by in his Howard On Menzies : Building Modern Australia series for ABC.TV. However, it is Gorton (Prime Minister from 1968-1971) who is associated with the re-birth of the Australian film culture.
The Gorton Government increased funding for the arts, setting up the Australian Council for the Arts, the Australian Film Development Corporation and the National Film and Television Training School. - wikipedia
Long before that, Captain John Perry of the Salvation Army had been at the forefront of still and cinematic projection in Australia.
The Limelight Department was the Salvation Army’s pioneering film production and presentation unit in Australia. Between 1892 and 1909 it produced many productions, including 300 films and the major multimedia presentations Soldiers of the Cross and Heroes Of The Cross. The unit also documented Australia’s Federation ceremonies in 1901.
Australia's first dedicated film studio was created by The Salvation Army at 69 Bourke Street, Melbourne, in a room that still stands preserved much as it was at the turn of the century.
By 1895 Perry, with his Limelight equipment, had visited nearly every Corps in Australasia, journeying some 46,500 km, presenting religious illuminated shows to some 522 astounded audiences.
- from Australia's first film studio | The Salvation Army
Man with a Movie Camera is the simple title of a famous 1926 film by the Russian 'cinema-eye' Dziga Vertov. In the hands and imagination of Vertov and his 'kinok' companions, the motion camera and their city-as-actor film gleanings were a means of modern critical social poetry.- from Australia's first film studio | The Salvation Army
That John Howard should present R.G.M. as also a Modern Man with a Movie Camera says as much about Howard's malnourished view of building a modern Australia as it does about Menzies'.
The Dame Pattie Menzies collection no. 1 consists of a leather camera box with embossed initials R.G.M., a magazine Cine-Kodak 16mm camera, 2 boxes Cine-Kodak Kodachrome 16mm safety Colour film, lens, light filter box and cover, light filter in plastic pouch, 25mm lens, film information cards. The camera belonged to former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies and was used by Sir Robert for home movies and to record many of his overseas trips.
- National Museum Australia
NMA / AAA_Art Archive Australia
detail
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