Campbell, Russell. “In Order That They May Become Civilized: Pakeha Ideology in Rewi’s Last Stand, Broken Barrier and Utu,” Illusions No. 1 (Summer 1986), pp 4-15

The fact is that in this country white people have noreal identity of their own apart from that which existsthrough opposition to the Maori.

- Donna Awatere (2)

Our attempt will be to bring the two races under onelaw - to make them one community - and to let theNatives feel that they are no longer a separate people,looking to a head of its own, but that all are subject,the white man and the Maori alike, to one law and onesystem of govemment.. .. Nothing can be so injurious,nothing so fatal, to the Natives as an attempt to drivethem beyond a certain barrier - to separate them fromcivilization. Rather than that, the attempt will bemade to mix them with the Europeans, in order thatthey may become civilized.

- William Fox, Minister of Native Affairs,Statement to House of Representatives, 3 November1863 (1)

/

THE HISTORY of race relations in New Zealand is atouchy subject for pakehas. The imposition of

,_w;British rule over the indigenous people by means ofa'suSpect treaty, the dubious methods - including force andfraud - by which the tangata whenua were dispossessed of thebulk of their land, the near obliteration of Maori languageand culture, the continuing racial inequalities areuncomfortable realities which many descendants of settlerswould prefer not to think about. In much pakeha culturalexpression, then, the topics are passed over in silence, thehistory repressed.

But repressed, it remains a subterranean disturbance, abreeding ground for alienation, for the rootless whitepopulation seeking a self-image in this outpost ofimperialism. "Europeans should feel guilty about ourcolonization," said film-maker Paul Maunder in a 1980interview. "If the guilt is not comprehended, then it remainsas an unsettling pattern and feature of life in New Zealand.,,3

4· ILLUSIONS

There is thus a tension out of which have emerged threefeature films, from different historical periods, which dealcentrally with Maori-pakeha relations: REWI'S LASTSTAND (Rudall Hayward, 1940), BROKENBARRIER (John O'Shea and Roger Mirams, 1952) andUTU (Geoff Murphy, 1983). Breaking the silence, they donot so much comprehend the guilt, however, as evade it.Drawing on selected ingredients from Ole stuff of history, forthe most part authentic ("There is no antipathy betweenrealism and myth," writes Roland Barthes") the filmsconstruct a mythology of the interaction of the races in thiscountry whose ideological function, when dissected, is plain:to obscure a history of oppression, to mask contemporaryinequalities, and by so doing to justify the presence ofpakehas in Aotearoa and legitimize the power that theywield.

REWI'S LAST STAND: The Civilizing Mission

Some key elements of the myth are embedded inREWI'S LAST STAND (a radical remake, with sound,of the silent film of the same title Hayward produced in1925). REWI now exists only in the much-shortenedversion edited for second-feature release in Britain in 1949(under the title THE LAST STAND), but availableevidence suggests that the extant film, cut under Hayward'ssupervision, preserves the essentials of the originalnarrative.*

Set in 1863-64, REWI recounts a relationship betweena pakeha trader, Bob Beaumont. and a half-caste woman ofrangatira rank, Ariana, who has been brought up at the TeAwamutu mission station by the Morgan family after thedeath of her Maori mother. As war threatens Beaumont andthe Morcans leave the Waikato with

LAST STAND: Bob (Leo Pilcher) and Ariana (Ramai TeMi/UZ)confronted by Tama {Henare Taka) [frame enlargement]

is forcibly reclaimed byNgati Maniapotowarriors. In Auckland

~::::~t~~~~:t:e REWI'S~~nitive action, and then ~joins the Forest Rangers. ~f

La~er, ~n an assignme~t LAST ;,J/\delivering the governor s

proclamation to STANDrebellious tribes,Beaumont encountersAriana but she refusesto flee with him, on thegrounds that Maoriwomen fight with theirmen. MeanwhileBeaumont has identifiedan old sea captain nowwith the Rangers, BenHorton, as Ariana'sfather. After Britishtroops have invaded theWaikato and crushedMaori resistance, RewiManiapoto and hisfollowers make a laststand at Orakau. During , ~the SIege, Beaumontand Ariana find themselves on opposite sides. Rewi turnsdown a chance to surrender, and the British forces, armedcannon and heavily outnumbering the defenders, begin thefinal assault. A decisive defeat is inflicted. Ariana, wounded,is reunited with Bob and her long-lost father.

REWI begins at the mission station ("established1839") with the Morgans preparing to depart. Maorisanimatedly observe proceedings, including a group whetting. the blades of their long-handled tomahawks. Rev. Morganbids his sad farewell to the dutiful children of the missionschool, seated on the ground ("We've no quarrel with you,but so many of our friends have wamed us that in time ofwar our lives here would be in danger"). When the drayseventually move out - with Ariana hidden in a rolled-upmattress - their progress is closely watched by wary Maoris,and there is a series of extreme close-ups of their heavilytattooed faces. In this first scene the major conflict of themovie is foreshadowed, in the contrast between the peaceful,benevolent intentions of the European and the threatening,warlike demeanour of the Maori. The oppositioncivilized:savage is beginning to be formulated; and thequestion of who is right in the battles to come is already

NEW ZEALAND'S

WILD HISTORY!TRUE ANI) A\tAZl"iG fPtC 01"

THE MAORI WARS

With Ihe Genuine Mami Serrtn Star

RAMAl TE MIHALEO PILCHER

•••STANLEY KNIGHTandtllcW~<>f

4 MAORI TRIBES 4

"V("duo:ulru' U",hf'(~h!inl! .\.,hNllon'

10C::~T;iki~: witt~~Ma~H'iMUSIc.--,,'''". "'''' ,.,

"When entered on the Censor's register on 14 March 1940:REWl'S LAST STAND had a length of 10,080 ft (112min); for UK release it was cut to 5,750 ft (64 min). In this'version it was re-released in New Zealand in 1954. Thenovelization of the screenplay by A.W. Reed. Rewi's LastStand (Wellington: Reed, 1939) offers some clues as to whatwas omitted in the edited version, but also contains manyincidents never filmed. The editing method adopted seems tohave been mainly to shorten sequences rather than omit themaltogether. Principal sequences to have suffered in this wayinclude the initial love scene between Bob and Ariana (inwhich the star, Ramai Te Miha, sang two waiatas), Bob's ride

the "entertainment"

section of traditional song, dance and games on Ariana'smarae, and the climaclic baltic. Ramai Hayward (Tc Milia), towhom Iam indebted for some of thc above information,comments on the cutting of this last scene: "...the film wasdrastically edited in London, to comply with the distributor'sdemands, otherwise it would not have been bought for release.They were not exactly enamoured with the subject of the film.The criticism if you could caU it a criticism was that youCOUldn'texpect Englishmen to want to see such an unsportingepisode of the English engaged in a battle where the numberswere six to one. Fully armed, and with cannon, againstMaoris who were defending their homeland." Letter to author,11 November 1985.

ILLUSIONS 5

heavily loaded'The benefits of white settlement are most explicitly

advanced in the next sequence, in which Beaumont andMorgan pause to survey a wheat field, the plentiful stooksevidence of a good harvest. "Twenty years ago," Morgansays, "when Mrs Morgan and I first looked out over here, allthis was virgin country. The Maoris were cannibals. Allthat wheat you see over there came from a few handfuls ofseed we brought." In a revealing association of ideas,uncultivated land is equated with an uncultivated people; justas the intervention of Europeans is needed for the earth tobring forth crops, so, it is implied, the Maori people willprogress only under European influence.

In the following sequence Ariana, tripping through thebush, flirts with Beaumont. Although he attributes hercharm and dignity to her rangatira blood, it is clear that theMorgans must take part of the credit ("She's been brought upin our way," says Morgan, "she's one of us"). Demure,refined, attractive in pakeha terms (including the use ofmake-up) - so different from the heavy, feisty women seenlater among the defenders of Orakau Pa - and yet stillmistress of Maori culture, as scenes on her maraedemonstrate, Ariana is visible testimony to the beneficialeffects of a European upbringing. And the Maoristhernsel ves endorse the value of the mission school as aplace where one can learn, in the words of Te Whatanui(Ariana's grandfather), "the wisdom of the pakeha",

The drama of the film hinges on the threat to thispeaceful missionary work. In blatant disregard for Europeanstandards of conduct. the Ngati Maniapoto begin kidnappinghalf-caste children in the care of whites. In a scene betweenAriana and Te Whatanui these actions are presented in areasonably sympathetic light ("in time of war, a tribe mustgather in its people"), but the predominant response evokedis that this is inhuman, barbaric behaviour and an intolerablechallenge to pakeha settlement. Thus Bob tells Morgan ofGeorge Prescott "up at the pa now in a terrible state - they'vet~en his two kiddies away from him." A Maniapoto warparty seizes Ariana after Bob has fought and lost a taiaha duelover her with their leader, Tama Te Heuheu. Tama's actionin tearing off Ariana's white dress and replacing it with afeather cloak is a symbolic provocation justifying, withinthe rhetorical structure of the film, a full-scale war to secureher return and punish the offenders. Narrati ve closure will

"Rev. John Morgan is a historical figure. Keith Sinclairwrites: "One of the most important sources of officialinformation about the intentions of the Waikato was thecorrespondence of the missionary John Morgan. The Maoriswere rightly suspicious of him, for the man who had taughtWiremu Tamihana to read was crying out for the destruction ofthe King movement. This kind of activity did a great deal toweaken the trust placed in the missionaries by the Maoris.They ceased to distinguish missionary from settler." TheOrigins of the Maori Wars (Wellington: OxfordUniversity,1957), p. 224. Morgan's hostility to the Kingmovement is not acknowledged in the film, but Beaumontdoes refer to him in favourable terms as the governor's"watchman of the Waikato". The facial tattoo has long beenconsidered in Western thought a mark of savagery, andmissionaries and other Europeans in New Zealand waged asuccessful campaign against it. Compare the function of TeWhekc's moko in UTU.

come only with the death in battle of Tama and therestoration of Ariana to her pakeha lover.*

The actions of Tama's group are symptomatic of aweakness in Maori authority structures. The evacuation ofthe Waikato is necessitated by the outbreak of "war fever" -menacing moves being made by undisciplined parties ofyoung Maoris lacking the restraint of the elder and wisermoderates like Wiremu Tamihana ("the kingmaker"), whodoes not appear in the film but is referred to in the dialogue.Tamihana, protector ofpakehas, warns Beaumont of dangerand places the trader's property under tapu. "If they were alllike Tamihana," comments Morgan, "there'd be no war."But effective power is not in Tamihana's hands. "Once thewar parties start moving," Beaumont explains to the Morgandaughters, suddenly turning solemn, "the chiefs can't alwayscontrol them." *

A contrast is set up, then, between the unruly,emotional, potentially violent Maori war parties and thepeaceful, rational, coolheaded whites whose resort to forcecomes only as a necessary response to the breakdown in lawand order. In the cross-cutting between Maori and pakehacamps in the Orakau siege sequence this contrast isreinforced. Maori battle plans are determined at a gatheringoutside a meeting house marked by spontaneous hakas andpassionate bursts of oratory, much of it in metaphoricallanguage CLast night I had a dream," declaims Rewi, "I sawa kite failing"); while government troop tactics are discussedcalmly by pipe-smoking British officers seated around a table("Now I intend to make a circling movement completely tosurround the position"), A little later there is a cut fromMaori reinforcements performing a haka (giving vent to their"savage spirits", the narration tells us, in a "furious battlesong") to the British command again coolly assessing themilitary situation ("My plan, sir, is to commence a sap fromthe hollow where the beech trees are ....").

Government action to quell disturbances in the Waikatohas been, according to the film, swift and effective. Underthe ultimate command of Governor Grey, a benign fatherfigure like the Rev. Morgan, the British and colonial forcesmake quick work of their Maori opponents. No pretense ismade that the two sides are of anything like equal strength;on the contrary, the superiority of the government troops inmanpower and heavy weapons is made obvious. Thus the

"Like most incidents in the film, the abductions have a basisin history. J.E. Gorst writes: "The Ngatimaniapotoinsisted ... that all half-caste children should be seized, asbelonging to their race, and carried out their proposal withoutwaiting for the consent of anybody. Several children werethus torn from their European fathers; but I believe all wereultimately recovered, some by stratagem, and others restoredby the natives themselves." The Maor-i King (Hamilton &

Auckland: Paul's Book Arcade, 1959 [original edition 1864]),p.233."In the book from which the historical background for REWIwas drawn, James Cowan's The New Zealand wars. theidea is expressed in revealingly vivid language: "No chief,not even the King or the kingmaker, could restrain a party ofyoung bloods on the war-path seeking to flesh theirtomahawks." The New Zealand Wars: A History ofthe Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering PeriodVol I: 1845-64 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1922), p.241.

6 ILLUSIONS

Bayler) writes about "primitive" Maori customs ...

voice-over narration accompanying the short animated-mapsequence of the invasion of the Waikato states: "Drivingsouth into the Maori country, British columns totalling tenthousand men under General Sir Duncan Cameron battered'the rebel defences with artillery, outflanked them with rivergunboats. In nine months most of the tribes were defeatedand dispersed." And the defenders at Orakau, we are told,"knew they were hopelessly outnumbered."

A fair fight is not at issue here. Having ser up the waras an operation to stamp out lawlessness, the film can affordthe luxury of depicting Rewi's stand as heroic, since hisdefeat is necessary and inevitable. Order imposed by force ofarms will be, in this film's inflexion of the pakeha myth, thenecessary precondition for a harmonious bi-racial society togrow and prosper. We return to the text of the film'sforeword, which assures us: "Today, the slowly blendingraces of white men and brown, live in peace and' equality asone people ....the New Zealanders."

BROKEN BARRIER: The Rootless Pakeha

In BROKEN BARRIER this claim is investigated,found wanting in one or two particulars, but substantiallyupheld. In a film which offers a capsule of New Zealandiconography - farming, forestry, scenic attractions, sport,Maori culture - an authoritative oleaginous voice-overinforms us that "today the Maoris live in peace with theEuropeans" and that this is a country where "colouredpeople" are "treated better than in other places".

The story concerns a young pakeha, Tom Sullivan, whois writing a series of articles for an American magazine aboutthe "primitive" life of the Maoris. In search of local colouron the East Coast, he is taken in by a Maori farming couple,Alec and Kiri, who have two grown daughters, Rawi andMaata. Despite his lack of farming experience, Tom isgiven ajob and assists with sheep shearing and cattlemustering. He keeps his real objective secret. and he andRawi, who is home on holiday from her job as a nurse inWellington, quickly fall in love. However at a communitygathering on the marae Tom feels an outsider and they havea falling out. In Wellington the relationship is resumed.Rawi is snubbed when Tom takes her horneto meet hiswell-to-do parents, and encounters other forms of racialprejudice. Meanwhile Tom becomes disgusted with the

distorted articles he is writing and determines that theone will be the last. but Rawi comes across a letter from hispublisher and, shocked, walks out on him. Consumed byguilt Tom hitchhikes north and takes ajob with a forestrygang. His workmate is a Maori, Johnny, who saves Tom'slife at the expense of his own when a fire breaks out in theplantation. Rawi returns home to work with her ownpeople, and Tom goes back to her family to apologize. Thelovers are reunited.

In BROKEN BARRIER the lessons of civilizationhave been learnt well. It is now the Maoris who farm theland and have a seemingly settled and fulfilled life, while thepakeha wanders the country wondering what to do withhimself. Tom's search for a sense of belonging and meaning

-. -,=~..,

("Why is this white boy drifting round the countryside?" Kiriasks herself) reflects the failure of the later generation ofpakehas, having severed links with the European homeland,to discover a firm sense of self-identity in New Zealand. It

was also the theme of O'Shea's subsequent movie,RUNAWAY (1964). Paul Maunder comments:"...everyone is a bit transitory. Europeans have never quitebeen secure here .... Part of this is tenuousness caused by theamount of travelling up and down the country. The man onthe run is a very Kiwi theme .... ,,5

It is ihrough Tom's dishonest journalism, an index ofhis personal lack of fulfilment. that the civilized.savageopposition becomes a persistent undercurrent of the film.The effect is double-edged, for as often as the idea of Maorisbeing uncivilized is negated for the present, it is byimplication affirmed for the past. "Making them look likeprimitive savages ..." Tom thinks; his publisher's letter reads:"We liked your material on the savage customs of theMaoris. There is great interest value in the details ofprimitive life .... " If the Maoris have only recentlyencountered civilization, it follows that they remain a breedapart, despite those who have seemingly adapted well.the narration can state: "Today many of the Maoris still leada simple life, tilling the soil and searching for shellfishalong the rocky coast.. .. Many of them try to keep up withthe pace of the modern world. They're stranded, caught likefish out of water" (this last accompanying a shot of Maoriboys on a beach holding up a lobster).-

*Compare the introductory title to THE ROMANCE OFHIl\E-MOA (1927): "For the first time, a film has beenacted entirely by Maoris, who, in less than a century haveemerged fromsavage barbarism to a high state ofcivilization."

ILLUSIONS 7

·iI

The narrationmakes the point explicit, even ifsignificantly hedged with a qualification: "For better andworse, the white man brought with him civilization." Andlater, the refrain is taken up in joking mode, with Tom'saudible thought, "I could do with a beer right now - with thethirst I've got I'm pleased to enjoy the benefits of Europeancivilization."

The most distinctive facet of "savagery" is cannibalism,referred to in REWI, and again here. The publisher's lettercontinues: "...In your further stories we would like 'to havemore about the earlier practice of cannibalism." The filmcuts to an extreme close-up of the final word. *

In The Man-Eating Myth, W. Arens hasdeveloped a cogent argument to explain the frequency withwhich the charge of cannibalism is levelled by one peopleagainst another:

...the implication that this charge denies the accusedtheir humanity is immediately recognizable. Definingthem in this way sweeps them outside the pale ofculture and places them in a category with animals ...

Branding whole groups as cannibals is much moreto the point and obvious to all concerned. warfareand annihilation are then excusable, while moresophisticated forms of dominance, such asenslavement and colonization, become an actualresponsibility of the culture-bearers ...

....one group can appreciate its own existencemore meaningfully by conjuring up others ascategorical opposites .... What could be moredistinctive than creating a boundary between thosewho do and those who do not eat human flesh? Ineffect, this means a line is drawn b~tween the civilizedand savage modes of existence, which translates as"we" and "they".*

The implications for pakeha ideology are clear.In the film it is along this boundary line that the

"barrier" of the title, that of racial prejudice, is erected. Theburden of the argument is that such prejudice, exclusivelyheld by whites, is not justified since Maoris today haveadopted civilized values and are the equivalent of pakehas.The assumption that "we" may define what "they" are like,and award marks for success or failure in coping with the

"References to cannibalism are a persistent feature of pakchafilms and tv programmes involving Maoris. Consider THEGOVERNOR (Episode 1):

GREY: You're not suggesting they're still cannibals?SHIP'S CAPTAIN: They don't forget old tricks thatquick.

Or the narration to ELiZAIlETH COLENSO (one of thePioneer Women series): "Christianity, literacy, and theEnglish way of life, all to be imposed upon a trusting peopleless than a generation away from cannibalism." In SONSOF TU MATA UENGA, a film about the Maori Battalion,cannibalism becomes a veritable obsession of thecommentator.*W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropologyand Anthropophagy (New York: Oxford University,1979), pp. 140, 141, 145. Arens, an anthropologist, in factdoubts that cannibalism ever existed as an accepted practiceanywhere in the world. Maori scholars however firmly attestto its existence in New Zealand.

FaciaL tattoo as mark of "savagery":Te Wheke (Zae Wallace) withPuni (TomPoata) in UTU.

-rr-r--r-r-modem world, is inbuilt in the pervasive commentary (whichtogether with the convention of interior monologuecompensates for the lack of synchronous dialogue). But it isalso implicit in the Maori characterization, which in beingexclusively "positive" advances the case againstdiscrimination: Kiri and Alec, successful farmers; Rawi,efficient and kindly nurse, whether in a Wellington hospitalor an East Coast farmhouse ("even the simplest things shedid for them gave them a feeling of security and certainty");Miriama, Johnny's girlfriend, who entertains visitors atWhakarewarewa and who on changing from Maori costumeto a smartly tailored suit "looks more like a tourist herselfthan a tourist guide" - a thought which amuses Tom; Johnnyhimself, who shows Tom the ropes on the forestry job ("thistime it's the white man learning from the brown"), andwhose self-sacrifice for his pakeha mate hammers home theliberal message that Maoris are nice people whatever thecolour of their skin.

Racial prejudice is presented as a blemish on NewZealand's generally good record in race relations. It is seen inTom's parents' stuck-up response when he brings Rawi hometo meet them, and particularly when he mentions marriage; itbecomes evident in little things, like Tom's pakeha friendsignoring Rawi when talking to him, or a white womanshifting her purse in a rest room when Rawi stands alongsideher. Little things, precisely: "petty little incidents", andRawi herself is partly to blame for being upset by them - shehas become "sensitive about her race - too sensitive~t.

In a sequence in which Rawi revisits her formerschoolroom, the film admits a further shortcoming in NewZealand's handling of Maori-pakeha relations, but here theproblem is relegated to the past. Rawi's thoughts traversethe field of educational policy: "The law in this country saysour colour doesn't bar us from anything. We can becomewhatever we like .... What will it mean to these children,being Maoris? They go to school, and they get the sameopportunities at school as Europeans. Certainly in my daywe were always taught by Europeans. None of our race hadthe chance to be teachers. That's all changed now."

8 ILLUSIONS

Such acknowledgement of blemishes conforms to amyth making strategy which Barthes has defined as"inoculation" - "this very general figure, which consists inadmitting the accidental evil of a class-bound institution thebetter to conceal its principal evil. One immunizes thecontents of the collective imagination by means of a smallinoculation of acknowledged evil; one thus protects it againstthe risk of generalized subversion.v'' In the case ofBROKEN BARRIER, admitting isolated or pastinstances of discrimination serves to mask the fact ofinequality, the exclusion of Maoris from economic andpolitical power.

UTU: Reversion to Savagery

Three decades later, in the context of a militant Maoriresurgence, the sunny optimism of BROKEN BARRIERwas obsolete. Against the challenge now posed to thelegitimacy of pakeha rule, a tougher approach was needed.UTU takes up the ideological gauntlet, pulling no punchesand skirting danger in its new inflexion of the interracialmyth.

The film is set in 1870 and depicts the campaign ofretribution waged by a fictional Maori chief, Te Wheke, afterhis village is destroyed and tribespeople massacred bygovernment soldiers. Deserting from the army in which hehas served, Te Wheke carries out attacks against civilians(one of whom, Williamson, begins his own quest forrevenge) as well as the military, but is hunted down andeventually defeated in battle by colonial forces under thecommand of the British Colonel Elliot and NewZealand-born Lieutenant Scott. Court-martialled for hiscrimes, Te Wheke is executed by Wiremu, a leadingcombatant on the government side, who reveals that he is TeWheke's brother.'

UTU draws on later events in the Land Wars, afterdefeat in the Waikato had led Maori resistance fighters toswitch from an essentially defensive posture to moreaggressive guerilla tactics. Pakeha historians havecharacterized some of the incidents which occurred asevidence of a recrudescence of primitive customs of the past:Keith Sinclair, for example, writes: " ...the fighting went onuntil 1872 ...against desperate Maoris, many of whomresorted to practices of ancient savagery ... .',7 UTU developsthis line of thought and its central figure, Te Wheke,symbolizes the barbarism and brutality, in pakeha eyes, ofpre-European Maori life.

Though not without its subtleties and comic ironies,the depiction of Te Wheke is dominated by his acts offerocity and cruelty. Certainly, Te Wheke enjoys Macbethlike an educated Englishman, but for him the bloodshed isnot confined to the printed page. The string of murderswhich he commits, loosely justified by reference to thetraditional Maori norm of utu, mark him as an outsider toEuropean values of rationality, justice and compassion. TeWheke blasts away his fellow soldier Jones, hangs Charliethe bellringer, beheads a vicar (Rev. Johns) with a tomahawk

*On New Zealand release in 1983, UTU was 121 minutes inlength. It was subsequently recut by the producers andconsiderably shortened. The version currently in internationaldistribution is 104 minutes long. This article refers to theoriginal version.

(and places his trophy on display in the pulpit), shoots andkills a would-be recruit (Eru) for giving away the rebels'position, shoots Puni when his old comrade is too ill tokeep pace with the band moving through the mountains, andbatters his follower Kura to death with a rifle butt. wronglysuspecting her of treachery.

What is at stake here is not a realism - were there Maoriwarriors who fought in such a way? - so much as theworking of the rhetorical system within the film. UTUshows pakeha atrocities only in the initial raid on thevillage, and then in a rapid flurry of shots depicting'anonymous violence. None of the pakeha characters (Scott,Williamson, even Elliot) commits brutalities as Te Whekedoes.

UTU: Wi Kuki Kaa as Wiremu, Bruno Lawrence asWilliamson

The horror of Kura's death is intensified by thelow-angle camerawork, and similar techniques deployed inthe mise-en-scene ofTe Wheke's advance on Emily in theWilliamson homestead suggest an irresistible primal force, aKing Kong of the colony. Emily's trunk barricading thedoor proving no obstacle, Te Wheke bursts into the room asmoments before he smashed through the stained glasswindow into the house. Emily falls back, and the scenealternates between high-angle shots of the cultivated Englishlady crawling away, clutching her piano, and reverse lowangles of Te Wheke in black towering over her, a.figure ofmenace - the full facial tattoo, the wild scraggly hair, theprotuberant tongue condensing into a vivid image of thesavage and it1 threat to the civilized.

Emily escapes, for the moment, but when Te Wheke'smarauders take over the homestead the desecration ofEuropean culture is achieved with gleeful exuberance and acinematic virtuosity to match. Classical musicalperformance is crudely caricatured, and the grand piano tippedfrom the first-floor balcony to smash on the ground below inslow motion. Finely decorated porcelain is blown to bits inan orgy of destruction, depicted on film in a fast-cut montageof tightly-framed close-ups and explosive bursts of sound.

ILLUSIONS 9

(One of the agents of this destruction is a grotesquely fatMaori; a similarly obese figure is singled out by thecamerawork and cutting among the warriors paddling a warcanoe in REWI).

In one of the mirror-images which are a feature of theformal structure of UTU (contained, of course, even in thetitle itself), the death of Williamson's wife and the burningof his homestead matches the assault on Te Wheke's villageat the opening of the film, and Williamson, like Te Wheke,is turned into an itinerant seeking revenge. But the cases are

not exactly equivalent. No one is held individuallyresponsible, either for giving the orders or for carrying themout, in the attack on the "~(jJy" Ngai Maramara, which ispresented as a faceless-bhinder. The authorities are notblameless - and in this franker, tougher film the inoculationis necessarily more potent than in BROKEN BARRIER-but the evil that they do is precisely accidental. Te Wheke,on the other hand, is directly and personally liable, and hisactions incite revolt and endanger the security of the settlernation.

The Macbeth allusion (Te Wheke adopts the"Burnham Wood" subterfuge in attacking Te Puna) remindsthe audience that the brutal violence depicted is not too farremoved from what occurred in European history, but it alsoreinforces the association of Maori practices with a distantpast. with feudalism. The continued survival of Te Wheke isincompatible with the progressive onward march of Britishcivilization. He must be eliminated.

Narrative Perspective

All three films consistently take the pakeha point ofview; their narratives follow the pakeha and not the Maoricharacter at points where their paths diverge (Bob rather thanAriana, Tom rather than Rawi), and the sympathetic pakehahero is a figure of identification for the audience.

BROKEN BARRIER presents a revealing exampleof the way narrative point of view is shifted to the hero whenhe first appears. At the outset, as Tom is seen in thedistance on tile road above the beach, Tom is the Other toKiri: he is first seen from her optical point of view. andintroduced on the soundtrack in her voice-over ("A Europeaneh. That fellow seems very curious about something.").However he quickly moves into subject status. In a complexinterplay of point-of-view glances, Kiri studies Tom whowatches Rawi - who, emerging from the sea with her breastson prominent display, is simply the object of the erotic gaze,which she does not return. Tom's first line of interiormonologue comes shortly after, and he displaces Kiri tobecome the major character from then on.

UTU's narrative perspective is split between a largearray of pakeha and Maori characters, but the formerpredominate. Most significantly, the film opens with TeWheke who has the potential to become an audienceidentification figure, but cuts away from him after hereceives his moko: becoming tattooed is the process bywhich he turns into the Other. The film moves to Scott andElliot, and subsequently the minister and his congregation inchurch: since Te Wheke's preparations for the attack areomitted, he can become the menace, the marauder, theoutsider. Te Wheke's re-entry into the narrative at a numberof key points is marked by a shock appearance: at the

10 ILLUSIONS

("Yes, I am a Ngapuhi. We opened our veins. The bloodran as one."). Easy, relaxed personal relationships betweenpakeha and Maori are depicted in all three films, butespecially UTU, for example the scene in which Williamsonis presented with a bone lizard pendant by Horace, or thatbetween Scott and Henare, filmed in a long, fluid trackingshot, in which Scott recounts a story illustrating what hefinds as the strange Maori sense of humour.

Contrasted with the hero is the racist pakeha villain,who allows the film-maker to displace guilt from theordinary Kiwi joker onto the outsider, the older man markedby class or national origin (British.) as different. InBROKEN IlARRIER this man is Tom's obviouslywell-to-do father, who is conspicuously cool to Rawi andwalks out of the room when Tom talks of marriage. Thevillain in UTU is the uppercrust British Colonel Elliot, anarrogant and supercilious caricature of a man, glaringlyhomosexual, who maliciously mispronounces Te Wheke'sname and promises: "I shall pursue him relentlessly andcrush him, and any other rebellious brown bastard!" The

----------------------- figure is absent from REWI, but interestingly enough notfrom the A.W. Reed novelization, in which the BritishColonel Greig is a direct precursor of Elliot."

church, at the Williamson homestead, onoutside the Te Puna hotel. As in the raid on the church, inthe run-up to the homestead battle the film sides with Emilyand Williamson in their preparations for defence, rather thanTe Wheke and his comrades planning their assault.

In this film two pakeha identification figures are offeredat the outset. Scott and Williamson, but after the raid on hishomestead Williamson begins to act strangely ("SometimesI'm mad, sometimes I'm not") and he becomes more anobject of spectacle, amusement and pathos. As with TeWheke, the transition is strongly marked: it occurs in thescene in which Williamson regains consciousness with hishouse ablaze in the background, which was followed in tileNew Zealand release of the film by a fade to red and theinterval.

The pakeha hero (Bob Beaumont, Tom Sullivan, JamesScott, Williamson in early scenes) is clearly an authorialsurrogate - writer-producer-directors Hayward, O'Shea,Mirarns and Murphy all being pakeha males. * The hero isyoung, active, resourceful, pragmatic. He may be cheerfuland confident, like Beaumont, who laughs reassuringly whenasked about Maoris wearing guns, or Williamson, lightlydiscounting the possibility of a rebel raid given the numberof previous false alarms. Or he may have doubts andmisgivings: Sullivan becoming aware of his own writing as"drivel", being "confused" on the marae; Scott, for whom thewar presents a moral dilemma - "This is a terrible business,this war. We all find our sympathies confused." In the lattercase the hero speaks for an unsettled audience groping fordirection, and it is significant that by the end of the filmboth Sullivan and Scott are much clearer about what needs tobe done.

The hero travels about a lot and knows the country well(Beaumont is given his despatch rider assignment because ofhis knowledge of the Waikato bush country); he transcendsthe rural:urban opposition. Lower middle class bybackground or occupation (trader, freelance writer, juniorarmy officer, small farmer), he is generally familiar withaspects of Maori language and culture and gets on well withMaoris. Thus Beaumont and Williamson speak English andMaori interchangeably, and Scott too knows some Maori.The exception is Sullivan, who feels out of place on themarae ("Now he was feeling like a fish out of water") andwhose thoughts run along the lines of "They seem to get agreat kick out of this tribal business"; but by the end of thefilm he has resolved to put an end to his ignorance - "He'dwork and perhaps some day write a true story of thesepeople." Beaumont, a master of the taiaha, calls himself a"blood brother" of the Nsaouhi, with whom he grew up

*REWI'S LAST STAND was written, produced and directedby Rudall Hayward. BROKEN BARRIER was produced anddirected by John O'Shea and Roger Mirams, and written byO'Shea. UTU was written by Geoff Murphy and KeithAberdein, produced by Murphy, Don Blakeney and KerryRobins, and directed by Murphy. After completing BROKENBARRIER Mirams moved to Australia and continued hiscareer in the film industry there. Hayward, O'Shea and Murphyshare a similar historical status in the New Zealand industry asstruggling pioneers of their respective epochs (1920s-30s,50s-60s, and 70s-80s).

U'TU: Racist British villain - Tim Elliot as Col. Elliot

"Greig, a survivor from Hayward's 1925 silent version ofREWI'S LAST STAND, expresses the viewpoint that allthe natives need is firm treatment. "I know a lot aboutniggers. Seen 'em in Africa, sir, and in India. And I can read'em like a book:' The British racist also crops up in PaulMaunder's SONS FOR THE RETURN HOME (1979) inthc guise of Sarah's father, a wealthy businessman.

ILLUSIONS 11

The enigmatic exterior represents for the pakeha aconstant potential for betrayal, even if in these films the Pakeha authorities are accordingly justified in using allMaori is as likely to save you from a forest fire as stab you the force at their disposal to suppress any outbreak ofin the back. Wirernu's position remains in doubt until the disorder, to extirpate any resurgence of barbarism. Invery end, and perhaps even then, when he has surreptitiously REWI, Governor Grey tells Beaumont that incidents likeshot the commander of the forces he is fighting with and the abduction of half-caste children will go on "until weexecuted his own brother, there lurks a mystery about this invade the Maori King's country, and establish law andman.... order"; he promises to take action when reinforcements arrive

The pakeha slant of the narrative is reinforced by the from Australia and India. As William Fox told the House ofvoice of authority (in English, necessarily) which is overlaidon REWI and BROKEN BARRIER like thevoice-of-God commentary on orthodox documentary. Itsextradiegetic interventions impart to the fictions the weightof historical and sociological truth: "Well out of range ofBritish rifles, Maori reinforcements arrived"; "Wherever two ... I

races live side by side there are problems." The effect is to That ISwhy, In the rhetoncal structure of REWI Ssuggest that the particular narrative and dramatic LAST STAND and UTU, we cannot feel anger at the .configurations offer a truthful representation of race relations British and colonial troops who crush the revolts of Rewiin New Zealand beyond the individual destinies depicted; and Maniapoto and Manatiki Te Wheke '. They are doing theirto invite the audience to interpret events in terms of the Job. The films are dramas of the extmcuon of Maon .ideological categories explicitly employed _ "their savage opposiuon to pakeha rule, and If this ISa sad, even tragic.. " "h I " b h . h hi ""I' . "* process, It IS a necessary one. For Rewi and Te Wheke arespints , t e w lite man roug t WIt im CIVIizauon . . bl & d d bl b b heiintracta e - lor goo an no e reasons, to e sure, ut t errREWI employs another device to suggest that the story obstinacy creates disorder, impedes progress. They represent

is-an authentic one, drawn from history. At the beginning of pre-civilized values which mustbe rooted out. Consignthe film, and later at irregular intervals there are close-up them to heaven In glory (yes, Wirernu assures Te Wheke, heshots of James Cowan's book The New Zealand Wars willbe acceptable there) and le~ the more pliable men, the(the quasi-official history) being skimmed through, followed realists, get on WIth their work. *

by a title in the style of a printed page. The texts are shortfactual statements, lent an additional air of exactitude by,details of place and dates (" 10 p.m. April 1st 1864"). Fromthe opening title it is clear from whose point of view thishistory is written: "In April 1863 the Maori King's Countrylay under the threat of war. Settlers were warned to leavetheir outposts and seek the safety of Auckland, a Britishgarrison town."

The perspective adopted here is indicative of the stanceof all three films. Consistently, the narrative problem posedis how we (pakehas) can cope with them, the racial Other.

The hero is transparent, his thoughts and feelingsapparent to the audience. By contrast most of thecharacters, even those most seemingly sympathetic,

opaque, their motives obscure. They are not structured asidentification figures, and can readily surprise by theiractions. Wiremu in UTU is an archetypal example.

WILLIAMSON: He may be hiding amongst them.How can you tell they're not his men?W1REMU: I can tell.WILLIAMSON: How can we tell you're not oneof them?W1REMU: You can't.

*11is possible that the narration in REWI was added toimprove continuity when the film was cut for British release.Ramai Hayward conunents: "The voice narration was addedbecause a whole sequence was cut out of the entertainmentsection. To my way of thinking it improved the film andhelped not to delay the action, which it had done previously."Letter to author, 11 November 1985.

Pakeha Law and Order

ELLIOT: We did not take this country inorder to abandon it to the rule of the mob.Law and order, Mr Scott, that is the issue.

Intrinsic to the pakeha myth-is the idea that prior to thearrival of whites New Zealand was an anarchic place of warand disorder somewhat akin to Hobbes's state of nature."Maori life at the beginning of the century was frequentlyone of cannibalism, slavery, fierce inter-tribal wars, a'dominion of fear'," writes Keith Sinclair. The authoritystructure which British rule was able to impose was thus tothe benefit of all concerned. *

Representatives in 1863: "We are not prepared to makepeace at all. This is not a war we are waging, it is aninsurrection we are suppressing; and when that insurrectionceases we shall cease in our efforts to put it down, but notbefore.',8

+Sinclair, The Origins of the Maori Wars, p.12. InLeviathan (1651) Thomas Hobbes described a "naturallcondition of mankind" characterized by an absence ofcentralized authority. "Hereby it is manifest, that during thetime men live without a common Power to keep them all inawe, they are in that condition which is called Werre .... Insuch condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruitthereof is uncertain ...no Knowledge of the face of the Earth;no account of Time; no Arts; no Leuers: no Society; andwhich is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violentdeath; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish andshort." Leviathan (London: Dent, 1962), pp. 63-65. InTHE GOVERNOR Episode 1 (scripted by Keith Aberdein),George Grey states prior to his departure from Australia totake up the governorship: "I know that New Zealand is asavage, miserable land, ungoverned, and without purpose.can change that."

*" <Compare the speech made by Grey after having suppressed

12 ILLUSIONS

Te Wheke, in particular, is a romantic individual rebeldoomed to destruction. He has alienated supporters likeMatu by his brutality, killed off others like Eru, Puni andKura. His dream of a farmer army is a mirage, with no moresubstance than Rewi's pledge to continue fighting forever("Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, akel"). Executed, he isconsigned by the film to a cul-de-sac of history, and hisrebellion will not live on after him. (Though Scott is theembodiment of pakeha law and order at the trial, it isnecessarily Wiremu who pulls the trigger. As he himselfexplains, Maori resistance must be terminated by the Maorithemselves, or the cycle of utu will be renewed. REWIsignificantly fails to trace the destiny of Rewi himself, whoin fact broke through the British lines and escaped.)

The reinstatement of law and order is achieved throughsuperior force, and more especially, sophisticated weaponry.The bringers of civilization have technology on their side.In REWI, Ben Horton is shocked, or feigns shock, at thesuggestion that he has been supplying Tower muskets to theMaoris - "that's a hanging matter". UTU makes a fetish oftwo weapons in particular: the homemade quadruple-barrelledshotgun of Williamson, and the Spencer repeating carbine ofScott. The firepower of the pakeha is an index of hisstrength (and jokingly, is associated with sexual potency-"But your gun can fire seven times without stopping" Kuraobjects, when Scott threatens to leave her on their night oflovemaking). The Spencer becomes a centre of attention inthe court-martial scene, and Wiremu's paean to it (partly inMaori) reveals a full-blown cargo-cult mentality: "Beholdthis gun, crafted in America .... If I squeeze the trigger, alightning flash will split the heavens asunder, and the veryearth will shake beneath your feet. When this gun fires, itsreverberations will be felt in the most distant heavens. Thisweapon is imbued with the spirit." It is with the Spencerthat Te Wheke is put to death.

The Unspoken

In this mythology of the reimposition of order whatremains unspoken is the original source of the racial conflict.It is true that the written prologue to REWI refers to the"struggle for possession of this land of promise", butnothing in the film that follows suggests that hunger ofpakeha settlers for the rich Waikato land could have been theprecipitating cause of the war. Instead the reasons for theinvasion of the Waikato, given in Grey's conversation withBeaumont and in the governor's proclamation delivered byBeaumont to the Ngati Haua and the Maniapoto, are thathalf-caste children are being kidnapped and that rebellioustribes" are assembled in armed bands threatening to ravagethe settlement of Auckland." Even at the time, it wasrecognized that such "reasons" for military attack were no

Hone Hckc's rebellion in Episode 1 of THE GOVERNOR:"...before there could be anything, there had to be peace. Ithas not been achieved without sacriflce, but those sacrificeswill be worthwhile. For this is my vision. I sec a futurewhere for the first time in the history of the world twopeoples of different skins, of conflicting cultures, can live andwork together in perfect harmony, perfect equality, each mangiving the other strength."

REWI'S LAST STAND.

more than a pretext. J.E. Gorst wrote in The Maori King(1864):

It was uecessary ...to declare some cause for theintended attack, not so much with the view ofproducing an effect on the Maories themselves, as ofjustifying the war in the eyes of the British public.General Cameron was about to advance, and there wasnot much time left for the manufacture of aproclamation. (9)

The proclamation is shown in REWI in shortenedform; significantly, the end of the sentence which reads, inthe original cited by Cowan, "Those of you who remainpeaceably in their own villages will be protected in theirpersons, property and land" becomes simply "...person andproperty", reference to land being omitted. In the event.following the Waikato war the Government confiscated threemillion acres of Maori land, much of it from tribes who hadtaken no part in the fighting. This, of course, is notmentioned in the film. *

Nor is the loss of land alluded to more than in passingin UTU, though it was the essential background to theguerilla-style fighting of the later engagements of the wars.Te Wheke's rebellion is provoked by something quitedifferent: the attack, carried out in error, on his own village.Up to this point he has apparently not questioned the pakehapresence and indeed has served with the government forces.Hence here, too, the main cause of contlict between pakehaandMaori remains unspoken.

In BROKEN BARRIER what is erased is theinequality between pakeha and Maori in New Zealandsociety, of which racial prejudice, highlighted in the film,

+The New Zealand 'Vars, Vol I, p. 251. Gorst comments:"Thus, though the Waikato war may have added somewhat toour reputation for power, it has destroyed what little credit wepreviously had for benevolence or justice. It has long been acommon belief amongst the natives, in spite of assurances tothe contrary, that the Pakeha intended, when strong enough,to attack them and rob them of their lands. The invasion ofWaikato has proved to them that their apprehension was wellfounded." The Maori King, p. 253. Some of theconfiscated land was awarded to government soldiers, a factalluded to in REWI's foreword: "In New Zealand after theMaori Wars of the Sixties, men of famous British regimentstook up land and became soldier settlers." The A.W. Reednovelization has a final chapter in which Beaumont is allottedfifty acres of Waikato land and a town section.

ILLUSIONS 13

possessed, finally, by Bob. Her injury is punishment for her,transgression, a physical sign of her enforced submission topatriarchalJpakeha law.

In BROKEN BARRIER, the pakeha makes

I

problems for himself. Tom's ignorance of Maori custom anddishonesty in writing about it are the impediments to his[relationship with Rawi. In overcoming his sense of guilt

returning to the farm to make amends Tom isrepresentative of the rootless pakeha at last finding his placein New Zealand. Rawi will come to him, ending hissolitude, creating a meaning in his life. "They love oneanother, and they will marry," says Kiri's voice-over. "Noone can stop them. No one should try. Whether they goback to the city, or stay on the land, together they can help

The dusky maiden: Ramal Te Miha as Ariana (REWI'S our two races to understand each other, help them toLAST STAND) overcome the barrier of race prejudice time has placed----------------------- between them."may be seen as simply a byproduct. As Donna Awatere hasexpressed it:

Racism is an integralpart of the while separatist slate.Racism exists because it is supposed to exist. It isthe effect of white separatism and white supremacy.Racismwill not vanish by simply acknowledging thatit's thereand telling those who do it to stop. (10)

The film fails to acknowledge the disadvantaged position ofMaoris in terms of jobs, housing, health care, or education -indeed in the last case explicitly denying it. It talks of Alecas "one of the fortunate Maoris who's held 011 to his land",but does not deal with those who have not been so lucky..By focusing on minor instances of interracial friction andexcluding from consideration the distribution of power inNew Zealand, BROKEN BARRIER. is able to present itspicture of a basically harmonious, prosperous and egalitariansociety.

The possibility, despite the tensions and conflicts, ofharmony between the races is symbolized in all three filmsby a love affair. In moments of lyricism and passion, thepakeha hero is united with the dusky maiden of his dreams,beneath shadowy fern fronds (REWI), amongst the tallgrasses (BROKEN BARRIER) or in a simple whare bymoonlight (UTU). The hero's erotic attraction to a Maoriwoman is suggestive of his attachment to New Zealand; the The brief affair of Scott and Kura in UTU is endangeredlove she returns is the ultimate vindication for the pakeha and finally destroyed by paranoia. Scott mistakes Kura'spresence. The heroine is associated with the beauty of the motives, believing that an act of love (luring him away onland itself: Ariana, barefoot. playfully climbing a tree in the the night of the attack on Te Puna) is a deceitful act of war.bush; Rawi swimming off the rocky coast; Kura diving off a Te Wheke, wrongly convinced that she gave an early waminslprodigious cliff into a swiftly flowing mountain river. She to Elliot's troops, kills her. For Scott, as presiding officer atis nature, he is technology, and their mating is full of the court-martial, this is Te Wheke's greatest crime, to havepromise for the future. deprived him of the woman he loves and prevented their

relationship from coming to fruition. Having obstructed theardent union of pakeha and Maori, Te Wheke, like Tama,must die.

To disrupt such a pairing is retrograde. In REWI,Tama tears Ariana from Bob's side, and later she herselfrenounces Bob's plans for her in choosing to stay and fightwith the Maniapoto. The narrative disturbance caused can be The achievement of peaceful and harmoniousresolved only through dramatic developments. Tama must co-existence is blocked by extremists who refusebe killed and Ariana's subtribe virtually wiped out. so that rapprochement between the races. This is most clearly seenwe no longer has ties to Maori kin, before she is able to be in UTU, in which Colonel Elliot, inflexible in his racist

Visions of Harmony

Tania Bristowe as Kura (UTU)

14 ILLUSIONS

conviction of white superiority, is ranged against Te Wheke,obdurately committed to a crusade of vengeance against thepakeha. The configuration is an example of what Bartheshas termed "neither- norism" - a "mythological figure whichconsists in stating two opposites and balancing the one bythe other so as to reject them both." He adds that "it is onthe whole a bourgeois figure, for it relates to a modern formof liberalism." 11

By this device UTU is able to discredit Maori resistanceto pakeha encroachment, and elevate the man occupying the

middle ground - Wiremu. Executioner of both Elliot and TeWheke, Wiremu is the archetype of the "friendly" Maori, themoderate who fights for the British cause in the interests of

I survival. He is the educated realist who knows that armedstruggle is futile ("Will these [rifles] help to make a betterworld?"), unlike his kinsman Eru who goes off angrily tojoin Te Wheke: "He can't read," Wiremu sadly comments (inMaori), and might have continued" ...the writing on thewail." Wiremu is privileged by the narrative, and it is aclose-up of his face, tears welling from the eyes, which isthe last image in the film.

Kiri in BROKEN BARRIER is equally the advocateof peaceful co-existence of the races based on Maoriacquiescence in white power. When Tom meets her daughtershe comments, in interior monologue: "I've always toldRawi that it's a white man's world, that she must learn tolive in it." Having a Maori character advance the pakehaargument is a useful ideological stratagem, and it is nosurprise that. like Wiremu, Kiri has the final word. Overshots of herself, of haymaking and sowing, of Tom andRawi walking along the beach, she concludes: "Like Rawiand Tom, all of us have come a long way .... They're takinglife with them."

BROKEN BARRIER thus finishes on an optimisticnote, one which is shared to a large extent by REWI,despite the ambiguity of its ending (Ariana is very muchalive in the last shot, but earlier Ben shakes his head, as if toindicate that she is mortally wounded.) The place ofEuropeans in New Zealand is now assured, as Bob, speakingto Morgan at the wheat field, had earlier confidentlypredicted: "It's going to take more than a war to destroywhat you've done. The seed is too widespread. The roots go 1.too deep." The restoration of Ariana to Bob signals the endof hurtful racial division and the true beginning of a unifiednation.

In UTU there is no such optimism. The Kura-Scottrelationship is dashed. There is the sense that, a century on,the fighting is over but the scars have not healed. Te Wheke 4.wonders: "Could we put ten thousand warriors on the streets 5of Auckland for just a few hours?" and the protest battles of .the 1981 Springbok T~ur spring irresistibly to mind. "Willwe still face each other 3.CroSS battle lines in one hundredyears?" Henare asks. Even a publicity slogan for the filmreads:"One hundred years ago is today. The past is thepresent. And the future is now." The tensions are too great,

I and despite drastic steps to shore it up, UTU reveals pakehaideology in the process of cracking.

With the Maori resurgence gathering strength, the falsepremises on which the visions of harmony were based are

Archetype of the "friendly" Maori: Bill Alerito as Johnnywho sacrifices his life/or his pakeha mate in

BROKEN BARRIER

being exposed. The racial divide in New Zealand society isdeeper than REWI'S LAST STAND, BROKENBARRIER or even UTU will acknowledge. The whitemajority faces a crisis of legitimacy, since appeals to thesupposed moral superiority of the "civilized" over the"savage" can no longer sustain the pakeha claim to the land,can no longer mask a history of injustice.

Thanks to Ramai Hayward; the National Film Library, NewZealand Film Archive, and Utu Productions; and to the studentsin my film history class - especially Elizabeth Knox, MauriceHalder and Virginia Wynne - whose ideas on REWI'S LASTSTAND 1 plagiarized. RC

Footnotes

2.

New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1861 to1863 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1886), p. 761.Donna Awatere, Maori Sovereignty (Auckland:Broadsheet, 1984), p. 11.Cinema Papers; New Zealand Supplement,May-June 1980.p. 12.Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers(St Albans: Paladin, 1973), pp. 136-37.Cinema Papers: New Zealand Supplement, p.11.Mythologies, p. ISO.Keith Sinclair, introduction to J .E. Gorst, The MaoriKing (Hamilton & Auckland: Paul's Book Arcade, 1959),p. xxii.New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1861 to1863, p. 760.The Maori King, pp. 243-44.

3.

6.7.

8.

9.10. Maori Sovereignty, p. 26.11. Mythologies, p. 153.

•ILLUSIONS 15