Transcript: Big Name, No Blanket November 17, 2002
David Gulpilil.
INTRO PETER OVERTON: We're about to go to a place most of us have never seen, miles from anywhere, as barren as it is beautiful and home to one of our greatest actors. The place is Arnhem Land and the actor David Gulpilil. Three decades ago, David walked out of the red dust of the desert and onto the silver screen. Since then, his performances have captivated and charmed. His latest role in The Tracker is being hailed as his greatest yet. But this is not a story about a millionaire film star and his celebrity home. This is a confronting tale of a brilliant man trapped in abject poverty, hopelessly caught between two cultures.
STORY PETER OVERTON: This is a journey to the heart of Australia, a story of one man straddling two cultures.
DAVID GULPILIL: It's a true life story. It's me, big name, no blanket. Big name, David Gulpilil. I live here in a tin shed.
PETER OVERTON: Thirty-three years ago, David Gulpilil walked out of the bush and onto the big screen — a teenager with no acting experience, but rare talent. And so began a brilliant career. Walkabout was followed by Australian classics like Storm Boy, Rabbit Proof Fence and Crocodile Dundee. But it's his latest film, The Tracker, that has seen David Gulpilil celebrate his first major lead in an international movie. It's a role at the very heart of his own people's history.
DAVID GULPILIL: No such thing as an innocent black. The only innocent black is a dead black.
PETER OVERTON: His performance has been acclaimed and David has been feted. In the spotlight, he looks a million dollars. It's only when you leave the red carpet for the rest dust of his homeland that you discover a disturbing truth and an angry man.
DAVID GULPILIL: I don't want water like this. I want a tap and I want a toilet, shower. I'm a human being and I'm a citizen. And I'm an Australian.
PETER OVERTON: In Arnhem Land, David seems at home. This 48-year-old moves with an athletic grace — here, no longer actor, but hunter.
DAVID GULPILIL: For our lunch, snake, turtle, or short-necked turtles, and maybe I will get a tiger with this spear.
PETER OVERTON: A fish?
DAVID GULPILIL: A fish. Come on, let's go.
PETER OVERTON: With my own eyes, I saw David see things that I couldn't.
DAVID GULPILIL: Barramundi.
PETER OVERTON: Barramundi? Fantastic!
DAVID GULPILIL: If you see a crocodile, just climb into this tree here. I'll give you a spear.
PETER OVERTON: Thank you, David.
DAVID GULPILIL: And you spear him.
PETER OVERTON: Like that?
DAVID GULPILIL: Yeah, like that.
PETER OVERTON: Have you ever had a close encounter with a crocodile? In his own unique way, David reassured me that only a few weeks earlier, 70 crocs were pulled out of the river just beside me. Further on, more tucker. I'll help Robin. You get the head, Robin.
DAVID GULPILIL: Hold the head like this. Hold the head!
PETER OVERTON: No, you hold the head.
DAVID GULPILIL: No, you hold the head. Then you can just ...
PETER OVERTON: You hold the head — I'm happy to be doing this. I look forward to eating it.
DAVID GULPILIL: So do I.
PETER OVERTON: By lunchtime, we'd gathered a feast. As the fire blazed, it was time to throw another snake on the barbie to go with our fish and turtle.
DAVID GULPILIL: Look at this, look at this. It looks like a frog, doesn't it?
PETER OVERTON: It does.
DAVID GULPILIL: It does.
PETER OVERTON: So this is the turtle?
DAVID GULPILIL: Turtle, yeah. No, that's dog. They're not cooked anyway.
PETER OVERTON: Although he was clearly enjoying the role of host, the laughter and idyllic surrounds hid the true picture. This is the harsh reality of David's existence. This is where he lives with his fourth wife, Robin, and extended family, on the outskirts of Ramingining, an Aboriginal settlement in Arnhem Land, not far from where many of his own ancestors were massacred.
DAVID GULPILIL: This is the bedroom.
PETER OVERTON: Where you and Robin live?
DAVID GULPILIL: Me and Robin live, yeah, this one. Double bed in it. And then, Peter, I have to open this one. Stay there.
PETER OVERTON: Any perception that David lived with the trappings of fame quickly vanished. The movie star lives in a humpy. The little money he's made has gone straight to his family and his clan. He's broke and he's bitter.
DAVID GULPILIL: I want to live just like everyone else. Everyone else is living in a house, they have transport, food and everything. What about me? I've got a miserable life.
PETER OVERTON: The locals disagree. They say the Government has built David his own house and wonder why he doesn't live there rather than whingeing about his humpy.
DAVID GULPILIL: Here it is. Here's the boat. They think I'm a millionaire because I make a lot of money. No, I don't make a lot of money. I live and I struggle all these years.
PETER OVERTON: To reach his home, you must first cross a crocodile-infested river in David's sieve-like tinny.
DAVID GULPILIL: I'll get mud from there and patch it, because it's leaking. If we can't patch it, we'll sink down and that's the river we've got to cross over.
PETER OVERTON: The river that has crocodiles in it.
DAVID GULPILIL: Thousands of them, yes. I help to make it, yes, I will make it.
PETER OVERTON: The river marks the divide between his mother's land and his father's.
DAVID GULPILIL: I feel that it's like my father waiting for me right there.
PETER OVERTON: Can you communicate with your father's spirit when you're here?
DAVID GULPILIL: Yes, I do. When I come to the land and I see and I cry because my father's standing there in front of me and welcoming me and welcoming you too. This is where I was born. My mother gave birth to me here and my father said "I'm proud, my last son, his name is Gulpilil".
PETER OVERTON: But, as we trudged on, the mood of our journey was getting darker.
DAVID GULPILIL: I want to know why didn't they finish this house, why didn't they put my house, why didn't ... How come I don't have a shower and toilet and the floor is ... They never finished. This is the house, it's a rotten house. This is a rubbish house. I want a luxury house.
PETER OVERTON: But what sorts of things would make it luxury for you?
DAVID GULPILIL: Earth and rocks and timber and tin.
PETER OVERTON: The house, built on David's ancestral land, has been left abandoned and unfinished. When Government funds ran out, the contractors simply disappeared. It's a shell without running water and no real road access. But the house was just the beginning of a list of bitterness.
Have you ever been happy in your life, David?
DAVID GULPILIL: No, never.
PETER OVERTON: Why do you say that? You seem to have done so much?
DAVID GULPILIL: Well, I've done all those things, but people in Australia rip me off, even though in the film industry, they rip off. They pay me cheapest money. Why? Because I'm black fella.
PETER OVERTON: It's confronting — Gulpilil, an Order of Australia, living like this. But what also needs to be confronted is that perhaps some of his problems are of his own making, including two jail sentences for drink driving.
David, alcohol's been a big part of your life.
DAVID GULPILIL: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: Big problem in your life.
DAVID GULPILIL: That's right.
PETER OVERTON: What's it done to you?
DAVID GULPILIL: Nothing done to me, the alcohol, why? What have I done with the grog? It's true enough I was locked up for six months in Berrima Jail after receiving a medal from the Queen.
PETER OVERTON: So you received a medal and then you went into jail?
DAVID GULPILIL: And then I went into jail and I rang and I said, "Her Majesty, I'm in prison," so if you call it grog, I drink grog, yes, I smoke marijuana. Yes, everyone else in the world. Nothing that I can hide from you.
PETER OVERTON: No.
DAVID GULPILIL: Nothing that I want to hide from you. They look at me like that because I drink beer. They say, "David Gulpilil drinking, now he's doing the wrong thing, now he's getting drunk again," and all the things. You know, that's my business. What about you people doing it? What about you people, what about the other people?
WAYNE O'DONOVAN: He can be so easily led astray. Someone may buy him a drink and drink and drink and drink and then they've had enough and go under the table. So he'll pick up the next person that shouts him a drink. He can go through 10 white fellas and still be standing. Naturally, he's going to get into trouble if he's being led along like that.
PETER OVERTON: Wayne O'Donovan is a long-time friend and David's minder in the white man's world.
WAYNE O'DONOVAN: He's been a man who's been living in the two worlds for a long time and the two worlds is a very confronting area to try to live in. At the coalface, where the two cultures meet you've got two opposing belief systems confronting each other all the time, and to try to juggle those two belief systems is really difficult.
PETER OVERTON: I wonder if you need to look at yourself sometimes and think it's not just the government, it's not just Australia, it's David Gulpilil that needs to stand up and say, "I'm a movie star, I've earned money, I need to provide for my family."
DAVID GULPILIL: I am asking for help.
PETER OVERTON: David is aware that he's being watched by his own people. Outside his own alcohol-free community, the struggle with booze continues. What they're waiting for is the big man on screen to get his own act together and stand up as the wise man on the red dust of home. One thing he's certainly mastered, though, is his acting. It's been described as minimalist magic, and to have him talk about it is to see him at his most animated.
DAVID GULPILIL: I do work with my face, the movie, yes. And my eyes.
PETER OVERTON: Oh, your eyes definitely. Give me some eyes.
DAVID GULPILIL: If I want to hear a sound, I just trip my eye there or up there or down here or there. And then very slowly I just look at you like that and back again.
PETER OVERTON: After a week in David's company, I'd made friends with a complex, bitter, but I must say endearing man.
DAVID GULPILIL: My future generation — children. When I'm gone, these children will keep my land. A land of my grandfather, my father, and these are my future generations.
PETER OVERTON: And for all his troubles, David Gulpilil has achieved great things against serious odds. One of our finest actors, who remains remarkably unaware of the esteem in which he's held. David, I think many Australians, they see you in the movies ...
DAVID GULPILIL: Yes.
PETER OVERTON: … would consider you an icon.
DAVID GULPILIL: Really?
PETER OVERTON: A treasure, a national treasure.
DAVID GULPILIL: A treasure, me, a treasure? Oh, thank you, brother, thank you. You are the only one who told me. No-one ever told me about me.
