AAP General News (Australia)
04-13-2007
Fed: Denton takes a fresh look at the Gallipoli legend
By Michael Gadd, National Entertainment Writer
SYDNEY, April 13 AAP - The legend of Gallipoli was epic in Andrew Denton's mind when
he made his first pilgrimage last year to the celebrated World War I battleground.
He had never been to a battlefield, let alone Gallipoli, where the Australian and New
Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) landed on April 25, 1915, before a bloody battle and a legendary
evacuation on December 19 the same year.
As the comedian-turned-interviewer's anticipation grew to excitement before his own
arrival in Turkey, Denton says he was a "one-man landing party".
"The amount of reading I did before we got to Turkey, I was raring to go," he says.
But Denton says his first glimpse of the hallowed shores of Gallipoli, where more than
8,000 Australians and almost 3,000 New Zealanders died, was underwhelming.
He says he always knew the story of Gallipoli - the chaotic and ill-advised arrival,
the bloody battle against Turks holding a prime elevated position and the legendary escape
of those who survived - was bigger than the place itself.
But it was a shock to see the battlefield itself.
"The main thing that struck me when I got there was what a pathetic little pimple of
land," he says.
"It was so tiny. I don't know what I'd imagined, maybe this epic landscape but not
at all. It was such a big story in my head that I found the size of the area quite shocking."
Denton was at Gallipoli last year to record interviews for a special Anzac Day edition
of his ABC interview show, Enough Rope with Andrew Denton.
Extra footage of Australians who made the journey to Gallipoli last year, as well as
his own reactions to the place and to the memorial services there, make up the documentary
Andrew Denton's Gallipoli: Brothers In Arms, which will air on the ABC on April 25.
Throughout the film Denton is visibly moved by the senseless waste and bravery documented
at Gallipoli.
"I was surprised myself at how much it stirred me up," Denton says.
He talks to Australia's Gallipoli pilgrims, asks them why they are there and what they
expect to gain, or learn, from the experience.
He recognises that while there may have been more significant casualties on the Western
Front, the status of Gallipoli as Australia's most memorable battle is appropriate.
"We do mythologise it, one of the reasons being that these were volunteers that went," he says.
"In the history of warfare there aren't many truly volunteer armies but this was one
of them. They were part of an absolute cock-up of a campaign, in a bastard of a place,
treated miserably, fought hard and died badly, a lot of them."
While personal accounts, books and movies such as Peter Weir's film Gallipoli have
captured the loss of young lives at Gallipoli, Denton says nothing compares to being there.
"I went to a cemetery at Lone Pine and stood next to graves for 17 and 18 year-old
boys. As I said in the film, it's hard not to feel angry next to rows and rows of gravestones
for very young men who all died on the same day."
Rowdy behaviour has marred Anzac Day services in Gallipoli in recent years, but Denton
found not only a carnival atmosphere, but absolute respect for the occasion.
During a service at Lone Pine, young men in football jerseys stood alongside old soldiers.
"I expected the yobbo element and it wasn't there, even the yobbo-ish sort of people
absolutely knew why they were there," Denton says.
"There was an absolute respect for it, even if they didn't know the history they seemed
to be very much struck by the sense of the place and the occasion."
The stories of three sets of brothers, told to Denton by surviving family members,
capture the drama of the frontline and what it meant to those left to remember them.
John Boydon's great uncles Stewart and Rex were aged 22 and 18 when war broke out and
were keen to enlist. John is the first in his family to see where they fought.
Brisbane father and daughter Alf and Fiona Gardiner travelled to Gallipoli to honour
Alf's father and uncle, Dick and Alf, Melbourne dock workers, who were among the first
to land at Gallipoli.
Jack and Percy Thompson were timber mill workers from south of Perth and their story
is as inspiring as any.
It's a remarkable twist that Australians are as passionate as ever about the Diggers'
deeds during World War I, even though there are no survivors from those who fought.
Denton believes this is evidence Australia is maturing as a nation.
"I suspect we're getting better at telling our own stories," he says.
"I'm still sure our school children could tell us more about American or British history
than Australian, it's one thing I'd love to address through television.
"But clearly a lot of the interest in the Anzacs has been handed down through families,
clearly that's a powerful link."
Denton says he hasn't turned his back on comedy, but he expects to explore historical
documentaries further.
Although he cannot reveal the subject of his next film, he says a project in pre-production
will be about an Australian figure forgotten by the history books.
"We're trying to spread our web and challenge ourselves a bit more," he says of his
production company, Zapruder's Other Films.
"Obviously the show (Enough Rope) is at the core of what we do but it was always my
hope and God bless the ABC for backing it, that the team working here would be able to
utilise a set of documentary skills as well."
"I'm very fortunate that most of what I do I'm really interested in and I learn a lot
from it. Do not be fooled by the glasses, I'm an extraordinarily ignorant man," he says.
AAP mdg/jt/sp
KEYWORD: DENTON GALLIPOLI (AAP TV FEATURE) (PIX AVAILABLE) RPT
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