‘A transnational Gallipoli?‘ Australian Humanities Review, 51, November 2011, pp. 25-42 (free download)
‘Changing perceptions of Gallipoli’, the author argues, ‘are an instructive case study in a world of increasingly transnational perspectives’. (p. 25) Considers the views of Gallipoli presented in a novel by Louis de Bernières (writing from a Turkish point of view) and a documentary film by a Turk, Gallipoli: The Front Line Experience, (2005) by Tolga Örnek, who presents the experiences of Anzac, British and Turkish soldiers, using voice-overs from diaries. The different viewpoint is subtly underlined:
A few days after the 2008 Armistice Day ceremony at Anzac Cove, my Turkish guide on the peninsula, Kenan Çelik, told how the Australian representative had spoken of everyone dancing on the streets some 90 years before. “We, he added sombrely, ‘weren’t”.
The author contrasts Peter Weir’s Gallipoli with the works he considers, notes some recent works and provides a bibliography of works that look at the intersection between history and artistic expression. On film in this area, see also Simpson.
