'The Odd Angry Shot is the seminal account of Australian soldiers in the Vietnam War.
'Brief and bracing, tragic yet darkly funny, it portrays a close-knit group of knockabout SAS fighters: their mateship, homesickness and fears; their practical jokes, drinking and fighting. The enemy is not just the Vietcong they’ve been sent to fight, but their superiors, the mud and torrential rain, and boredom.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)
The Odd Angry Shot
( dir. Tom Jeffrey
)
Australia
:
Samson Productions
,
1979
Z1857068
1979
single work
film/TV
war literature
'This film concentrates on a group of professional soldiers in the combat zone at the height of the Vietnam War. In an episodic structure, verbal and physical jokes alternate with realistic scenes of combat in a manner comparable to MASH and Catch 22. Irony is the main means of suggesting the futility of war. The film is anti-heroic in tone with the emphasis on survival. On several occasions the embittered Harry refers to the public back home as indifferent or worse. The risks of combat are seen to be without purpose but the men do their job. The behaviour of the male group is within the ANZAC ethos of the anti-authoritarian, pragmatic digger and the ocker tradition of irreverent humour laced with sexist jokes.' Source: Libraries Australia.
'Australian culture is frequently described as materialistic, hedonistic and fun-loving, and no doubt it is, in some respects, all those things. The 'land of the long week-end', its 'great stupor' perhaps, even the 'lucky country' - all these more or less flattering tags suggest, sometimes in the face of what their authors intended, that nothing can go seriously wrong in Australia, where life cannot be but easy-going and enjoyable. And so it would appear that, as Craig McGregor observed, 'the Australian race is engaged in a whole-hearted pursuit of happiness without guilt. The beach, in particular, has been for several decades one of the major symbols of the Australian way of life, the locus of Australian hedonism, where people worship the sun, display their near-naked bodies, and ogle other people's...' (p. 81)
Two Inches of Glory
1991
Z471503
1991
single work
thesis
'Australian culture is frequently described as materialistic, hedonistic and fun-loving, and no doubt it is, in some respects, all those things. The 'land of the long week-end', its 'great stupor' perhaps, even the 'lucky country' - all these more or less flattering tags suggest, sometimes in the face of what their authors intended, that nothing can go seriously wrong in Australia, where life cannot be but easy-going and enjoyable. And so it would appear that, as Craig McGregor observed, 'the Australian race is engaged in a whole-hearted pursuit of happiness without guilt. The beach, in particular, has been for several decades one of the major symbols of the Australian way of life, the locus of Australian hedonism, where people worship the sun, display their near-naked bodies, and ogle other people's...' (p. 81)
Two Inches of Glory
1991
Z471503
1991
single work
thesis
