Cultural depictions of Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly was a 19th-century Australian bushranger and outlaw whose life has inspired numerous works in the arts and popular culture, especially in his home country, where he is viewed by some as a Robin Hood-like figure.
[8] A sergeant and three constables Set out from Mansfield town Near the end of last October For to hunt the Kellys down; So they travelled to the Wombat [Hills], And thought it quite a lark, And they camped upon the borders of A creek called Stringybark.
[9] Jerilderie, one of the towns Kelly robbed, built its police station featuring numerous structural components mimicking his distinctive face plate.
Some examples include walls made of differently toned bricks making up his image to storm drains with holes cut in them to form it.
[citation needed] An image of Kelly, based on Sidney Nolan's imagery, appeared in the "Tin Symphony" segment of the opening ceremony for the year 2000 Olympic Games.
The distinctive homemade armour Kelly wore for his final unsuccessful stand against the police was the subject of a famous series of paintings by Sidney Nolan.
Ned Kelly is a recurring theme in the work of Ha-Ha (Regan Tamanui), one of Melbourne's foremost street artists.
[15] According to curator Jaklyn Babington, Ha-Ha's stencils are "a play on the pop movement's obsession with repetition, with a nod to Andy Warhol's celebrity portraits and a humorous Australian art historical reference to the most famous of our national painting cycles, Nolan's Ned Kelly series.
[17] Former criminal and celebrity Chopper Read produced numerous paintings of Ned Kelly, alluding directly to Sidney Nolan's imagery.
[18][20] Perhaps in all the realms of fiction no more romantic and sensational subject could be found for a biograph film.The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), now recognised as the world's first feature-length film, had a then-unprecedented running time of 60 minutes.
It was not a success and during its making it led to a protest by Australian Actors Equity over the importation of Jagger, with complaints from Kelly family descendants and others over the film being shot in New South Wales, rather than in the Victorian locations where most of the events actually took place.
Based on Robert Drewe's book Our Sunshine, the film covers the period from Kelly's arrest for horse theft as a teenager to the gang's armour-clad battle at Glenrowan.
Written, directed and starring Abe Forsythe, it depicted the Kelly gang wearing fake beards and tin buckets on their heads.
In 2019, the film True History of the Kelly Gang was produced, which was adapted from Peter Carey's novel of the same name, and Justin Kurzel serving as director.
Ian Jones and the late Bronwyn Binns wrote a script for a four-part television mini-series, The Last Outlaw (1980), which they co-produced.
As the officer in charge calls for his surrender, Kelly emerges from the hut with a spoon and cereal bowl, threatening to "eat the Weetabix" if they make a false move.
After a few seconds of relief, Ned is snapped back to reality when police officers fire at the hotel, destroying a clock sitting on the mantelpiece above him.
In 1971, US country singer Johnny Cash wrote and recorded the song "Ned Kelly" for his album The Man in Black.
The Australian band The Kelly Gang formed in 2002, consisting of Jack Nolan, Scott Aplin, Rick Grossman (bassist for Hoodoo Gurus) and Rob Hirst (drummer for Midnight Oil).
The video game Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel features a boss called Red Belly, a bandit who wears Kelly's iconic armour and helmet.
