From extraction to wilderness: Australian film history, environmental history, and The Last Wild River

This article examines the earliest coordinated use of film in an environmental campaign in Australia. The battle to save the Franklin River from hydro development occurred at a pivotal moment for both the environmental movement and the nation’s feature film renaissance. With a focus on the first film of the Franklin campaign, The Last Wild River (1977), I reveal how a novel idea of wilderness emerged in sound and image, one that questioned the established ideals of resource extraction that preceded it. I trace the sophisticated use of activist film at this moment of consequential cinematic and environmental change.