Talk:True History of the Kelly Gang (film)

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Ballinacurra Weston in topic George MacKay and miscasting

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Would this film not technically be a Bushranger film, not a Western film?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bushranger_films
Western influence didn't really begin in Australia until the 1950's
58.171.102.70 (talk) 03:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

George MacKay and miscasting

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In MacKay's defence, he is a pretty well-regarded actor. Although this was not one of his better performances (the New York Times complained that in this film he was "content to run around shirtless and make faces"), it was less down to MacKay than to the clunky script and weird directing. A few months after filming Kelly Gang, for example, MacKay worked on 1917, a lead performance for which he received a good deal of positive comment. While in Kelly Gang MacKay does look young and slim, in interviews he stated that the director instructed him to lose a good deal of weight for the role (and closely supervised MacKay in doing so). In any case, Kelly Gang is not meant to be a documentary presentation of Ned Kelly, but a kind of legendary, fantasy story about him, and MacKay's differing appearance to Kelly is not of great importance. Ballinacurra Weston (talk) 00:49, 10 January 2021 (UTC)Reply