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Stick
this in your pipe and smoke it, Ah Kit!
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Background image -- Gulpilil packing bong
on TV
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Gulpilil smokes dope on TV
show
By Penny Baxter
Award-winning Territory actor David Gulpilil has been filmed smoking marijuana in a television documentary. He was shown emptying a bag of dope into a red bowl,
packing it into a “cone” and smoking it by using a bucket-style bong. Gulpilil, who won best Australian actor at the
prestigious Australian Film Institute awards last weekend, insisted the
footage be used in the documentary, the Northern Territory News learned
yesterday. He talks frankly about his drug use. “The first time I smoked weed was with Bob Marley at
Waikiki, USA, Hawaii,” he says in David Gulpilil: One Red Blood, which
screened on ABC on Wednesday night. “I am smoking marijuana like everyone else is smoking it
in the world." |
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Actor smoked dope on TV From page 1 “ I drink beer like everyone else that drinks beer. I drink whisky. I buy cigarettes, biscuit, caviar – no worries. I’ve done all that.
“The Balanda (Yolgnu for non-aboriginal) brought it into our world, so we’re still using it. Even I am wearing the clothes.
“But before the balanda came into this country it was
nothing like this, it was nothing like this.”
The documentary was filmed earlier this year at
Gulpilil’s Arnhem Land community of Ramingining. The image of the veteran Aboriginal actor blatantly
smoking marijuana comes after Community Development Minister John Ah
Kit blamed cannabis for an epidemic of suicides and attempted suicides
at Aboriginal communities. A recent report by NT Clinical School lecturer Dr Tricia
Nagel revealed an estimated 500 Aboriginal males aged between 15 and 24
were admitted to hospitals between 1993 and 2000 due to drug or
alcohol-induced psychosis. Sydney-based independent documentary maker Darlene
Johnson, who yesterday confirmed Gulpilil was filmed smoking marijuana.
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Obviously an Aboriginal
person couldn't be allowed to speak out about their marijuana smoking
(or anything else for that matter) ...
... which contradicted the NT government's new American-styled anti-marijuana offensive. |
Actor smoked dope on TV to send a message Renowned actor David Gulpilil was unrepentant about being filmed smoking marijuana on national television. He said he was deliberately trying to send a message about drug use in Aboriginal communities. Gulpilil said he wanted the footage of him smoking dope at his Arnhem Land community of Ramingining to be included in a documentary on his life. The actor was pictured emptying marijuana into a bowl, packing it into a "cone" and inhaling it from a "bong" in the David Gulpilil: One Red Blood documentary on ABC television on Wednesday.
"It has got a message behind it." Gulpilil told the Sunday Territorian yesterday. "The story is that people are smoking marijuana all over the world. This is a foreigners thing that came to Australia and then it became illegal - it is because it is a dangerous tool." Gulpilil 49, who was voted best actor by the Australian Film Institute last week, recently starred in The Tracker and Rabbit Proof Fence. "He said he wanted to highlight the problem of marijuana use in Aboriginal communities and did not believe he had set a bad example." "It's a problem that is being stretched out over the country, the same as alcohol - both are dangerous." "I want people to ask what people think about marijuana, who uses it and why. We talk about it (marijuana use) but no one sees it - it is hidden." "It has damaged my people like alcohol and petrol - it causes brain damage." "It is a problem in our community and something should be done about it" Gulpilil said he did not smoke marijuana every day. "I want to give up marijuana. Like everyone else, I want the power myself to do it.... like I won an award, now I want to fight this stuff." Gulpilil began his career with the film Walkabout in 1971. |
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Not safe to speak out here about pot The comments in the original article... “I am smoking marijuana like everyone else is smoking it
in the world."
...demonstrate clearly that the movie (and article) was describing David's cannabis use candidly -- and that only pressure from the NT Government would have seen him attempt to recant.
I've yet to talk to anyone who takes Gulpilil's recantation seriously. |
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Evidence that NT Government and
NT News
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"David Gulpilil approached Darlene Johnson to document his life, stressing that there be no bullshit, and to show people my life and how I really live it. The film is the result of this collaboration." Source Produced by Screenrights, EnhanceTV connects the film and television industry with over 10,000 educational institutions across Australia and New Zealand. |
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"He still has to battle racism and discrimination despite his own demons - grog and ganja. When convicted of a drink-driving offence a couple of years ago, the magistrate told the actor he had an attitude "bordering on arrogant". Alcohol is banned
on his land but it's the city that's a devil with its endless supply of
grog." |
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"You can imagine the controversy if Nicole Kidman or Russell Crowe was shown smoking marijuana on the national broadcaster. But this week one of Australia's best-known actors will be seen smoking a bong on an ABC documentary - and no one will turn a hair." There have been moments of glitz
and glamour. He learned to drink alcohol with John Mellion and Dennis
Hopper. He has partied with Bob Dylan and joined John Lennon on the
roof as the Beatles recorded 'Get Back'. He's been nominated for more awards than most actors dream of and has been honoured with an Order of Australia medal. Yet here he is, half naked on the dirt floor of a humpy, slowly getting stoned. For filmmaker Darlene Johnson, it was pretty amazing that Gulpilil allowed her to shoot the dope scene. Even more startling was the fact he had the chance to cut it from her documentary, Gulpilil - One Red Blood, but chose to leave it in. "What's amazing about David is his candidness," she says. "I have more respect for him because he chose to show that side. As he says, he wanted 'No bullshit'." Gulpilil's career nose-dived in the 1990s, partly because he asked for "a million dollars" to appear in Crocodile Dundee 2. It was a tough time, with petrol sniffing and alcohol getting a grip on Ramingining, where he lives. But Gulpilil and other elders have now made it a dry community and the petrol sniffing has been conquered. Gulpilil is pleased with Johnson's warts-and-all portrait. "It tells my missing story," he says." Source 'Man who lives in two worlds' - By Steve Meacham (Sydney Morning Herald) December 11, 2002 |
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"Gulpilil has struggled personally with alcoholism and depression, as have many other indigenous artists who departed from their traditional lifestyles to become public figures. After suffering a period of incarceration for substance abuse-related offenses (many journalists and others believe he would have been offered rehabilitation instead of jail time, had he not been a person of color) Gulpilil returned to his family and friends at Ramingining in the Northern Territory and reconnected with his spiritual roots." Source - Gulpilil -- Official site - |
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"...making sure Gulpilil did not think himself anyone special seemed foremost in the mind of Darwin magistrate David Loadman when, in February, he sentenced the actor to two months in jail for his sixth drink-driving conviction. Seemingly determined to make an example of a man who had asked for no special treatment, Loadman said with archaic venom: "I'm not going to make a fish of this man and fowl of others." "You gave your people and the people of Australia a lot of pride," he said. "You could have done a lot more if you could have stayed away from the grog. You could have advanced a lot more." Gulpilil said he had come back to Darwin and "welcomed myself home" by getting drunk. He does not seek to dismiss the episode that saw him veering erratically down Bagot Road in Darwin, slowing down and speeding up, and refusing to take a breath test when finally pulled over. "I want to apologise that I did the DUI in Australia and broke Australian law," he says. "And that I was dangerous driving. I don't think it will happen again. I'm not silly. If it happens again, then maybe I am stupid." Gulpilil cried upon receiving his jail sentence, which included a further two-month stint at the Council for Aboriginal Alcohol Program Services just out of Darwin, where he is now, living in one of a number of shacks with recovering alcoholics. Inmates do their own washing, cooking and cleaning. He is unable to leave until May 12. Gulpilil says the idea that he is a drunk is one he hears about himself all the time. But he says that when he lives at his Arnhem Land outstation, east of the Glyde River near Ramingining, he does not drink. It is a dry community. "When I say to people that I don't drink at home, they don't believe me," he says. "When I come to their town, that's all right - I'll have a biscuit and caviar and wine. Man, I'm a spoilt blackfella." After long ascetic periods in the bush, where he lives in little more than a humpy, he says he sometimes can't help himself in the city. "I don't like grog. I like grog. I don't like ganja. I like ganja. That's me, but it's no answer. To me, those things are nothing. I don't need a beer where I live. I've got elders and land looking at me - respect. And I do respect. It just wastes my life. I ended up doing a lot of things, if you know what I mean. "I'd rather save money for my children and for the future and yeah, and live like a non-drinker. I know how to live rich or poor. Grog is nothing to me. Just nothing. It's not important to me. I can cope. I can go walkabout for years, no beer. "This place here is for alcoholics - I'm not an alcoholic. I know what's good life, I know what's bad. "But they still think I need discipline. "We sit around listening to it, about grog killing our kidney, liver, brains - how people look good on the outside but not on the inside. So, I'll take that message home and tell them those things. That's the story I'll take." Source An Aboriginal pioneer is cut down to size - By Paul Toohey (The Australian) April 29, 2000 |
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"There were drink-driving offences as he slept rough in Darwin parkland with the so-called long-grassers, and the first of two stints in jail, also in 1987. They made Crocodile Dundee II without him. Gulpilil looked to be on the same grog-slick slide to despair that claimed other Aboriginal artists feted by mainstream Australia. But in 2002 his career is far from in decline." Source The double life of David Gulpilil - By Rod McGuirk (The Age) April 14, 2002 |
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Alcohol is obviously the drug that has
acted most negatively in Gulpilil's life. "It was a tough time, with petrol sniffing and alcohol getting a grip on Ramingining, where he lives." |
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The view that Gulpilil has been pressured (and short-changed) seemed obvious to a contributor to the NT News, Letter to the Editor page as well. (December, 19, 2002).
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