Ben Hall v Ned Kelly: Filmmaker weighs in on who is Australia's greatest bushranger
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The director of new film The Legend Of Ben Hall says the New South Wales bushranger has been unfairly eclipsed by Victoria's Ned Kelly.
"[Hall] has been overshadowed by Ned Kelly in history, but it's curious as to why," director Matthew Holmes told 774 ABC Melbourne's Libbi Gorr.
"If you compare the two as bushrangers, and you compare their careers, Ned Kelly's career is very, very small in comparison to Ben Hall's."
Kelly idolised Hall, filmmaker says
Hall, Holmes said, was Australia's "original public enemy number one".
"Ned Kelly was about 10 years old when Ben Hall was riding and there is strong evidence to say that Ned Kelly did idolise Ben Hall somewhat," he said.
Responsible for Australia's biggest gold robbery, Hall was originally a law-abiding stockman.
"He had some troubles in his life that came his way and things spiralled out of control," Holmes said.
"He found himself on the run and ended up becoming a rather reluctant bushranger but one of the most prolific criminals of our colonial past."
In 1865 the NSW parliament passed the Felons Apprehension Act, authorising the general public to kill Hall and his gang on sight.
"They were uncatchable, they were unstoppable, and the police had had enough of them."
In 1878 the colony of Victoria passed its own Felons Apprehension Act aimed at stopping Kelly and his gang.
The two acts are the only examples in Australian history of the government sanctioning the killing of an individual by the general public, Holmes said.
NSW story made in Melbourne
Despite being a NSW story, The Legend Of Ben Hall is the opening night film for this week's Made In Melbourne Film Festival.
"It was a Melbourne-based production and we did film around the Macedon Ranges," Holmes said.
"We had to find locations around regional Victoria to emulate New South Wales."
Holmes said the film was planned to be the first in a trilogy of bushranger movies.
"I have two more scripts ready to go and we're hoping to get them into production this year, if we're lucky," he said.
Topics: film-movies, biography-film, 19th-century, human-interest, melbourne-3000
