God calls on Arthur Stace to write 'Eternity’ on the pavements of Sydney.
Summary by Damien Parer
The work is an excellent example of creative filmmaking. Cinematographer Dion Beebe has beautifully recreated 1930s Sydney in black-and-white. Beebe has since gone on to a successful career in USA. The director, Lawrence Johnston has successfully used the medium to tell an engaging story of a simple man.
Recreating Sydney in the 1930s, the documentary is the story of Sydneysider, Arthur Stace. Arthur had a hard life that deteriorated into alcoholism and despair. In 1930 he heard the call of God at the Baptist Ministry. Although illiterate, he went immediately into the street and wrote the word 'Eternity’ on the pavement in perfect copperplate handwriting. Believing that God asked him to continue that activity for the rest of his life, he wrote 'Eternity’ over 500,000 times, on the pavements and buildings of Sydney and later Wollongong and Newcastle. His message has become an icon of Sydney, much imitated by artists.
Notes by Damien Parer
This clip shows an actor (Lex Foxcraft), playing Arthur Stace, walking through the streets of Sydney and using chalk to write the word 'Eternity’ in neat copperplate writing on the footpath. This is interspersed with footage of writer Dorothy Hewitt and photojournalist Mark Balfour, as well as the voices of two other Sydneysiders, talking about what Stace’s handiwork represented and the impact it had on them. The recreated scenes that depict Stace are shot in black and white.
Education notes provided by The Learning Federation and Education Services Australia
This clip starts approximately 18 minutes into the documentary.
Interviews are interspersed with black-and-white footage depicting Arthur Stace walking through the streets of Sydney and using chalk to write the word 'Eternity’ in neat copperplate writing on the footpath. He is a lone, shadowy figure and the footage is accompanied by soft, haunting religious music.
Man 1 It had a religious effect but nothing to do with Christianity.
Dorothy Hewitt It was rather like one of those archetypal sort of messages that come from outer space, you know, and you wonder what it all means and then when I thought about it I thought it must be somebody writing it up who’s got some kind of religious message.
Mark Balfour, photo journalist I see it as an inspired word that he heard at a sermon in Darlinghurst. What interpretation he put on ‘eternity’, I have no idea but, nevertheless, it was instrumental in compelling him to go out into the street and write this word, like a phantom in the night for 40 years of his life across the face of the city.
Woman 1 It was so nicely done. You know, it had obviously been done with such care and came out with such perfection.
Man 2 It was copperplate script and there was something, of course, in the style of the writing of the word that actually was the aspect of it that was… that drew the eye.
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