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''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' is a 1906 Australian film that traces the life of legendary bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly (1854–1880). It was directed by Charles Tait and shot in and around the city of Melbourne. The film ran for more than an hour with an approximate reel length of 4,000 feet (1,200 m), making it the longest narrative film yet seen in the world.〔Sally Jackson and Graham Shirley (2006), ''The Story of the Kelly Gang.'' National Film and Sound Archive, Australia ()〕〔Ray Edmondson and Andrew Pike (1982) ''Australia's Lost Films.'' P.13. National Library of Australia, Canberra. ISBN 0-642-99251-7〕 It was first shown at Melbourne's Athenaeum Hall on 26 December 1906 and premiered in the United Kingdom in January 1908.〔Ina Bertrand and Ken Robb (1982) "The continuing saga of...The Story of the Kelly Gang." ''Cinema Papers'', No. 36, February 1982, p.18-22〕 A major commercial and critical success, it is regarded as the origin point of the bushranging drama, a genre that dominated the first decade of Australian film production. Since its release, many other films have been made about the Kelly legend. In 2007, ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the world's first full-length narrative feature film.〔The first feature-length ''documentary'' film was ''The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight'' in 1897〕 ==Origins== Australian bushranger Ned Kelly had been executed only twenty-six years before ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' was made, and Ned's mother Ellen and younger brother Jim were still alive at the time of its release. The film was made during an era when plays about bushrangers were extremely popular, and there were, by one estimate, six contemporaneous theatre companies giving performances of the Kelly gang story.〔 Historian Ian Jones suggests bushranger stories still had an "indefinable appeal" for Australians in the early 20th century.〔Ian Jones (1995) ''Ned Kelly; A short life.'' Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne. p.337. ISBN 0 85091 631 3〕 ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' was made by a consortium of two partnerships involved in theatre—entrepreneurs John Tait and Nevin Tait, and pioneering film exhibitors Millard Johnson and William Gibson. The Tait family owned the Melbourne Athenaeum Hall and part of their concert program often included short films. Melbourne film exhibitors Johnson and Gibson also had technical experience, including developing film stock. Credit for writing the film scenario is generally given to the Tait brothers - Frank, John and sometimes Charles. At a time when films were usually shorts of five to ten minutes duration, their inspiration for making a film of at least sixty minutes in length, and intended as a stand-alone feature, was undoubtedly based on the proven success of stage versions of the Kelly story.〔 Retrieved 13 August 2015〕 Film historians Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper have noted that at the time, the filmmakers were unaware of the historical importance of the film they were making, and only much later "poured forth their memories." Unfortunately, "with the passage of time and the desire to make a good story of it" they "created a maze of contradictory information."〔 For example, in later years, William Gibson claimed that while touring through New Zealand showing the bio-pic "Living London", he noticed the large audiences attracted to Charles McMahon's stage play ''The Kelly Gang.'' Film historian Eric Reade claimed the Taits themselves owned the stage rights to a Kelly play,〔Eric Reade (1979) ''History and Heartburn: The Saga of Australian Film.'' p.5. Harper & Row, Sydney. ISBN 0-06-312033X〕 while actors Sam Crewes and John Forde later also claimed to have thought of the idea of a making a film of the Kelly Gang's exploits, inspired by the success of stage plays. There is evidence that at least one other bushranging film had been made before 1906. This was Joseph Perry's 1904 short ''Bushranging in North Queensland'', made by the Salvation Army's Limelight Department in Melbourne, one of the world's first film studios. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Story of the Kelly Gang」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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