Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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Atoll in the South Pacific, was bombed and sunk by agents of the French government.
Significantly, one of the writers of the film, New Zealander Geoff Chapple, was a wellknown
anti-nuclear activist at that time. New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance was initially
referred to in one of the early drafts of the film by the medievals encountering nuclear
protesters on the water, but Ward decided that “that was a very obvious, not a very good
way of doing it”. 717 In the film, the small band of villagers, while attempting to cross
the Auckland Harbour in a dinghy, are almost overturned by what they perceive as a sea
monster, which they name a “queenfish” (an obvious reference to the American nuclear
submarine of that name). Later they hear the American captain of the submarine
speaking on television to his New Zealand audience: “The fact is you still have an
alliance with America. This is the real world, 1988. You can’t isolate one little pocket
of the world and say ‘nuclear-free’. Oh, you can try, but there is no refuge, no pocket,
no escape from the real world”. The situation of the medieval villagers living in a small
isolated place, being threatened by something larger than themselves which had the
potential for annihilation – the Black Death - is paralleled with contemporary New
Zealand, also an isolated pocket of the world “fending off a threat that is larger than
itself”, nuclear weapons, which also had the potential to annihilate the world. 718
Considering the on-going debate about New Zealand’s policy of prohibiting nucleararmed
American ships from its ports, and the continuing pressure on this country to join
more directly in U.S. military ventures, the scene has a continued resonance for New
Zealand viewers in addition to its global implications.
The film’s two locations are similar not only in their geographical isolation but also as
Ward points out, in that: “[Cumbria] is very steep and mountainous, in some ways
similar to New Zealand, quite harsh country which became the romantic Lake District
in other times”. 719 Jonathan Rayner identifies other parallels between the medieval and
contemporary communities in the film: “Both communities and environments appear to
be equally threatened. The bemused modern-day foundry workers cast the cross
required by the pilgrims out of charity, since their livelihoods are threatened
economically (by redundancy) rather than metaphysically (by disease and
717 Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the Navigator," 12.
718 Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the Navigator," 10.
719 Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the Navigator," 10.