these things happened
It is hard to think about the life and death of Pip Starr. I am sitting here watching a video of him on YouTube, posted by an English activist organisation called Undercurrents, shot just a month ago.
He sits on a stage and talks about footage he shot on the Carteret Islands, one of the first places in the world which will be evacuated because of climate change. On the beach, a local man speaks of Western responsibility for war and pollution, conjuring a planet in crisis, using only words in a tiny place gleaming with sun and life.
It is clear that Pip is an accomplished cameraman. He seems to find it difficult to sit still. At the funeral, his friend and partner in Rockhopper Productions, Bill Runting spoke of the way he did all the technical stuff, while Pip was completely in control of the creativity. He had the strength to be isolated, to pursue the effects of growth and ecological degradation in sad, far, battered places. But he was isolated here too, not one to share imaginative responsibility, to work in a team, to change through feedback. His autonomy was also distance.
You can find his films and a bit about his philosophy at his website.
To me, he seemed to skitter about. He was a key part of the Melbourne activist film community, which combines agitprop, lifestyle and documentation. They are the scruffy people with the cameras at the march. He would appear at meetings to tell us our mainstream documentary approach ignored the complex practice emerging from passionate people with the new, extraordinary, micro-cameras, but then never really step into the dialogue he created.
Pip turned up at the Jabiluka blockade, made a film about it, unpretentiously and without intrusion. At the funeral, he was described as a great listener. He was at the Woomera demonstrations where people attacked the camp fence and helped imprisoned refugees to escape, uselessly into the desert.
You can probably remember footage of it. I have seen the raw material, with its chaos and desperation, held together by visual discipline. Button on, button off. Pan and zoom. Keep the lens clean, stay away from the cops on the horses. Find a socket to recharge the batteries. Make sure the tape gets away safe.
Much of the footage you are thinking of belongs to Pip. Without him, in some important ways, the fight would not exist as you understand it. You would not feel so much of the truth of it, the starkness and horror. The rage and frustration which represented what so many of us felt.
Pip was once Stuart, a Mildura kid with an ordinary family. At his funeral, his niece spoke of his games and gentleness, his humour and radiance. He wanted to be an actor, and trained as a nurse to give himself a stable income. He practiced until he died. If you have been treated at The Alfred Hospital, he may have tended you in the operating theatre. He was the smiling, thin man with the sunburned face, and the dreadlocks.
Pip worked on a long film about the exploitation of coffee growers, accumulating stories bit by bit. Though he made films for Friends of the Earth, completed a number of short projects independently, guided several teams under terrible conditions, and shot beautiful footage with great determination, he did not have an Australian broadcaster willing to back him. They would not commit even one hour of national television time to a world view won by his experience and fortitude.
We assume that a completed program is the point. Slog our guts out to create an hour of television. His story reminds us that documentary is about witness, as much as meaning. Freed from further structure, Pip’s footage flows out like stones rolling across sand, pieces of a hard, gnarly truth. These things happened and I was there.
The funeral brought together so many communities, young and old. His family, resigned and bewildered. His queer companions. His ecological comrades. And his film mates as well. I was disappointed to see so few of them, to realise I knew nearly everyone. There is not a huge group of people using this new, magic recording technology to explore the crises of our time, or even track the sucession of small moments that cohere into a life.
The funeral was called a memorial service, and held by a pond in the Footscray Gardens. Under stress from lack of water, there was a film of dust on leaves, as the trucks rumbled in the distance, and the sun with its flat glare erased the sports paddock beyond the watery green. We were gathered in a semi circle, standing or sitting on white plastic chairs, under white umbrellas and shadecloth. A halting celebrant staggered through a recitation, some poems, a testimony, remembrances. A bit confused, we clapped.
Pip’s sinewy frame, his enquiring eyes, his mop of hair were packed into the cheapest of coffins. As the bearers took his body away to the fire, they played the favourites from his iPod. A nondescript collection, made to ride a bike and do the dishes, and not to celebrate a life and its myriad moments of joy and imagination.
They read out the text message he left to his friends. It goes, give or take a word or two, like this: “Tell everyone I’m sorry but I’m really happy with my choice. The world is beautiful. Love. it.”
He killed himself, of course.
I don’t know the words to take us forward from this point.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:22 am
Thanks for letting us know, David. I hadn’t realised. I never knew him, but of course used to see him around the traps, and at rallies and marches. And around the corridors of Trades Hall where SKA TV had their offices. (What’s happened to SKA, btw?)
I remember going to one of the earliest SKA TV activist awards at Storey Hall (perhaps it was the first) and so much of the footage of the activists – at Jabiluka, rallies here and there – was probably Pip’s. Of course, he was busy filming the proceedings. I don’t remember if he was mentioned in the awards.
David, did Pip tend to you at the Alfred? I’m not sure if you were at that hospital.
Let us know when the have the next Activist film festival and whether it features Pip’s films. It should.
“I don’t know the words to take us forward from this point.”
I know how you feel. Then again, of course, you/we could just say: “These things happened and I was there.”
February 1st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Grim news. I’ve been having a serious bawl hearing this. He is in my pantheon of idealism and activism with Andrew McNaughtan.
God hold him, and carry him. His choice, whoa, that’s very very very heavy.
If he means, we can’t win, he’s surely right. But that’s not such a good excuse. We have our duty even when it means certain failure.
We are only human, the universe is random. We might get lucky. We might be wrong and save this blighted planet?
Hold him and carry him, Great Spirit. Wish him good luck in the next place whatever it is. And tell him thankyou for all his work and troubles here.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:40 pm
There is more on Indybay.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 am
I worked with Stuart, I did not know him as Pip, at The Alfred, and while I knew of his doco work and passion for the enviroment, I didnt realise just how talented and commited he was.
From those that knew him from his Nursing life, we will miss his gentle nature, that beautiful smile and his curly locks, not suprising, like his Doco work he was a dedicated and professional Nurse.
You dont get to say this about many people, but I never heard anyone say a bad word against him, not once, not ever.
I am lucky to have met this talented bloke, I just wish that I and my work colleagues too, knew of just how talented he was, and we could have told him so.
Life must go on for those that are left, for his loved ones and family and friends, I feel for you, words dont ease the pain you are feeling.
Shine on Stuart, you are loved and you will be missed.
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for the entry David, but some of what you said is inaccurate. In honour of Stuart Hill I’d like to correct the record.
It wasn’t a memorial service but a Celebration of the life of Stuart Andrew Hill.
The comment about the celebrant was mean-spirited and also inaccurate. It was family and friends, who presented the poems and readings, and the sentiment of those readings was overlooked – they were very appropriate for Stuart’s life and all, including the celebrant, spoke from the heart.
The coffin was specifically chosen for its ecological soundness, to honour Stuart’s concern for the environment, and due to the low demand for such coffins they are not cheap as the blogger stated.
Another positive element of the celebration that was overlooked was the provision of a coffee-cart with free Fair Trade coffee for the hundreds of friends and family, in recognition of Stuart’s commitment to the social justice issues of the growing of coffee.
Bloggers need to be more than clever; they should take care to capture the feeling, and emotion especially of very personal events. Generosity of spirit is a positive contribution to the world, something that Stuart Hill lived by.
April 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I knew Stuart from grade one at primary school till Year 11 at Mildura High School and was one of his closest friends and in fact he was my first love and first kiss.
Stewie and I were always close and although we lost contact in our adult life I have always wondered and asked any one who may know what happened to him.
I was devastated to read of his death in the paper and also sad that at such late notice I was not able to attend his funeral.
My most precious memory of Stewie is his puppet plays that he entertained many primary school children with – yes he was always fun and ever the entertainer.
I am sad that he needed to leave us but hope he is now at rest from his worries.
Thankyou to the many people in his adult life that have filled me in on what he did with his life – I knew he was passionate and knew he would carry this through
Goodbye Stewie.
Le Le
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
The best dream I’ve ever had was last night or in the wee hours of this morning.
I was sitting at a table with some “friends” at a restaurant.
In my waking life, I don’t know who they are.
I looked “over there”.
It wasn’t quite out the window, and it wasn’t quite inside the restaurant.
Just “over there”.
And I saw my friend Pip.
(The one that killed himself 18 months ago)
I said to my friends at the table “Look, there’s Pip” and I pointed.
At this point Pip was in a furniture shop of all things.
“Can I go over there?” I asked my friends.
“Yes” they said. “Go”
And I said “But that’s the past. Are you sure it won’t mess things up?”
And they said “It’s fine. Go.”
So I did.
I ran towards him. “Pip!” I yelled.
He turned to me with a MASSIVE grin. “Hey spunk!!” he said.
I ran into his arms, and his lifted me up and twirled me around in his embrace.
He hair was shorter at the back than usual, and he looked healthy and happy…
Then my daughter Willa made some noises from the bottom bunk and I woke up.
I had completely forgotten that he rarely called me Michelle, just “spunk”.
RIP Pip Starr