ABSTRACT
Drawing on Monika Pietrzak-Franger's discussion of adaptations as palimpsests, this chapter examines the Australian feature films as adaptations. The chapter argues that reading Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Strictly Ballroom (1992), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) as adaptations reveals the ongoing construction of nation, heritage, and ethnicity in Australia. It demonstrates that through the process of adaptation these texts exist as layered versions of themselves and their surrounding contexts. They are palimpsests conjuring an image of Australian national identity at the same time as they deconstruct the notion of Australian-ness they are deemed to represent. The chapter draws attention to the adaptation process and how it relates to the construction of national identity by examining the multiple versions that exist for each adaptation. Adaptation studies can provide a new lens, through which the ongoing construction of myths, legends, and heroes that make up the land down under are revealed.
