Cinema Papers No.84 August 1991

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ARNOLD S C HWA R Z E NE G GE R IN J A M E S C A M E R O N S

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LE C I N E M A A U S T R A L I E N S c o t i: M u r r a y

France has been a happy hunting ground for Australian films in the past few months. Apart from the trumpeted success at Cannes of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s Proof, and, to a lesser degree, Leo Berkeley’s Holidays on theRiver Yama, there was the more significant (but less her­ alded) opening of the Centre Georges Pompidou retrospective of Le Cinéma Australien.

This event, one of the largest ever held in the world on a national cinema, includes 84 separate pro­ grammes, scanning Australian film production from footage of the 1896 Melbourne Cup to Proof (which opened the season). Rarely have critics, and film lovers, had the chance to so comprehensively gauge a national cinema’s development and cultural standing.

The event originated out of dis­ cussions between the Australian Film Commission and the Centre Pompidou in 1988. The local end was headed by Sue Murray, the AFC’s Director of Marketing, and Victoria Treole, Co-ordinator Festi­ vals and Special Events, assisted by project co-ordinator Sue O’Neill.

In Paris, Jean-Loup Passek (Con­ seiller cinéma to the Centre) oversaw the whole operation, with Claudine Thoridnet (who lived for a time in Australia) supervising the programme and the publications.

The selection of films has been widely applauded by those who have so far scruti­ nized the programme, though inevitably some quibbles will be raised. Final decisions were made by Passek, after extensive consultation with the AFC. If a known film is not included, that is almost always the result of a decision based on a prior viewing.

As well, some films of importance were not selected because the programme might have begun to look like a homage to certain directors only (George Miller, etc.). As it is, there is a Peter Weir retrospective, which was first screened at the La Rochelle Film Festival in July, which Passek also runs.

P u b lic a tio n s

As with all Pompidou film events, there is a large and impressive reference work, plus smaller programme booklets. For the first time ever, the reference book was written outside France. Though French critics are as knowledgeable as any on most world cin­ emas, it was felt too few Australian films had been seen in France to provide the basis for an in-depth overview.

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Contributors to the book include Adrian Martin (Short Films), Megan McMurchy (Documentary), Phillip Adams (The New Wave), Debi Enker (Australia and Austra­ lians), Graham Shirley (1896 to 1975) and Ross Gibson (Formative Landscapes). There is also an Preface by Gough Whitlam, as well as a Tableau (of historic social and political events linked with cinematic highpoints), Fil­ mographies and Credits of all the films shown.

Films of the 1970s and 1980s were covered by this author, who also edited the text. The whole book was then translated into French (under Thoridnet’s supervision). An English edition will be published in Australia next year.

T h e O p e n in g

The season opened post-Cannes, allowing the AFC and the Pompidou to mount some publicity at the Festival. But the real ground­ work had already been done when the AFC invited representatives of the key French me­ dia to Australia in March so that they could prepare stories in time for the opening. In Henri Behar’s case, that meant a beautifullyresearched six pages in Le Monde on 29 May, an unheard-of amount of coverage.

Being post-Cannes also meant the AFC could capitalize on those featured Austra­

lians who had gone over to Cannes (Jocelyn Moorhouse, Leo Berkeley, Ian Pringle, etc.). Others, includ­ ing Gough Whitlam, were flown in.

Festivities began with a cocktail party at the Australian Embassy in Paris on Monday 27 May, supported by the Australia France Foundation.

This is situated in one of the best positions in Paris (15e), and has a view from the residence that alone justifies Whitlam’s decision as Prime Minister to buy the site. The Ambas­ sador and Mrs Edward Pocock hosted the event. In attendance were Whitlam and Barryjones MHR (the upcoming leadership battle was a much discussed topic); Chris Noonan (Chairman), Cathy Rob­ inson (Chief Executive), Sue Murray and Victoria Treole of the AFC; Madame Ahrweiller (Présidente), Jean-Loup Passek and Claudine Thoridnet of Pompidou; film activist Pierre Rissient; producer Alain De­ pardieu; Danielle Heymann, cul­ tural editor of Le Monde', Pierre Cottrell, sub-titler and producer; various Australian filmmakers; plus many others from the film and cul­ tural worlds.

The next night was the formal opening at the Beaubourg Centre, the build­ ing many consider ranks among the world’s ugliest. But as Pompidou staff are only too quick to point out, the Centre is an enormous public success with 25,000 attendees per day.

And each of them, even if they don’t attend a screening, is most likely to see the vast promo­ tional material for the Australian event. This is cultural promotion on a massive scale.

Passek, Noonan and Whitlam were cho­ sen to open the proceedings. As usual, Whitlam was witty and insightful, giving the French a sense of (European) sophistication which may prove hard to find on visiting the antipodes. Several of the Australian delega­ tion were then presented.

The whole procedure (minus Whitlam) was then repeated in another cinema half an hour later because the number of people who had turned up was so high that an overflow cinema had to be opened.

After the two screenings of Proof(with reels being rushed one by one to the second cin­ ema), guests milled in the vast Pompidou foyer for drinks and chatter. The film went down rather well, though some felt it an inappropriately thin choice for an event hon­ ouring the peaks of Australian cinema. The whole reaction to, and knowledge of,, the event was extremely pleasing.

Th e P ro g ra m m e

The next day the programme began: three films a day from 29 May to 14 October (with the obligatory August break). Each of the 107 films is screened three times, spread apart, giving Parisian filmgoers a chance to catch up on those films with good word of mouth.

On the first day, the programme was The Last of the Knucklemen (Tim Burstall), John Farrow’s seminal U.S. film, His Kind of Woman, and Ian Pringle’s finest, Wrong World.

The next day began with a bracketing of two shorts, Paul J. Hogan’s Getting Wet and Merilee Bennett’s A Song of Air, with Paulette McDonagh’s 1930 classic, The Cheaters. This was followed, in starding contrast, by Richard Lowenstein’sDogsmSjfraœand Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm.

Some have felt the selection of films on a particular day to be too varied: i.e., Pompidou should have played three classics in succes­ sion, or three thrillers, or whatever. But this very variety is indicative of the diversity of Australian cinema (at least at the top end).

One must also take into account that Paris is the cinéaste paradise of the world, with more than 300 films screening a week. Getting anyone in for even a single film is a significant achievement.

And, so far, attendances have been good and building. More important, critics have been taking note. It is too early to say yet how the major French critics will react to the entire event, but a reaction of any sort is crucial to a widening critical debate on Aus­ tralian cinema.

What is known by many buffs, but is little discussed or written about in the media at large, is that French critics have been largely responsible for the critical reputations of many of the world’s most applauded directors.

American directorssuch asjohn Ford, Howard Hawks and Douglas Sirk owe much of their present reputations to French revivals of their work. As for Raoul Walsh, directorJean-Pierre Melville exclusively credits critical recogni­ tion to Pierre Rissient. Then there are the cases of Leo McCarey, Nicholas Ray, et al.

More recently, the French critics, and the Centre Pompidou, have been vitally respon­ sible for spreading acclaim on several na­ tional fronts. The Pompidou recently held a tribute to the cinema of Central and Asian USSR, breaking the previous concentration on Russian films. It was not long before films from this area were popping up at film festi­ vals all over the globe. Articles and reviews soon followed.

After Australia at the Centre Pompidou comes the Mexican cinema, and one can already see Mexican films turning up at the Melbourne and Sydney festivals. As well, the odd journalist from The Age, et al, when on American reconnaissance, may start filing back the occasional item on cinema south of the border. And so it goes.

All in all, the Centre Georges Pompidou event on Le Cinéma Australien will have re­ percussions long into the future. Let us hope that those who see (parts of) this massive and essentially well-selected programme will write with the same enthusiasm and joy with which the whole event was organized.

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THE EDI TOR CI NEMA PAPERS DEAR SIR,

As two of the members of Huzzah Produc­ tions and of the sound editing team that worked on the feature Dead to the World, we would like to thank you for the extensive coverage given to the film in your May 1991 issue.

However, we fear that in relation to the subject of the soundtrack of the film, some of the published version of the interview with Huzzah Productions has a presump­ tuousness which the original transcript of the interview did not possess. It seems that in the editing process, the suggestion that we undervalue the efforts and achieve­ ments of other workers in the field of sound recording/editing/mixing has crept into the text. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We respect your position as editor of the magazine and realize that your job is not an easy one. We in no way intend this letter as a criticism of your editing deci­ sions. We merely wish to set the record straight in relation to what we were trying to say in the interview.

We attempted to explain the manner in which we had worked to make Dead to the World's soundtrack interesting and innova­ tive. We tried to clarify the differentways in which we approached both the concept and the realization of the track. We did not claim, and did not wish it to sound as if we claimed, that our work was in any way better, or more thorough, than sound work done on other Australian films.

As friends and colleagues of many of those involved in film sound we have the utmost respect and admiration for their work - work the excellence of which has been recognized world-wide.

We are sorry if anyone has been of­ fended by our (considerably rearranged and reworked) comments and hope that they will understand, as only someone working in sound possibly can, that noth­ ing ever ends up appearing (or sounding) as you intended it. Again, our apologies.

Sincerely, Andrew Plain and Adrienne Parr THE E D I T O R R E P L I E S

The first response to this curious letter is to point out that Huzzah Productions was so pleased with the interview prior to publica­ tion that it sought, and received, permis­

sion to reprint it for use as press material at the Cannes Film Festival. Strange now this mercurial dissociation.

It is true, though, that the writers of this letter do have reason to be concerned with the tone of presumption. But they are un­ necessarily philanthropic in ascribing it all to themselves.

The tone of the original text was a concern from the moment the text arrived (transcribed from cassette and edited by the interviewer, Peter Galvin). The Editor of Cinema Papers even held an informal conversation with a marketing expert to get a second opinion in case the interview was felt to be a liability in terms of sales. While the expert expressed similar apprehension, it was felt that the interview must stand.

Then, after the normal subbing for grammar and house style, the interview was faxed to Huzzah Productions for checking.

A deadline was agreed by phone.

This policy of sending out Australian question-and-answer interviews for check­ ing is followed by extremely few journals worldwide. But Cinema Papers believes strongly in reflecting accurately and fairly an interviewee’s thoughts and opinions.

This checking policy also enables the interviewee to suggest rewordings, or new information, which might be felt to im­ prove the interview. However, Cinema Pa­ pers always reserves the right to approve such changes, which in almost all cases it does. (A recent exception was where Jane Campion so rewrote sections of her inter­ view that they bore little resemblance to the original in key regards; consequently, only some of her revisions were accepted.)

Despite the agreed deadline, Huzzah did not fax back in time. Whereas almost all interviewees enthusiastically reply within 24 hours, Huzzah took 14 days. This was way outside the agreed deadline and, by the time the suggested changes arrived, the magazine was already at press. (Huzzah was immediately notified of this.)

Accompanying the returned text was a note by Huzzah’s John Cruthers: ‘We’ve reworked this interview a bit ... plus the sound material is less contentious.” Clearly Cruthers understood the problems of tone, but, importantly, he made no suggestion that the Editor of Cinema Papers was at fault.

As for Plain and Parr’s assertion that “We did not claim, and did not wish it to sound as if we claimed, that our work was in any way better, or more thorough, than sound work done on other Australian films” the reader is well capable of assessing.

CORRIGENDUM

Daniel Kaan’s name was inadvertently misspelt in “Scriptwriting on the Macintosh” ( Cinema Papers, No. 82, pp. 68-69). Kaan would also like it noted that his article was written in his capacity as Computer Operations Manager, Australian Film Commission.

B RI E F L Y " C O N CL U D E S

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AOI, A THAI PROSTITUTE, AND FILMMAKER DENNIS O'ROURKE (ABOVE) W H O "W ENT TO BANGKOK W ITH THE EXPRESS PLAN TO MEET AN D 'FALL IN LOVE' ...

AN D MAKE A FILM."

DENNIS O’ROURKE HAS LONG BEEN ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S FINEST MAKERS OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS, IF NOT THE FINEST. HIS WORK HAS RANGED FROM THAT WITTY BLACK COMEDY ABOUT COMMERCIAL IMPERIALISM TINCTURING NATIVE CULTURES, YAP ... HOW DID YOU KNOW WE’D LIKE TV? (1980), TO THE SOMBRE, CHILLING HALF LIFE: A PARABLE FOR THE NUCLEAR AGE ( 1985). HE HAS CONTINUALLY PIONEERED NEW FORMS OF NON-FICTION STORYTELLING, ALWAYS ENTHRALLING AND EXCITING HIS EVER-WIDENING AUDIENCE. IN SEVERAL IMPORTANT WAYS, O’ROURKE’S LATEST FILM, THE GOOD WOMAN OF BANGKOK, IS AN ADVANCE ON AND DEPARTURE FROM HIS PREVIOUS WORK. AT FIRST GLANCE, IT IS AN AT-TIMES HARROWING ACCOUNT OF ONE WOMAN’S LIFE IN AND OUTSIDE THE WORLD OF PROSTITUTION IN BANGKOK. AT ANOTHER, IT IS A FILMMAKER’S ANALYSIS OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN INTERVIEWEE AND INTERVIEWER, ON THIS OCCASION A CONNECTION ENCODED BY A PERSONAL, SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP. 4

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REVEALS AS^ECTf OF THAT OFF- AND ONSCREEN RELATIONSHIP. IT l& ONLY ON A SUBSEQUENT VIEWING OF THEFI THAT A PUZZLING INTERREGNUM OPENS UP BETWEEN THE FILM AS DESCRIBED AND THE FILM AS VIEWED. DESPi \ O'ROURKE’S ANALYSIS OF HIS. PERSONAL ROLE IN TljE FILM, AND HOW THE FILM EXPOSES HIE OWN SEXUALI

O’ROURKE IS NEVER TO BE SEEN, THOUGH HIS VOICE IS tfcCASJONAlfLY HEARD. IT IS NdT THE PLACE HERETO SCRUTINIZE WHY THERi lS THAT DISPARITY (SOME REPORTstsUGGEST THE MO ‘PERSONAL’ FOOTAGE WAS DELETED ^ THE FINAL EDIT). SUFfI c E TO SAY, INSTEAD, THAT THIS PRINTED. INTERVIEW A *»THE RELEASED. FILM PROVIDE PARACEL AND JNTER-RELATED ANALYSES 6^ THE ONE SUBJECT,- REFLECTING ON T VERY NATURE OF ‘FICT|ON’ IN CINEm £ ONE WOULD pXPECT NOTHINGNESS COMPLEX, FROM tH|S MOST ORIGIN * FILMMAKER- [S.M.]

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DENNIS O ’ ROURKE “ M y s t a r t in g p o in t, o f c o u r s e , i s t h a t i t ’s a ll s t o r y - t e l l i n g ; i t ’s a ll c i n e m a , g o o d o r b a d , f ic t io n o r n o n -f ic t io n . I r e f u s e t o a c c e p t t h a t t h e r e is a n im m u t a b le c r o s s -o v e r p o in t .”

FO R M S OF D O C U M EN TA R Y

How would you differentiate The Good Woman of Bangkok from the rest o f your body o f work?

Well, to talk of a “body of work” is a bit of a problem because it is a constandy changing thing, always re-defined by the latest film. In that sense, The Good Woman of Bangkok sits at the end of a journey, at the culmination of a personal quest for definition about what one can do with the form of cinema they call “documentary”.

There are two elements one imagines as being different: you have put yourself into the documentary, making it even more subjective than usual, and your starting motivations were quite unique.

Both those things are true. It was a very conscious thing to include myself. I went to Bangkok with the express plan to m eet and “fall in love” - put that in quotations because it was for the purposes of my project - and make a film.

Now, all that was happening alongside the other process of my coming to terms with ideas about the whole nature of non-fiction film. I find most documentary films are unwatchable and worthless as art in the broadest sense.

At the same time, I wouldn’t have worked in this field for 15 years if I didn ’t believe that it can be a very high form of art indeed.

Within the form there is a possibility of creating something of very great value in the same way that it is accomplished in certain kinds of non-fiction writing - metafiction, as they call it - and pure non­ fiction writing as well.

Generally speaking, documentaries get theatrically released, or are seen in a critical environment like festivals, because of the cachet which attaches to who makes them or who’s in them. There is also the topicality of the subject and the whole conscience factor,

the ghastly theological pretensions of all these documentary filmmakers - Don Quixote characters - tilting at windmills.

What happens is that the cultural role of the committed documentary is essentially one where the filmmaker becomes the protagonist/hero of the work, even though he or she is not necessarily in it. But of course the filmmakers are: they are alluded to by their sense of their own goodness and worth, by their theological position. I detest all that and I can speak with some authority because I have discerned it in some of my earlier work.

Specifically, what do you mean by theological pretensions?

Unfortunately, the level of critical debate is so appallingly low that maybe even the filmmakers don’teven knowwhat they’re doing at a conscious level. But they are performing the role of gurus, or priests/priestesses, to the constituencies out there who cannot differentiate between slogans and ideals. You can take examples from my own films: nuclear war and the appallingness of the prospect; or Nicaragua, which was popular a few years ago; or Aboriginal people and the environment, which are in vogue these days.

The process of going to the cinema and seeing the film is one of catharsis - like going through a revival meeting. The filmmaker is the culture hero because he or she has been the vehicle to deliver this experience - preaching to the converted.

I was not interested in that, even though an aura was building up around me. I never invited it, but I had, through my own political and personal convictions, chosen subjects which had wide exposure. Suddenly there was something happening that I didn’t really like.

So it was a conscious decision to move away?

Yes. I wanted to say something about the whole movement and the core practitioner’s/critic’s assessment of the non­ fiction form, which I find full of self-delusions and pretensions.

My starting point, of course, is that it’s all story­ telling; it’s all cinema, good or bad, fiction or non­ fiction. I refuse to accept that there is an immutable cross-over point. Most of my heroes are fiction filmmakers who make films which have that won­ derful quality of cinema which can be achieved in the so-called documentary film -p eo p le like Bresson and Ozu. * What, then, is your opinion o f the hybrid, height­ ened reality o f docu-drama films, like the Film Australia series of Malpractice, Prejudice and so on?

I haven’t seen them, so I can’t really say. But I have great problems with docu-drama as a generic form practised by the BBC, including the Ken Loach and Peter Watkins stuff. It is very inferior dramatic fiction film m aking and in ferio r non-fiction filmmaking. We even see it now in films which d o n ’t call themselves “docu-drama”. Commercial docuA O l: LIKE SHEN TEE IN BRECHT'S PLAY, THE G O O D PERSON OF SZECHW AN, SHE IS A G O O D W O M A N IN A WICKED WORLD. THE G O O D W O M A N OF BAN G K OK .

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mentary films often have one or two scenes which use certain kinds of simplistic narrative fiction devices. I’m just not impressed.

What I want to do instead is apply all the armoury of the cinematic apparatus without stepping across into film-theatre.

The work of Bresson defines it. I would hope that when I make films which do use actors - professional and non-professional that they achieve the same quality, the same result, in terms of fusing the whole work. I hope, too, that I have done that with my new film.

TH E G O O D W O M A N O F B A N G K O K

What was the genesis of The Good Woman of Bangkok It was a conjunction of several things. One was my incredible dissatisfaction with “the documentary film”. As I said, there was a lot of pretexts that were not being challenged, especially the theological perspective, and I wanted to tackle them. Second, I felt the need to explore all the forms of cinematic expression. There is an enormous potential that has hardly been realized in the non­ fiction film. The potential is immense, but it has been stymied by the incestuous professional and critical orthodoxy which has defined the documentary film in simplistic, moralistic opposition to theatrical entertainm ent films.

As a practitioner, I also felt personally quite trapped in some­ body else ’s ideas of who I was. While making films that became well known, I realized more and more how insidious and essentially fake this prom otion of the filmmaker as culture hero is.

There was also the fact that I’d come to the end of my marriage.

It was a love affaire that lasted quite a long time, spanning all my work as a non-fiction filmmaker. With it came the realization that

DENNIS O'ROURKE AN D AO I POSE FOR A SELF-PORTRAIT IN THEIR ROOM AT THE ROSE HOTEL, BANGKO K.

my mind was very much on ideas of sexuality and the relationships between men and women.

Even though sexual love is the pre-eminent thing of all great artistic work, and is seen in narrative cinema, novels, paintings and music, non-fiction filmmakers never deal with it. They may deal with sexual politics in that holier-than-thou way, but I wanted to make a film which was, at its most obvious level of definition, a non­ fiction film or documentary, and yet one about sexual love.

You’ll notice in the end credits of the film that I have called the film a “documentary fiction film”. I’m quite happy with that seemingly contradictory term.

So, I wanted to do something about sex in its various manifes­ tations. At that stage, I hadn’t hit on the idea of doing it within the world of prostitution, although thinking back on it now it was a pretty obvious way to go. Many other male writers and filmmakers had gone exactly there. It’s not a new idea for an artist - a man to connect with prostitutes in order to say something about himself and male-female relationships.

At this time, I was travelling quite a lot to Europe on the film festival circuit with “Cannibal Tours’’. And, as I had done for years, I went through Bangkok. In fact, I first went to Bangkok in 1978, when I was researching a documentary for American public television on the border of Cambodia. I looked up Neil Davis, the Australian cameraman who was working there, and said I wanted to stay somewhere close in town. He put me onto the Rose Hotel, the very hotel where I made this film 12 years later.

As a result of this and other visits, I was well aware of the whole bar scene there. I was titillated by it, but I was scared. Like many CINEMA

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LOVE FOR SALE. ONE CAN HAVE A N Y GIRL FOR 20 DOLLARS A NIGHT. THE G O O D W O M A N OF B AN G K O K .

other people, I’d go out and look, but I never took advantage of it, with one night excepted.

On a later visit, when I was returning from the Munich Film Festival, I was feeling rather despondent about things in my personal life. My marriage had ended; I was 43 and in crisis. I had lost faith in love. I needed to redefine love.

As I had been experim enting with the new low-cost video systems, I thought, “What I will do tonight is record on video the act of going to a bar and being picked up by a prostitute. I’ll go through the whole procedure and attem pt to film as much as I can of it.” And I did that. I hooked up with a girl called Tam for the night and stayed in a cheap hotel. I was actually booked into a businessman’s five-star hotel on an overnight stop-over, but I couldn’t take a prostitute there.

It was quite a pleasant night, from my point of view, and I told Tam about my kids and what my profession was. She gave me a hairclip to give to my daughter, which I thought that was so charming. Now I realize it was just a standard prostitute’s trick to get a larger tip out of the customer.1 The whole process was something new for me and I was completely delirious. I didn’t realize that she was working on me the same way that these women work on all their customers.

At 6.00 the next morning, I caught my flight back to Australia, where I looked at these videotapes. There was the act of prostitu­ tion - fucking I m ean - and there was talking about who I was and why. Most of it was myjust playing the role of the filmmaker in an attem pt to conflate the ego of the man behind the camera and the man who lusted after a prostitute. This is not to say that the two were immutably inseparable and always would be.

There is a whole plethora of films that have been done in Bangkok and places like that where the filmmakers say, “Isn’t it dreadful”, and when it’s all shot they go to their hotel and scrub up, before going back and fucking all night in the brothels. T hat never appears in their films.

I was aware of such films, and decided that if I did make this film it would start the other way round. If you are going to get anywhere in making films about sexuality, you first have to admit to your own sexuality. It is exposure first, then work from there.

Since then I have been in the process of crafting the film and finessing my ideas. I am nowhere near as exposed as I was that first night. That was a naive exposure; my exposure now is one that I have a realization of.

Didn’t you find turning the camera on yourself extremely awk­ ward?

No, because I was pretty crazy at the time. I had decided to do something quite mad.

A lot of the clients of these women, and this is alluded to in the film, actually make videos of their fucking the girls, which they then take home for their own delectation. T hat was not my interest. Ijust wanted to have some kind of a visual record of being in this process with hundreds of other men. I am ostensibly no different to them. The only difference is that I had another agenda, which was to make some kind of a work out of the experience.

When I showed the hour-and-a-half of video-8 material to a couple of people in Australia, the consensus was that it would qualify as a middle-aged documentary-maker’s delusion. But they also felt there was the possibility of my doing something serious in new territory. It was then I decided to make a film about this subject.

DENNIS O ’ ROURKE “ B e f o r e w o r k in g o n t h e f ilm , I h a d r e -r e a d B r e c h t ’s p la y , T h e G o o d ! P e r s o n o f S z e c h w a n . I t h o u g h t , ‘T h a t ’ s w h a t I ’ m d o i n g

h e r e ’ , a n d t h a t ’s w h e r e t h e t i t l e c o m e s f r o m . H e r e w a s a n iro n ic p a r a b le a b o u t t h e im p o s s ib ilit y o f b e in g g o o d in a n e v il w o r l d . ”

As it happened, I had a little bit of money from the Australian Film Commission’s Documentary Fellowship Scheme which gave me the chance to make a film on any subject I chose. It was very useful for me to be able to go and make something without having to worry about securing pre-sales, which invariably mean having to make the exact film I said I’d make. The Fellowship allowed me to be this experimental for the first, and possibly last, time in my working life.

I then went back to Bangkok a few weeks later en route to a film festival in Italy. I stopped over a few more days this time, and not just one night like the time before. I was quite excited by now. I had made that initial step, a step I would later liken to hurling myself off the cliff, then trying to get back up again. But I wasn’t thinking in those terms. What I had was the perfect artistic fantasy. I was male, in the process of being freed from my marriage, and I was back in Thailand doing what all the other men do. And I had found, it seemed, a way of doing this which also took care of a lot of the guilt.

I immediately went off to the bar where Tam was working. At first I couldn ’t see h e r - maybe she was with another customer - but then she appeared. She came towards me, smiled the typical smile and said, “Hello, my nam e is Tam .” She didn’t rem em ber me.

I got to know her a bit over the next few weeks. It turned out she had m arried a German and had worked in brothels in Berlin. I then went out to the provinces and met her family.

Tam isn’t in the film, nor is any of the video I shot that night.

Instead, I kept looking for a woman that only I could intuitively decide would be right for it. I had a shopping-list of qualifications.

I didn’t want someone who had just started working, but someone with a wealth of experience, who was intelligent. It sounds a bit patronizing, but I didn’t want somebody to just be a victim.

Not too long after, in fact the next time I wen t back to Bangkok, I m et Aoi. She ‘had ’ all the external qualities ofvictimhood, but her strength was obvious from the first night. It was 3 a.m. when the pimp introduced her to me. He said I could take her for 500 baht ($20) and keep her until the afternoon. I gazed at her for a long time. The pim p’s words m eant nothing. I was in the process of meeting a woman.

W hen he walked away, we talked. I said I would pay the bar and take her back to my hotel. I also said, “I won’t fuck you.”

She asked for the name of my hotel and the room number, and said she would come at six, when the bar closed. Later, I learned that this was to be sure that she, and not her pimp, would get my money.

We had sex for the first time some nights later. I think she was feeling guilty that she was getting money for nothing. But every night we talked, and I was inspired to tell her story.

A O I “It’s so long since I was young. I am 25 now. I’ve never had a really happy life, only fake happiness. I am a woman with only one eye and a woman who earns money by going with men. In the past, before I worked in the bar, I needed love very much.

I wanted somebody who would understand and love me. And I would love him too. I never thought about money. Then I came to work in bars. Only for money. I had been hurt too much by love, Now I don’t need love, I only need money.”

Before working on the film, I had re-read Brecht’s play, The Good Person of Szechwan. I thought, “T hat’s what I’m doing h ere”, and that’s where the title comes from. Here was an ironic parable about the impossibility of being good in an evil world. Shen Tee in the play is a prostitute and, when you see the film, you will realize what parallels there are.

I then attem pted to make my film more cinematic; it’s not Brechtian theatre, I hope, because that would make for terrible cinema. But a lot of the film was informed by these ideas.

So, that was the sort of genesis of the film. A lot of it was as haphazard as life. And when I first m et Aoi - which is recorded in the film - 1 made sure she didn’t know what I was intending. I was just another customer. I wanted to start from this premise of meeting prostitutes just as any customer would, in the same morally impossible way.

You earlier called this film “documentary fiction”. You obviously don’t believe in a strict differentiation between fiction and non­ fiction.

The distinction is very, very clear in terms of the critical establish­ m ent and the methods of distribution. I have no delusions about that. This is not an entertainm ent fiction film. But in terms of my idea of what cinema is, the pure idea of cinema, one can achieve just as significant things in the area of non-fiction.

All these definitions are odious and imprecise. But there are certain ideas which actually can be best expressed using a form of cinema which is more like non-fiction than fiction.

In theory, the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that the fiction director can tell the actor what to do.

Well in theory only-in the theories of lies. And then there’s cinéma vérité. But what is that anyway? The art of telling beautiful lies.

To what extent, then, do you change the parameters for yourself?

I believe that I mediate the performances of people in all my films.

But let’s not start there. There is another level to do with the perceptions of the spectator.

T ake #37 in a Francis Ford Coppola film is different to Take #37 in a Dennis O ’Rourke film or a David Bradbury film, because Coppola’s Take #37 could be almost identical to Take #1 or #35.

But Take #37 in a documentary film of any kind is unique.

[Laughs.] I assure you I never do anything like 37 takes! This is purely for example.

O f course, good fiction these days more and more exploits that very idea of happenstance, of the inability to pin things down. Even bad films, like Dances with Wolves, manage to do it quite well, in the sense that what happens becomes. People have been so precious about this, and won’t admit it, but any filmmaker who is big enough will always admit to it.

But there is still a fundamental difference. If you have a tightly scripted scene, Actor A is required to say certain words to Actor B. Although changes can happen, everything is more-or-less pre­ determined; you know that it will move from here to there and so on, and the mise-en-scène is built accordingly.

In the non-fiction film, where there are many takes of the same thing, they’re all varied, otherwise you wouldn’t need to do them m ore than once. And each take has a kind of evidential quality that CINEMA

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is different from the other - except in those really old-fashionedtype documentaries where everything is scripted down to the last line. Things are happening in the chaos of life.

So, to what degree did you direct Aoi? The point is: How did I direct Aoi? First of all, I willed myself to fall in love with her. Whoever it was going to be, that was the deal.

Therefore, an intensity developed between us. We used to argue about it. She said, “I know you only want me for the film.” And Fd say, “Yeah, you only want me for the money Fm giving you.”We had the classic client-prostitute relationship, each with a separate and different agenda.

But within all of that, and we stayed togedier for 9 months, on and off, we also had something else. It was there. It was sexual and we managed to actually get to know each other. We were able to really affect each other emotionally, in a way that only lovers can.

At the same time, I don’t resile from what is the obvious truth, and that is it would never have happened had I not been motivated to pluck one bar girl out of 5,000 and make a film about her. I had already written that as my intention in a one-page scenario before I went to Bangkok to start filming.

AO I “I hate men. All men lie and cheat. They live to deceive.

There are no sincere men. They cheat and deceive all the time. I have known so many men. Thai men and foreign men; I know them all. They all lie. Everyman: Thai or foreign. Every country. Only lie."

In the film, Aoi has a privileged position of talking to the audience. It is outside any other kind of filmic time and it’s very special. She bares the soul; it is a bit akin to psychoanalysis in a way.

These scenes were all done in mammoth sessions on low-band videotape, which we later transferred to film. It always happened very late at night or very early in the morning when she had finished work. Mostly she would be under the influence of some kind of drug or alcohol, and it would all take place in my hotel room.

There is about 25 minutes of this material in the film. She talks in the most intimate way, starting with practical stuff: how she came to prostitution, her relationships with her family and her exhusband, how she deals with the customers, what she feels about life in general, men in general, and everything else. The shot doesn’tvary, except slightly in size. You think she’s looking directly at camera, but after a while you realize she’s not looking at the camera and that she’s not even talking to you. She’s looking into a mirror and talking to herself. Aoi, the actress, is like Frida Kahlo painting her self-portrait.

T here’s one scene in the film, mid-way through, which actually shows this. There is a cut to a wide-shot of the hotel room and suddenly the video camera is shown filming her in the mirror.

We did this for about 40 hours. But the 40 hours wasn’t all different; it was the same process of revelation multiplied by 5 or 10. O f these self-portrait scenes, one is included in the film.

There were only two things shot on video: the scenes inside the bar, which I did clandestinely, and these long sessions of almost psychoanalysis. I am a witness, as is my little video camera, to all of 10

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Aoi’s outpourings, to her unlocking her innermost secrets. That was all planned, all manipulated. We had enormous fights. Fd wait until she was vulnerable, because that was when she most wanted to talk. And she would talkfor hours, in Thai mostly, but sometimes in English. They were monologues with maybe 10 per cent re­ served as a dialogue. She knew that everything she said I was going to take back to Australia and have translated precisely, and thus would know what she’d said. So she’d talk about me, and to me, through that.

I found that out later and put it in the film: how she thought I was manipulating her and how^everything I did was to manipulate her to make the film. As she says in the film: “You are the sky and I am the ground. I amjust rotten garbage.

You pulled me out of the rubbish heap only because you want to make this film. I think everything you do and say to me is to manipulate me for your film. My friends tell me that, even if you have promised to buy me a rice farm, it’s not a big thing.

Compared with your film, it’s not much. Fm sure you’ll get much more from your film. But I think it’s all right; you’re doing me a favour. I can help you, too.”

So, that was one level of my directing her. Then there are these other scenes of Aoi where Fd say, “Do that, do this.” She was an actress for my film.

You have just explained “documentary fiction film” ...

A O I: "IT'S SO LO N G SINCE I W AS Y O U N G . I AM 25 N O W .

I'VE NEVER HAD A REALLY HAPPY LIFE, O N LY FAKE HAPPINESS." THE G O O D W O M A N O F B AN G K O K .

But The Good Woman is not really a film about prostitution.

No. But then nor are all these other films.

In earlier times, to say honest things about men and women and sex, you had to go right outside in order to get away from the whole religious perspective on the stuff. Now that’s less necessary.

But there are incredible myths built up based on race and culture, Asian women and western m en’s fantasies about them.

Y O U N G A M E R IC A N

B A R C L IE N T

“These women are top of the line. Their bodies are the best.

Their minds have the right attitude ... You can't beat the attitude of these girls. There’s no girl in the world [except those here] that’ll give you a shower, give you a blow job, fuck your brains out and fold your clothes with a smile on her face. Dammit, nowhere.”

It wouldn’t have been good enough to do it here in Kings Cross.

There had to be cross-lines of culture with jet planes coming and going, and foreign languages. It had to be third world, first world, of brown and white, rich and poor.

Why? To give you more layers, a more complex scenario, to work with?

Starting from a documentary source. ... but it doesn’t deal with some of the crucial questions. Surely the most difficult thing for a documentary maker, given what you said earlier, is taking a moral position.

I did have a very strong moral position, of course. But it will be very interesting when the film is released to see what responses it gets.

I think I’ll be very hurt by a lot of the reactions. But there’s really no way I can defend anything that I have done because the only way to do that would be to disown the film. And I can’t disown the film because that is what I set out to do. I believe in it.

The film is the only defence I have. I don’t lose sleep over it; I’m just aware of it. Presumably it’s inadequate. If we were to bring Immanuel Kant in here to talk about what I’ve done, I think he would probably call it a moral failure.

The degree to which I’m compromised, fragile or weak is no different to others. Maybe there are some very saintly people out there who are so much better than me, but I don’t think that. Ijust put myself in the position in the film of being a customer of this woman. There is plenty of homosexual prostitution that occurs, but I could not have made a film on that because I don’t have men as lovers. I have women as lovers; that’s why I could do this one.

TheGood Woman of Bangkok is very different to afilm thatwomen would make about prostitution. As you know, most of these sort of films made in the past few years have been done by women.

It makes it easier to put the political thing right. It also came about because I had gone by myself to Bangkok. I was often alone for weeks on end when Aoi was away with other customers. Later, I found out that she had a Thai boyfriend of long-standing who worked in the bar as a doorman. He was like a quasi-pimp and he used to watch his girl every night. This is not in the film because it was not relevant to my own project and what I was trying to say ... whatever that is.

The film was an evolving thing, and it still is. I haven’t even seen a finished print and I won’t know it for another year or so, until I have seen it with a lot of audiences. I believe in this process. There is nothing certain about what its meaning is; it’s still to be found, and by me, as well. The meaning is plural, all things are palpable, none is known.

Although you won’t know fully for another year, can you say how making the film has changed you?

Oh yes, immeasurably. For instance, I cannot imagine ever having the lustful desire to be with an Asian prostitute again. I d o n ’t think that’s something I’m likely to do. This doesn’t elevate me in any way; it’s just that I know too much.

I also made a decision, stupid maybe, not to take precautions against sexually transmitted diseases. That was the state I was in. I knew I wasn’t about to transmit anything to anybody else and I thought my little bit of exposure would be equivalent to that faced by the other people I was working with.

Also, I was alone. I didn’t have white male company. Very rarely a friend would drop in en route from somewhere to somewhere.

But mostly I just worked for myself and with Aoi. And sometimes she wasn ’t there either, so I roamed the bars and worked alone with my little camera.

It was a strange way to make a film, really. It took nine months, though I would come back to Australia every three months to see CINEMA

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THAI BAR GIRLS: "IT'S N O T A NEW IDEA FOR A N ARTIST - A M A N - TO CONNECT W ITH PROSTITUTES IN ORDER TO SAY SOMETHING AB O UT HIMSELF AN D MALE-FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS." THE G O O D W O M A N O F BAN G K O K .

my kids for a few weeks, before going back again. It is not a process I want to repeat.

How do you feel now about Aoi? Well, I d o n ’t desire her. But for the whole time I was there, more or less, I did desire her. I was jealous of her boyfriend. She and he are still together. We are comrades; we have been through some­ thing together.

I like her very much, but I wouldn’t do anything to keep it the way it was then. Things changed, and quite some time ago. The film refers to this when it states at the end of the film that I bought Aoi a rice farm before I left Thailand. The idea was for her to be able to support herself and her family in the village, without resorting to prostitution.

I’ve been back a couple of times since then, most recently a few m onths ago, when I went to do some final filming.

I had wanted very much for her to stop working and that was very much on my mind when I went back. I couldn’t find her for some time, but then I found her working in a place that was worse than before. I felt a great sense o f ... well, I know her.

In all my life, she is one woman that I have loved and got to know very, very well. Some of that knowledge came during the process of making the film, and after I had left Thailand with 40 hours of Aoi talking to me, directly or obliquely. I know so much about her and the audience will learn a lot, too.

To use her term, I “m anipulated” her to channel all of the incredible, improbable, impossible emotional status that existed

between us so that it could come out into the film. Anyway, isn’t it true that all directors have to fall in love with their lead actress?

I admire her greatly; hence the title. I think she is an incredible person. It’s a bit self-serving to say our love is the same as before, because it’s not. And for her maybe it never was. So I suppose I don’t know ... for her.

AO I “I don’t know what’s love. W haf I love, I don’t know. I want love but I know me. Me is no good. No people can love me.

I don’t have anything good... only bad. Who can love me? No. Say love me, I don’t believe. Because I think I know me. I know me ... I cannot give.”

Prostitution is a subj ect that many people have a moral view about, because it is sex and money. Has your view of prostitution been affected by the process o f making this film?

The film is all about sex and money but kind of inverts it. That is, the money that is really talked about in the film is not the money that gets to the prostitutes. And rarely do they get what they’re supposed to get; they are squeezed from both sides by their customers and by the Thai men who arrange it all. Rather, the film is more concerned with how the need for money in this emerging capitalist state is what made Aoi and others take up prostitution in the first place.

As to my moral position on it? Well, I d o n ’t see prostitution per se as being bad or evil, though things that happen within it are. I have no objections when there is free choice in the client-prosti­ tute relationship. But, then, what is free choice? I d o n ’t even know if I had a free choice in doing what I did.

D EN N 1 3 O ’ROURKE “ I k e e p r e in v e n t in g m y lif e f ilm b y f ilm .

I t ’s p a t h e t i c in a w a y a n d a n i m p o v e r i s h e d w a y o f c o v e r in g y o u r w h o le life : ju s t a s e r ie s o f t o m b s t o n e s a n d t h e t i t le s o f f ilm s . T h a t ’s a ll it is .

I t ’s r id ic u lo u s , b u t . . . ”

All the same, the illusions that the Thais are so good at perpetrating, in order to make prostitution such a booming international business, are stripped away for me and, I would hope, for a lot of people who see the film.

To what extent did you retain the original objectives and almost detached motivations for making this film?

We weren’t detached.

Detached in that sense that, before you started, you didn’t have a particular person chosen for the film.

There is a whole sub-genre of films and television programmes made by western media people about Thai prostitutes. The girls have no moral qualms about it because they think, compared to what they have to otherwise do, this is probably better, or easier.

Foreigners are making pornography all the time. There was a group of men in the Rose Hotel, where I was staying, who were busted while I was there for doing porno movies in their rooms.

They do it all the time: just get the girls out of the bars and shoot video or magazine stuff. The police are usually paid enormous bribes not to interfere.

So you actually created the relationship for no other reason than to make the film.

Yes, but there was this plan.

But the plan didn’t include ...

Sure, but in my view there is no moral difference between subcon­ scious acts and conscious acts. I think that most of us will ourselves.

If you were alone and decided that you wanted to fall in love with someone in the nextm onth, you could. Itwouldn’t be too difficult.

I did that, though within a particular milieu and with a plan to make a film so that I could understand it.

What you have done must be unique in filmmaking: setting out to film yourself falling in love, never mind with whom.

I don ’t know if you see my falling in love. A lot more of that is in the rushes than in the film. But the film is a statement of love.

In the end, there was one story that I could tell and tell clearly.

It would have been easier to construct a different kind of film, where the actual methodology was called into practice more and more. It would have been an academic, theoretic kind of film. But Aoi would have remained as the “exotic other” and never have become the hero that she is in this film.

This is very much a constructed fiction, a life-like play where we set up a woman as the hero, as “the good woman of Bangkok”.

People I have taken back to Thailand to m eet Aoi, my present lover and other people, saw her in the rushes and said, “What an incredible person.” Yet when they met her in real life she seemed like a totally insignificant person at the lowest strata of Thai society, a woman with one eye and a child, who, at 25, is at the end of her years of being a prostitute. She is completely dis-empowered, though the film empowers her in enormous ways. She becomes someone who has a chance to speak for every Thai woman who is a prostitute.

A O I “Don’t think I cannot survive. I don’t like anyone to think I need their help. If you want to help me, that’s up to you. But don’t expect anything from me; there are some things I cannot do. I am sorry. Don’t help me if you want something in return. I don’t need that.”

For her, was the idea of participating in this film an extension of her job as a prostitute?

It was partially that, and that’s referred to in quite a few of her conversations with others in the film, but she never realized what she was getting herself into, until we had been together for some months.

And maybe for her, because she thought, for a while, that here is the first western man I’ve had, out of all these thousands of men, who actually cares about what I think.

When I met Aoi, she gave me many opportunities to get away because she went off many times with customers or her boyfriend.

We used to have enormous fights because of the impossibility of really getting across to each other. But we still came back together.

If I didn’t try to find her, she would find me.

I went back to her village and got to know her family. I could have done this without making the film, yet I have done it as ancillary to my profession, it’s true.

I could take a whole different tack on this and say that my relationship with Aoi, and who she was, doesn’t matter. All that matters is that there is this film. And that is essentially my position.

I’m done now; I’m through with it. I went there to do it, I did it, and, though my feelings about Aoi are very affectionate, so they would be if she had been Meryl Streep and we’d done a film together.

So, what you set out to do, and the resultant relationship, takes second place to the film?

Well, the relationship is gone. It’s evaporated into the process. It happens in every film. I don’t envy people who have experiences and can tell stories about them later. I tend not to have any memories. I don’t live anywhere but in the present and a film becomes the tombstone of a particular period. I keep reinventing my life film by film. It’s pathetic in away and an impoverished way of covering your whole life :just a series of tombstones and the titles of films. T hat’s all it is. It’s ridiculous, b u t ...

O ’R O U R K E F IL M O G R A P H Y

1976 Yurni Yet - Independencefor Papua New Guinea 1978 Ileksen - Politics in Papua New Guinea 1980 Yap ... How Did You Knoiv We’d Like TV? 1982 The Sharkcallers of Kontu 1984 Couldn’t beFairer1985 H alf Life: A Parablefor the Nuclear Age 1988 “Cannibal Tours” 1991 The Good Woman of Bangkok 1. Ed: As Aoi p o in ts o u t in th e film , B angkok b a r girls only receive th e tip; th e a g ree d fee goes e n tirely to th e b a r ow ner. T h u s a p ro stitu te m u st in d u c e a c lie n t in to tip p in g in o rd e r to m ake a living.

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PAUL.

KALINA

REPORTS

N THE BOOK, THE IMAGINARY IN­ DUSTRY, SUSAN 0ERMODY COMES TO THE RESCUE OF A BODY OF OVERLOOKED FILMS WHICH, SHE SUGGESTS, IS LIKE A RECESSIVE GENE WITHIN THE AUSTRALIAN

FEATURE FILM CINEMA. IT IS A GROUP OF FILMS THAT DON’T QUITE FIT INTO ANY RECOGNIZABLE CATEGORIES, THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY FROM THE FOLD, “MADE IN THE INTERSTICES, ON THE CHEAP, WITHOUT AIR-CONDI­ TIONING”. AND AS ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN QUICK ENOUGH TO CATCH ANY OF THESE FILMS AT A CINEMA, OR MORE LIKELY AT THE LOCAL VIDEO SHOP, WOULD KNOW, THEY ARE THE FILMS (LIKE WRONG WORLD, MULL AND BACKLASH) WHOSE VERY APPEAL IS A CERTAIN PLAYFULNESS, A GENUINE DEDICATION TO CINEMATIC ART, AND A WILLINGNESS TO CROSS AND OFTEN DISREGARD THE SELF-IMPOSED BOUNDARIES OF MAINSTREAM CINEMA. UNTIL NOW, DERMODY IS BEST KNOWN AS AN ACADEMIC AND WIDELY PUBLISHED AUTHOR, MOST NOTABLY CO-WRITER (WITH ELIZABETH JACKA) OF THE TWO-VOLUME SURVEY OF THE AUSTRALIAN FILM INDUSTRY, THÉ SCREENING OF AUSTRALIA. BREATHING UNDER WATER MARKS HER FIRST FEATURE AS A WRITER AND DIRECTOR. DERMODY AND PRODUCER MEGAN MCMURCHY ADMIT THAT THE ^PROJECT IS AN UNUSUAL, UNCONVENTIONAL FILM (THE QUALIFIED MEAN­ INGS. OF. THESE TERMS ARE CLEARLY EVIDENT). TH E DRAMATIZED FILM INCORPORATES ANIMATION AND ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE, AND IS CARRIED BY A FIRST-PERSON VOICE-OVER. I t IS AN ACCOUNT OP A WOMAN’S JOURNEY INTO AN IMAGINARY UNDERWORLD CITY THAT DELVES INTO A FUNDAMEN­ TAL RIDDLE OF THE MODERN NUCLEAR AGE: HOW HAS HUMANKIND SET THE STAGE FOR ITS OWN EXTINCTION?

RIGHT BEATRICE (ANNE LOUISE LAMBERT) AN D HER DAUGHTER, MAEVE (MAEVE DERMODY) SUSAN DERMODY S BREATHING UNDER WATER

■ ■ ■ * ¿sk

Breathing Under Water The trajectory of the journey and the film - digging into states of mind, the imagination, the memory, the ‘underworld’ of con­ sciousness - is realized both concretely and abstractly. It is an intellectual work, yet one driven by intuition and emodon, at once personal and objective. As McMurchy says: That is perhaps why there was some hesitancy at the Australian Film Commission to treat it as a fully-fledged feature film.

Also, it evolved from a slightly different form. Three years ago it was not in the shape that it came to be in the end; the dramatic element became much stronger. It was an evolution in stylistic terms that arrived at the point we have now, where it is a most unusually structured feature film. It has elements that feature films don’t incorporate.

Both agree that the film’s genesis was protracted necessarily.

According to Dermody, The reason it took four years to fully arrive is to do with the resistance I had to starting it. I knew itwould be a very difficult process to make aspects of the unconscious work in a script, and I was scared of the things I wanted to look at.

I also didn’t want this monstrous thing to be more like a book than a film. There was an awful sense of the material being so vast.

There were further delays at the AFC while the organization underwent major restructuring, but in hindsight this too proved to be beneficial. First, Channel Four made “an enthusiastically of­ fered pre-sale ” (it will be broadcast as part of a series of features and documentaries representing the cutting edge of international 16

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cinema), which, McMurchy believes, provided encouragem ent for the AFC to fully finance it. More significant, the project came in on the heels of the new regime at the AFC. Dermody maintains that, Without the changes at the AFC, such as its being repositioned by the Film Finance Corporation, this type of project would not have had a look-in.

McMurchy is quick to agree: It’s a perfect film for the AFC to fund because it’s not at all the type of feature that would get a look-in at the FFC; it’s high-risk, it’s innovative.

McMurchy was director of Creative Development at the AFC between 1986 and 1988, but says she felt frustrated at not being involved in production.

1 I saw a great deal of work going through [Creative Development] in the fields of short drama and documentary, and had also made some efforts while at the AFC to make it more possible for low-budget features to find a place there. By the time I was ready to leave, I’d identified a role for myself as a producer, and this was one of the projects I wanted to make sure was made.

The impetus to make the film harks back specifically to the birth of Dermody’s second child, Maeve, and generally to the global concerns of the 1980s. Dermody: Part of it was very personal. It was that sense of having a child in the mid-’80s. It was close enough to the early ’80s and the chill that went ABO VE, LEFT: WRITER-DIRECTOR SUSAN DERMODY W ITH ACTRESS AN NE LOUISE LAMBERT. INSET: PRODUCER M EGAN MCMURCHY. ABOVE RIGHT: MAEVE A N D BEATRICE W ITH THEIR GUIDE, HERMAN (KRISTOFFER GREAVES). BREATHING UNDER WATER.

“ O n e o f th e m e ta p h o r s o f th e f ilm is o f m o v in g b e n e a t h o r d in a r y c o n s c io u s n e s s a n d o f b e in g in s id e a d if f e r e n t s e t o f r u le s o f t h in k in g . B r e a t h in g u n d e r w a t e r f o r m e is a w a y o f s a y in g y o u c a n b e c o m e m o re c o n s c io u s , m o re a c t iv e ly c o n n e c t e d w ith th e w h o le u n d e r w o r ld o f y o u r c o n s c io u s n e s s . ” SUSAN DERMODY

through Europe when Reagan was talking so loosely about limited, and European thea­ tres of, nuclear war.

People like Christa Wolf, whom I was reading at that time, were profoundly influ­ enced by that. Germany was caught much more at the ground zero of history than any other part of Europe, but it was felt acutely everywhere.

And having a child - which caused diffi­ culties in other ways - at that time made it especially acute. For the whole year immedi­ ately after the birth, I was reading and writing and thinking about all sorts of aspects of this riddle [of humankind’s setting the stage for its own extinction]. It was notjust the bomb; that isjust the most acute embodiment of the kind of self-hate that this civilization seems to secrete.

Ominously, the film was actually shot on the very brink of the Gulf War. That, says Dermody, seemed to re-sharpen a great deal of the film’s concerns. The whole time during pro­ duction, on the way to the set, people were really thinking about these things. Even during pre-production, there was this uncanny feeling that, while we were preparing a film, they were preparing a war. And since this film is, at quite a few levels, about the state of perpetual war, which we call peace, we couldn’t help but feel there was a convergence.

In one of many elaborate allusions to Dante’s Inferno, the main character, Beatrice (Anne Louise Lam bert), and her daughter, Maeve (Maeve Dermody), enlist the help of a guide, Herman (Kristoffer Greaves), to steer them in and out of the imaginary underworld. Here, in the inverted city, Beatrice negotiates her way through dreams, memories and remembrances that have been

ABOVE: HERMAN GUIDES BEATRICE AN D MAEVE THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD. BELOW: MAEVE AN D TO M TIDDLER (GABRIEL ANDREWS), THE SINGING BOY, O N THE SW ING WHICH SYMBOLIZES O NE'S BEING POISED BETWEEN HEAVEN AN D HELL. BREATHING UNDER WATER.

washed up from the past, as well as through the strange sights and sounds of the underworld.

The purpose of entering this metaphoric underworld, says Dermody, is to look on terror, because it’s actually a terribly interesting and energizing thing to do.

One of the metaphors of the film is of moving beneath ordinary consciousness and ofbeing inside a different set of rules of thinking.

Breathing under water for me is a way of saying you can become more conscious, more actively connected with the whole underworld of your con­ sciousness.

There is also the film’s representa­ tion of heaven and hell: In Dante, [purgatory] is the point exactly between heaven and hell, neither up nor down. It’s the notion of being in a fulcrum position. It’s the place where Dante comes out of hell, looks up at the stars and feels the air on his face; that’s where he has arrived in purgatory. So, it’s actually a place like out there [pointing to the street outside the café]. Finally you understand that it’s not being in heaven or hell, but in a wonderful poise between the two. We actually use a see-saw image in the film.

Animation and archival footage have been used to recreate Beatrice’s memo­ ries. Dermody gives unqualified praise CINEMA

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O N -LO C A TIO N FILMING FOR BREATHING UNDER WATER.

to anim ator Lee Whitmore, whose contribution to this project is integral.

My greatest fear was that the film could be didactic. I definitely wanted the underworld to be a place in which you could get lost and find a number of your own paths, just as Beatrice does. Starting with the animation nodes-which were the very first thing committed to paper andwhich changed surprisingly little through the subsequent drafts, until the final editing - opened up a very intuitive way of approaching the material. Lee worked from actual box brownietype photographs of my childhood to help get into the quality of image that I wanted. I needed an animation style that had affinity with the photographic image, as well as a kind of hazy detail about it.

Similarly, the archival footage was treated to further lend it a subjective, altered feeling which could more fully convey the movements of the protagonist’s mind as her journey progresses.

Although much of this footage originates on film, it was decided to transfer it to one-inch video, then to kine it back to 35mm, giving it a subtle, slightly altered video feel.

A nother challenge was to find a way of representing concrete parts of real cities and landscapes as imaginary places, in much the same way as Godard employed disparate sections of Paris as the fictive Alphaville. Dermody believes that production designer Stephen Curtis, whose training and experience has been mainly on the theatre stage (his film credits include Neil Armfield’s Twelfth Night and Tracey Moffatt’s Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy), treated the places theatrically rather than realistically.

Dermody cites Tarkovsky’s Stalker as one of the films that she believes made an impact on her while she was making the film.

I realized that there was an affinity, particularly with the sections of getting into the zone - all those rain-filled, decaying industrial fringe buildings with weeds growing up through them -and with the fact that it’s to do with a guide who can get you into the unconscious.

That’s what it’s about.

Another influence was Chris Marker’s La Jetée, which is made up entirely of still images.

It’s to do with using dreams in order to travel between worlds and time zones. It’s one of the films I got everybody, heads of depart­ ments, to watch.

Understandably, Dermody is cautious about applying the term ‘experim ental’ to her film.

I wince at the term because in Australia it has been used to carefully cut out a certain small portion of films which will be funded but never incorporated. All films should be experimental, all films should be playing with the medium.

I don’t feel that I consciously set out to make an unconventional film. I think I found a convention to make the manoeuvre in film I wanted to make, which is a crossing of the boundaries of action and moving around on the landscape, thinking or dreaming about things, of moving in and out of all those kinds of consciousness we talked about.

So, I don’t think it’s unconventional; it is simply using precisely all those conventions you would need to use.

So, while Dermody will be pleased if her film becomes another recessive gene of the Australian industry - another one of those unsung trinkets that make a virtue of the necessities of a low budget, that take liberties denied the mainstream cinema - she hopes that it will be seen by many more people than some of its genetic siblings.

■

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lGHT YEARS AGO, A RESTLESS CANADIAN MODELMAKER WITH ASPIRA-

Im H

TIONS OF BECOMING A DIRECTOR, AND AN AMBITIOUS PRODUCTION ASSISTAN T FROM CALIFORNIA, WHO DREAMT OF TURNING INTO A

PRODUCER, MET ON THE SET OF ANOTHER FRUGAL PROJECT BY THAT GREAT HOLLYWOOD MENTOR, ROGER CORMAN. GALE ANN HURD, THE PRODUCTION AS­ SISTANT, HAD BEEN WORKING FOR FIVE YEARS FOR CORMAN, IN DIFFERENT CAPACITIES. JAMES CAMERON, THE MODELMAKER, WAS ALSO, ON OCCASION, ART DIRECTOR, BACKGROUND PROJECTIONIST, CINEMATOGRAPHER. "I PROBABLY SWEPT THE FLOOR ... NO, I NEVER SWEPT THE FLOOR, BUT I SLEPT ON THE FLOOR”, CAMERON REMEMBERS. “IT WAS TOO FAR TO DRIVE HOME SO I JUST SLEPT THERE.” BARELY INTO THEIR TWENTIES, HURD AND CAMERON FORMED A PACT OF SORTS: THEY WOULD POOL THEIR ENERGIES TOGETHER AND MAKE A MOVIE THAT WOULD BE THEIR CALLING CARD. WHEN CAMERON, STRUCK BY A VIRULENT STOMACH FLU ON THE SET OF PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING

- HIS DIRECTORIAL DEBUT AND, OF COURSE, A

CORMAN PROJECT - HAD A NIGHTMARE FEATURING A TERRIFYING STEEL SKEL­ ETON, THEIR SKETCHY PLAN STARTED TO TAKE SHAPE. FROM THAT DREAM CAMERON DREW A PLOT; FROM THE PLOT, A SCRIPT; AND FROM THE SCRIPT, HE AND HURD CONJURED A FILM, THE TERMINATOR, 1985’S UNLIKELY SLEEPER HIT: $6 MILLION TO MAKE, $150 MILLION AT THE BOX OFFICE. SEVEN YEARS AFTER THAT FEAT - WHICH ESTABLISHED NOT ONLY CAMERON'S AND HURD’S CAREERS, BUT LAUNCHED A MODERN ‘MYTH’, ARNOLD SCH­ WARZENEGGER - A SEQUEL IS BEING PREPARED, UNDER A THICK VEIL OF SECRECY, AND TO THE TUNE OF A POSSIBLE $100 MILLION BUDGET, FOR RELEASE IN THE HEIGHT OF THE AMERICAN SUMMER. HURD AND CAMERON, WHO IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SHOOT OF THE TERMINATOÛ BECAME HUSBAND AND WIFE, ARE NOW DIVORCED. SHE WENT ON TO BECOME A TOP-NOTCH PRODUCER IN THE ACTIONADVENTURE GENRE, WHILE CAMERON SEGUED A BRILLIANT CAREER, DIRECTING ALIENS IN 1987 AND THE ABYSS IN 1989, AND SCHWARZENEGGER, OF COURSE,

BECAME, WELL, SCHWARZENEGGER, ONE OF THE TOP SLOTS ON THE LIST OF MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS.

DIRECTOR

JAMES

n

CAMERON

w

JAMES CAMERON “TERMINATOR 2 ”

“ At the time when The Terminator came <

absolutely cold, lethal killer. But now w changed. He’s now a great idol to childr

“The Terminator was a very ambitious film at that time”, Cameron says, alone in the freezing warehouse in the distant suburb of Valencia, 45 minutes north of Los Angeles, which Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been using for its more complex sets. “We had animations, special effects, stunts, explosions. For a first-time director to do such a thing was pretty ambitious. But every time I do a film I try to challenge myself and push the envelope of what I know I can do right to the limit.”

With The Abyss, Cameron established once and for all that it’s not impossible - only hellishly difficult and physically exhausting - to shoot an underwater film actually underwater.

With T2 - as the second Terminator is affectionately called by cast and crew - h e’s trying to see how much production value can be bought with his and Schwarzenegger’s clout: the chase and stunt scenes are epic, to say the least, and the film features the most robotical special effects ever seen on screen.

Cameron is again working 12- and 14-hour days, and expecting the same from his crew. “The man is a maniac”, says associate producer and special effects co-ordinator B. J. Rauck. “H e’s the first on the set, the last to leave. H e’s tireless.”

As we talk, on the deserted set that reproduces, in detail, a steel mill (where the final confrontation between Terminator and his foes takes place), Cameron has one ear tuned to our conversation and the other to the noises around him. Half-way through the interview, an ominous thunder shatters the walls of the warehouse adjacent to where we are. Cameron keeps on talking, and when a nervous assistant runs in to inform him that a tanker truck - a prop from a particularly thrilling chase scene - has erupted next door, flooding the stage with hundreds of gallons of water, Cameron just sighs: “Well, well, we’ll take care of that. You see, that’sjust another thing that can happen when you’re shooting a movie like this one. ”

How did this film come into being such a long time after the first one?

It’s been seven years, which is exactly the same amount of time between when Alien was made and when Aliens was made and re­ leased. So, I considered that to be a good omen.

Is it true that you had written the story immediately after The Terminator?

Yes, but we never really thought we would make the film; there were always too many problems with getting it made. For one thing, I didn’t own the rights to the sequel, and it took the intervention of Mario Kassar [Carolco chairman] to come in and purchase the rights from the individuals who had them.

Many people would find it strange that you, who had invented, written and directed The Terminator, didn’t own the rights to your own creation.

I wrote and directed it, but there were certain legal things that happened at the time that film was made. I was young and foolish and sold the rights. I shouldn’t have done that; but, on the other hand, it was essentially my first film. I’d already been hired to direct a film before that, but I got fired after three weeks so I couldn’t really say I directed a film. So, one makes sacrifices that make sense at the time.

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(,ut, it was fine for Arnold to play that ,»’re seven years later, Arnold’s role globally has >nand young people everywhere.”

Since you had the idea for a sequel very early on, is itjust one single story in two parts? Did you leave The Terminator in a way unfinished on purpose?

Not really. When the first film was completed, within a few months Arnold and I began talking aboutwhat a second film would be like, so I never really conceived it as a complete story, having only filmed the first part. To me the first film was the complete story.

Actually, Arnold got me thinking about a sequel when he asked me what elements a sequel could consist of. I then came up with what is essentially the idea that we’re shooting. I wrote it down, just two or three pages worth, in 1984, or maybe early ’85. We talked about it over the years but we never really put it together until about a year ago, and it’s been very fast ever since. The script was finished maybe 10 months ago; something like that.

A lot of things have changed since the first Terminator -such as the fact that Schwarzenegger is now an international star. Did you change your script to accommodate that?

No. I’m still telling the story that we talked about then, the story that was essentially concocted before Arnold became the great megastar that he is now.

I think maybe the scope of the picture as it curren tly exists was made possible by Arnold’s success. We are able to do more, to spend more money on special effects and to create more things visually than we would have before, because we know he has a certain marketability. It makes sound business, so I think it’s been good to the film, allowing us to do a film that is on a slightly different scale.

On the other hand, you cannot, for instance, portray his character [Terminator] as an outright destructive machine like you did in the first one, or can you?

Absolutely. There is a great danger there, and I think that a fine line will have to be walked ethically.

At the time when The Terminator came out, it was fine for Arnold to play that absolutely cold, lethal killer. But now we’re seven years later, Arnold’s role globally has changed. H e’s now a great idol to children and young people everywhere. It’s only fortunate for me that the story that I came up with many years ago involved a change of character for Terminator. In this movie, he is, in avery real sense, the hero.

It is an interesting concept, especially in the light of your previous work, where the themes of redemption, sacrifice and salvation keep recurring. Can you redeem even Terminator?

How do you redeem Terminator? [Laughs] That’s the twist. I can’t have Arnold mowing down a police station full of cops with machine guns in 1991, with the kind of worldwide following that he has. It’s not the film I would want to do.

So, in away, I was lucky because the story that I’d always thought of allowed for that change. This film is actually about the value of human life and the process by which Terminator learns to under­ stand what that means - even though h e’s not human. T hat’s the point of the movie.

LEFT: TERMINATOR (ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER) MUST PROTECT JO H N CO N NOR (EDWARD FURLONG) FROM A KILLER CYBORG. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGM ENT DAY.

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JAMES CAMERON “TERMINATOR 2”

I w o u ld n ’t call Terminator2

on-camera deaths. Th e y’re ii

fashion of ju s t one violent ei

respect for Mike, it’d be fun to have lunch with him. I’d be polite and get it over with.

So I went to lunch with Arnold. He was absolutely charming and we had a wonder­ ful time and he spoke so highly of the script that I was really flattered. But the whole time we were talking I was watching him and thinking, “What a remarkable face he has!”

He was talking about this and that and smoking a cigar. He totally wasn’t what I expected and I kept looking at him think­ ing, “He has the strongest face of any indi­ vidual I’ve ever known, and he looks like he could be Terminator; he could play that human bulldozer that doesn’t stop at any­ thing.” But I didn’t even discuss it with him.

Later that day we placed a call to his agent, made a deal and that was it. The won­ derful thing was I was never interested in Arnold as a bodybuilder; I was interested in his face. I literally didn’t change a word in the script, just dropped Arnold into it.

What is the appeal of this character anyway, because Terminator certainly is the character that broke Schwarzenegger internation­ ally, not to mention quick-started your career as a writer-director.

When I wrote the film, I saw Terminator as an embodiment of death, as a kind of high-tech Grim Reaper. That image is realized at the end of the film with the steel skeleton coming out of the fire.

People responded to that because, in a way, it’s a dark fantasy, a psychological catharsis. Everybody likes to be able to be Termina­ tor for a mom ent - whether it’s because their boss was yelling at them and they want to respond in a fashion which is absolutely without any conscience. It’s a psychological fantasy which is a release for people. I think of Terminator as a guy who has none of the social conditioning that we’re brought up with; h e’s kind of a human shark. He goes directly to what he wants, he doesn’t ask anybody’s advice, he doesn’t care if h e’s rude. It’s all part of the fantasy ofnot being chained by all the things that we’re broughtup with. It’s fun for people to participate in.

Are you surprised, when you look back to the success The Termi­ nator attained, that nowyou’re shooting a sequel, with an extremely generous budget, and starring an international megastar?

Well, it was hard to get that first movie made. There was always a casting issue because it was a relatively low-budget thriller and they weren’t willing to go just on the merits of the script, although they always liked it. We already had Linda Hamilton cast as the female lead, and Mike Medavoy at Orion [chairman at the time; now chairman of Tri Star Pictures] recommended Arnold for the character that ultimately ended up being played by Michael Biehn.

To me it didn’t make any sense whatsoever, but I thought that, in 24

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Terminator 2has been generating a lot of talk about its budget, which is said to be headed towards the $100 million mark, that it’s going to be the most expensive movie ever made. Is it especially tough to work under this kind of pressure?

I put the pressure aside fairly easily, because I don’t think of it as one of the most expensive movies ever made. I only think of the amount of money [$100 million] I’ve been given to actually make the movie, and that’s very healthy. But I wouldn’t call it even in the Top 10 of [expensive] films. The point is that this is a large-scale action film, and action films with special effects cost money. This film is in that league - an A picture, a big presentation picture - so I feel the below-the-line budget is in proportion to a lot of other movies that I’ve seen and done. I don’t think it’s ground-breaking for me. i

But if Terminator 2 doesn’t make at least $100 million, it won’t be considered a success.

Yes, that’s true, but, on the other hand, the am ount of money that’s spent to market a film usually creates, to a certain extent, the amount of money that the film will make. So, basically what we have is a revenue-producing machinery which is simply excited to a different level of spending. It’s like a physics project: if you have a small film, it kind of slips through the cracks of the distribution machinery. It doesn’t make a whole lot of money but it didn’t cost too much money, so nobody cares. If you have a larger film, they spend more money and it makes more money.

The decisions are not made by me, they’re made by other people who think that it’s sound business to make this film. And I happen to agree with them because I think it’s going to be a fantastic movie and that a lot of people will see it. It will justify the experiment.

a ‘body count’ movie. In this film, there are two or three Btense but they’re never treated in that kind of mind-numbing pisode after another, where you lose track of the humanity.”

It is a gamble every time you go out. There’s no such thing as a sure-fire element in the film business. The closest thing obviously would be an actor like Arnold, who has a very large built-in market, especially when h e’s reprising a character that a lot of people presumably liked.

Every summer, with a new batch of action films, the issue of violence in movies pops up again in America. As a director of action films, do you have special concerns about this subject?

Well, for starters, I wouldn’t call Terminator 2 a “body count”movie.

In this film, there are two or three on-camera deaths. They’re intense but they’re never treated in that kind of mind-numbing fashion of just one violent episode after another, where you lose track of the humanity. When somebody in this film dies, it’s an emotional, involving experience for the audience, and I think that’s the fundamental difference.

If you’re doing an action film, there’s no real difference between action and violence: action is violence, violence is action.

It is just a question of the tone and style of how it’s handled. The same thing that’s considered acceptable stylistically in a film like The Godfather is considered unacceptable stylistically in a film like Rambo[: First Blood Part Two], let’s say. It’s a question of the film­ maker’s individual taste.

I believe you can’t have an action film without what is essentially a violent situation. So then the question is; What kind of violence?

Are we talking about graphic violence, blood splattering in slow motion, that sort of thing? I don’t think you’d find that in this film.

It’s interestingthatyou mentioned Rambo: First BloodPart Two, which you wrote, and which established new levels of what one can get away with on screen, in terms of violence.

conscious decision on your part?

I always make my films longer than the average kind of tense and direct-action thriller. There have to be human guys, there has to be a sense of compassion, there has to be a bond felt between people that we understand, whether it’s a bond of conflict or a bond of love or trust or duty. To me, the best films are always about a balance between human emotions and whatever jeopardy that’s created for those people. We, as an audience, don’t share the jeopardy unless we care about the characters.

So, my philosophy is to draw the audience in, make them part of these people on the screen who share their problems, fears and love for each other, and then the whole situation becomes more real.

Finally, what, in your opinion, is the reason for the enduring, international appeal of Arnold Schwarzenegger?

I think it’s a combination of the roles he plays, his screen persona and his real-life persona all being in balance. Arnold seems to have stood up to the scrutiny of the world and they still love him.

Everything you find out about Arnold is a positive surprise rather than a negative one. And he just delivers, film after film.

Also, h e’s an archetype for men worldwide because of his physical strength and the fact that in the fantasy world of the film he is always able to deal with a situation and prevail. In real life, that couldn’t happen. We’re notable to be strong, we’re notable to win all the time. There’s no justice in real life.

■ FACING PAGE: SARAH CONNOR (LINDA HAMILTON) PREPARES FOR THE IMPENDING WAR BETWEEN MAN AND MACHINES. BELOW: JO H N CONNOR AND TERMINATOR IN TERMINATOR 2: JUDGM ENT DAY.

I wrote Rambo while I was waiting for The Terminator to get the green light. I needed the money to live. The difference was: I didn ’t direct Rambo; I was asked to but wasn ’t interested. I’m not saying that my script for Rambo was something I wasn’t proud of at the time I wrote it, but I probably wouldn’t have been interested in doing the film now.

Anyway, that was a much more violent movie than this, and the film that was made was much more violent than the script that I wrote. The difference was that the script had a conscience, and the people Rambo dealt with, and who died in direct conflict with him, had names; they had interaction with him; they weren’t just guys who were the wrong race or the wrong uniform lined up on the horizon getting mowed down.

That was the kind of indiscriminate factor that really bothered me about the movie.

Looking back on your work, your films seem to have a underlying theme of ethical choices, leading to self-sacrifice. Is that a

mmm

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X X X X IV e F E S T IV A L I N T E R N A T I O N A L D U F IL M C A N N E S 1991 P A U L I N E

A D E I V I E K

FROM THE OUTSET, THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL’S SELECTION SEEMED DESIGNED TO SHOCK. IN HOMICIDE, WRITER-DIRECTOR DAVID MAMET BROADENED HIS SOCIO-ANALYTICAL STYLE TO ACCOMMODATE SUSPENSE, POLICE SHOOT-OUTS, CAR-CHASES AND STUNT SEQUENCES. KAREN SHAKHNAZAROV’S ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR DEPICTS A GRAPHIC MASSACRE BY RIFLES AND BAYONETS OF THE LAST CZAR’S FAMILY. INFANTICIDE OPENS MALINA BY WERNER SCHROETER. THEN THERE IS A PERSON’S SLICING HIMSELF TO DEATH IN THE BATH IN LARS VON TRIER’S EUROPA ; GAY SEX, PASSION AND MURDER IN ISAAC JULIEN’S YOUNG SOUL REBELS; LUST AND NECROPHILIA IN PATRICK BOUCHITEY’S LUNE FROIDE ( COLD MOON); AND LUST AND CANNI­ BALISM IN MARCO FERRERI’S LA CARNE ( THE FLESH). THE LAST TWO BEG THE RHETORICAL QUESTION, “ARE WOMEN STILL SEXUALLY DESIRABLE, AND MORE ACCESSIBLE, WHEN DEAD?”, YET DEFTLY IGNORE THE OBVIOUS IMPLICATIONS.

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“ T h e w o m a n I’m g o in g t o s le e p w it h to n ig h t w a s in a c c e s s ib le t o m e b e fo r e I m a d e t h is f ilm ” , B o u c h it e y e x p la in e d a t h is p r e s s c o n f e r e n c e . T o o b a d s h e ’s s i t t i n g in t h e f r o n t r o w a n d n o t o n -s t a g e w it h h e r c o -s t a r s .

n a Festival w here the C om petition exclusively com prised such a suggestion. “I write it the best way I know how ”, he films by m ale directors, it was no surprise to see an unasham ­ insisted, basing it on his understanding o f real language. T he edly sexist re p re se n ta tio n o f w om en. All th e fem ale o th er actors present, M antegna and Macy, cam e to M am et’s characters were gorgeous and desirable yet often in subservient defence, saying th at his dialogue is precisely written, distilled roles to th eir m ale counterparts, who tended to be o f the lessand real, enabling them to simply play it in a straightforw ard way attractive-but-interesting variety. T hree films which explored w ithout adding anything. M am et then confided that M antegna the relationship betw een m ale artist and fem ale m odel, Jacques added cadence and truth to his script, often contributing to Rivette’s La BelleNoiseuse, M aurice Pialat’s Van Gogh and Kathleen m inor alterations. T hat was fascinating as I always believed Fonm arty’sJalousie (in Perspectives du Ciném a Français), coin­ M am et’s style was one o f heightened realism within a natural­ cidentally provided plenty of opportunity for full-frontal female istic context. nudity. I suppose showing m e n ’s genitalia m ight limit the films’ Marco Ferreri {La Came) was entertaining, providing my release. favourite quote o f the Festival: “I ’m the last great film m aker in Robyn Givens from Bill D uke’s Rage in Harlem opined that the world.” Ferreri insisted his was a happy love story because it th ere should be m ore wom en on the silver screen “who are culm inated in death, and he drew o u r attention to the structure fem inine an d who smell g o o d ”. I d o n ’t disagree. I ju st want to of the classical myths and tales by way of com parison. H e see equally appealing m ale actors. Francesca Dellera from La claimed, ‘T h e public is only interested in fucking - before or Came offered an explanation for h e r co-star’s character who, after [death] -they d o n ’t give a d am n .’’W hen queried ab o u th is after a shared period o f bliss in his holiday hom e, resorts to presentation o f wom en as either a creator o r ban q u et for m e n ’s cannibalism and refrigeration to prevent h er departure: “In­ life, w om en as m other or whore, he becam e evasive: “I’ve been tense love can often lead to m adness.” asked this question for thirty years and I still can ’t answer it. This character is a wonderful woman, a fantasy.” Some journalists In Lune Froide, the depiction o f necrophilia is curiously less tried to pin him down b u t he m anaged to deflect the questions: offensive than o n e ’s idea o f it. It d oesn’t seem so sick when you see them do it, only slightly unreal; no rigor mortis or foul smell, “Well, what is your idea o f a fantasy?” he had to know. I w anted ju st voluptuous beauty. Actor-director Bouchitey claims that he to ask him why he paired such a desirable goddess with an overweight, comparatively ugly leading m an, b u t as Castellitto wanted to explore the lack o f options which blocks his pair of was present at the conference I d id n ’t think it would be tactful. likeable losers. Because they are bums, wom en a re n ’t inter­ ested. But a m idnight prank brings a beautiful and mythical Krzysztof Kieslowski crushed any attem pts to elicit from him wom an their way, and suddenly their lust can be satisfied with a deep analysis: “I m ake the films, it’s for you to in terp ret th em .” som eone who otherwise would never consider them . “T he H e did, however, offer the warning that his was n o t strictly a wom an I ’m going to sleep with tonight was inaccessible to me realistic film. LaDouble Vie de Véronique ( TheDoubleLifeofWeronika) before I m ade this film ”, Bouchitey explained at his press is a dram a of elusive am bience and beauty with a certain conference. Too bad sh e’s sitting in the fro n t row and n o t on­ distance in h ere n t in the plot which keeps one intrigued.

In this tale of two almost-identical wom en in different cities, stage with h er co-stars.

Kieslowski aim ed to develop an atm osphere o f w arm th an d a Despite the m u n d an e standard o f interrogation, the press sense of unconscious intuition. Soon after the Polish W eronika conferences were the only time one saw the big nam es in action. dies o f a heart attack mid-aria, h er French double, V éronique, They are w orth it for the b rief flashes o f insight. T he directors, gives up h er music w ithout producers an d actors rep re­ FACING PAGE: IRENE JACOB, W INNER OF BEST ACTRESS, AS W ERONIKA IN THE O PENING SHOT really u n d e rsta n d in g why. senting each film were every­ OF KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI'S LA DOUBLE VIE DE VERONIQUE (THE DOUBLKE LIFE OF W ER ONIKA).

Both played by Irène Jacob, thing from frank and h u m or­ BELOW: H O BO AN D CORPSE IN PATRICK BOUCHITEY'S CONTROVERSIAL LUNE FROIDE (COLD the two never m eet b u t are ous to diplom atic and eva­ M O O N ), BASED O N THE STORIES OF CHARLES BUKOW SKI. hau n ted by a sense th at they sive: a conscious perform ance are n o t alone in the world. from all.

E nhanced by an exqui­ David M am et was espe­ site sc o re (by Z b ig n iew cially defensive ab out his sub­ P reisner), it was the In tern a­ ject m atter: the persecution tional Critics’ choice for best o f the Jewish people in m od­ film : “F or th e e m o tio n a l ern-day New York ensconced strength provided by his film in a cop a c tio n /s u s p e n se thanks to a warm an d p en e­ format. W hen som eone asked tratin g style.” Also, Irè n e him if his dialogue was in­ Jacob, who som eone desc­ tentionally stylized, describ­ ribed as the best actor since ing it as “theatrical”, he be­ Ingrid Bergman, received the cam e defensive to the p o int award for Best Fem ale Actor. of stating he was insulted by

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Europa by Lars von Trier was a contend er for the Palm e D ’Or. Set during W orld W ar II on a G erm an train, it is a hypnotic thriller involving espionage and shifting loyalties. Lars von T rier com bines black-and-white photography with broad sweeps o f colour, mainly, he says disarmingly, to be able to sell the film by saying it has colour. W hat is striking is his use of surreal imagery, through front-back projection and superim po­ sition, in contrast with the foreground action as well as mes­ m eric music, voice-over m onologues (narrated by Max von Sydow) and nocturnal images of the lit train track. Von T rier m aintains that any good film is hypnotic, b u t he chose to m ake it obvious through playing with the clichés o f filmic techniques.

W hen pressed with probing questions about presenting W orld W ar II in a context of idealism, he was honest: “I d o n ’t know why. It’s n o t so com plicated for m e and I’m sorry now that it’s becom ing so complex. ”An unpretentious answer, yet he has said, “My films show my obsession with the universe o f war. T he ultim ate setting for films and dream s ... Despite the serious subject m atter my aim is to en tertain.”

Europa won the G rand Prix for Superior Technology. In his acceptance speech, Von T rier said that as his films ten d to win technical prizes, this year he brought a technician with him and introduced the beam ing m an at his side.

M uch o f the h u m o u r in the first half o f Toto leHérosMes in the use o f the point of view o f young Toto. D irector Jaco van Dorm ael m anages to avoid a sickly-sweet childish approach to his favourite them atic concern: “the talent for living”. T he events o f T oto’s life - from birth to beyond death - unfold in a sequence of associations and ju m b led m em ories “with the speed of freedom o f dream s and thoughts.” T he co h eren t through-line is the protagonist’s rivalry with his neighbour, as he believes they were accidentally swapped shortly after their birth, and this obsession builds to a surprising finale. A delight­ ful film, it received the C am era D ’O r (for first film s).

I w onder if La Belle Noiseu.sewon the G rand Prix for being the longest (biggest) film. It was,an ordeal o f four hours consisting of a psychological exploration of a disillusioned artist an d his relationship with his steadfast friend, wife and ex-model, plus a young wom an who revives his creative spirit and agrees to m odel for a work he abandoned ten years ago. A laboured concept, every single brush stroke an d ink scratch is recorded on film as he works on coundess drawings for five days before com ing up with his final product (s). It m ight have b e e n absorbing if he had actually been a good artist. A score would also have h elp ed to alleviate the tedium .

An interesting difference between European- an d American-style films is that E uropean films generally ten d to explore the subleties o f hum an nature and in n er truth. They seem to be less certain o f their subject m atter and less concerned with m aking a statem ent o r an explicit po in t. This can be said of Malina, La BelleNoiseuse, M aroun Bagdadi’s Hors la Vie ( Outside of Life), R ustam K ham dam ov’s A n n a Karamazova, T h eo

FACING PAGE (TOP T O B O TTO M ): TIMOFEYEV (MALCOLM McDOWELL) IN KAREN S H AK H N A ZAR O V'S ASSASSIN O F THE TSAR. DAVID MERRILL (ROBERT DE NIRO) W ITH FRIEND AN D FELLOW DIRECTOR JOE LESSER (M ARTIN SCORSESE) IN IRWIN WINKLER'S G UILTY BY SUSPICION. BELOW (TOP TO BO TTO M ): INTER RACIAL LOVERS ANGIE (ANNABELLA SCIORRA) A N D FLIPPER (WESLEY SNIPES) IN SPIKE LEE'S JUN G LE FEVER. WRITER BARTON FINK (JO H N TURTURRO) AN D STUDIO BOSS JACK LIPNICK IN JOEL CO EN 'S BARTON FINK. TURTURRO W O N BEST ACTOR. JOEL AN D ETHAN COEN, MAKERS OF BAR TON FINK, W HICH W O N THREE M AJO R PRIZES A T CANNES.

A ngelopoulos’To Meteoro Vima to Pelargou ( The Suspended Step of the Stork) and Van Gogh - all of which were largely inaccessible, in co h eren t an d ram bling works. Am erican style films usually m ake action, h u m o u r and entertainm ent their param ount concern. Perfect exam ples of this include A Rage in Harlem,Joel C oen ’s Barton Fink and Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise.

An exception to this rule was Irwin W inkler’s Guilty by Sus­ picion, a lukewarm and underw helm ing dram a about the devas­ tating im pact th at blacklisting had on Hollywood’s creative talent d u rin g the com m unist-paranoid 1950s. A m agnificent cop-out, he chose to focus on an “in n o cen t” rath er than study the persecution o f a self-confessed com m unist; and R obert De N iro ’s low-key portrayal is singularly unrem arkable.

I was also disappointed by Spike L ee’sJungle Fever. T he film aims to address the ramifications of an inter-racial liaison between a black m an, Flipper (Wesley Snipes), and an Italian w om an (Annabella Sciorra) on their families and com m uni­ ties. T h eir sudden an d impulsive affaire should have been brief, b u t w hen word o f their “crim e” gets around the two outcasts are virtually exiled, forced to seek support from each other.

Lee m aintains their attraction is based n o t on love but curiosity and sexual mythology. At the press conference he revealed some anger that advertising and the m edia perpetuate the notion th at white wom en epitom ize beauty and black m en rep resen t the ultim ate in sexual virility. He questioned his characters’ motivations, asking if they were based on genuine desire or ra th e r conditioning through the m edia bom bard­ m ent.

W hat is m ore convincing is L ee’s parallel them e of drug abuse which builds to a horrifyingly vivid sequence in a vast crack house. Lee echoes Marvin Gaye’s tragic demise, juxtapos­ ing a gun an d a bible, in the final confrontation between F lipper’s b ro ther, Gator, and the Reverend. Samuel Jackson won best supporting actor for his role as the twitching junkie, Gator.

Both Thelma & Louise and Barton Fink are a knock-out. T he Am ericans really know how to fashion an engrossing film.

Barton Fink cleaned up at the awards, receiving Best Male Actor (John T u rtu rro ), BestD irection as well as the prestigious Palme D ’Or. It is a brilliant film, funny, thrilling and ambiguous, concentrating on the dark side o f the Hollywood m achine as it threshes its new crop, a successful Broadway playwright. Fink’s assignment, to ch u rn o u t B-grade trash for broad audience appeal, flies in the face o f his com m itm ent to quality writing which celebrates “the com m on m an ”, and it is this m oral dilem m a which creates his agonizing w riter’s block. Judy Davis appears in a crucial role and T u rtu rro and Jo h n G oodm an shine in roles which were written for them . It’s difficult to define Joel C o en ’s style. BartonFink d oesn’t belong to one genre alone, although black com edy comes close.

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AT THE PRESS CONFERENCES (TOP TO BO TTO M ): ACTRESS IRENE JACO B; JURY CHAIRMAN ROM AN POLANSKI; STEVIE W ONDER AN D JUNGLE FEVER DIRECTOR SPIKE LEE; GEENA DAVIS AN D THELMA & LOUISE DIRECTOR RIDLEY SCOTT.

the haggling and bargaining. C annes is all ab out money.

R om an Polanski, who headed an impressive jury, described the atm osphere at Cannes as one o f glory and despair. “Most people are in a situation of com petition and daily excitem ent [which can lead to] aggression, irritation and anguish”, he explained, adding that he believed Cannes to be a massive event, second only to the Olympic Games. Polanski was rem inded o f his statem ent at a Paris press conference where he said he was looking for two hours of a good time and wanted to avoid the m andatory “originality” clause at any price. “Pm p rep ared to stick by those words and listen to [andjudge with] my h eart and taste ... I want a gut response to rule my decisions ... [I do not] want to en ter with any preconceived notions.”

A London television film critic, Barry N orm an, asked Peter Greenaway if it was true that he had been prom ised the Palme D ’O r if his film Prospero’s Books, from which we were treated to the first reel, had been ready for screening at the Festival.

Greenaway smiled and m ade no explicit denials. So despite disturbing rum ors such as this, it was reassuring to see Polanski’s ideals realized by a unanim ous vote for a fine film.

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palme d ’o r : grand prix de

Barton Fink (Joel Coen)

Cannes : La Belle Noiseuse (Jacques Rivette)

best director: Joel

and Ethan Coen (even though Joel is the only director credited on screen) for Barton Fink best actor : John T urturro (Barton Fink) best actress : Irène Jacob (La Double Vie de Véronique) BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE:

Samuel L. Jackson (Jungle Fever) prix de jury : Euwpa (Lars von Trier) and Hors la Vie (M aroun Bagdadi) TECHNICAL AWARD: E u W p a SHORT FILMS

palme d ’o r : prix de jury :

With Hands, in the Air (Mitko Panov) Push Comes to Shove (Bill Plympton) OTHER AWARDS

Toto le Héros (Jaco van Dormael) Proof (Jocelyn M oorhouse), Sam & Me (Deepa Mehta)

camera d ’o r :

special m entio ns :

FIPRESCI (INTERNATIONAL CRITICS PRIZES)

best film in c o m petitio n :

La Double Vie de Véronique Loach)

best film out of c o m petitio n : Riff-Raff (Ken PRIX DE LA SEMAINE DE LA CR1TQIUES

Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien) ECUMENICAL AWARD

La Double Vie de Véronique

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ABC

FEATURE FILMS. —

A t this year's Cannes Film Festival, and a t the Sydney and M elbourne Film Festivals, critics and audiences acclaimed this provocative, funny intelligent and moving film % lil l \

n

s

TTTT

AFI NOMINATIONS iNCL. BEST FILM-BEST DIRECTOR •BEST ACTOR

L E A N .—

INDIVIDUAL,

X

CHALLENGING. With an exciting new program under way, ABC TV Drama is injecting freshness and vitality into Australian feature films... and the critics agree!

W A IT IN G “manages to be at once strikingly original, good natured, energetic, sharply observed and beautifully photographed. Here is exactly the type o f film that the industry doomsayers seem to be suggesting Australia doesn’t produce any more. . . like the best o f the newest Australian wave, W A IT IN G proves that small can be beautiful!’

S O M E OF 0 0 0 C U R R E N T PRODUCTIONS INCLUDE: W A I I

I N G

Written and directed by Jackie McKimmie, WAITING is a fresh new comedy of manners which has a provocative look at modern relationships. A co-production with Filmside.

DA Y

OF

THE

DOG

In an unprecedented cinema treatment of Aboriginal Australia, DAY OF THE DOG is the story of a young man’s struggle to keep himself out of jail. Based on the Archie Weller novel. A co-production with Barron Films.

E I G H T B A L L From award-winning Ray Argali, EIGHTBALL is the slightly off­ beat story of the relationship between two men from entirely different backgrounds, drawn together in strange circumstances by their mutual love of Eightball. A co-production with Meridian Films.

f you th'ink you’ve got the script for the next Australian gem, we want to hear from you. Send your script to ABC TV Drama, G.P.O. Box 9994, SYDNEY 2001.

( M ) l 5 + RECOMMENDED FOr MATURE AUDIENCES 15 YEARS AND OVER. LOW-LEVEL COARSE LANGUAGE AND SEX SCENES.

House&MoorhouseFilinspresentsHugo Weaving Genevieve Plcot Russell Crowe ¡h>PRQ<DF’iProducSon Designer pemck Reardon Rim Edtor Ken SsHows Spund Edtor Glenn Newnham

w >

Written & Directed by Jocelyn MooriMUse

Produced «lassooaaonwsn the Ausirahan Fan Conw s sion and Film Viciona

House A Mooiftouse Film s <Austraha) Pty Ud 1991

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J ^ u s tra lia n cinema was represented at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival by two contenders for the Camera D’Or: Proof, written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, which was selected by the French Directors’ Guild to open La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors’Fortnight), and Leo Berkeley’s Holidays on the River Yarra, in Un Certain Regard.

Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael won the Camera D’Or for Toto the Hero (bought for distribution in Australia by Newvision), but not without strong competition from Proof, which garnered a Special Mention as runner-up (along with Sam & Me by Canadian director Deepa M ehta).

Proof s appeal to the Cannes’ audience lay in its originality, its restrained emotionality and its accessibility. A common phrase used to describe it was “very fine”, and one critic from Marseille admitted that, up to the screening of Akira Kurosawa’s Hachigatsu no Kyohshikyoku (Rhapsody in August), he preferred it to any of the films in Competition. This acclaim, spread byword of mouth and repeated in the Festival press, was well deserved.

M oorhouse’s unusual tale about a blind m an, who so lacks trust in the world that he takes photographs of events around him to validate his own senses, and to test the truthfulness of others, is told with great naturalness and well-judged humour. It is quite without the m annered quirks that often turn interior dramas into exercises in style, and this young filmmaker, drawn by the practical implica­ tions of blindness (“I’m fascinated by blindness and how people cope with not having visual knowledge - the everyday confirmation of ‘what is’ - that I take for granted”), has fashioned a story that is affecting and regenerative without descending into cliché or homily, something that often happens when blindness is used as a metaphor.

Everything about Proofis polished and professional. The story is meaningful without being pretentious, interestingly framed and composed, and beautifully cast.

Hugo Weaving plays Martin, a stiff, wary man in his thirties, blind from birth, whose early experience of his m other has led him to lead a cloistered, celibate life, cut off from emotional engage­ m ent with the world for fear of being duped or pitied. Martin has always believed his m other lied to him to punish him for being blind, and Weaving gives a consummate performance as the 32

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defensive, difficult blind man.

Genevieve Picot gives a completely convincing portrait as Martin’s complicated housekeeper, Celia, who, while being in love and obsessed with Martin, is also cruel, driven to unconsciously repeat the role of Martin’s dead mother.

Russell Crowe excels as Andy, the likeable young kitchen hand who befriends Martin and, despite his unwitting betrayal of Martin through Celia, becomes the blind m an’s conduit to the world, providing him with factual and emotional proof that the world is trustworthy, up to a point, and that his m other did not lie to him all the time.

Proofs further welcome evidence that the long-awaited second wave of Australian filmmakers is no mirage. It is accomplished and solid.

One reservation about the film is the script’s few niggling questions. We never learn how Martin supports himself: whether he is on a pension, whether he earns an income with the computers he has in his room, or whether he leads his comfortable middleclass life with money left to him by his mother. Equally, we are a little mystified as to how Celia, the strange but attractive house­ keeper, makes sufficient income from housekeeping for Martin and others to own a BMW. In the final analysis, however, these quibbles dissolve in the film’s general visual inventiveness and emotional believeability, and the freshness with which it blends the everyday and the unusual.

Holidays on the River Yarra did less well at Cannes, not being as polished as Proo/and perhaps too vernacular for its predominantly European audience.

Berkeley’s story follows the efforts of two teenagers, Mick (Luke Elliot) and Eddie (Craig Adams), to raise $500 apiece tojoin a motley group of inept ‘mercenaries’ conspiring to sail to Africa to overthrow a left-wing government of a group ofislands. The idea

FACING PAGE: EDDIE (CRAIG ADAM S) AN D MICK (LUKE ELIOT) IN LEO BERKELEY'S P O IG N A N T HOLIDAYS O N THE RIVER YARRA, W HICH PREMIERED IN UN CERTAIN REGARD. BELOW: H UG O W EAVIN G AS MARTIN, THE BLIND PHOTOGRAPHER, IN JOCELYN MOORHOUSE'S PROOF. SCREENED IN LA Q UIN ZAIN E DES REALISATEURS (DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT), THE FILM GAINED A SPECIAL M ENTION IN THE CAMERA D 'OR SECTION FOR FIRST FILMS. A N D , CAREY (BEN MENDELSOHN) AN D W ENDY (TO N I COLLETTE) IN MARK JOFFE'S SPOTSW OOD, A SUCCESSS IN THE CANNES MARKET.

for Berkeley’s film is based upon a newspaper report of the arrest in abayside café in M elbourne of several men preparing to embark on such an expedition.

Puzzled by the motivation for their behaviour - “None of the men had ever sailed in a boat on the open sea before; they had no weapons, no maps and no money”, says Berkeley, who followed their trial - the filmmaker has skilfully translated the amateur dreams and bumblings of discontented, disaffected adults into a story about teenagers trapped in an impoverished culture which allows them no outlet for their dreams and aspirations.

The film’s focus is on Eddie, a 16-year-old who has none of the streetwise cunning and disregard for property and persons of the older Mick. To raise the $500, Mick has no compunction about bashing and robbing a TAB punter in a dark alley, and making up the residual by stealing a car from a woman who has sought his help to change a tyre. Eddie, on the other hand, wants to catch a train to Seaford to borrow his $500 from an uncle.

Goaded by Mick, Eddie allows himself to be persuaded to hold up the Asian owner of a fish-and-chip shop with a knife (“The potato cakes were lousy, anyway”, says Mick angrily). The results are disastrous, leaving Eddie, betrayed by Mick who blows their money on a night on the town, no recourse but to contemplate suicide.

Berkeley’s story is strong, real and allegorical at the same time.

He deftly weaves a sympathy and understanding for the male youth culture, and its need for adventure and fulfilment, with an explo­ ration of the notion of distance - between rhetoric and reality, between people, between Australia and the rest of wo rid, and even perhaps between reductive, Australian vernacular speech and the cosmopolitan Cannes audience.

On the other hand, Holidays on the River Yarra has a gauche beginning. Despite the accomplished cinematography, the dia­ logue, intended to sound naturalistic and to reflect the speech

patterns and rhythms of male Australian discourse, sounds stilted and wooden. One wishes also that the quality of acting of Tahir Cambis (Stewie, the ‘agent’ who recruits the boys) and Alex Menglet (BigMac, the ‘boss’) was as natural and convincing as that of Craig Adams, an impressive newcomer to the Australian screen, Luke Elliot (once the film is underway), and Claudia Karvan, who plays Elsa, Mick’s friend.

However, Holidays on the River Yarra comes together at the end.

This is a rich, truthful, poignant but not bleak commentary on the difficulties of growing up in contemporary urban society, and Berkeley is to be commended for a film which resonates in the memory long after the film’s shortcomings are forgotten.

MARCHE

Australian films in the marketplace at Cannes did brisk business.

Beyond Films announced that New York-based Cabriolet Films had purchased theatrical rights to Paul Cox’s Golden Braid, which will be released in New York and other key cities in the U.S. this autumn.

O ther films that stirred strong responses from buyers were Spotswood, directed by Markjoffe, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn and Alwyn Kurts, and Paul Cox’s A Woman’s Tale, with Sheila Florance and Gosia Dobrowolska.

Spotswood, a social comedy set in a Melbourne moccasin factory in the 1960s, is an idiosyncratic delight. It is potently funny, has stand-out performances from Hopkins and Kurts, and raises issues about the possibility and need for sympathetic m anagem ent of industrial disputes which give it an appeal beyond the parochial.

A Woman’'s Tale, built around the life and personality of Sheila Florance, is a confronting tour deforce. It is Florance’s greatest act­ ing achievement, a performance that rivals that of Dame Peggy Ashcroft in She’s Been Away, and a fitting tribute by Cox to a great Australian actress and to a good life well lived. A press embargo prevents more being said about Spotswood and A Woman’s Talent this time.

O ther Australian films shown successfully at Cannes were Deadly (Esben Storm ), Backsliding (Simon Target), Stan & George’s New Life (Brian McKenzie), Waiting (Jackie McKimmie), The Magic Riddle, an animation by Yoram Gross, Dead to the World (Ross Gibson) and The Good Woman of Bangkok, directed by Dennis O ’Rourke. ■ CINEMA

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Australian Film Fina A STEELY GLASS EDIFICE LOOMS OVER THE PACIFIC HIGHWAY AS YOU ENTER NORTH SYDNEY. THE AUSTRALIAN FILM FINANCE CORPORATION (FFC) IS ON THE 6TH FLOOR, AND AS YOU SIT ON THE WAITING ROOM’S LEATHER LOUNGE YOU NOTICE THE GREY CARPET AND BUREAUCRATIC FEEL OF ITS OFFICES. THIS IS NOT EXACTLY A BASTION OF

INCE T H E FFC came into being three years ago, some of the films funded by it have come under scrutiny from filmmakers. Rumours have spread, but many filmmakers are in the dark as to the FFC’s procedures.

They’re not about to speak out, either, because they are the ones with their hands out for the funding dollar.

With a budget of $260 million spread over four years, the FFC was set up to promote a “market-driven” film industry that would draw on the filmmaking skills developed during the 10BA tax scheme. The FFC is aiming for a self-sufficient film industry, but Chief Executive John Morris says that, after the heavily-funded 10BA period, the industry needs 10 years to become marketdriven.

The FFC finances documentaries and television drama, but most of its funding goes to feature films. Its procedure for features can be confusing because different guidelines apply according to the ways projects are funded. In fact, the three big FFC successes to date have all been funded differently: Peter Weir’s Green Card was a co-production, Nadia Tass’ The Big Steal was a normal in­ vestment film and Markjoffe ’s Spotswoods entire budget came from the Film Fund.

©

CREATIVITY, NOR IS IT MEANT TO BE; FFC I N V E S T M E N T F IL M S

AFTER ALL IT IS A BANK, A FILM BANK.

The FFC’s investment programme operates entirely on the basis of commercial risk. It is not the FFC’sjob to judge a project’s merit.

Investment funding requires that filmmakers obtain a percentage of the film’s budget in advance, usually in television or distributor pre-sales. The figure increases each year: last year it was 35 per cent, this year it is 40 per cent. The FFC’s executive staff can present recommendations, but the eight-member Board makes the final decision.

Afilm thatrecendy stirred discussion was Green Card. As aFrenchAustralian co-production, the film was entided to FFC funding proportionate to its Australian elements. It received $3.7 million, but according to Morris was entided to more: I wish we’d put more money in, because the return would be better.

I’m incidentally pleased that we made money out of it. If we’d lost money, I’d still think it was correct for us to go into. I’m tired of those mean-spirited people who say we shouldn’thave invested in it. They are envious of Weir’s success.

Morris says that FFC investment ensured Weir’s creative con­ trol over the film: Peter was the writer, the director and the co-producer of that film.

He chose to tell a story set in New York about an American and a Frenchman, but it’s an Australian story. If you look at the film, it doesn’t look like an American film, it looks like a Peter Weir film.

Peter is an Australian, so it’s an Australian film.

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neeCorporation As for some of the less-successful FFC ventures, Morris claims the FFC has invested in the “bestfilms” that have been put to them.

(He fails, however, to explain how they chose the “bestfilms”, when the FFC only considers commercial potential.) Morris: The final results reflect the industry. One of the problems with Australian films is that there’s not enough time and effort spent polishing and perfecting them, and getting the best possible film from the material.

Sometimes the “best film” is not possible because projects are threatened with withdrawal of funds from overseas investors.

Trium phant winner from last year’s Film Fund, writer-director Bob Ellis, refers to the big-budget FFC films as “Till There Were Turtles”. He believes that foreign elements inhibit creativity. “It’s hard enough to make a film in your own town without having to soothe the egos of barbarian Californian foreigners”, he says.

Several FFC projects have had investment problems: John Sexton Productions’ Man of Fire still has time to recover a recently departed investment partner, butPlatypus Productions’ War Crimes will not go ahead. Platypus’ rights to the film will lapse shortly and, despite a deal with Village Roadshow, it still has no big name U.S. star for the production. Platypus has lost $350,000 in development money, which largely went to the writer Peter Carey and the director Bill Bennett. Producer Ron Rodger says, “The FFC gave a lot of support while the project was still afloat, but, when it fell apart, they weren’t there when you needed them .” Rodger says that, like all government organizations, the FFC lacks flexibility in its budgeting and failed to accommodate changes that arose out of new distribution and pre-sale agreements. War Crimes, for ex­ ample, was not perm itted to apply to the Film Fund.

When a U.S. distributor pulled out of John Seale’s Till There Was You, the FFC quickly replaced it and kept the film going. “It was a good decision”, says producer Jim McElroy, a “certified fan” of the FFC. “The FFC had the flexibility to convert from a print-andadvertising agreem ent to straight investment in the film”, he says.

(The FFC investment of $6,326,711 accounts for half of the film’s budget.) Till There Was You features Mark Harmon, star of The Presidio, and McElroy says having an American actor in the film will not only aid theatrical distribution but will help when the film goes to video. He says that producers should consider the video market more and not feel ashamed of it. Till There Was Tomwill be released to Australian cinemas in August. It is also up for Australian Film Institute pre-selecdon with the FFC Investment films Dingo (Rolf de Heer), Aya (Solrun Hoaas), Waiting (Jackie McKimmie) and IsabelleEberhardt (Ian Pringle).

The other big-budget feature that has kept everyone waiting (and wondering) is Stephen Wallace’s TurtleBeach. The film is due for a September release. With international stars Greta Scacchi,

Art Malik andjoan Chen, TurtleBeachis probably the FFC’s biggest budget to date. Not that we are about to find out because the film’s producer, Matt Carroll, is not disclosing the final budget (FFC investment was $5,248,875): “Now that 10BA is gone, budgets d o n ’t have to be a public figure.” He believes publicizing a budget influences audiences and eventual sales to distributors: “W hether a film has a big budget or low budget is irrelevant to what ends up on the screen.” The FFC has never really dealt with budgets of more than $7 million before, but, even so, itwas reasonably easy for Carroll to strike a deal. “The FFC [was] happy to work with a larger budget, but there had to be more market money attached”, he says.

The FFC is driving a tougher deal with his new mini-series pro­ posal, Frankie’s House.

THE FILM FUND

The $20 million Film Fund offers five films a budget of around $3.5 million, with $5 million left over for FFC costs. The FFC arranges finance for the films mostly through private investment. “The films are chosen on account of their scripts, and our belief, and the belief of our distributor, in their commercial viability”, says Morris.

They have no casting associated with them.

Filmmakers say that the Fund is their only means of maintain­ ing creative control on high-budget features. At a time when the results of the first Fund were hardly known, applications closed for the second Fund last October, yet a final decision was not made until March. The process is a long and arduous one for the FFC and a waiting game for filmmakers.

Last year 178 scripts were submitted to the Fund and had to endure a num ber of assessment panels. The num ber was first cut to 50 by four outside assessors (who ask to remain anonym ous).

Then itwas up to the staff, the Board and representatives from the distributor, Beyond International, to bring the num ber down to 26. Those who made it to 26 were asked to provide a package, outlining budgets, a director and producer. The final 10 were interviewed by a five-member panel consisting of Morris, Patricia Edgar (FFC Board), Moya Iceton (FFC Investment Manager), Michael Caulfield (Head of Development, Beyond International) and Phillip Gerlach (the now form er Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Beyond International). As with the Investment films, the FFC Board was responsible for the final decision.

It was a commercial consideration that all the films appeal to the under-25 audience. One anonymous filmmaker who made the final 26 said that, We were reduced to being contestants in a wheel of fortune [more commonly termed the ‘chook raffle’]. If I’d known that the success­ ful scripts were going to be about ‘coming of age’films, or about boys getting their first root, I’d have written one myself.

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T H E F F C ’S J O H N M O R R I S W A S DISAPpO

O F T H E S C R I P T S , B U T S A Y S T H E R E W|F

F O R A G O O D S C R I P T ? M O R R I S SAYS, 1

A M I D D L E A N D A N E N D . IT M U S T HAVE^ IT N E E D S I N S O M E W A Y T O B E SATISFY

As it happens, none of the [selected] directors is particularly experienced. All have at least one film under their belts, but in most cases only one. I think it would be fair to say that every one of the directors involved could be described as not yet having achieved his or her potential.

Morris was disappointed with the overall standard of the scripts, but says there were too many to cope with.

What is the FFC criteria for a good script? Morris says, “It is im portant that a script has a beginning, a middle and an end. It must have a central character or characters and it needs in some way to be satisfying.” He feels the scripts submitted were ordinary, conventional and lacked cinema dimension.

I wondered whether the people who are submitting them ever go to the commercial cinema and have ever sat down and thought about the sort of themes that work. Many of the scripts, irrespective of quality, dealt with stories that at best would have made telemovies.

I regret that, of the five films we chose, there isn’t a wider range of subject matter. It’s a pity that only one of them is directed by a woman and that most of the major characters are male. We couldn’t take any of those aspects into consideration. We had very little choice.

It has been said that the FFC’s commercial remit disadvantages the unusual, off-beat, but sfill high-quality film. Now the Fund is there to advantage those films, but there are very few of them. We like off-beat films. I think you would say that all the films in last year’s Fund were off-beat.

1989

F IL M F U N D

Spotswood was the first Film Fund project to be offered to the international marketplace. The project had generated a lot of enthusiasm internationally even before Anthony Hopkins re­ newed his star status in The Silence of the Lambs. The film is now a prom oter’s dream.

Gillian Armstrong’s The Last Days of Chez Nous also aims at the international market and features popular European actor Bruno Ganz ( Wings ofDesire, The American Friend). The film’s Sydney shoot was by all reports a great success. The film is still in post-production.

The Girl Who Came Late, directed by Kathy Mueller, stars Martin Kemp (one of the dastardly brothers in The Krays, and also of Spandau Ballet) and Miranda Otto. Saturday Rosenberg’s quirky story concerns a millionaire, and a girl who thinks she’s a horse.

Esben Storm’s Deadly is an issue-based thriller about aboriginal deaths in custody and stars Jerom e Ehlers and Lydia Miller.

American audiences will probably have trouble relating to the film, but it may do well in Europe and even Australia.

Garbo (Ron Cobb) features the talents of comic duo Stephen Kearney and Neill Gladwin of Los T rios Ringbarkus, who wrote the script with Patrick Cook.

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Most of the films in the inaugural Fund should be released by the end of the year. (Spotswood and Deadly were both in the AFI selection screenings.)

Since the beginning of the Fund, the question of imported artists has been a contentious issue. A1though an international star is almost essential to raise the money for big-budget Australian films, the Film Fund aims for cultural integrity and only approves imported artists if deemed necessary on ethnic grounds. The rules seem to be interpreted differently by Actors’ Equity and the FFC. Equity was not happy that three films in the first round had international actors. It approved Hopkins and Ganz but contested the Kemp application on the basis of his being a cockney. Arbitra­ tion decided that the casting was valid. According to Equity’s Sue Cowden, at the time Equity was given an undertaking from the FFC that there would be no imported artists in the next Fund. Morris says no agreement was made.

“The first Fund presented an interesting mix of films”, says Cowden. “But Equity doesn’twant the Fund to be deal driven."She concedes that foreign artists can open doors to investors, but says that the strategy should be restricted to FFC investment films, such as Michael Pattinson’s Wendy Cracked a Walnut (Rosanna Arquette) and Chris Tomson’s The Delinquents (Charlie Schlatter). The deals often result in complications. A recent issue of tire film trade magazine, Encore (June 7-21), revealed that a problem with The Delinquents distribution deal has resulted in the film’s not being released in the U.S. The film’s production company, Delinquents Pty Limited, is taking the Village Roadshow Corporation, Village Roadshow Pictures and the FFC to court. Ironically, TheDelinquents producers had optioned Ben Mendelsohn when trying to cast the film. The actor’s subsequent popularity may have proved more lucrative for them.

1990

F IL M F U N D

W hether the success of Spotswood and The Big Steal have had an effect on the choice of films in the second Fund is a matter for conjecture. But as the projects reveal themselves it seems to be more and more the case. Four of the films will feature adolescent boys and probably three will apply to Equity for international actors to appear in leading roles. According to Morris, the panel examined the script quality and the commerciality of each project.

Using a mixture of press releases, the 1991 Film Fund Prospectus and the filmmakers’ comments, the following profiles of the five films emerge.

The first film to go into production has been The GreatPretender, which is presently being shot in Perth and Kalgoorlie. Directed by David Elfick, it tells the story of “an artistic, bespectacled fifteenyear-old with a ram pant libido”. Elfick previously directed Fields of Fire 2 and 3 for television and Harbour Beat, one of the first features

POINTED W I T H T H E O V E R A L L S T A N D A R D IRE T O O M A N Y T O C O P E W I T H . W H A T I S T H E F F C C R I T E R I A “IT I S I M P O R T A N T T H A T A S C R I P T H A S A B E G I N N I N G , EA C E N T R A L C H A R A C T E R O R C H A R A C T E R S A N D

Y IN G .”

to gain FFC Investment ($1,400,000). It went straight to television without a cinema release.

According to producer Nina Stevenson, The Great Pretender is not aiming for realism but will achieve a stylized 1950s look through wardrobe and the bold colours of its setdesigns. “The film will have pace and energy, and be bright and glossy in its attempt to capture the optimism of Perth in the ’50s, as well as the vulnerability of life.” A minor foreign role for an authentic ’50s musician has been approved by Equity.

Came Back to Show You I Could Fly, to be directed by Richard Lowenstein (Strikebound and Dogs in Space), tells the story of “an eleven-year-old boy who meets the young, effervescent drugaddicted Angie and enters her fantasy world”. Lowenstein was interested in developing a character piece that celebrates the human spirit. He adapted the film from the novel which in 1990 was “Book of the Year” in the Older Readers’ category, Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards.

Hammers Over the AnvilwnW be made by Ann Turner ( Celia) and portrays a young disabled m an’s coming “face to face with adult­ hood”. Executive producer Gus Howard of the South Australian Film Corporation says that it is an adult film about childhood. The film is based on the short stories of polio-sufferer Alan Marshall, who wrote I CanJump Puddles.

Bob Ellis’ almost legendary autobiographical account of his formulative years, The Nostradamus Kid, tells of an over-sexed, hy­ peractive youth with a taste for personal melodrama. (Has Ellis changed?) Ellis is also directing. (He previously directed Unfinished Business and Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train.)

Shotgun Weddinghas more of a grown-up scenario where a man marries his hostage during a siege. According to producer Charles Hannah, “The drama is played for its comic elements.” It is the second feature for director Paul Harmon who has won several international awards for documentaries and short films (includ­ ing Confessions of a Simple Surgeon). . Most of the filmmakers believed they were successful because they were well prepared for the selection process. All found the panel attentive and helpful. Bob Ellis says it was a total surprise: “I was expecting a room full of corrupt lunatics banging their fists and drinking martinis.” The Fund’s tight structure is also appreci­ ated because the administration and the deals (for the films) are carried out by the FFC. “Everybody is taking a long time to wake up to the fact that amazing things are happening”, says Ellis.

It is astonishing to have a shooting date so far in advance and lots of money and time to think. With most films you are panicking at the last moment. The chook raffle allows you to concentrate on the creative process rather than continuallyworrying about the finance.

Charles Hannah says that they were given every opportunity to

present their case to the FFC and Beyond, and that the subsequent deals and documentation have been terrific. He believes that the strong collaboration between the writer, director and producers on Shotgun Wedding provided a good pitch to the Fund. The film’s other producer, David Hannay, and director Paul Harm on had been looking for a collaborative project to work on for some years.

(Hannay likes to support the creative spirit, and in his 20 years as a producer frequently employs first-time directors, producers and writers.) Interestingly, the script for the film came from an adver­ tisement they placed in the Australian Writers’ Guild newsletter, Viewpoint. Those behind the film have subsequently put an “enor­ mous effort” into the script, completing three more drafts plus countless revisions.

Nina Stevenson says that David Elfick’s understanding of the audience and the commercial markets greatly assisted The Great Pretender’s application. (Elfick has numerous credits as aproducer, which include Starstruck and Newsfront.) “Once you are selected as one of the final 10 applicants, different factors come into play other than the script”, says Stevenson. “Some you control and some you don’t. It comes down to the personal taste of the assessors and the business acumen of the proposition.”

Ann Turner is quickly learning to get her projects funded since the shooting date for Hammers Over the Anvil has been brought forward to accommodate her next project. Producer Dick Mason has had to withdraw from Hammers Over theAnvilbecause of a prior commitmentto a low-budget FFC investment project.

“In many ways it’s an advantage not to have the pressure of the Film Fund where big things are expected ofyou”, he says. ’With the Film Fund you feel that you have been selected to represent Australia.”

Two Red Heads will be shot on location in Brisbane with Claudia Karvan in the leading role.

Morris says the criteria for the Film Fund is the same as commercial mainstream films. (The successful filmmakers from the 1990 Film Fund are presently looking around for promotable Australian or international actors.) The FFC would approve im­ ports according to whom was appropriate for the films. FFC Investment Manager Catriona Hughes says, ‘T h e most im portant thing is to make as much money as we can so that we have enough money to reinvest.”

Although the FFC exists on the premise that the industry will eventually support itself, few people in the film community believe that it is possible. ‘T h e industry is hurting and retracting to a point where lower budgets should be considered”, says producer Ron Rodger. Bob Ellis believes that lower budgets are the solution and that the majority of Australian films are way over-budgeted. “They are like Sydney real estate”, he explains. “They cost twice as much as they should.”

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P H I L L I P A D A M S : “ K I M W I L L I A M S [FjRS O U f O V E R L U N C H I N S A M CHISHOLlVi» A R T S M I N I S T E R A N D W E N T STRAIGHT T H E T IM E , A N D H A D W E N O T TA K EN fil P R O C E S S ] , THE FFC N E V E R WOULDW

1991 FILM FUND

Morris expects the Federal government will honour its promise of $73 million in the August budget, so that next year’s Fund can go ahead. However, the process will start earlier and take even longer.

“Our proposal is that we will narrow the field down to somewhere between 15 and 20. We will have the creative team in, interview them, then get them to go and work on their projects and come back in two months’ timé.” This change evolved because of problems last year.

When we interviewed the final 10, almost in every case the producer said, ‘Yes, we know it isn’t right.’ There were some projects that had huge potential but that were clearly a long way from that potential.

They had to be measured up against ones that were much closer to the final form. How do you decide between a film which could potentially be a lot finer and one that has reached its potential?

Morris also says that the Film Fund is no longer necessary.

There is only a philosophical need. My opinion is that there is less of a problem now because producers have had 2 to 3 years experi­ ence of getting their deals up. The film industry is perceived as more commercial.

THE BOARD

The FFC Board is appointed by the Minister for the Arts. Last year 11 meetings were held in Sydney and two in Melbourne. The llllllpll

D A V ID C A E S A R - A C A S E S T U D Y In a bid to make bis first feature film, David Caesar applied to the Film Fund with a script called Prime Mover that he wrote in 1983. After die success o f his quirky onc-hour d ocumentary^Bodywork, he was hopeful that His application might succeed; especially with ideas-woman Glenys Rowe as producer. "“Naivety I thought it would help my application that my previous film had made a profit, considering that most Austra­ lian film s don’t”, Caesar says. But Prime Mover was elim inated after m aking the final 26. film m aker G reg W oodland, also in the final 26, says that w hile Prime Mover is “a brilliant off-the-wall

N ot that Caesar is waiting around to find out. H ehas another plan. A prolific writer, he has two other scripts under his beltyy^w

Greenkeeper and Pigskin. Encouraged by audience reaction to'dj recent reading o f Greenkeeper àt Sydney’s H arold Park H otel,. ^ Caesar is ready to try again. “T he film is m ore com m ercial;m ore fun”, he sa}«. “It w ill introduce m e to an audience that I can follow up with Prime Mover” In late June, Caesar received $800,000 f unding, from the,. .• s AFC for Greenkeeper.

Caesar concedes that he wouldn’t have got this far h ad h è ;

script”, its narrative structure has “too many surprises” for the

been anywhere else in the world. H owever, young directors can

com m ercial bent o f the Film Fund,

even be lucky in H ollywood where large bets are still hedged pm

Caesar is interested in working-class stories and describes

young talent. G eorge Lucas was 28 when h e m ade Star Warswed

Prime Mover as a “truckin’ tragedy”. A form er truck driver

Tim Burton was 29 when h e got a $40 m illion budget to make

him self, Caesar obtained Australian Film Com m isssion (AFC)

Batman. In the past, Australia has nurtured young film m akers;

funding to research the film in A lice Springs. The AFC also

like P eter Weir, but chances are getting slim m er,

offered $1 m illion for production, but Caesar says he needs $2

For Caesar, the issue with Australian film funding is howthtes m oney is spent:

m illion. “You can’t m ake a film for less than $2 m illion unless it’s two locations and four p eop le.” During the 10BA period, gov­ ernm ent regulations and union rules were set up which are now untenable for sm aller film budgets. “There’s no way that 1 cou ld ' make a film set in the outback for $1 m illion.”

The film s that are going to sell are the interesting ones andit’sÿ always been the case. The reason people went to. s e e P i m i e . afe Hanging Rock was because it was a different style o f film!-.

Australia has everything in place to make those film s .

O nce rejected from the Filin Fund, Caesar looked at 'FFC investm ent: that is, raising 40 per cent o f $2 m illion ($800,000) from television pre-sales. But the ABC (Harry Bardwell) found it unsuitable, Channel 9 had ju st cut its budget and Channel Four only offered a quarter o f that for a dom estic pre-sale ($200,000).

A co-production deal with Japan was ruled out when they wanted aJapanese w ife for the truck driver. Since there are G e r m a n and Japanese characters in the film , however, a co-production deal

C aesar agrees w ith H al McElroy*s assertion that Australia sh ould m ake eith er $10-15 m illion film s or $2 m ilUon filiiis^S n o t in-betw een film s w here,

■ people sit around tables talking about their m id-life crises. 1 People want to see film s with a big vision; wide-screen film s ; 1 with Dolby sound; film s like MadMaxand CrocodileDundee. But I 1 they aren’t being funded.

Ü

is still possible. m 38

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|$T FFC C H A I R M A N ] A N D I S O R T E D IT [ T H E F F C ] 5 OFFICE . . . TH E F F C W A S O U R B A B Y . W E B Y - P A S S E D T H E

IÎTO K E A T I N G . H A D K E A T I N G N O T B E E N T R E A S U R E R A T

mis TA CT IC [ W H I C H S C A N D A L I Z E D T H E P O L I T I C A L

HAVE H A P P E N E D . ”

present Board comprises: Chairperson: James Spiegelman QC barrister Deputy Chairperson: Dr Patricia Edgar education and media expert Anne Deveson filmmaker Jack Thompson actor Gabrielle Kelly writer, director, producer at Archangel Pro­ ductions William Gurry Managing Director, National Mutual Royal Bank Limited Christopher Lovell lawyer Ron Brown former head, SBS Television Ted Thomas retired television executive, Seven Network.

THE D IS T R IB U T O R S

The FFC Management and Board asked for “expressions of interest” from a number of organizations to act as distributor for Film Fund films. They chose the Beyond International Group, one of the more commercial companies, which distributes The Crossing and numerous television programmes, including Beyond 2000, Chances, Just for the Record and Jack Thompson Down Under.

PH ILLIP A D A M S ON T H E FFC

Adams: KimWilliams [firstFFC Chairman] andlsortedit [theFFC] outover lunch in Sam Chisholm’s office. We had previously tried about 50 other formulas but could never get the Minister to agree. We had a wonderful replacement for 10BA going back as far as the Tax Summit.

The FFC was our baby. We by-passed the Arts Minister and went straight to Keating. Flad Keating not been Treasurer at the time, and had we not taken this tactic [which scandalized the political proc­ ess] , the FFC never would have happened. Kim and Keating are very alike in some ways. They talked figures to each other and I did the politics. Itwas a political miracle at a time when everything was being cut to the marrow.

Adams adds that Ellis’ “fantasy” of becoming a director is not such a good move. “He should go back to being a writer.”

A D A M S ON F IL M F U N D IN G

Adams: The arts have always required patronage. Look at the lives of Da Vinci and Mozart. Da Vinci never succeeded in doing anything in his life. He chose the wrong patrons.

Arts funding either has to be private, corporate or government.

Each of them has their own rules and filmmakers should learn to play them a bit better. Filmmakers are grizzling but they should do something. Things are only going to get worse. Filmmakers used to be a pretty good lobby group but they’re not any more. You never hear a squeak out of them. If the FFC doesn’t fall over them, then they should go out and raise the money elsewhere. This generation has lost their energy. I’m very impatient with them. I remember when it used to take 6 or 7 years to make a low-budget feature film.

You had to scrounge for everything and then you couldn’t get it shown. Hoyts, Greater Union and the others would say, ‘What are you talking about?’ It went from being too hard to being too easy.

We’ve got a generation of people who, unless it happens for them as if by magic, don’t know what to do. One of the things I deeply regret is that under 10BA we made it such a sheltered workshop.

You’re not exactly hosing down filmmakers in Australia because they’re too talented, you’re begging them to be more adventurous.

Adams believes it is the job of the AFC to encourage new talent, not the FFC. “Young filmmakers don’t realize how fortunate they are. This is the easiest country in the world to work in. You can still make feature films for shitpence if you have to.”

Adams believes that too many mediocre projects have been funded in the past.

It is better to have two or three amazing, volatile talents than 200 or 500 ordinary ones. We should take the risks and go for the doctor.

It’s risky but it’s more likely to produce a result. We’ve always funded too many projects in Australia. That’s one of the things we were doing at the AFC before I left. You’d go into the files and find script development money for 2000 scripts.

■

Adams has never been to the FFC except for the opening. “I’m deliberately unknowledgeable about them. I hear bad things from time to time, but I thought that tire replacement of the Chief Executive might have helped.” (Morris, who assumed the role in January 1990, was formerly the Director of the New South Wales Film and Television Office and Managing Director of the South Australian Film Corporation.)

Adams is thrilled about the Film Fund’s selection of The Nostradamus Kid, a project that he originally commissioned with David Puttnam.

The film is the story of Bob Ellis’ childhood and it is an astonishing script. Ellis was brought up a Seventh Day Adventist with exactly the same sort of background as Lindy Chamberlain - amidst all that religious lunacy and craziness. Puttman and I were thrilled, but we couldn’t raise the dough. It was obliterated during the 10BA rush because it wasn’t expensive enough.

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39

WHILE TRYING TO HOLD TO A SCHEDULE OF TOPICS FOR THESE ARTICLES, SOMETIMES EVENTS IN THE MONTHS BETWEEN PUBLICATION CALL THE TUNE. THIS TIME THERE ARE SOME THOUGHTS ON INTEGRATING FILM AND VIDEO AND THERE IS A BACKGROUND THEME OF DIGITIZING THE FILM IMAGE, A SUBJECT AS IMPORTANT TO THE FUTURE OF FILM AS IT IS TO THE WAYS IT WILL CHANGE FILM AND VIDEO POST-PRODUCTION.

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE FILM IMAGE

These comments are to give perspective to developments that will eventually become as boring as a discussion about which manufac­ turer’s T-grain negative emulsion processed in Eastmancolor chemicals and work-printed on to Eastman stock looks better when trans­ ferred to VHS. You just can’t tell.

Why you can’t tell is the massive loss of picture information that transferring film to video requires and the massive loss involved with a low-resolution distribution medium such as VHS. We accept this loss because we receive all the other messages from the image, such as movement, sound and the transfer of enter­ tainment or similar information. Compared to VHS broadcast television, our PAL 625 line system looks terrific.

My paid work (as compared to my writing here) is in producing commercials or corpo­ rate videos that have a special-effects or graph­ ics bias. For me, the film-vs-video argument is not an issue. I produce mostly for origination on film and finish on video. As an idea of how these two are integrated in the commercials environment I work in, the last time I ordered a film print and cut on film was three years ago.

Transferring film neg and cutting off-line saves me time and money, and keeps the control of a production in my hands.

At the moment, I am producing a long programme on SP Betacam video that has had all the care and attention thatwould have been given to a film shoot, and will look great on broadcast, butwill ultimately be distributed on VHS. Each day, as I receive the time-coded rushes on VHS, the quality loss is depressing, and there is no alternative available.

For large sections of audio-visual produc­ tion, the use of film is dead and well near buried, when compared to video, for a videoonly release. It isjust too expensive. However, for production where the cost of the filmstock is only a small fraction of the cost of the overall production, film remains the choice for the highest-quality and most-flexible image-pro­ duction medium.

While it may be, ah, flexible, we are con­ tinuing to ask it to bend further towards elec­ tronic imaging.

TOWARDS A FILM-VIDEO HYBRID CAMERA

Wedged in the back pages of the March ’91 issue of American Cinematographer is an article about a forthcoming Amblin TV and Universal 40

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TV co-produced sitcom that we are certain to see here. The production, Harry and the Hendersons, was planned as a conventional stu­ dio multi-camera video shoot, but because, and I quote, there h ad long been dissatisfaction am o n g foreign telecasters a n d hom e video m arketers with the inferior image-resolving quality o f the A m erican NTSC video tapes c om pared to th eir h ig h er resolution PAL an d SECAM sys­ tems. S hooting the series on the m uch h ig h er resolution film m edium seem ed the logical way to go. But th ere were b u d g e t restraints w hich would n o t accom m odate a fully film style sit-com.

Their answer lay in using four standard television studio pedestals, mounting on each a Panaflex-X, with its mirrored shutter sending the image to one of the new 700 line CCD video splits. Added was a 7” high-definition monitor, and the manual focus and zoom controls were replaced with servo controls on the pan handle.

Planned refinements such as tally lights and a four-way split in the viewfinder (to see which camera is covering what), and the sys­ tem promises to turn out 72 episodes of betterthan-usual quality U.S. television. The film stock was Eastman 5296, and of course there is no problem in mixing images with single­ camera location material and hand-held cam­ era shots.

NEW Hi-8 RELEASES

We are watching a fragmentation of the mar­ ket for image-making tools, where quality is matched to an equipment price and the qual­ ity borders between different systems are blurred. The motto is becoming, “Don’t pay for what you don’t need”, while the manufac­ turers continue to incorporate advanced fea­ tures in lower-cost gear.

An example of this was the announcement and release of new Hi-8 equipment by Sony.

Sony has always maintained the position for Hi-8 (the Video-8 high band equivalent of Super-VHS) was as a camcorder format to feed into SP U-matic or BVU edit suites. Now there has been a subtle change in the presentation as a lot of Hi-8 users have been dubbing up to Betacam and using Hi-8 as an on-air broadcast format.

The new 3-chip CCD camera EVW 325P with a Hi-8 back sells for around $12,000, but Sony had a package deal going with the EVO 9800P Hi-8 recorder/player, which plugs into a broadcast edit system controller just like any

other SP or 1”machine. The fact that Sony calls it an edit feeder is an indication of how I believe it will be used. I don’t believe that many facilities will add a Super-VHS deck in the same manner (S-VHS users tend to favour stand­ alone dedicated facilities that provide lowercost alternatives to broadcast suites).

This new Hi-8 gear is solid, professional equipment and should dispel the consumeroriented image of 8mm video.

RANK-CINTEL INTEGRATE THE DIVA

Sydney is a small town, even for relatively big fish like KiaSilverbrook’s company, Integrated Arts. It was the profits from Silverbrook’s inno­ vative video synthesizer, the Fairlight CVT, a device right for its time, which helped fund the start-up of the multi-million-dollar public company back in the pre-crash days of 1987.

During those years, considering the number of staff employed (40 at the peak), almost everybody in the computer-graphics industry knew someone who worked at Woy Woy on what was going to be the video-editing3D-animation-graphics device to conquer the world market. One of the ‘sunrise’ industries beloved and funded by the government at the time, Integrated Arts persisted with the Inmos transputers, chips that promised fast parallel processing so that instead of just digitizing frames of video, real-time images could be created from the vectors, or paths that the points of their image took.

Like lots of other journalists, I was prom­ ised an invitation to the launch of the product and a story for Cinema Papers. But the sched­ uled dates came and went. Now the Integrated Arts device has gone. Rank-Cintel purchased the results of the four year, $10,000,000 project and now have its DIVA. Previewed at the recent NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention and tech-fest in Las Vegas, the DIVA device will sell for U.S.$125,000 as an animation and graphics device. The advantage of the vector approach to image construction is that it should be freed from the resolution limits of video and can dump to a film recorder just as easily to a D1 digital VTR. Expect to see the DIVA out of Beta testing in October 1991 and, given its parentage, let’s hope we see a system here soon.

DEPRESSION/COMPRESSION

The local and overseas computer magazines have gone silly on the subject of desktop video.

All report with an air of surprise that it is now

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BACK

ISSUES:

CINEMA

PAPERS

NUMBER 1 (JANUARY 1974):

David Williamson, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Weir, Antony Ginnane, Gillian Armstrong, Ken G. Hall, T h e C a r s t h a t A t e P a r is .

NUMBER 2 (APRIL 1974):

Censorship, Frank Moorhouse, Nicolas Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under Allende, B e tw e e n T h e W a r s, A l v i n P u r p le

NUMBER 3 (JULY 1974):

Richard Brennan, John Papadopolous, Willis O ’Brien, William Friedkin, T h e T r u e S to r y O f E s k im o N e ll.

NUMBER 10 (SEPT/OCT 1976)

Nagisa Oshima, Philippe Mora, Krzysztof Zanussi, Marco Ferreri, Marco Belloochio, gay cinema.

NUMBER 11 (JANUARY 1977)

Emile De Antonio, Jill Robb, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, T h e P i c tu r e S h o w M a n .

NUMBER 12 (APRIL 1977)

Ken Loach, Tom Haydon, Donald Sutherland, Bert Deling, Piero Tosi, John Dankworth, John Scott, D a y s O f H o p e , T h e G e t t i n g O f W is d o m .

NUMBER 27 (JUNE-JULY 1980)

NUMBER 47 (AUGUST 1984)

Randal Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald Richie, obituary of Hitchcock, NZ film industry', G r e n d e l G r e n d e l G r e n d c l.

Richard Lowenstein, Wim Wenders, David Bradbury, Sophia Turkiewicz, Hugh Hudson, R o b b e r y U n d e r A r m s .

NUMBER 28 (AUG/SEPT 1980)

NUMBER 48 (O CT/NO V 1984)

Bob Godfrey, Diane Kurys, Tim Burns, John O’Shea, Bruce Beresford, B a d

Ken Cameron, Michael Pattinson, Jan Sardi, Yoram Gross, B o d y lin e , T h e S lim

NUMBER 13 ( JULY 1977)

T im in g , R o a d g a m e s.

D u s t y M o v ie .

Louis Malle, Paul Cox, John Power, Jeanine Seawell, Peter Sykes, Bernardo Bertolucci, I n S e a r c h O f A n n a .

NUMBER 29 (O CT/NO V 1980)

NUMBER 49 (DECEMBER 1984)

Bob Ellis, Uri Windt, Edward Woodward, Lino Brocka, Stephen Wallace, Philippine cinema, C r u is in g , T h e L a s t O u tla w .

Alain Resnais, Brian McKenzie, Angela Punch McGregor, Ennio Morricone, Jane Campion, horror hints, N i e l L y n n e .

NUMBER 14 (OCTOBER 1977)

Phil Noyce, Matt Carroll, FJric Rohmer, Terry Jackman, John Huston, L u k e ’s K i n g d o m , T h e L a s t W a v e , B lu e F ir e L a d y .

NUMBER 15 (JANUARY 1978)

Tom Cowan, Francois Truffaut, John Faulkner, Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri Lankan cinema, T h e Ir is h m a n , T he C h a n t O f J im m ie B la c k s m ith .

NUMBER 36 (FEBRUARY 1982)

NUMBER 50 (FEB/MARCH 1985)

Kevin Dobson, Brian Kearney, Sonia Hofmann, Michael Rubbo, B lo w O u t, B re a k e r M o r a n t, B ody H e a t, The M a n

Stephen Wallace, Ian Pringle, Walerian Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti, Brian May, T h e L a s t B a s tio n , Bliss.

NUMBER 51 (MAY 1985)

Stephen MacLean, Jacki Weaver, Carlos Saura, Peter Ustinov, women in drama,

B eyo n d T h u n d e r d o m e , R o b b ery U n d e r

NUMBER 38 (JUNE 1982)

A rm s.

Geoff Burrowes, George Miller, James Ivory, Phil Noyce, Joan Fontaine, Tony Williams, law and insurance, F a r E a st.

NUMBER 52 (JULY 1985)

NUMBER 17 (AUG/SEPT 1978)

Bill Bain, Isabelle Huppert, Brian Mav, Polish cinema, N e w s fr o n t, T lte N i g h t T h e

NUMBER 39 (AUGUST 1982)

NUMBER 18 (O C T/N O V 1978)

Helen Morse, Richard Mason, Anja Breien, David Millikan, Derek Granger, Norwegian cinema, National Film Archive, W e O f T h e N e v e r N e v e r .

John Lamond, Sonia Borg, Alain Tanner, Indian cinema, D im b o o la , C a t h y ’s C h ild .

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER 1982)

NUMBER 19 (JAN/FEB 1979)

Henri Safran, Michael Ritchie, Pauline Kael, Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, M y

P r o w le r.

Antony Ginnane, Stanley Hawes, Jeremy Thomas, Andrew Sarris, sponsored documentaries, B l u e F in .

D i n n e r W it h A n d r e , L ite R e t u r n O f C a p t a i n I n v i n c ib l e .

NUMBER 41 (DECEMBER 1982) NUMBER 20 (MARCH-APRIL 1979)

Ken Cameron, Claude Lelouch, Jim Sharman, French cinema, M y B r i l l i a n t

Igor Auzins, Paul Schrader, Peter Tammer, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins, Tlse T e a r O f L i v i n g D a n g e r o u s ly .

C areer.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH 1983) NUMBER 22 (JULY/AUG 1979)

Bruce Petty, Luciana Arrighi, AJbie Thoms, S ta x , A l i s o n ’s B i r t h d a y

Mel Gibson, John Waters, Ian Pringle, Agnes Varda, copyright, S tr ik e b o u n d , T h e

John Schlesinger, Gillian Armstrong, Alan Parker, soap operas, TV News, him advertising, D o n ’t C a l l M e G ir lie , F o r L o v e A l o n e , D o u b le S cu lls.

Bryan Brown, Nicolas Roeg, Vincent Ward, Hector Crawford, Emir Kusturica, New Zealand hint and television, R e t u r n To E den.

Graente Clifford, Bob Weis, John Boorman, Menahent Golan, rock videos, W ills A n d B u r k e , T h e G r e a t B o o k ie R o b b e ry , T h e L a n c a s te r M i l l e r A f f a i r .

NUMBER 26 (APRIL/MAY 1980)

NUMBER 46 (JULY 1984)

Charles H. Joffe, Jerome Heilman, Malcolm Smith, Australian nationalism, Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, W a t e r U n d e r

Paul Cox, Russell Mulcahy, Alan J. Pakula, Robert Duvall, Jeremy Irons, E u r e k a

T h e B r id g e .

Australian Screenwriters, Cinema and China, James Bond, Janies Clavden, Video, De Laurentiis, New World, T h e NUMBER 67 (JANUARY 1988)

John Duigan, George Miller, Jim Jarmusch, Soviet cinema- Part I, women in him, shooting in 70ntm, hlntmaking in Ghana, T lte T e a r M y V oice B ro k e , S e n d A G o r illa .

NUMBER 68 (MARCH 1988)

H a n d M a n , B ir d s v ille .

Martha Ansara, Channel 4, Soviet Cinema, Jim McBride, Glamour, G h o sts O f T h e C i v i l D e a d , F e a th ers, O c e a n , O c e a n .

Fred Schepisi, Dennis O ’Rourke, Brian Trenchard-Smith, John Hargreaves, D e a d -

P a p e rs, S tr e e t K id s .

NUMBER 66 (NOVEMBER 1987)

James Stewart, Debbie Byrne, Brian Thompson, Paul Verhoeven, Derek Meddings, tie-in marketing, Tloe R i g h t -

NUMBER 43 (MAY/JUNE 1983)

S ti r .

NUMBER 65 (SEPTEMBER 1987)

Angela Carter, Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Derek Jarman, Gerald L’Ecuyer, Gustav Hasford, ATI Awards, P o o r M a n ’s

NUMBER 55 (JANUARY 1986)

Sydney Pollack, Denny Lawrence, Graeme Clifford, T h e D is m is s a l, C a r e f u l H e M i g h t

David Stevens, Simon Wincer, Susan Lambert, a personal history of C i n e m a

Nostalgia, Dennis Hopper, Mel Gibson, Vladimir Osherov, Brian TrenchardSmith, Chartbusters, I n s a tia b le .

N a v i g a to r , W h o ’s T h a t G ir l.

Brian Trenchard-Smith, Ian Holmes, Arthur Hiller, Jerzy Toeplitz, Brazilian cinema, H a r l e q u i n .

NUMBER 44-45 (APRIL 1984)

NUMBER 64 (JULY 1987)

NUMBER 54 (NOVEMBER 1985)

NUMBER 24 (DEC/JAN 1980)

David Puttnam, Janet Strickland, Everett de Roche, Peter Faiman, C h a i n R e a c ti o n ,

Gillian Armstrong, Antony Ginnane, Chris Haywood, Elmore Leonard, Troy Kennedy Martin, T h e S a c r ific e , L a n d s lid e s ,

O ra n g e.

NUMBER 56 (MARCH 1986)

NUMBER 25 (FEB/MARCH 1980)

NUMBER 63 (M AY 1987)

NUMBER 53 (SEPTEMBER 1985)

M a n F ro m S n o w y R iv e r .

H ea r Ton.

NUMBER 62 (MARCH 1987)

Screen Violence, David Lynch, Cary Grant, ASSA conference, production barometer, hint hnance, T h e S to r y O f

Pee W e e ’s B i g A d v e n t u r e , J ilte d .

Ruo,

W in n e r s , T h e N a k e d C o u n tr y , M a d M a x :

M o n k e y G r ip .

NUMBER 16 ( APRIL-JUNE 1978)

Gunnel Lindblom, John Duigan, Steven Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, T h e A f r i c a P ro je c t, Swedish cinema, D a w n ! , P a tr ic k .

Lino Brocka, Harrison Ford, Noni Hazlehurst, Dusan Makavejev, E m o h

NUMBER 61 (JANUARY 1987)

Alex Cox, Roman Polanski, Philippe Mora, Martin Armiger, him in South Australia, D o g s I n S p a ce , H o w l i n g I I I .

T h e K e lly G a n g .

F rom S n o w y R iv e r .

NUMBER 37 (APRIL 1982)

NUMBER 60 (NOVEMBER 1986)

Australian Television, Franco Zeffirelli, Nadia Tass, Bill Bennett, Dutch Cinema, Movies By Microchip, O tello .

E n d D r i v e - I n , T h e M o r e T h in g s C h a n g e , K a n g a r o o , T ra c y .

NUMBER 69 (M AY 1988)

Special Cannes issue, hint composers, sex, death and family hlms, Vincent Ward, Luigi Acquisto, David Parker, production barometer, Ian Bradley, P le a s u r e D o m e s.

NUMBER 58 (JULY 1986)

Woody Allen, Reinhard Hauff, Orson Welles, the Cinémathèque Française, T h e F r in g e D w e lle r s, G r e a t E x p e c ta tio n s : T h e U n to ld S t o r y , T h e L a s t F r o n tie r .

NUMBER 59 (SEPTEMBER 1986)

NUMBER 70 (NOVEMBER 1988)

Film Australia, Gillian Armstrong, Fred Schepisi, Wes Craven, John Waters, A1 Clark, S h a m e Screenplay Part I. NUMBER 71 (JANUARY 1989)

S to c k a d e , W a te r f r o n t , T h e B o y I n T h e

Robert Altman, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka, Agnes Varda, The AFI Awards, T h e

Yahoo Serious, David Cronenberg, The Year in Retrospect, Film Sound , T o u n g

B u sh , A W o m a n S u ffe r s , S tr e e t H e r o .

M o vers.

E i n s t e in , S h o u t, T lte L a s t T e m p t a t i o n o f C h r is t, S a l t S a li v a S p e r m a n d S w e a t

Q ANTAS-CIN EM A PAPERS YOUNG FILM M AKER’S AWARD THE

AWARD

T h e Q antas-Cinem a Papers Young Filmmaker’s Award offers assist­ ance in becom ing an attachment on a major overseas production, with an overseas airfare provided by Quantas, and expenses o f $3000.

ELIGIBILITY O pen to Australian citzens under the age o f 30 on D ecem ber 31, 1991. Entry is restricted to filmmakers who have contributed in a major creative capacity (producer, director, writer, cinematogra­ pher, editor or composer) on at least four productions.

JUDGING

CRITERIA

T here will be a judging panel o f three industry representatives: a producer, a director and a member o f the N ew South W ales Film and T elevision Office. T h e judges will look for evidence o f how the filmmaker would benefit from overseas experience, use the time effectively, and utilize the experience in making plans for future productions. Applicants are to make their own arrangements for the attachment, providing production details with their entry form.

CLOSING

DATE

Entry Forms m ust be received by 30 Septem ber 1991. All forms to be sent to: Cinema Papers 43 Charles Street Abbotsford Victoria 3067 ANNOUNCEMENT

T h e winner o f the award will be announced in D ecem ber 1991.

T h e winner m ust make use o f the air travel before 30 June 1992.

AUSTRALIAN FILM COUNCIL

E N T R Y P L E A S E

P R O V I D E

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• Entries will not be returned, and no correspondence regarding them can be entered into.

• The decision of the judges is final.

• Winning applicant will be required to supply Cinema Papers with a full report on completion of the attachment. This report will be circulated to sponsors, and may be published in Cinema Papers at a later date.

T H I S A W A R D H A S B E E N M A D E P O S S I B L E BY T H E G E N E R O U S S U P P O R T OF T H E A U S T R A L I A N FILM C O M M I S S I O N , T H E N EW S O U T H W A L E S FIL M A N D T E L E V I S I O N O F F I C E , T H E W E S T E R N A U S T R A L I A N FIL M C O U N C I L , A ND Q A N T A S A I R W A Y S LIM ITED .

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FILMVIEWS

BACK O F B EY O N D

NUMBER 123 AUTUM N 1985

1984 Women’s Film Unit, Solrun Hoaas, Louise Webb, Scott Hicks, Jan Roberts

DISCOVERING AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION

NUMBER 124 WINTER 1985

A

Merata Mita, Len Lye, Marken Gorris, Daniel Petrie, Larry Meitzer NUMBER 125 SPRING 1985

Rod Webb, Marken Gorris, Ivan Gaal, R e d M a t i l d a s , Sydney Film Festival NUMBER 126 SUMMER 1985/86

Pierre Gorin, Michelangelo Antonioni, Wendy Thompson, Michael Lee, Jonathan Dennis, Super 8 NUMBER 134 SUMMER 1987/88

Film Music, Groucho’s Cigar, Jerzy Domaradzki, Hong Kong Cinema, The Films of Chris Marker, David Noakes, T h e

NUMBER 135 AUTUM N 1988

Sogo Ishii, Tom Haydon, Gillian Leahy, Tom Zubrycki, John Hanhardt, Australian Video Festival, Erika Addis, Ross Gibson, Super 8, C a m e r a N a t u r a

Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Ansara, New Chinese Cinema, Lindsay Anderson, Sequence Magazine, Cinema Italia, New Japanese Cinema

NUMBER 131 AUTUM N 1987

NUMBER 136 WINTER 1988

Richard Lowenstein, New Japanese Cinema, Ken Russell, Richard Chataway and Michael Cusack

Film Theory' and Architecture, Victor Burgin, Horace Ove, Australian Mini Series, B lu e V e lv e t , S o u th o f th e B o r d e r , C a n n i b a l T o u rs

NUMBER 132 WINTER 1987

NUMBER 72 (MARCH 1989)

Charles Dickens’ L i t t l e D o r r it , Australian Sci-Fi movies, Survey: 1988 Mini-Series, Aromarama, Ann Turner’s C e l ia , Fellini’s L a do lce v i ta , Women and Westerns NUMBER 73 (M AY 1989)

Cannes Issue, Phil Noyce’s D e a d C a l m , Franco Nero, Jane Campion, Ian Pringle’s T h e P r is o n e r o f S t. P e te r s b u r g , Frank Pierson - Scriptwriter, Australian films at Cannes, Pay TV. NUMBER 74 (JULY 1989) T h e D e li n q u e n ts , Australians in Holly­ wood, Chinese Cinema, Philippe Mora, Yuri Sokol, Twins, T r u e B e lie v e rs, G hosts... o f th e C i v i l D e a d , S h a m e screenplay.

NUMBER 75 (SEPTEMBER 1989)

Sally Bongers, The Teen Movie, A n i m a t e d , E d e n s L ost, Mary' Lambert and P e t S e m a t a n 1, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader, Ed Pressman.

NUMBER 76 (NOVEMBER 1989)

Simon Wincer and Q u ig le y D o w n U n d e r , Kennedy Miller, Terry Hayes, B a n g k o k H i l t o n , John Duigan, F l i r t i n g , R o m e r o , Dennis Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland, Frank Howson, Ron Cobb.

NUMBER 77 (JANUARY 1990)

Special John Farrow profile, B lo o d O a th , Dennis Whitburn and Brian Williams,

Michael Leigh, Curiouser and Curiouser; Adrian Martin, N urturing the Next Wave.

The Back of Beyond Catalogue is lavishly illustrated with more than 130 photographs, indexed, and has full credit listings for some 80 films.

D e v i l in th e Flesh, H o w th e W e s t W a s L o st

NUMBER 130 SUMMER 1986/87

NUMBER 133 SPRING 1987

in Australia. Edited by Scott Murray, and with exten­

Murray, Terry Hayes', Graeme Turner, M ixing Fact and Fiction',

NUMBER 128 WINTER 1986

Wim Wenders, Solveig Dommartin, Jean-

television archive in the U.S. are now available for sale

Collaboration: Kennedy Miller, Scott Murray, George Miller, Scott

H a s ta C u a n d o ?

Censorship in Australia, Rosalind Rrauss, Troy Kennedy Martin, New Zealand Cinema, David Chesworth

Australian film and television at the UCLA film and

Ross Gibson, Formative Landscapes', Debi Enker, Cross-over and

Jane Oehr, John Hughes, Melanie Read, Philip Brophy, Gyula Gazdag, C h ile :

Reinhard Hauff, Nick Zedd, Tony Rayns, Australian Independent Film, Public Television in Australia, Super 8

catalogues especially prepared for the 1988 season of

on film and television, such as Kate Sands, Women of the Wave;

NUMBER 127 AUTUM N 1986

NUMBER 129 SPRING 1986

of the beautifully designed

sively researched articles by several of Australia’s leading writers

Victorian Women’s Film Unit, Randelli’s, Laken Jayamanne

Karin Aitmann, Tom Cowan, Gillian Coote, Nick Torrens, David Bradbury', Margaret Haselgrove, Karl Steinberg, AFTRS graduate films, Super 8

LIM ITED NUM BER

NUMBER 137 SPRING 1988

Hanif Kureishi, Fascist Italy and American Cinema, Gillian Armstrong, Atom Egoyan, Film Theory and Architecture, S h a m e , Television Mini Series, Korean Cinema, S a m m y a n d R o s ie G e t L a i d ■

Don McLennan and B r e a k a w a y , “Crocodile” Dundee overseas.

NUMBER 78 (MARCH 1990)

George Ogilvie’s T h e C r o ss in g , Ray Argali’s R e t u r n H o m e , Peter Greenaway and T h e C o o k, T h e T h ie f, H is W ife a n d H e r L o v e r, Michel Ciment, Jack Clayton, B a n g k o k H i l t o n and B a r lo w a n d C h a m b e r s NUMBER 80 (AUGUST 1990)

Cannes report, Fred Schepisi career interview, Peter Weir and G r e e n c a r d , Pauline Chan, Gus Van Sant and D r u g s to r e C o w b o y, German Stories.

NUMBER 81 (DECEMBER 1990)

Ian Pringle Isa b e lle E b e r h a r d t, Jane Campion A n A n g e l A t M y T a b le , Martin Scorsese G o o d fe lla s, Alan J. Pakula P r e s u m e d I n n o c e n t NUMBER 82 (MARCH 1991)

Francis Ford Coppola T h e G o d fa th e r P a r t I I I , Barbet Schroeder R e v e r s a l o f F o r tu n e , Bruce Beresford’s B la c k R o b e , Ramond Hollis Longford, B a c k s lid in g , Bill Bennetts, Sergio Corbucci obituary'.

NUMBER 83 (MAY 1991)

Australia at Cannes, Gillian Armstrong: T h e L a s t D a y s a t C h e z N o u s , Joathan Demme: T h e S ile n c e o f th e L a m b s , F l y n n , D e a d T o T h e W o r ld , Marke Joffe’s S p o tsw o o d , Anthony Hopkins ■

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actually a reality, rather than an idea whose time is coming, “real-soon-now”. The reports have changed to hardware and software re­ views for devices that have been paid for and installed (surely the bottom line, given the state of the economy).

Desktop video will have an impact on a lot of areas such as education and business, but the areas of particular interest to film and video post-production involve the new buzzphrase, “non-linear editing”. Over the past month, there have been demonstrations of the Lightworks and Avid computer-based off-line editing systems, both with stated attempts to capture the hearts of those film editors who have supposedly avoided video off-line editing systems.

I know Australia is different from the U.S. and UK, where I’m willing to believe that there are still ghettos of celluloid traditionalists, but I don’t know of a film editor in Australia who hasn’t already become familiar with the stand­ ard “punch & crunch”3/4 or 1/2 ’’edit systems or already embraced even more sophisticated computer-controlled systems.

To my mind, the argument for non-linear editing systems is not how much like film editing they can be made to emulate, but how well they replace the lousy and painfully slow ‘linear’ (i.e., videocassette-based) systems.

Systems such as the Ediflex (installed at Kerry Reagan’s Sydney company, The Editing Machine, and just signed up for post-produc­ tion on Boney for Grundy’s and PBL and Field Associates for Skippy), which uses banks ofVHS cassettes to speed up the search and replay times, are at best a low-cost stop-gap to what inevitably has to give way to hard disk- or optical disk-stored images. (Ediflex demon­ strated a magneto-optical disk system at NAB.)

RESOLVING THE PROBLEMS

While 35mm and 16mm film when transferred to U-matic and VHS are a pale, low-contrast, low-resolution shadow of the original, the ad­ vantages that video editing offers are enough to put up with the lack of detail and makes cassette-systems use in editing of series or fea­ ture films an uncomfortable (and usually costdriven) compromise.

With the economies of solid-state devices, the quality of computer images has been stead­ ily improving and the hardware cost has been falling. While systems that are intended for manipulation and return to film, such as the Kodak High Definition film system mentioned in our March issue, are forced to use massive amounts of computer storage and memory to handle just a few seconds of moving filmquality images, it requires a relatively modest amount of storage to produce VHS or U-Matic quality television images.

Laser-video disks, for example, can replay more than an hour of higher-quality video with compact disk-quality audio on a 12” disk, and there is a growing number of optical- and magnetic-format record-replay disk systems within the price range of an existing U-matic machine.

PUTTING ON THE SQUEEZE

There has been a number of approaches for reducing the amount of digital information that is stored to re-create or broadcast a goodquality moving-television picture. These meth­ ods will be needed ifwe are going to get higherdefinition television systems within the exist­ ing frequency bands.

One approach has been to examine each frame and evaluate what has changed from the

previous one, storing only those portions of the picture. A talking face could then be re­ created by just updating parts of the image such as the mouth and occasional blinking eyes. There are a number of successful systems that this way can get the amount of data down to the level where it can be transmitted on a standard phone line (watch for the video phone). But when the camera moves or the subject waves his/her arms quickly, the image breaks up, producing unwatchable results.

The U.S.-basedJoint Photographic Experts Group, or JPEG (pronounced Jay Peg), an affiliation of computer and software compa­ nies including Kodak, has been working for the pastfewyears to produce an open standard ‘algorithm’ that can compress and de-com­ press images. U.S. company C-Cube has now developed a hardware chip, the CL-550, which does most of the work. The results on still images allow ratios of up to 25:1 compression without loss of image quality, but motion pic­ tures also require those images to be presented fast, and a few minutes of video have been all that can be stored on a hard disk. The solution is now available to allow the tens and twenties of hours of images needed for useful editing of feature and series episodes to be stored on fastaccess disks - with quality.

BUILDING A BETTER NON-LINEAR MOUSETRAP

What this amount of image compression promises is being able to store enough fullmotion images to be useful on a long project, and to jump instantly to any image and sound sequence on the disks in a non-linear way BELOW: THE AVID MEDIA COMPOSER MODEL 40, DIGITAL NON-LINEAR EDITING SYSTEM.

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(without having to spool forward and back through videotapes).

Edit decisions made in this way are only a list of image sequences for the computer to replay each time. There is practically no limit to the number of alternative cuts you can have and, if you want to shorten or rearrange a shot, unlike linear tape editingyou don’thave to re­ assemble from that point or dubb down.

Visually, the display of available sequences appears as small ‘storyboard’ images on the computer screen that can be moved around in sequence using a device such as a mouse. At any time, expanded strings of still or moving images allow a fine cut to be made with the whole sequence of frames before you (as on a lightbox). This flexibility also applies to the visual display of dialogue and sound effects.

When a sequence is completed, the result can be output to a standard VCR for approval.

There are a number of non-linear systems that you can choose from in the U.S - the Emc2, Montage III - and Spectrum Films in Sydney has theTouchvision D/Vision using the Intel DVI system in a big 486 PC. The first I BELOW: THE LIGHTWORKS NON-LINEAR EDITING SYSTEM.

have seen, however, was the new Lightworks system, followed immediately by the Avid, available in the U.S. in NTSC for some time, but just demonstrated around Australia by Quantum.

THE AVID

Avid Technology of Burlington, Massachu­ setts, has the benefit of an almost two-years’ lead over the Lightworks system. It is based on the new faster Apple Macintosh II computers, and uses the C-Cube CL-550 JPEG compres­ sion chips and Truevision NuVista 24 bit board with some well-developed software. Avid calls the various configurations in the range the Avid 200 Media Composer series, and they all allow for simultaneous editing of images, sound and sound effects with the ability to import and integrate images that are created with any of the MacPaint or image applications, such as PixelPaint or Adobe Photoshop.

The Avid is supplied even in its most basic configuration with the new Panasonic phasechange optical disks that can store up to two hours of sound and VHS-quality images. You just play your rushes from any video source and

the Avid digitizes the image in real time com­ plete with time-code.

The sound on the Avid can be up to 24 tracks of CD quality, with the ability to setaudio and pan levels, and smooth fades and crossfades. The all-digital mix can be stored and then dumped to, say, a DAT tape. The quality- and sound-editing flexibility is a big plus.

The systems range in price from about $45,000 for a basic off-line replacement sys­ tem, up to around $140,000 for the Avid 2000 Series due here at the end of 1991. The Avid 2000 promises 3/4”U-Matic quality and higher sound-sampling rates and quality. There are options for creating standard EDL (Edit Deci­ sion Lists) and machine control of broadcast VTRs, such as Betacam and D1 and D2 ma­ chines. There is an inbuilt digital linear keyer for incorporating titles and graphics.

Other options include its MediaMatch software for conforming film negative to the finished edit and MIDI recording.

U.S. industry gossip says that sometime next year Avid will be demonstrating a full broadcast-quality editing system, and that it will really put the digital cat amongst the ana­ logue pigeons!

Avid Technology is represented in Aus­ tralia by Quantum Pacific and the contact there is Peter Amos on (02) 975-1323.

LIGHTWORKS

At the Melbourne office of the Australian Film Television & Radio School, the demonstration of the Lightworks non-linear system began with Bob Weis’introducing Paul Bamborough, whom he had persuaded to break his trip back from the launch of the system at NAB. Bamborough was behind the development of the Total Recall audio console mixing system.

The experience of the successful production of that application must give some credibility to the potential for Lightworks, but from the demonstration it would be unfair to judge the prototype which could not display full motion.

The high quality of the images (Lightworks also uses the C-Cube chips but has added some proprietary touches), and the desire for a flexible, user-configured screen layout would make me look again at the system when

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VI CTORI A

OF

Lightworks releases the full version later this year.

What was interesting about the Lightworks was not its lever-and-touch controller, which is designed to make flatbed users feel comfort­ able, but some of its software ideas for configuring the screen and such (like crosslinking the script marked with the “go” takes, so that by calling up a script page and clicking the mouse on the character’s dialogue the take’s moving image and sound appear).

Lightworks is also developing its method for matching edit lists back to the original film negative. It is inevitable that there will be an integration by all the non-linear edit systems and Kodak’s Keycode edge numbering. As well as an edit list that gives them edge num­ bers to cut to, if the neg cutter has a computer and screen it should be easy enough to show the image of the frame at the cut point for a visual check. It could even be in negative and oriented to the way the neg runs on the bench.

KODAK MOVES

There have been a greater than normal number of Kodak press releases in the tray over the past months. There has been news of tire accept­ ance of its Cinema Digital Sound in a growing number of U.S. theatres and for recent bigbudget releases, and of its availability in 35mm.

Sydney readers should no longer look for the Motion Picture Division at the Annandale address, either. I don’t know if we should draw any conclusions from the transfer out into the corporate high-tech parish of North Ryde, but the Motion Picture and various other divisions of Kodak, now at Ultimo and Lane Cove, will all be situated in the AWA building (pictured below) at 15 Talavera Road, North Ryde by the time you read this. The new phone number is 02 870 4222.

WHAT’S A JPEG? The next piece of jargon you will need to learn about is image compression. Now, a short guide.

In an attempt to standardize the vari­ ous systems of compressing the amount of computer memory space that images re­ quire, the CCITT and the International Standards Organisation sponsor two groups. They are the Joint Photographic Experts Group and the Motion Picture Experts Group.

JPEG is primarily involved with still images while MPEG is concentrating on full-motion video. MPEG also has to in­ clude means of compressing the audio data that usually accompanies motion-picture images.

THE JPEG ALGORITHM JPEG is an open standard and JPEG soft­ ware packages are available from C-Cube Microsystems and Kodak. The JPEG algo­ rithm is called a symmetrical and lossy compression technique. This means that it takes the same number of steps and amount of time to compress and de-compress the data, and that it discards or loses data in the process.

Because images tend to have areas of uniform colour (for example, blue skies), it is possible to represent these by saying that all the pixels (individual picture ele­ ment) within that area have the same col­ our and/or intensity, rather than record­ ing the information for each pixel.

This is the first step in the process and, in the JPEG software, involves a process called discrete Fourier transform or DFT. Without describing the maths, this is basi­ cally a technique that breaks the image up into groups of 8 by 8 pixels, called an array.

Most computer-colour images are RGB (Red, Green, Blue) so the first part of the process requires the conversion to YUV. Y represents the luminance or brightness level and U and V give the colour informa­ tion. (YUV is the same format that SP

Betacam uses for recording its component images.)

THE JPEG HARDWARE While it is possible to perform the com­ pression totally in software, it takes time (minutes rather than the fractions of a second required for motion). A number of manufacturers (IBM, NEC and Intel) are known to be working on implementing the JPEG standard in microprocessors. The CCube Microsystems CL-550 image com­ pression processor is a relatively cheap single-chip with 400,000 transistors and can perform over 300 stages of the JPEG algorithm concurrendy.

It is produced in two speed versions of 10-MHz and 30-MHz, which can produce 14.7 million pixels per second. Up to four of the chips can be run in parallel, which would allow high-definition television im­ ages to be compresseid in real time.

This is still not fast enough to allow the use of the relatively slow and cheap CDROM drives to display full-motion video.

For that, we will have to wait for the MPEG standard.

The MPEG system will also use D C T b u t the group has still to present final papers.

Chip manufacturing giant Intel’s involve­ ment in the group is interesting because its DVI (Digital Video Interactive) technology is gaining some acceptance in the market, and it does compress reasonable-quality images onto CD-ROM. The image capture and display boards with the CVI standards are much more expensive, but Intel has incorporated the JPEG standard in its lat­ est chip, thei750B, available later this year.

The full MPEG standard will be incorpo­ rated in the chip for release in 1992.

Looking to the future of home video, television sets, colour faxes, video-phones and digital still cameras, my estimate is that by 1993 they will be digital using the new chips. Let us hope a high-definition home­ viewing format follows.

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CINE VALSE AND HUM DAD HUM

PRESENTS

A FILM BY BERTRAND BIKER

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY

CHARLOTTE GAiNSBOURG •ANOUK GRINBERG

BRISBANE GOLD COAST

FILM POLICY CONFERENCE 1991 The Institute for Cultural Policy Studies will hold a conference on Film Policy at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia from Wednesday to Friday 27-29 November 1991.

Other participating institutions are the Canadian Centre for Research in Culture and Society and the Institute for Communications Research in the USA. The conference has been supported by the Australian Filrp Commission.

Sessions are planned around the following topics:

COMING SOON FROM

MICHEL BLANC • JEAN CARMET •ANNIE GIRARDOT • JEAN-LOUIS TRINTIGNANT CATHERINE JACOB •THIERRY FREMONT AND GERARD DEPARDIEU A CO-PRODUCTION CINE V A IS !, FILM PAR FILM, ORLY FILMS, D.D. PRODUCTION, SEDIF, FILMS A2 AND THE PARTICIPATION OF SOFICAS, SOFIARP, INVESTIMAGE 2 AND 3 <r

•

Recent film policy in the light of internationalisation and co­ productions

•

Film making and film policy in relation to indigenous peoples

•

Intranational film policy at regional, state, provincial or local levels

•

Developments in cultural theory and film education/training policy

•

Governmental instruments of film policy: what they facilitate and what they impede

Contact: Dr Albert Moran (Director), Phone (07) 875 7238 or The Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Phone (07) 875 7772 or Film Policy Conference 1991 cl- Division of Humanities, Griffith University, Qld 4111 Fax [07] 875 7730

SSLi

I

Lights, Camefa, Action.

The Crossley— M elbour Newest, Boutique Hotel is nowopen.

Pm the heart of the Cinema and Theatre District.

Intimate, Stylish, Chic.

”That's a wrap!”

THE CROSSLEY HOTEL 5 1 LITTLE BOURKE STREET MELBOURNE VIC 3000 PHONE (03) 639 1639 FAX (03) 639 0566 TOLL FREE 008 33 7476

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Eleven

C r i t i c s ’ Best

and

Worst

ELEEMOSYNARY ELEVEN AKA

DI RTY

DOZEN

A PANEL OF ELEVEN FILM REVIEWERS HAS RATED A SELECTION OF THE LATEST RELEASES ON A SCALE OF 0 TO 10, THE LATTER BEING THE OPTIMUM RATING (A DASH MEANS NOT SEEN). THE CRITICS ARE: BILL COLLINS (CHANNEL 10; THE DAILY MIRROR, SYDNEY); SANDRA HALL ( THE BULLETIN, SYDNEY); PAUL HARRIS (“EG”, THE AGE, MELBOURNE); IVAN HUTCHINSON (SEVEN NETWORK; HERALD-SUN, MELBOURNE); STAN JAMES (THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER); NEIL JILLETT (THE AGE); ADRIAN MARTIN (AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS REVIEW, SYDNEY); SCOTT MURRAY; TOM RYAN (3L0; THE SUNDAY AGE, MELBOURNE); DAVID

B IL L C O L L IN S

S AN D R A HALL

P A U L H A R R IS

IV A N H U T C H IN S O N

STAN JAM ES

N E IL J IL L E T T

A D R IA N M A R T IN

SCOTT M U R R A Y

TO M RYAN

D A V ID S T R A T T O N

E V A N W IL L IA M S

AVERAG E

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D irector

COMPANY OF STRANGERS

C ynthia C o n n o p

DEATH IN BRUNSWICK J o h n DIAMOND SKULLS THE DOORS

O liver Stone

FX 2: THE DEADLY ART OF ILLUSION GOLDEN BRAID

R ichard Franklin

Paul Cox

THE HARD WAY J o h n THE HOT SPOT

B adham

D ennis H o p p e r

THE ICICLE THIEF

1 -----------------------------------------

STRATTON ( VARIETY; SBS, SYDNEY); AND EVAN WILLIAMS (THE AUSTRALIAN, SYDNEY).

M aurizio N ichetti

IN FADING LIGHT

A m ber P ro d u c tio n T eam

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A KISS BEFORE DYING KORCZAK

Basil D eard en

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L.A. STORY

Mick Jackson

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MONSIEUR HIRE ONCE AROUND

Patrice L econte

Lasse H alstrom

PORTE APERTE [OPEN DOORS] QUIGLEY

G ianni Am elio

Sim on W incer

ROBIN HOOD J o n

Irving

ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES WAITING Jackie

Kevin Reynolds

M cKim mie

WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART

C lint Eastw ood

C O M P A R I S O N

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS J o h n a th a n MAN HUNTER

M ichael M ann

D em m e

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F"‘ - 3N Æ-’ ' R E V I E W S

L ’A T A L A N T E ; D E A T H FX2: THE

IN B R U N S W I C K ; T H E F I E L D ;

D E A D L Y A R T O F IL L U S IO N ; ON TH E W A V E S

A D R IA T IC ; P O R TE A P E R T E (O P E N

D O O R S );

AND,

OF THE

Q U IG L E Y

; i: fa tila

ABOVE: JULIETTE (DITA PARLO) AND

L ’A T A L A N T E

JEAN (JEAN DASTE) IN THE

J

RECENTLY-RESTORED L'ATALANTB

FACING PAGE: CARL FITZGERALD (SAM NEILL) AN D DAVE (JO H N CLARKE) IN JO H N RUANE'S ENERGETIC AN D JOYFUL COMEDY, DEATH IN BRUNSWICK.

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of the darker ironies of film history Itthatis one Jean Vigo’s L ’Atalante was subjected to abuses and prejudices which were not unlike those its maker had been subjected to in his childhood and in maturity. It is well known that Vigo was the son of Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo, who had changed his name to Miguel Almereyda, an anagram of “y a la merde”, in order to express his devotion to anarchism and the revolutionary cause in the first two decades of the century. Almereyda was gaoled in 1917 and met a violent death, probably by strangu­ lation, in his cell. For much of his life, Jean Vigo would dedicate himself to the rehabilita­

tion of Almereyda’s reputation and this dedi­ cation is evident in L ’Atalante.

The film itself was shot in 1933 and edited in 1934. Vigo had been too exhausted to edit the film - he was in fact suffering from septicae­ mia - and left the editing to Louis Chavance.

Vigo approved of the edited version with the exception of a few small details and intended to modify them after the film’s initial screen­ ing before an audience of exhibitors - he was not to know, of course, that he would never work again. The screening itselfwas unsuccess­ ful, and one can guess why: this was a bold, original film that challenged numerous con­ ventions of style and structure; that challenged the whole notion that films had to be popular entertainment and litde else besides.

Vigo’s interest in the realism of von Stroheim, in the (development of montage and in the innovations of the Kinp-Pravda group, as well as the anarcho-surrealist trends in the art of Dali and Bunuel and the drawings of anarchists such as Steinlen and Gassier, re­ sulted in a work which caused some consterna­ tion and was seen to be of little commercial worth. The result? The film was cut by almost 25 minutes! Crucial images were excised (for example, Jean (Jean Dasté] on the ice) and Père Jules’ (Michel Simon) search for Juliette (DitaParlo), so importantfor the film’s rhythm and resolution, was shortened to make the film “lighter” (!!). Even worse, perhaps, Maurice Jaubert’s score was cut in parts and replaced with a contemporary hit song, “Le Chaland qui Passe”. The film was re-released with the title of this song, After three weeks itfailed as “romantic entertainment”. In 1940, it reappeared with­ out the song-associations, a commercial fail­ ure again.

It was not until the end of the 4940s that the French Federation of Film Clubs decided to restore the film, yet there was no sign of the original negative. In 1990, a print from 1934which predates the irresponsible re-cutting was found in its can in the British Film Archive.

At long last, the final process of reconstruction could begin. Annotated screenplays were consulted, images and sound were resurrected, people who had worked with Vigo were found ...Jean Dasté, whom Vigo cast in the role of Jean, was seen in St. Etienne and shown these discoveries. And although it is not certain that the restored version would have had Vigo’s approval, admirers of cinema have much to be thankful for. (Pierre Philippe and Jean-Louis Bompoint of Gaumont are primarily respon­ sible for the task.)

L ’Atalanteis a ‘landmark’ in every sense of the word. In it, Vigo explores an abundance of issues: the extent to which dreams can distort perceptions, delude and estrange; Paris as the eternal seductress in her realm of beauty and ugliness; social inequality and penury on the one hand - issues that had interested Almereyda-and the brutal ways in which members of society respond to such problems; the affir­ mation of life in its variety and richness, in its concealed layers of experience (especially in the case of Père Jules) ; a fascination for the flesh, for the “fleshiness” of the major charac­ ters, and the erotic nature of desire and longing within the context of interpersonal love. Also of interest in our time is the compassion shown towards animals by Père Jules and Vigo’s im­ plicit ennobling of these (it is significant that Altnereyda shared this view), Almereyda’s shadow, it has been said al­ ready, can be felt in the film. For example, when Jules showsjuliette his tattoos, we see the initials of Mort aux Vaches on his back. This was associated with anarchist sympathizers in Paris.

Raphael Diligent and Fanny Clar, two of Almereyda’s friends, were cast in the roles of Raspoutine and Juliette’s mother. The origi­ nal screenplay involved a dog, yet Vigo in­ cluded cats, which, again, his father had been fond of, and Pèrejules’anti-authoritarian streak may be related to an aspect of Almereyda’s character.

Vigo’s style is eclectic yet distinctive. His

use of montage and dissolves recalls the strate­ gies of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko, yet Vigo appropriates these in order to achieve a logic that is characteristic of dreams and dreamimagery. (In fact, he praised the privileging of such logic in the films of Dali and Buñuel.) His use of comedy - and it should be remembered that the film is a funny one - is Chaplinesque (for example, whenjean resurfaces after “seeing”Juliette and stands behind Jules and the boy, who are looking for him). His “realism”, which Truffaut praised in relation to the sen­ sation of madness, is evident enough - for example, he filmed people in Paris who were actually unemployed - but it is combined with a palpable sense of the mysterious, even the miraculous. Indeed, it is only after the mystery of the phonograph, which suddenly and inex­ plicably begins to work, that Jean’s misery comes to an end. In this sense, the title “poetic realism” - or “poetic surrealism” for that mat­ te r- though somewhat reductive, is apt. What is particularly striking is the fact that various strands in L ’Atalante anticipated the visions of Jean Cocteau, the studies of madness and the disintegration of personality by Truffaut, as well as the neo-realism of Visconti and Rossellini.

The film is notwithout flaws -for example, there is some awkwardness in minor roles, there is a sense of a rhythm that is discontinu­ ous at times and, occasionally, there is a scene thatis so brief thatitborders on caricature-yet Vigo cannot be blamed for all of these prob­ lems. What must be emphasized is die fact that Vigo was an innovator of the first order; his transformation of narrative logic, his use of spatio-temporal relations which are fluid and poetic rather than natural, his free use of the camera to articulate unconventional images and sequences are as vivid today as they ever were.

And yet it is another saddening irony that Vigo, whose delight in the powers of the imagi­ nation, whose love of the medium and whose devotion to, and mastery of, his craft are evident

in almost every frame, did not live to complete the film. Nor did he live to witness the enchant­ ment that it offered to generations of apprecia­ tive filmgoers. Is it too fanciful to assert that in LAtalante, in its rhapsodic modes, in its scintil­ lating forms, and in its delicate evocation of eventual happiness and renewal, Vigo achieved a certain measure of transcendence over those tragedies that permeated and disrupted his brief but troubled life?

L’ATALANTE Directed byjean Vigo. Producer: Jean Vigo. Executive producer: Jacques-Louis Nounez.

Scriptwriters: Jean Vigo, Albert Riera. Director of photography: Boris Kaufman. Art director: Francis Jourdain. Editor: Louis Chavance. Composer: Mauricejaubert. Assistant directors: Albert Riera, Charles Goldblatt, Pierre Merle. Cast: Michel Simon (Père Jules) J e a n Dasté (Jean), DitaParlo (Juliette), Gilles Margaritis (Pedlar), Louis Lefevre (Boy), Fanny Clar (M other), Raphael Diligent (Raspoutine), Charles Goldblatt (Thief). Argui-Films. Australian distribu­ tor: Premium Films. 97 mins. 35 mm. France. 1934.

D E A T H IN B R U N S W I C K PETER

LAWRANCE

in Brunswick opens with an image D eath that could be culled from any urban backstreet in Greece or Turkey. A hot wind whips along an empty street, rattling cans and flicking up dust. The sun shines without mercy.

An old woman passes, wrapped in black, car­ rying a dead branch in her arms. She shuffles across the road to an abandoned car where she fastidiously deposits her rubbish. This is Bruns­ wick, Melbourne, an inner-urban sprawl popu­ lated with Greeks and Turks and a few Aus­ tralians, a place where each group maintains its cultural heritage amid a clutter of houses, factories and shops.

This sparse setting conjures up images of a bleak world where death could be the norm, until we are introduced to the hapless Carl Fitzgerald, a character personified with hu­ morous charm by Sam Neill. Carl is rapidly approaching middle-age and trying, at the behest of his dominating mother, Mrs Fitzger-

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aid (Yvonne Lawley), and his best friend Dave (John Clarke) to get his act in life together.

Death in Brunswickh directorjohn Ruane’s first feature film. Coming from a background of low-budget filmmaking, his work here is characterized by an economical style and a sharp talent for comedy. The film moves at a rapid-fire pace which serves to create narrative tension without becoming too undermined by its comic situations, a problem faced by a number of Australian comedies.

The theme of death is obviously central to the film. An early gag shows Carl awaken one morning to find his old mother, head first, in the gas cooker, cleaning! Her role in Carl’s life is one of dominance and interference, precipi­ tating the sequence of chaotic events which befall him. Both characters are preoccupied with her imminent departure from this earth, a trait she exploits to keep her boy under the thumb. So we see Carl in a number of scenes trying to soften her up. Inevitably this involves making her tea and putting on her favourite music - Mahler’s 3rd and 5th symphonies, albeit the same haunting music Luchino Vis­ conti wrapped around Death in Venice.

In fulfilling his other quest, to take a job and make a go of things, the subject of death constandy recurs. Carl is employed as a cook in a seedy nightclub and promptly becomes in­ volved in the death ofMustafa (Nico Lathouris), a Turkish kitchen-hand who deals from the premises in hot property and drugs. In his seeking the aid of friend Dave (who happens to be a grave digger), we are entertained with a somewhat gruesome burial. Later, we hear of a headless corpse who happened to be the bouncer of the club, and the subject of absolu­ tion is raised later still, in a spiritual setting with a marvellous performance from Dennis Moore as a microphone-toting man of the cloth.

All this makes for a wild, sporadic film that constantly surprises, but rarely gives away its next move. Along the way we are treated to a budding romance between Carl and Sophie (Zoe Carides), who works in the club. (This happens so quickly the word ‘budding’ has little place in this overview.) The subject of romance, however, follows a specific direction that serves to divest from the central dilemma, highlighting Ruane’s view of the modern rela­ tionship. Romance is hot and passionate, and fast, for Carl and Sophie. By contrast, in the settled, staid world occupied by Dave and his wife, June (Deborah Kennedy), the rules of the game are well-defined: she dominates him, dictates the terms and ‘punishes’ him for hanging around with Carl. There seems to be little space for affection and pleasure.

On the other side, we see the European version, where it’s a male world defined by the old traditions. Men call the shots. Sophie tells Carl about getting into trouble at school and her father’s reaction. If she did it again the consequences would be straightforward: he’d kill her. When she and Carl go on a ‘date’ to the pictures, her little Greek cousin is chap­ erone.

When Mustafa fails to come home, his wife and son come searching. The young son does the talking. Later, accompanied by a group of large, knife-wielding Turkish men, he sits im­ passively by as they threaten, then beat, Carl.

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Sophie’s arranged husband, the sleazy nightclub proprietor Yanni (Nicholas Papademetriou), discovers she’s become keen on ‘Cookie’ (Carl) and calls her a slut, point­ ing out that he didn’t really want to marry her, and he’s already told his dad.

In context, this can be amusing, butunderneath it provides a sense of a foreboding despair regarding the politics of male-female rela­ tionships in today’s enlightened world.

As the story unfolds and Carl falls deeper in love, and finds himself deeper in trouble, we are entertained with small throw-away scenes, or short visual gags. One particular instance sees Carl walking home after his first big day with Sophie. He passes a couple of teenage boys ripping a small tree out of a nature strip.

Lie admonishes them for ‘wagging’school, but when they tell him it’s the holidays he walks on, oblivious of their environmental vandalism.

Ruane’s method in using the shorthumorous scene to punctuate the narrative structure displays his covert thinking in making the film.

No time is wasted, there is no letting up. The film is pushed relentlessly, constantly throwing out new angles, following different directions, finding new entanglements, until it reaches a point where narrative anarchy can become a strong option.

At the same time, this also serves to develop our insight into the central character’s per­ spective, to witness - alongside him - this overwhelming build-up of events that seem­ ingly are inescapable. This not a dissimilar effect to that created by Scorsese in AfterHours.

At times, however, the film does reflect some problems in bringing this somewhat complex array of characters, action and ro­ mance back home. This is evident in the cen­ tral cemetery sequence. Whereas scenes lead­ ing up to that point are economical, informa­ tive and above all offer a keen insight into the various characters, in the cemetery sequence the film’s pace falters and dwells for too long on what should be played for humour or fear.

The fact that both elements are used and stretched to the point of being tedious suggests too much is being said about the characters for too little effect. We learn that Carl has a fear bordering on paranoia at this point, and that Dave can be calm and rational, yet this could have been usefully employed or reflected in reference to their other problems (Carl’s rela­ tionship with his mother and Sophie; Dave’s problems at home). Instead, we see a collec­ tion of gags that run from farting jokes to the mushing up of decomposing corpses.

Nevertheless, Death in Brunswick is infused with a joyful, celebratory feel for life. This comes from a number of sources, including an uplifting score from Philip Judd and the art department whose work threatens at times to shift the focus from Ruane’s direction and become an entity of its own. This is particularly the case in the nightclub settings, where the glamour and glitz of the upstairs section gives way to one of the most repulsive grease-smeared kitchens imaginable. Itisapity Ruane’s budget did not extend to “smell-o-rama”.

The major strength of the film, however, is the cast. This is evident in Neill’s and Clarke’s playing off one another, though it is Clarke who makes the film work. His matter-of-fact

style is consistently underscored by deadpan delivery and timing of his lines, and is coupled with his ability to work so comfortably in any scene. Added to this is his rapport with Neill.

Together they are capable of pathos and hu­ mour without becoming overbearing (with the cited exception). Indeed, Clarke’s teaming with Neill has strong overtones of his work with Richard Healy in the episode “Portrait of Whistler’s Underwriter” for The Fast Lane.

Ruane’s casting of the secondary charac­ ters is also notable, particularly the slimy night­ club owner and the very nasty bouncer whose sheer size and costume immediately impress and repulse.

That aside, the film’s overall charm, how­ ever, is incapable of maintaining the skill and resourcefulness one was expecting from a di­ rector like Ruane, and which have been the features of a few recent Australian produc­ tions.

The importance of Death in Brunswick should essentially concern what it has to say of the current state of Australian cinema. Two tangents seem to exist in current Australian cinema, one reflective and analytical as well as visually exciting, represented by a film like Return Home to a large extent. The other can be said to be represen ted byDeathin Brunswick, and although unpretentious it tends to be greatly dictated by a narrative style and purpose which is innocent enough for commercial viability.

In this respect it is unfortunate Ruane’s achievement with Deathin Brunswickis only due to its success as a light comedy, and because it avoids making too much of its characters and story.

DEATH IN BRUNSWICK Directed by Jo h n Ruane.

Producer: Timothy White. Executive producer: Bryce Menzies. Associate producer: Lynda House. Script­ writer: Jo h n Ruane. Director of photography: Ellery Ryan. Production designer: Chris Kennedy. Sound recordist: Lloyd Carrick. Editor: Neil Thumpston.

Com poser: Philip Ju d d . Cast: Sam Neill (Carl Fitzgerald), Zoe Carides (Sophie Papafagos), John Clarke (Dave), Yvonne Lawley (Mrs Fitzgerald), Nico Lathouris (Mustafa), Boris Brkis (Laurie) Nicholas Papadem etriou (Yanni), Doris Younane (Carmel), Deborah Kennedy (June). Meridian Films. Australian distributor: Greater Union. 35 m m .100 mins. Austra­ lia. 1991.

TH E FIELD KARL QUINN TheFieldbegins, the screen is filled with A sa static wide-shot of the rugged landscape of the west coast of Ireland, all barren green, grey and orange hills. Two figures enter from the right of the screen, carrying a large bulky object, which they throw over a cliff, into the murky depths of the lake below. Thus spar­ ingly is the powerful series of bonds and beliefs which structure the narrative of the film estab­ lished: the primary position of the land; the transience of its human inhabitants; and the inescapable cycle which ensures that all things that walk upon the land will, eventually, return to it.

The two men who enter the opening scene are tenant farmer Bull McCabe (Richard Harris) and his son Tadgh (Sean Bean). The object we see them disposing of is the carcass of a tinker’s mule, beaten to death by Tadgh

LEFT: BIRD O 'D O N N ELL (JO H N HURT) AN D BULL McCABE (RICHARD HARRIS) IN JIM SHERIDAN'S CELTIC TRAGEDY, THE FIELD.

for having trespassed upon the eponymous field rented by his father from the woman known only as The Widow (Frances Tomelty).

The Widow is an outsider, having lived alone in her stone cottage for the past ten years, ter­ rorised by Tadgh and the local madman, Bird O’Donnell (John Hurt), thoughwithoutBull’s knowledge or consent. When she decides that enough is enough and endeavours to sell her field, the local community acknowledges that the field is rightly Bull’s, and that she will get only whatever price he deems fit to pay. He offers fifty pounds, a fair price and just about all the money he has stashed around his cottage, but the arrival of an American (Tom Berenger), who seems set upon having the field at any price, throws events into a wild spiral towards seemingly inevitable tragedy.

T/igRg&fisdirectorJim Sheridan’s first film since the hugely successful My Left Foot, and he has again chosen to work from an existing literary text. In this instance, it is John B. Keane’s play, which has been adapted for the screen by Sheridan himself. But whereas Sheridan’s first film was an uplifting humanist tale of a man struggling to overcome seem­ ingly insurmountable odds, TheFieldfollows the trajectory of a man whose hubris leads him inexorably towards violence, murder and in­ sanity. It is in ever)' sense a tragedy and the casting of Harris in the lead role is inspired.

Not only does he bring his very real physical stature to the film, but he carries in his wake a history of grand theatrical performances of Shakespearean dimensions. With his white hair, his bushy beard and his mad stare, there is more than a hint of the King Lear about Harris’ Bull McCabe.

Such resonances of the theatrical might detract from a film not overtly wishing to display its origins, but Sheridan’s direction takes the film out of the realist mainstream, towards a purely cinematic expression of myth­ making. The opening sequence of the mule being thrown into the lake, its teeth bared in a

grotesque grin/grimace as it sinks to the bot­ tom in slow motion, echoes the sequence of Lars von Trier’s The Element of Crime, in which a dead horse is hoisted out of the water on the end of a crane. This reference prefigures the moment later in llieFieldwhcn the mule floats to the surface, an event which signals the bringing-on of the crane which will be used to search for the body of the missing American, eventually precipitating the downfall of Bull.

Another sequence towards the end of the film, in which cattle tumble over the edge of a cliff, suggests a similar moment in Drugstore Cowboy in which Matt Dillon hallucinates about hats and cows tumbling from the sky. Dillon’s character sees hats as a portent of tragedy; Bull has earlier told Tadgh that no good comes from cruelty to animals.

This is not to suggest that these are direct quotes or references in any self-consciously post-modern or parodic sense; rather, that Sheridan is utilizing influences both theatrical and purely cinematic to construct a challeng­ ing modern form of tragedy. Nor is it to suggest that he is always in complete control of his film.

John Hurt gives a performance as Bird O’Donnell which some will rank amongst his best, but there are times when he seems too stagey, as if he were playing the fool to Harris’ Lear. Of course, this may be what Sheridan intended, but the contrast between the two characters is jarring, not enlightening. The fool in Shakespearean tradition is never just a fool; he always offers an alternative view, play­ ing a sort of analyst for the audience’s benefit.

Hurt’s Bird isjust foolish.

Sheridan’s use of Elmer Bernstein’s score seems a tad foolish, too. Every plot point is highlighted by lush instrumentation, which tends to dwarf the actual on-screen dynamics.

Only in the scene at the local dance does the music seem compatible with the tone of the film, working with the narrative flow rather than against it. Still, these flaws do not detract too much from the power of Sheridan’s film.

The Field, though, is not just a tragedy, however well executed. It is as much about Irish xenophobia, itsjustifications as well as its consequences, as it is about one xenophobic Irishman. To an extent, everyone in the film is an outsider, not just The Widow and the American. The priest is told by Bull that he is just passing through”, as, by inference, is the influence of the Catholic church. The Gardai (police) are regarded with similar disdain, and even the local publican is not beyond suspicion.

Bull maybe paranoid, but the historical setting of the film nine years after partition and the granting of Independence to the south places his hatred of “foreigners” in an almost sym­ pathetic light. When it is revealed to him that the American is to bid against him for posses­ sion of the field, McCabe asks the men in the pub if this American “is one of the same for­ eigners who let one and a half million Irish men, women and children die in the fields during the famine?”What detracts from Bull’s position is his refusal to differentiate between the variety of “otherness” out there, so that his wife, son and the tinkers are all implicated in a grand conspiracy to destroy the land, and hence the continuum of Irish lives and beliefs.

It is a position which has its logical conclusion in the protracted bloodshed of the north.

In a sense, McCabe is the personification of a deep national rage, so bound up in tradi­ tion and mythology (yet almost incapable of utterance) that its only articulation comes in the form ofviolence. Bull uses words sparingly, so much so that in his one great speech in the film we feel witness to a rare and great out­ pouring of repressed emotion. No word has passed between Bull and his wife Maggie (Brenda Fricker) for eighteen years, since the death of their first son Siami, who hung him­ self, according to Bull - and in a distinct echo of Old Father Time in Thomas Hardy’sJude The Obscure - because the land was too poor to support another mouth. It is unclear at whose instigation the silence fell, but when Maggie finally addresses Bull his only response is “She speaks.” This moment is charged with such resonance and expectation that it suggests the moment in My Left Foot when Christy scrawls the word “mother” on the floor with a piece of chalk. But unlike that moment, the uttering of speech in TheField signals not a breakthrough, but a breakdown, a rupturing of Bull’s belief in an illusory timelessness, an irruption of the mechanical present upon his mythical past.

Of course, the present has been thrusting itself upon the small town ever since the American arrived, with talk of mining the hills for limestone, and the building of endless freeways that will cover Ireland, linking one small sleepy village to another. It is tempting to see The Field as a knee-jerk reaction to this mindless modernist expansionism, a sound­ ing of the death-knell for Mssezfaireutogimmsm.

But that would be to miss the point that it is the essentially traditional, land-based Celtic be­ liefs of Bull which lead, inexorably, to the central tragedy of die film. The American may precipitate conflict with his greed for land in CINEMA

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general, but it is Bull’s deep spiritual link to his specific piece of land, the field, which brings that conflict to its frightful climax. The great strength of Sheridan’s film lies in the way he brings us to simultaneously rage with and against his Bull, to identify with his sense of loss - both national and personal - while goading us to see McCabe (and, by implication, the Irish refusal to meet history on its own terms) as the instigator of that tragedy.

THE FIELD Directed by Jim Sheridan. Producer: Noel Pearson. Executive producer: Steve Morrison.

Line producer: A rthur Lappin. Scriptwriter: Jim Sheridan. Based on a play byjohn B. Keane. Director of photography: Jack Conroy. Production designer: Frank Conway. Costume designer: Joan Bergin. Edi­ tor: J. Patrick Duffner. Composer: Elmer Bernstein.

Cast: Richard Harris (Bull McCabe) J o h n H urt (Bird O ’Donnell), Tom Berenger (American), Sean Bean (Tadgh McCabe), FrancesTom elty (Young widow), Brenda Fricker (Maggie), Jo h n Cowley (Flanagen), Jenny Conroy (Redhead), Sean McGinley (Father Doran), Malachy McCourt (Sergeant). A Granada Film. Australian distributor: Roadshow. 35 mm. 105 mins. 1991.

FX2: THE DEADLY ART OF ILLU S IO N JIM

SCHEMBRI

it’s an attractive word that peo­ Sensuous”: ple have a lot of time for. But it is not the kind of word one expects to see or use in a review of a film like FX2: The Deadly Art of Illu­ sion. This is because the word tends to conjure up images of David Hamilton photographs of naked, blurry young women and of Playboy playmates with staples in their stomachs and of VCRs that don’t freeze frame properly.

But if we take “sensuous” to mean some­ thing along the lines of “exciting and engaging the senses in an aesthetic manner” (I’m para­ phrasing Oxford here, so don’t write in), then that is what the basic concept of FX2 (and, indeed, F /X 1 ) is on about, even though the film itself isn’t.

The film’s main character, Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown), is a man with a background in film special effects who uses his skills in the real world to servejustice. This central motif about

manipulating and distorting people’s percep­ tions of reality is fabulous. The treatment the idea gets in FX2 is not. A standard comedyaction programmer is clearly what the filmmakers went for and that is clearly what they have delivered. Good on ’em. There is nothing wrong with that. 10 out of 10 for what they did. 0 out of 10 for what they didn’t. The film is fun and funny, but it sells itself short...

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Some films are designed to be remem­ bered. Others are not - not in detail, anyway.

Try remembering the plot o£FX2 two minutes after walking out of the cinema and you will have trouble. If you do actually manage to remember the plotyou’ve probably missed the point of the film. It is designed to be enjoyed, not remembered. If you remember that you enjoyed it, and nothing else, then that’s enough. If you also picked up a neatly woven, sound little message about non-violence, then three cheers to you.

It was the same with the first T/X film, and will probably be the same with the next one and the next one and the next one - if the F/ X producers, which include the star, Bryan Brown, have their dream come true and end up making a highly successful F/X series. Plots in films like this are designed to serve the star, not the other way around. Plot is a means to an end, not the end in itself. (If the latter is what you want, get Sidney Lumet to direct your films, or get ThreeDays ofthe Condorout on tape.)

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with any of this. The most popular plots are the ones that provide emotional motivation, action and movement. 48 Hours, the two Beverly Hills Cop films and Die Hard are recent sensible ex­ amples of this. Die Hard II, the $80 million se­ quel to Die Hard, is not such a sensible exam­ ple, although it does illustrate the point, being a caricatured, exaggerated case of how the plot is there to serve the pyrotechnics crew and the guys on the Editdroid.

The question is how well it is done. In the case of FX2, it is done well enough, even if it is uphill work, and even if the enterprise lacks any sense of conceptual adventure. This is what I came in on.

The first film had the novelty of the central idea going for it: a film special effects man getting involved in real-life adventures, and using his skills to servejustice. FX2fights to make up the lack of that novelty-nothing wears out a novel idea like using it twice - and the effort is there in the performances and the produc­ tion. Most of it comes off, but the impression the film makes is too fleeting.

Rollie Tyler helps out a cop friend, Matt Neely (Kevin J. O’Connor), to catch a psycho­ pathic voyeur who murders women after watching them across the way. During the arrest, Neely is murdered by a mysterious third party. This upsets Tyler, as he is now going out with Neely’s beautiful ex-wife (Rachel Ticotin), who has a son. Emotional motivation kicks in.

Tyler suspects a corrupt cop is behind the murder, calls in his pal from film one, Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy), and soon the plot builds up a head of steam that involves a robotic clown, a rotten DA, exploding cans of baked beans, gunfire, jumping billiard balls, the Mafia, a sausage mortar and Michelangelo.

Hence action and movement.

The plot provides a killer who stalks Rollie, giving him plenty of opportunity to exercise some of the film’s gimmickry. When the killer visits Rollie in his apartment, Rollie fights back using an animatronic clown, which replicates Rollie’s body movements when he wears a special suit. The roars of laughter this se­ quence elicits from the audience registersjust how serious the plot that put the killer there is supposed to be taken.

Similarly, in the supermarket scene, Rollie uses popcorn, exploding cans of baked beans, two turkeys and a vacuum-sealing machine to disarm the killer and extract the information that leads him and Leo to the stolen Mich­ elangelo coins and the action climax. The sequence works like a slapstick comedy routine.

Comedy and gizmos are the film’s mainstay.

Rollie’s modus opemndi provides the film with its subtextual thematic narrative under­ pinning (also known as the “socially important bit”). He is a non-violent hero who uses inge­ nuity instead of brutality to dispatch his foes. In the climax, Rollie uses sausages to bait two guard dogs, which he locks inside a tennis court. He then uses ether, bouncing billiard balls, dehydrated mashed potato flakes and a dart-shooting toy submarine to politely neu­ tralize his enemies without hurting them.

The most telling scene is when he trusses one guard with a life preserver, rolls him into the sea, takes his gun, aims it at him, says “Bon Voyage” and then tosses the gun into the water. Such scenes get a good laugh, a reaction that validates the point. The message here is not that Might is Right, but that Brains Reign.

FX2 director Richard Franklin continues his interest in the blurred line between illusion and reality. He first explored it in his under­ rated thriller Cloak andDaggerin which a young 1. Ed.: T hough F X 2 : T h e D e a d ly A r t o f I l l u s i o n is a sequel to F / X , it curiously drops the virgule. T he first film was called F / X : M u r d e r by I l l u s i o n in many territories outside the U.S. LEFT: SPECIAL-EFFECTS W IZARD ROLLIE TYLER (BRYAN BROW N) AN D COP-TURNED-PRIVATE EYE LEO MCCARTHY (BRIAN DENNEHY). RICHARD FRANKLIN'S FX2: THE DEADLY ART O F ILLUSION.

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boy’s love of adventure and creation of a ficti­ tious hero, Flackjack (Dabney Coleman), gets him involved in a real adventure where people want to kill him for keeps.

FX2is nowhere nearly as thematically com­ plex or involving as Cloak and Dagger often is, and the first F/X film did play more on the creation of illusion rather than mere gim­ mickry which FX2 does. A shot of Rollie storyboarding how the capture of a criminal will take place shows the idea of imposing an illusion onto real life, but that’s as far as it goes.

The film’s major disappointment is how the intriguing cenU'al concept of sensory de­ ception is never really exercised into a game between the filmmakers and the audience. It would have been great if Franklin played around a lot more with what the audience is perceiving. As it is, we are at one with Rollie; we are as smart as he is; we know everything that is going on, and what tricks are being played.

The few times when the film does try to fool us, it is far, far too feeble. You know the opening sequence is from a movie that is being shotwithin the film; you know that when Brian Dennehy gets shot that he’s not really dead; you know that when the corrupt cop tries to make his getaway in the chopper near the end, and complains about the pilot’s flying skills, that Rollie’s robotic clown is at the controls.

We really deserve to be teased and deceived a whole lot better than this.

FX2 is technically a sequel (that’s why the title has the number in it) but it really is more like another self-contained episode of a series.

Nothavingseen the first one does not penalize you. And the good thing about this sequel is that if the title didn’t have the number in it, you probably couldn’t tell it was a sequel. That is the sign of a good sequel.

The film also owes a lot to its two stars.

Brown and Dennehy put in winning perform­ ances, and generate a wonderful chemistry.

This suggests that they were far more enthusi­ astic about reprising their roles than the stars of other sequels. Ghostbuslers II and Another 48 Hours are probably the most embarrassingrecent example of limp performances suffer­ ing from ‘sequelitis’.

The success of FX2 will likely spawn more F/X films, hopefully by a host of different directors. Franklin did a good, solid job and delivered a commercial, funny, occasionally exciting film. What the director of the next one should work on, however, is making sure it has an aftertaste that lasts. The basic idea behind the F/X films is far too good to be devoted solely to gadgetry. Play with our senses next time. Blow our minds.

FX2: THE DEADLYART OFILLUSION Directed by Richard Franklin. Producersrjack Wiener, Dodi Fayed.

Executive producers: Lee R. Mayers, Bryan Brown.

Scriptwriter: Bill Condon, based on characters created

by Robert T Meggigson, Gregory Fleeman. Director of photography: Victor J. Kemper. Production de­ signer: Jo h n Jay Moore. Costume designer: Linda Matheson. Editor: Andrew London. Composer: Lalo Schifrin. Cast: Bryan Brown (Rollie Tyler), Brian Dennehy (Leo McCarthy), Rachel Ticotin (Kim B randon), Joanna Gleason (Liz Kennedy), Philip Bosco (Ray Silak), Kevin J. O ’C onnor (Matt Neely), Tom Mason (Mike B randon), Dominic Zamprogna (Chris Brandon), Josie DeGuzman (Velez), John Walsh (Rado). Orion. Australian distributor: Hoyts.

35 mm. 109 mins. US. 1991.

ON THE W A V E S OF THE AD RIATIC MARCUS

ABOVE: STEPHEN KOTIS, HAROLD W O O D H ALL AN D GRAHAM BRANCH IN BRIAN MCKENZIE'S BEAUTIFUL AND SENSUOUS O N THE WAVES OF THE ADRIATIC.

BREEN

of the sensuous life has a delib­ Theeraterhythm power that is easily overlooked. As human beings we eat, sleep, breathe and pro­ create with almost thoughtless abandon, so that when the everyday becomes the entire focus for our lives we consider those same lives to be failures.

Yet when we are at our most fearfully fragile, these same everyday things become imponderable. Imagine being that way per­ petually, but with the pleasure the everyday could bring if it were to be lived as if it were a layer of ice meant for skating incessantly and fearlessly upon.

The enormous appeal of this beautiful, sensuous film, On the Waves of the Adriatic, is its appeal to the unchallenged richness of the everyday, lived in the one-dimensional world of the mentally deficient.

Watching the film brings an entire raft of often disturbing thoughts and memories to mind. It also creates a raft of associations, like hearing Allen Ginsberg reading poems in Bob Dylan’s film Renaldo and Clara, chanting, prodding, probing the blank spaces of the minds of the people sitting in front of him, taking them back into a rich Buddhist silence manifesting an atavistic purity, where some Hegelian spirit will reveal the mess of their lives that is its beauty.

The attraction of this film is the unintelli­ gible wonderment it creates. Like a psycho­ logical thriller, it works best in the blanked-out spaces at the back of the mind. Those spaces work most effectively in ‘normal’human beings by blocking out the terror of the everyday.

The film’s title, On the Waves of the Adriatic, apparently describes the'ancient Greek habit of casting the mentally deficient adrift in boats on the Adriatic Sea, although the film’s poetic title better sums up its connotations. It is like Sunless the first time - a mindful barrage of cultural baggage suspended in a crystal. It is like the perfect intonation of a voice that spills like semen in slow motion.

It is an artfully crafted Australian film that penetrates into the middle layer ofMelbourne’s suburbs for its revelations. And here it derives its greatest moments in a sea of listless blue.

I suppose it is a documentary, although it could be a training film for psychologists or social workers, such is its precision.

Three slightly-crazy, below-average-intelligence males form the focus for On the Waves of the Adriatic, Their sad, funny and frustratingly failed lives are clearly intertwined with the filmmaker’s, so that the cinéma vériléapproach is cut up, as the men, slightly inept in their handling of the film crew, talk directly to the camera and the sound persons about the film.

It is impossible to maintain any pretence when confronted with such unambiguous generos­ ity.

It was the French writer and philosopher Foucault who, in studying power, noted that the treatment of intellectually inferior people was a primary example of civilized societies’ failure. Filmmaker Brian McKenzie may have been reading the great Frenchman. If not, he must have been studying art, history and civili­ zation with enormous energy to come up with On the Waves of the Adriatic, for it achieves its goal with such intensity of purpose that it carries the weight of great intellectual and political commitment.

One of his former films, I ’ll Be Home for Christmas, was a study in the drudgery and demise of some ofMelbourne’s homeless alco­ holics. It was a patronizing, over-extended study of failure. This film is remarkably differ­ ent, although it works in similar terrain.

At every turn there is a humanizing warmth and generosity about this film. It’s like a trav­ elogue of human worth, like good knowledge, compiled and refined over decades.

It is the sort of challenging study that the Birmingham School of Sociology would have dreamed of. Here is a subculture of under­ achievers - and not Bart Simpson - aged in their late teens (with the exception of Harry CINEMA

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aged in his forties) riding their piishbikes around suburban streets.

It is a crazy, hectic scene of life lived at the edge. No magical salvation here, as Rain Man would have us believe. No hidden genius, just the dull thud of something half remembered in the tough material world where a cat, a pushbike and the next pension cheque are matters of overwhelming concern.

And that’s it. It is something half done, half there, between the good, the bad, the com­ pletely comatose. It’s the foggy remembered encounter with that dream, with whom we might have been or may become.

On the Waves of theAdriaticis the sort of film that sits like a slow-baking meal, wafting through the olfactory, generating those associations that matter. It comes close to the films of Chris Marker, many moments of Godard and those remembered scenes in hundreds of films that make them such wonderful things.

But this film is a bit like Frank Booth (Dennis Flopper) behind his mask in Blue Velvet. There is a well of suppression conveyed

by Flopper in those scenes, as the person knowingly driving himself out of conscious or sentient space to give himself over to other forces. Audiences oblige by sliding into the morass of foreboding with him.

But what do you do when there is no acting? Wh at do you do when the surface of the screen image is as powerfully lacking in con­ sciousness as the deeper recesses of the mind of those who appear in real life on the screen?

As black-and-white portraits intermittendy freeze the faces of the men during this film, it is difficult to keep looking. Their conviction, their love, their common sense, their entirely failed lives stand like beacons, while their in­ complete sentences skewed by repetition plunder our own fears about who and what we are. Our conceits are stripped bare as their everyday is that which we try hardest to avoid.

There are associations that will come creeping back as this film returns again and

again, gurgling from the subconscious, as it should, to threaten and challenge my own conceits. I am impressed and worried by those implications. What more can we ask of a film?

ON THE WAVES OF THE ADRIATIC Directed by Brian McKenzie. Producer: Brian McKenzie. Direc­ tor of photography: Brian McKenzie. Camera assist­ ants: Steve McDonald, Ray Argali. Sound recordists: MarkTarpey, Phillip Healy. Sound editor: LiviaRusik.

Editor: Ken Sallows. Cast: Graham Branch, H arold W oodhall, Steve Kotis. Brian McKenzie Films. Aus­ tralian distributor: Brian McKenzie. 16 mm. 130 mins. Australia. 1990.

PORTE APERTE (O P EN D O O R S) RAYMOND

YOUNIS

has been said of neo-realism that it ob­ I tscured those questions which it really ought to have elucidated and answered: namely, the ways in which fascism became established and gained the support of so many leading figures in post-war Italia. Gianni Amelio’s Porte Aperte (Open Doors), “winner of twenty-one Interna­ tional Film Awards” including the Felix - Eu­ rope’s answer to the Oscar - attempts to give some answers. It is clearly influenced by the neo-realist tradition and Amelio is clearly a director who has a broad knowledge not only of that tradition but also of those filmmakers who succeeded Rossellini, Visconti, de Sica and company.

The story concerns the trial of Tommaso Scalia (Ennio Fantastichini), a public official at the Confederation of Performers and Artists (a fascist institution). The setting is, predict­ ably, Palermo in 1937. Scalia murders the superior who sacked him and the man who replaced him as an official. He then murders his wife (Vitalba Andrea) and returns home to see his son, Peppuccio (Francesco Sineri), and wait for the police. Under the fascists, such crimes, he knows, are punishable by death. At the trial, though, one of the judges, Vito di

Francesco (Gian Maria Volonte), has reserva­ tions and gradually we learn that he is opposed to capital punishment. This is in spite of the expression of Judge Sanna (Renzo Giovampietro), the Chief Magistrate, of the fascist view: that the main function of the law is to allow good-natured people to be able to sleep with open doors. The consequent drama explores the effects of Di Francesco’s convic­ tions upon his career, his family and his own life, as well as Scalia’s.

Fascism has been a rich vein indeed for Italian filmmakers, a source of polemics and outrage. In R Conformista (The Conformist), fas­ cism provides the veil behind which a sense of inadequacy, of abnormality, can be forgotten, suspended or erased temporarily; in 1900, fascism is a force that separates friend from friend, family from family, and a prelude to the ascent of communism which signifies, in Ber­ tolucci’s argument, an era of liberation, for­ giveness and benediction; and in R Gattopardo (The Leopard), there is an implicit link between the decline of the nobility, which is signified by the death and demise of the leopard’s glory, and the rise of the jackals which Visconti un­ derstands in terms of victorious plebeians indeed, he had referred to Mussolini as a “plebeian ”and was one of the first to voice anti­ fascist ideas in the 1940s in Cinema (which was controlled by none other than Mussolini’s son!).

Before these, neo-realism had concerned itselfwith redeeming “reality”which the fascist state had shaped through ideology, reinforced with propaganda and proclaimed in the cinegiomali. Indeed, the fascist conception of the unity of cinema and ideology, which it inherited from the Leninist model espoused

by Pudovkin and Eisenstein and which the neo-realists and the filmmakers who served Mussolini were well aware of, is clearly rejected

by Amelio in as much as his film constitutes a critique of such unities. In Open Doors, fascism is shown to be a self-reinforcing structure which is primarily concerned with maintaining the power and domination of the status quo, even at the expense of human life and human dignity. It is, unlike nazism, for example, also shown to be somewhat tolerant - this is one reason why the characters can read and discuss Dostoevsky openly - but Amelio does not ob­ scure or condone the fascist principle of “re­ pressive tolerance”.

When seen in the context of the neo-realist reaction to fascism, the film becomes a vital and resonant work. Like neo-realist films by de Sica, Rossellini and Visconti, it looks unflinch­ ingly at the corruption in Italia’s major insti­ tutions and the widespread complicity with the regime within the church, the government and particularly in the judicial system. Like the neo-realists, Amelio is not impressed with cinema as entertainment for the brainwashed masses, with blind nationalism, with the fascist imperative of a cinema “for the people”.

In place of montage and nationalism, he utilizes neo-realist mise-en-scene in order to emphasize the sense of a pervasive canker. The epic scope, the enormous casts, the ideologiTO M M ASO SCALIA (EN N IO FANTASTICHINI), AB O U T TO MURDER HIS WIFE ROSA (VITALBA ANDREA) IN G IA N N I AMELIO'S PORTE APERTE ( OPEN DOORS).

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cally-based heroism and the celebration of youth in the fascist cinema are supplanted by the extended emphasis on compromised men, brutalized women and orphaned children.

Indeed, the largely still camera allows a con­ centration and an intensity that is searingly direct at times. Youths in the film are likely to shout for blood or to vent abuse in the court­ room; children suffer from broken marriages and dislocated families.

In these ways, Amelio recalls the neo-realist view of such things as symptoms of a corrupt state. The individuals in neo-realist films do not surmount tribulations within a state struc­ ture; they do notfind their apotheosis in society.

Rather, their lives are characterized by failure, impotence or aggression, solitude and frustra­ tion and/or despair, and Scalia is an example of this (as others are in UmbertoD, Zampano in La Dolce Vita and the lovers in Ossessione). The sense of redemption or transcendence be­ comes elusive or unattainable, or fragmented and intensely personal. In Open Doors, it is something which is forged in intimacy and in ideas which the state apparatus regards as “dangerous” and it is analogically related to the humanism of Dostoevsky (a crucial signifier with its suggestions of passions on the edge of an abyss).

Two other points which suggest that Amelio (and Leonardo Sciascia, the author of the novel upon which Amelio draws, and which is still to appear in English translation) is ex­ tending the themes of the neo-realists deserve mention. First, it is significant that the judge as well as the murderer have children. In Di Francesco’s case, the daughter, Carmelina (Eleonora Schinina), is motherless; in Scalia’s case, the son, of course, becomes motherless.

In this way, the family, as a social unit, becomes dislocated and, once again, the context of a morally ambivalent and potentially dangerous political system is crucial. (The film posits numerous analogies between the two men in other ways, as well.) Second, it is clear that the film espouses Di Francesco’s (and Scalia’s) rejection of “tradition”in fascist law. Tradition was exalted by the state in order to discourage subversive elements and rebellious individu­ als. Yet it is clear that Di Francesco’s rejection of this is a necessary step if he is to act on his convictions - in fact, the implication is that it is only when such traditions are swept away can one rebuild and renew the fabric of the state and, as a corollary, the family and the church.

What answers does the film give to ques­ tions such as those mentioned in the introduc­ tion? Fascism clearly is perceived as a force which owes its influence and support to brib­ ery or threats, and by rewarding the complicity and assent of leading figures. In this way, it becomes institutionalized and, by extending the web of complicity, it also reinforces its structure and power. It gains support - a point made by Gramsci many decades ago - by its manipulation of the working classes, as well.

Indeed, one of the most disturbing points in the film is that fascism not only appeals to, but is parasitic upon, a potential for opportunism and corruption which is pre-existent - a poten­ tial for racism and bigotry, intolerance and aggression. And the irony of its claim of main­ taining order and stability is explored with

lucidity in the film.

The major problem with the film is that it runs the risk of over-simplifying the issues with which it is concerned. Its attempt to posit the issue of capital punishment as a political problem - or, to be more precise, its attempt to legitimize Di Francesco’s positing of the issue as such - is implicitly undermined by other elements in the film. Indeed, the film suggests, at times, that the problem is much more complex, as, for example, when it explores the issue of moral degradation or ambivalence. It is significant that Di Francesco does not debate his views. When the chief magistrate explains the policy of “open doors”, the judge simply counteracts by asserting the contrary. There is no rational argumentation here. It is as if the film is inviting us to give our assent because Di Francesco is such a conscientious, earnest and compassionate figure.

Such complaints aside, though, it must be said that the film is a thoughtful, sincere and multi-layered one, given force by the grave, dignified and authoritatively restrained pres­ ence of Gian Maria Volonte, and by his devo­ tion to characters who are active and impas­ sioned seekers of truth andjustice. (He played similar roles in a number of Rosi’s films such as Oristo si eFennato aEboli [Christ Stopped atEboli] and, more recently, Cronaca di unci Morte Annunciata [ Chronicle of a Death Foretoldj .) It is the judge’s character, with his resoluteness and integrity, his willingness to admit to error and to seek reconciliation - a point which is highlighted in the quietly affirmative coda that provides the film with its ethical core. The film’s poignancy, conU olled but cumulative, is due mostly to the fact that the possibility of transformation on a personal, political, and social level, in the future, is due to the frustra­ tion and the sorrow, the injustices and the tragedies that men such as Di Francesco must endure.

PO RTE APERTE (OPEN DOORS) Directed by Gianni Amelio. Producer: Angelo Rizzoli. Executive producers: Conchita Airoldi, Dino di Dionisio. RAI producer: Graziella Civiletti. Scriptwriters: Gianni Amelio, Vincenzo Cerami. Based on P o r le A p e r te by Leonardo Sciascia. Director of photography: Tonino Nardi. Production designer: Franco Velchi. Costume designer: Gianna Gissi. Sound: Remo Ugolineli.

Editor: Simona Paggi. Composer: Franco Piersanti.

Cast: Gian Maria Volonte (Vito di Francesco), Ennio Fantastichini (Tommaso Scalia), Renato Carpientieri (Consolo) ,TuccioMusumeci (Spadafora/Silverio Blasi (Procuratore), Vitalba Andrea (Rosa Scalia), Giacomo Piperno (Pubblico M inistero), Lydia Alfonsi (M arch esa S p a d a fo ra ), R enzo G io v a m p ie tro (Presidente Sanna), Tony Palazzo (Autista), Roberto Nobile (Speciale), Mimmo Salvo (Lo Prete), Nicola Badalucco (Canillo), Paolo Volpicelli (Don M ichele).

Produced by Erre Produzioni, Instituto Luce, Italnoleggio Cinematografico, Urania Film in association with RAIDUE. Australian distributor: Ronin Films/ Gevest Australia. 35mm. 90 mins. Italia. 1990.

Q U IG LEY GREG

K E RR

of escapist entertainment, Qiiigley A issapiece a great-looking, well-told Western which deserves success at the box office. However, this film about an American fortune-finder in colonial Australia will no doubt be judged on other, more subjective grounds.

Are audiences, for one, ready for another frontier movie hot on the heels of Kevin Costner’s epic Western, Dances with Wolves?Will Australian filmgoers sympathize with a guntoting American who, for all intents, is atoning for the sins of OMrpast? And, what with Actors’ Equity quibblings about foreign stars in Aus­ tralian films, will people care about the nota­ ble absence of home-grown talent in Quigley (its three leading roles are filled by imports)?

In defence of the casting, Australian direc­ tor Simon Wincer says he aimed to tell a yarn detailing the experiences of Americans alien­ ated in Australia’s outback during the 1860s.

So, enterTom Selleck as the rifleman, Matthew Quigley, who answers an international adver­ tisement to shoot vermin at a West Australian grazing station owned by a gun-loving, Abo­ rigine-hating Elliot Marston (Alan Rickman).

Having wimessed Quigley’s deadly eye with a rifle, Marston has other, more sinister, plans for his new employee: that is, to dispatch Aborigines who have supposedly been inter­ fering with the livelihood of the station. Herein lies a moral predicament for the main man, and the nub of the story.

From the outset, Qiiigley is a highly deriva­ tive, fanciful film layered with the atmospher­ ics of a classic Western, yet somewhat cynical in undertone. Although it is hard to imagine many other actors capable of injecting such charisma into the leading role, the statuesque Selleck ambles onto the screen like some Chuck Conners incarnate - or should that be Alan Ladd or Clint Eastwood? He is a lonesome hero with a mission and a gun; he is wise and moralistic but not adverse to inflicting his own brand of brutality - call it justice, if you like when the situation warrants it. As he heads off in to certain danger, you get the feeling Selleck’s somewhat reluctant character utters the sigh, “There but for the grace of good cowboy spirits go I.” If Eastwood’s portrayal of the vigilante preacher in Pale Rider was considered over­ wrought, it is hard to imagine too many Aus­ tralian filmgoers warming to the notion of an American cowboyjourneying Down Under to champion the cause of tribal Aborigines. The notion is not only historically unlikely, it is akin to Mick Dundee stepping on to the set of Dances with Wolves to lend the Sioux Indians a hand against the American cavalry.

And itisjustaswell Quigley s publicity notes make no pretensions to the film’s being true to historical fact. The depictions of white settlerversus-Aborigine conflict are biased to have us believe that all black tribal Australians were meek pacifists. And a scene involving bloodlusting dingoes and a baby is over-embellished for dramatic effect (and perhaps as a reference to Evil Angels); it also wrongly suggests that our native dogs seek infants as common delicacy.

That said, the film does roll along at a firm pace. Rarely is a moment wasted on indul­ gences of script or camera, which is largely a credit to Wincer’s discipline as a filmmaker, Adrian Carr’s sharp editing and a neat screen­ play by John Hill. One scene that achieves a superb economy and control occurs at the close of the film when a romantic reunion is suddenly invaded by a sense of immediate danger. With just a few words, a camera that CINEMA

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LEFT: MATTHEW QUIGLEY (TO M SELLECK) PREPARES TO FIRE HIS SPECIAL RIFLE IN FRONT OF ELLIOT MARSTON (ALAN RICKM AN), THE EVIL LANDOW NER, IN SIM ON WINCER'S QUIGLEY.

conveys all and some clever liming, it is a masterly piece of filmmaking.

Within minutes of the opening, the story has taken shape. In the opening frames the viewer is informed of the journey ahead: a strong pair of hands reaching for a saddle, a rifle, lasso, a pair of cowboy boots ready for walking, a map of distant Australia. Soon after, the broad-shoulderedjourneyman has stepped off a clipper, gotten into his first scrap and become the unwilling saviour of a distressed woman, Crazy Cora (Laura San Giacomo). A two-dayjourney via bullock train to the Marston homestead pits the American stranger against avast, strange land and its more often than not hostile inhabitants.

Quigley- strong, salient yet vulnerable - at first appears to be out of his depth. This is expressed with admirable clarity early on when he squints curiously at the sound of an Aborigi­ nal corroboree in the night and, later, when he fumbles off an advance by the testy Cora.

Quigley is a mere mortal in the context of an awesome frontier, and the landscape photog­ raphy of David Eggby not only reminds us of that, but also has a sweeping splendour to rival the best in any Australian film, Burke & Wills included.

A minor criticism is that in attempting to romanticize the look of the picture (presuma­ bly for U.S. audiences), the camera has a habit of depicting craggy rock formations redolent of the backdrops in so many American West­ erns. It takes an obligatory camera pan of a group of scattering kangaroos to remind us that we are indeed in Terra Australis, but even this is handled clumsily. Surely those roos could not have been released en masse from a cage?

The musical score by Basil Poledouris makes some attempts to convey an Australian colonial sound, yet the bulk of the instrumen­ tals are so mellifluously familiar they might as well have been lifted straight from the sound­ track of Shane or The Sundowners.

The Quigleystoryline is predictable in parts 54

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and takes a few too many things for granted.

One wonders, for instance, how Quigley al­ ways manages to reappear with his gun no matter what fate befalls him? And in the last ten minutes, the film opens itself up for some heavy knocking when it loses its grip on reality' in trying to heroize its star with an army of tribal Aborigines appearing- as if by magic - to return their succour a favour. However, some credibility is restored with the ambiguous in­ ference that the grandiose scene may have been a product of Quigley’s heat-scrambled imagi­ nation.

Quigley, which promotes itself as an “American Western in Australia”,was produced on a $18 million budget, making it one of the most expensive pictures made on Australian shores. According to a promoter, it has regis­ tered “reasonably well” with a $25 million national box-office return in the U.S., where it carries the title Quigley Down Under. The Americans evidently have not lapped up the movie with nearly the same affection or en­ thusiasm as the hugely successful Crocodile Dundee. Has the post-Dundeenove 1tyin all things Down Under finally ended?

Technically, the film is hard to fault. Its costumes and set constructions are authentic to the last detail, particularly the $1 million outback station replica used for the bulk of the shooting near Ross River. The film also boasts some brilliant special effects involving Selleck and thatgun, an experimental Shiloh rifle with which he can pick off a bucket from a distance of a kilometre (in a desert breeze). Later on, the gun is also involved in a gem of a moment to rival the classic disintegrating watermelon scene in The Day of theJackal.

Presumably, much of the budget went to pay Selleck who dons chaps and spurs with as much aplomb as his Magnum. P.I. floral num­ bers. He is easy to watch and performs nearly all of his own stunts, but whether or not he gets by with more sheer spunk than acting ability remains a conundrum. Whatever, Selleck is smart and equipped with just enough cool

one-liners to stop Quigley becoming a selfimportant comic book figure.

Director Wincer stated that he could not imagine another actor better suited to play the part of Quigley and I’m not inclined to argue.

The same cannot be said, though, of Laura San Giacomo {Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Pretty Woman). Her part is ostensibly a romantic foil to Quigley and, while she demands centre focus with her paranoid ramblings, she never quite outsteps Selleck’s shadow. In hindsight, it may have been better to leave San Giacomo at home in preference to casting a talented Australian actress such as Sigrid Thornton or Greta Scacchi.

Alan Rickman’s role as the slightly psycho station owner is as convincing as his ganglord portrayal in Die Hard. Beneath a prim English persona is a man corrupt to the core - a symbol of power-hungry, fascist elements in the landholding class. Rickman shines in his bad guy-black suit and, by the end of the show, it is hard to imagine a screen villain more deserv­ ing of one of his own bullets.

So how do the Australians come into the picture? There are some strong local identities in Quigley. Chris Haywood as an officious Brit­ ish officer, Ben Mendelsohn as an egotistical gunslinger (complete with dyed red hair), and Tony Bonner and Jerome Ehlers as two of Rickman’s main lackeys. The casting of the Australians is imaginative but they are prone to copping bullets in the back of the head or being herded off cliffs rather than making any important acting contributions.

It is disappointing to think that Quigley, with its international links, has missed a perfect opportunity to showcase more of Australia’s talents on and off screen. The film will no doubt be enjoyed here, but a question re­ mains: Is it, for all intents, merely an American Western superimposed on Australia?

QUIGLEY Directed by Simon Wincer. Producers: Stanley O ’Toole, Alexandra Rose. Co-producer: Megan Rose. Scriptwriter: Jo h n Hill. Director of photography: David Eggby. Art director: Ian G rade.

Production designer: Ross Major. Costume designer: Wayne Finkelman. Editor: Adrian Carr. Composer: Basil Poledouris. Cast: Tom Selleck (M atthew Quigley), Laura San Giacomo (Crazy Cora), Alan Rickman (Elliot Marston), Chris Haywood (Major Ashley Pitt), Ron Haddrick (Grim melman), Tony Bonner (D obkin),Jerom e Ehlers (Coogan), Conor M cDermottroe (Hobb), Roger Ward (Brophy), Ben Mendelsohn (O ’Flynn). Quigley Down U nder Productions-Pathe Entertainm ent. Australian distribu­ tor: Greater Union. 35 mm. 119 mins. US. 1991.

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R E G IS T E R F O R T E M P O R A R Y /C A S U A L W O R K The Australian Film Commission (AFC) is a Commonwealth statutory authority responsible for assisting and promoting the Australian film industry.

From time to time the AFC has full-time and part-time vacancies for short periods in the following areas of work: • • • • •

research, including statistical collection and data analysis; administrative work related to film projects or industry issues; data entry; clerical assistance, eg word processing, filing; accounting.

Rates of pay are based on those for the Australian Public Service and vary according to job requirements.

People interested in being considered for future short-term vacancies should write to the address below. You should include personal details, qualifications and work experience, and indicate the type of work you are interested in.

For most vacancies, experience in the film industry would be an advantage and experience using a personal computer would be desirable.

Interviews will be held only as vacancies arise, although applications will be acknowledged.

Please send applications to: Manager Personnel and Services Australian Film Commission GPO 3984 Sydney NSW 2001 EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY IS AFC POLICY AND YOU ARE INVITED TO APPLY REGARDLESS OF RACE, BACKGROUND, SEX OR DISABILITY.

FilmVictoria is proud of its support of the following 1991 AFI Award nominated films PROOF DEATH IN BRUNSWICK AYA SP0TSW 00D ISABELLE EBERHARDT AS THE MIRROR BURNS PLEAD GUILTY, GET A BOND THE M AN IN THE BLUE & WHITE HOLDEN 49 Spring Street Melbourne 3000 tel (03) 651 4089 fax (03) 651 4090 CINEMA

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L E F T: D IR E C T O R J E A N V I G O A N D A C T R E S S D I T A P A R L O D U R IN G T H E F IL M IN G

Of 'L'ATALANTE.

BELO W :

D I S C O V E R I N G T H E D A R K S ID E O F S E X U A L I T Y : C O L I N (R U P E R T E V E R E T T ) A N D M A R Y ( N A T A S H A R I C H A R D S O N ) I N P A U L S C H R A D E R 'S

THE C O M F O R T

OF

STRANGERS.

R I G H T : F R IE N D S H IP , H O M O S E X U A L I T Y , R A C IS M A N D S U B -C U L T U R E IN IS A A C J U L I E N 'S

The 40th Melbourne Film Festival contin­ ued the recent tradition o f being an audi­ ence success by balancing commercial and independent,: local and overseas, old and new, documentary and fiction, short and feature film s.

The Festival opened with Jean Vigo’s 1934 film , L ’Atalante. After a history o f cuts and restorations, the current print is a rei cent restoration by Gaumont, the original production company which cut the film in an attempt to make it more commercially viable. This restoration is based otr Vigo’s original shooting script. z L’Atalante is a portrait o f a marriage between the captain o f a Seine barge and a country woman, traced from the weddingthrough turbulent times to happiness. This simple story is supported by some lyrical visuals and surreal images, such as that o f the captain’s assistant fighting with him self onthe deck o fth e barge.

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L’Atalante set the scene for some o f the enduring themes o f the Festival: happiness, love, lust and longing. Given filmmakers’ penchant for exploring the human condi­ tion and relationships, it is not surprising that these themes prevailëd and were the subject o f documentaries, features, shorts, independent and commercial films.

Screening as part o f the first weekend, innerrcity programme at the Village cinema, The Comfort ofStrangers explores the darker side o f sexuality. Directed by Paul Schrader and adapted by Harold Pinter from a novel

by Ian McEwen, The Confort of Strangers contrasts and brings together two couples.

Irt Venice, an English-couple’s, polite­ ness and implicit trust o f others leads them to a fatal involvement with a couple who like to .merge sex and violence. Venice is the perfect place for stranding people out of their elem ent in a physically unfamiliar and oppressive environment. However, Schrader

YOUNG SOUL REBELS.

is too aware o f the setting and the film gets lost in travelogue scenes o f Venice" at a number o f points. The climax o f the film is also undermined by the final five minutes which could have been dropped altogether.

Hal Hartley’s Trust is a film with a simi­ lar theme - love and trust - but this time set in American suburbia. Hartley’s film ha£ a pop surface which gives the characters an aura off artifice which allows him to clearly express his ideas. | With a healthy amount o f satire, Hartley explores the social mythologies that dictate people’s lives. Maria’s accidental killing of her father takes her o ff the path to suburban mediocrity and dissatisfaction, while meet­ ing Matthew puts her on the inevitable path o f those outside the norm. The ending is inevitable in terms o f the film: the charac­ ters drive the plot.

Also screened was Hartley’s short film Theory ofAchievement. Similar in approach, this film looks at the urge to be famous and change the world. Books and theories o f existence feature prominently in both film s.

Hartley’s focus is people searching for meaning.

The Dutch film How to Survive a Broken Heart, directed by Paul Ruven, takes a more humorous approach to, but also somewhat black look at, love and survival. The people in this film survive on the edge - scamming, stealing, taking risks - but underpinning their lives is the search for love. Interspersed with the ten commandments o f love, these characters also drive themselves to an inevi­ tably tragic ending.

Underpinning the search for love is selfimage. Many films dealt with this theme, including the excellent sibort film , Ngozi Onwuruh’s TheBodyBeautiful, which wasjoint winner of The Kino Award for Best Docu­ mentary. Tracing the story o f a mother who has had a mastectomy and a daughter who works as a model, it powerfully explores the

„ issues o f fem ale self-image, sexuality and motherhood.

Similar in them e was the Canadian documentary, TheFamine Within, directed by . Catherine Gilday, which looks at women and eating disorders, including both overand underweight women, their self-image and place in society. Although a good inves­ tigation, TheFamine Within made me won­ der when filmmakers are going to stop i documenting problems and suggest some solutions.

Another strong theme whichran through I the Festival was homosexuality. Two film s j§ particularly stand out: Todd Haynes’ Poison and Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning.

Paris is Burning is a documentary about poor black and latino gay men in New York j who go to drag balls. There they dress to imitate their fem ale idols and to compete I with one another. The importance o f suc­ cess, the grouping into ‘Houses’ and the [ desire to mimic the media-defined ideal of femininity is powerfully and disturbingly I portrayed with both humour and serious­ ness. Livingston makes no attempt to judge ! or critique this lifestyle, nor to portray the sexual side o f it.

Poison is an im pressively successful I combining o f three quite different narra­ tives titled “H ero”, “Horror” and “Hom o”.

“Hero” explores suburbia and television • - reportage through the story o f a boy who killed his father and then flew away; “Hor; ror” is a look at AIDS via a 1950s mad¿ scientist genre piece which tells the story o f a scientist who accidentally drinks human j- sex drive serum and develops a horrible -' disease; and “Homo”, based on ajean Genet •13 story, looks atpower, violence andsexwithin •; the context o f male incarceration. Poison is crammed full o f material, all o f which is well £ dealt with, despite the variation in mood, content and style between the sections.

Isaac Julien’s Young Soul Rebels is an­ other film which deals with a variety o f |, material, but within one narrative. FrieúdI ship, homosexuality, racism, sub-cultures f:' and the era o f the RoyalJubilee in the UK in i 1977 are all explored. But, unfortunately, Julien fails to make the m ost o f rich material and the plot, based on the murder o f a gay

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man in the park, sits uncomfortably with the rest o f the film.

Art was another theme o f the Festival; however, it was film s about art which stood out rather than film s as art.

Christo in Paris, a documentary about Christo’s art project o f wrapping the Pont N euf in Paris, is entertaining, inspiring and humorous, and deserved its Special Com­ mendation in the Kino Awards.

Jon Jost’s All the Vermeers in New York is a film about New Yorkers and art, and New Yorkers and love. By using many long, sin­ gle-shot scenes, Jost forces the audience to contemplate the film as his characters con­ template the Vermeers at the Met. And through this extended contemplation things take on new meanings: for example, New York shot from the top o f the W orld Trade C entre as­ sum es the appear­ ance o f a cemetery.

Another wonder­ fu l m om ent is the scene in which the audience looks at the back o f the stockbro­ ker’s head while he gazes at the back of Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) while she gazes at the Vermeer painting o f a woman who gazes out o f the frame at the viewer: voyeurism at the ex­ treme.

A popular film was To Absent Friends which documents Australian artist Paula Dawson’s efforts to realize a holographic sculptural work. Reportedly this film was excellent, but due to its single screening at the State Film Centre many people were turned away.

Similarly popular and given an extra screening was Cyberpunk, a documentary about a literary form that has become an American sub-culture. Somewhat confusing in its structure and lack o f explanation of the original concept o f Cyberpunk, the film nevertheless is interesting for its use o f computer graphics.

In terms o f film as art, there was little that was exciting or that pushed film to its creative limits. Both the experimental and Super 8 programmes were disappointing and somewhat repetitive in terms o f themes and images.

A strength o f recent Melbourne Film Festivals has been the inclusion o f contem­ porary Australian films and this year six were screened: Proof(Jocelyn Moorhouse), Holidays on the Biver Yarra (Leo Berkeley), Waiting (Jackie McKimmie), the innovative Dead to the World (Ross Gibson), Isabelle Eberhardt (an Australian-French co-produc­ tion directed by Ian Pringle), and Stan & George’s New Life (Brian McKenzie).

Proofwas voted Most Popular Feature Film by the audience and also received The Australian Psychological Society Award for the film that best explores the human expe­ rience.

Also excellent is the Australian short film , Luke’s Party, directed by Ros Sulian and Tim Burns. Winner o f the Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Film, Luke’s Party is a successful use o f the short format to make a film outside the usual narrative tradition which manages to be both political and humorous.

By giving recognition to local product in a world context, the Melbourne Film Festi­ val has been successful in moving away from any cultural cringe. And while many o f these film s will be released locally, their inclusion

in the Festival gathers them into a body which can indicate the state o f the industry.

It also gives filmmakers an opportunity to speak with audiences about their films. (A forum on Independent Film Production held as part o f the Festival was veiy well attended.)

This year’s Festival indicated that we no longer have to bow to Europe as the film centre o f the world. There is, finally, a recognition o f the local, Asian and indeed American film industries as interesting and valuable.

In terms o f the Festival as a whole, it was disappointing that, unlike previous years, many film s only had one screening. This made it difficult to see many o f the films unless one had two full weeks to devote purely to the Festival. There was also a lack o f Festival identity at some o f the venues, the usual ticketing confusion and technical problems at too many screenings, especially during the first week.

My overall impression o f the Festival was that I had seen many o f the film s before.

This is probably more a reflection on the current state o f filmmaking than on the Festival selection and begs the question: What is happening to film innovation? The other question the festival has prompted is: What has happened to film as art?

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LEFT: KYLE McLAUGHLIN IN G U Y M ADDIN'S

ARCHANGEL BELOW (TO P ): J O N JOST'S ALL THE VERMEERS IN NEW YORK. (B O TTO M ): WERNER HERZOG'S ECHOS AÜS EINAM DÜSTEREN REICH (ECHOES OF A SOMBRE EMPIRE). RIGHT: CYN TH IA SCOTT'S THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS.

THE T S Y D NE

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■In his Ian McPherson Memorial Lecture, documentary filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke described film as “an ordeal o f contact with reality”, insisting that documentaries, like fictions, were not ‘found’ objects butshould be acknowledged as interpretations, or subde lies. The lecture, and his own film , The Good Woman ofBangkok, which followed his address, focused many o f the issues raised during this year’s Festival, in particular questions o f film form (docum entary/fic-

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tion, character/identity) and methods of. production» These near-sacred notions were challenged by two weeks o f screenings which replaced the idea o f the Festival-as-siirvey with a Festival more in search o f cinema.

In the context o f feature film s, this split between two styles o f Festival was best ex­ em plified by the contrast between Jon Jost’s All the Vermeers of New York and Clint Eastw ood’s White Hunter Black Heart.

Eastwood’s film is classical in structure and

tone, and based on the prelude to Huston’s film ing o f TheAfrican Queen, which ostensi­ bly gives it a raison d ’être to explore a pivotal creative m om ent in its psuedo-fictional characters’lives. What is disappointing is its inability to be honesdy biographical; instead, it tries too hard to prompt its audience through look-alikes, names and events that it is based on a real-life incident.

Jost’s film , however, is an exquisitely free-spirited mediation oh character (a man and a woman in identity crisis), time (the collapse o f values) and place (New York).

All The Vermeers ofNew York describes a city which feels like “being dropped o ff on your way to H ell”, à place o f “wounded ants” increasingly doom ed by the ‘vanities’ they have created. From the texture o f flooring , to cloth, marble and flesh, Jost’s camera studies everything with the persistence o f an anthropologist, while inventing.each mo­ ment through the eye as a painter would.

The world-as-filmed replaces the world-aspainted (the gallery, Vermeers), yet both m aybe fictions, or forms o f forgery.

Jost’s experim ent with documenting fic­ tio n p erfectly com p lem en ts D ennis' O’Rourke’s foray into what he calls a “fic­ tion documentary” about ‘the filmmaker’ and ‘the prostitute’ in Bangkok. Filming the prostitute in rickshaw with an opera sound­ track is a romantically Godardian proposi­ tion, but O’Rourke’s thin fictional disguise will surely bring out the usual criticism o f exploitation - o f image and w om en ! in a way probably less forgiving than the treat­ ment Godard received. What he intends in The Good Woman ofBangkok is to bridge the gap between form s (doc-fiction) by ac­ knowledging the artifice o f each, the pres­ ence o f camera and director, and the use to which images are put in the service o f an industry and a culture which is, at its core,' parasitic.

O’Rourke’s obsession with the veracity o f images, and the idea that this distillation o f experience is transferable in a way that . goes beyond the ordinary documenting process, is also present in the best o f th e, other documentaries shown this year, such as Werner Herzog’s Echos aus einam diisteren Reich (Echoes of a Sombre Empire), Sibylle Schônemann’s Verriegelte Zeit (Locked Up Time) and Fax Bahr’s Hearts of Darkness.

These three film s take monstrous persecu­ tion, in various form s, as their subject, yet are able to courageously and personally translate the essence o f that subject in a way that other filmmakers could not - too often com plexity overwhelmed ideas (Archaeology of Doom) or honesty was too fragile to be fully revealed (Island cf Lies). If there is a crisis in documentary filmmaking, then it

has to do with these issues as they affect the ;state ofinediated living today. The relevance o f everyimage in a largely image-constructed environment is now constantly questionable, and the riotion that the documentary image has an authority beyond or greater than other images no longer holds.

The strong Canadian representation at :past Festivals was extended this year with a considerable range o f features, documenta­ ries and experim entalworks beingscreened.

Undoubtedly Cynthia Scott’s The Company ofStrangers is the m ost commercially acces­ sib le o f the features and already had an 'Australian distributor before its Festival screening, whereasxGuy Maddin’s Archangel only succeeded in driving audiences from the cinema in large numbers. (It is an imita­ tion silent film set on the pre-revolutionary '' Russian Front which mischievously reworks all .narrative conventions.)

Maddin’s film represents the radical possibilities o f the Canadian industry which was also, present; on a different scale, in the Retrospective o f experim ental filmmaker Phillip Hoffm an. Hoffman’s film s are largely ^biographical, and use diaries and his large . personal image-bank to investigate his child­ h o o d and family life, fibs presence, as a guest o f the Festival, was a welcome oppor­ tunity for audiences to question him directly

Unfortunately, the Fo­ rum o f all thé visiting Cana- ' dian directors was less well attended than hoped for, considering the chance it provided for discussion on a wide range o f mutual con­ cerns to two film industries which are currently invest­ ing in each other’s produc- , turns. Canadian cinema was represented by a Special Nightwith screenings o f the less-than-interesting Marc André Fortier’s UneHistoire

Inventée (An Imaginary Tale)sLiiA John Kozak’s powerful Dory, while The N ational Film Board o f Canada’s FiveFeministMin­ utes celebrated 15 years o f production from The Na­ tional Film Board’s Studio D. As the Festival’s pro­ gram m e n o tes on Five FeministMinutesstate, “One can only hope that the col­ lectio n o f film s m ight stimulate som e one here to fund a similar venture.”

The Festival’s m ost controversial aspect was the volume o f independent Englishlanguage films, mainly from the U .S. The previously m entioned Vermeers is the first inalistincluding Henry Jaglom’s Eating, Hal Har­ tley ’s Trust, J o sep h B. Vasquez’s Hanging With the HomeBoys, Poisonand Paris Is Burning to illustrate the vibrancy o f independent filmmaking there. Where ‘new waves’ were once lo­ cated in Paris, and Feistival becam e com ­ fortable with following the art o f film as practised in France, Italy and, in the later som e o f a new generation, often in New York. The o f these film s in mme was astrong to accepted no­ tions o f the Festival’s selec­ tion, which in turn helped highlight the more importhat these film s address. By com parison with the m ainstre a m Guilty

by Suspicion, which fails to inspire' despite being con­ cerned with one o f the cin­ ema’s .most dramatic peri, ods o f the HUAC hearings, the independent film s have a confrontational attitude

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to subject and form which is envigorating..

Many o f the independent film s took gender and sexuality as their subjects and the Festival had more film s on these topics than in previous years, including a special Nice Girls Do It evening, plus new gay and lesbian film s in The Pink Panorama. It may have been a mistake to place so much pro­ m otional emphasis on Joe Menil’s Dick, a disappointing 1000 still photographs o f penises with a voice-over commentaiy, when Gail Singer’s Wisecracks, a documentary on women comedians, was by far the more inventive and provocative.

Lastly, two film s highlighted a shameful parochialism in the Australian film industry: Tin Pis Run, the first 35mm feature from New Guinea, and Talking Broken, a docu­ mentary on the Torres Strait Islands. Each : represents, in different ways, a rejection by Australia o f financial involvement in local productions. First, our refusal to develop a film school in New Guinea resulted in that work being supported by France and, subse­ quently, the production o f the film . Second, several applications for production support for TalkingBrokenwere turned down, which eventually meant the film was financed in Germany.

Ironically, their screenings at the Syd­ ney Film Festival allowed this to be dis­ cussed in open forums between audiences and the respective directors and producers, and the response to both film s vindicates the persistence o f their makers in pursuing finance elsewhere in the face o f local rejectio n .

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P A II L D I RE C T O R ,

SYDNEY

I N T E R V I EWED

BY

Should the Sydney Film Festival’s offerings he based on nationality, language or some other guiding principle ?

W ell, obviously language and nationality don’t play an important part in my selection.

I don’t programme by language; I don’t decide I need more Spanish or Italian film s.

I do set out to achieve a breadth o f selection which covers a geographically wide area, but that’s secondary to a breadth o f style and ; filmmaking visions.

'During the Festival, I was irritated by people saying there were too many Englishlanguage film s, when I knew that they were also enjoying the m ovies. So, I’d wonder, which ones could I drop: Poisorù Hearts of Darkness? And as the voting came in at the end o f the Festival, it was clear that the audience did like the film s that it saw.

But underneath that, I underestimated the attachmént people have to the Festival . as a cultural journey.

So has thefunction of the Festival changed?

Maybe. The idea o f the cultural tour has grown in this city because o f the way we sell tickets. We have an audience that com es to more film s during the Festival than at other festivals. There is also a part o f the audience that is very much connected to the idea that good film s are only in foreign languages.

But I totally reject that.

Festivals have been changing and the space we occupy is narrower because o f changing distribution patterns. Ultimately, the point becomes: What does the audience want? And what does it respond to?

I tend to feel that the form o f a film is. , not as important to m ost people as the coûtent, hut if you go and programme too heavily in form alone you end up with a lot o f English-language film s. Thé audience doesn’t like that because it challenges its notion o f what a good Dim is.

Documentaries were prominent this year be­ cause many people were talking about crisis. , That’s very much in the local context. I have always been looking for strong documenta­ ries. It is a market that is overlooked by distributors because, by conventional wis­ dom, you just can’t make m oney out o f theatrical documentaries. So, we keep plug-

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ging away and showing how they represent som e o f the best filmmaking.

One o f the things we stand against, as I said in my Foreword in the programme, is the televisualization o f the image. In picking documentaries, I am looking for feature documentaries that have all the dynamics and visual qualities o f a feature film .

Dennis O’Rourke’s lecturewassignificantin this context, because he talked about the notion that fiction and documentary are closer to each other than many have liked to admit This Festival demonstrated that close association.

Yes. There was a whole subtext o f photogra­ phy and the use o f the image throughout the Festival. You can connect Dims suchasP/iotoWallahs with all o f Phillip Hoffm an’s work, with The Good Woman of Bangkok and with Moteland Poison. You can then go on to the Dction film s where there was a preoccupa­ tion with the use o f the camera and the position o f the filmmaker.

In O’Rourke’s work this com es to thé fore and I was very keen on his film ’s being delivered in a context. The McPherson lec­ ture gave us a chance to do that. That day’s viewing was part o f what you can only get at the Festival.

It seem s to me it is more important to have festivals now. than ever before, be­ cause there are m ore images per minute entering eveiyone’s brain; there has never been a time before where people needed to be able to sift and separate those images.

Only festivals can open an audience’s senses to that process.

The strong Canadian representation continued thisyear. Butdoy ou think diefilm community in Australia has made die Canadian connection yet?

No-, but we hope.that it will; My interest in Canada is not that it produces Dims that we can relate to, because I don’t think it neces­ sarily does. My interest is that the Canadian industry is similarly placed to bum in terms o f geography, history and size o f popula­ tion, yet it produces entirely different Dims from us. That is where I ;think the connec­ tion can be made.

This year we got closer than before with the Canadian Night, and die success o f The Company ofStrangerswill be very signiDcant:

But I think the pivotal experience this year 1 was the Phillip H offm an Retrospective. I . /M would have liked to have seen more people I there, but Phil was after quality not quantity.

It seem ed to m e thatphil’s work was the j m ost challenging and diverting use oi Dim I in the whole Festival. I cannot think o f ' m anybody in this country who works in a j similar m ode, but there certainly is scope 1 forthat.

Compared with the dommame of independent film in this year s Festival, which pushed new forms and ideas,films like IIurn Hi vrm Biai k Heart seemed almost anachronistit.

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It was and it wasn’t. WhiteHunterBlackHeart J Dts in with what I’m trying to do, which is 1 destroy the idea o f commercial \ ersus qual- 4 ity. I hate the distinction between art and I commercial film s. It seem s to me that, as a 1 director, Eastwood sits in that grey area 1 between making commercial mid quality j Dims. I knew having the film in die Festival t would raise a few eyebrows, but I don’t have any problem with our being connected to ■ 1 Hollywood; if I did, I wouldn’t do i etr ospec - A lives o f Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch. |

Some commentators said there was too much emphasis on gender and sex this year. Could fj there have been too tittle before? s Certainlywhatraisedpeople’seyebrowswas that there was an emphasis on gay sev and that filmmakers used it in m ovies as a revolutionary act. In that sense, I am interested in the depiction o f gay sex because it’s «probably .one o f the big issues o f our tim e.

So, filmmaking is going to reflect that.

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yj "j 'll |

What do you think of the Festival's Australian component?

It is a problem in a sense because many people in our audience are AFI members and they get a chance to see new Australian Dims in the awardvjudging process. Our showing these Dims is not of that mut h use to them, and every time you put in an Australun Dim you take out another Dim from overseas. So, 1 have to be fairly careful about that selection.

There is also the need lor us to be seen overseas as the place where quality Australian films are premiered and that's why opemngwith Proofwas crucial for us. I know that Tail | Brady | in Melbourne showed a lot mor c \ustr alian film s than we did. but that's not necessarilv what 1 think the role o i the 1estival should be. When he does that, his eyes are more on the international audience; he's tackling it from the standpoint that everv major Festival Is usually a showcase lor its country's work. That Ls true, but what they are showc asing is their own work Ioi a Ioi cign audience and we are not doing that because we only have a local audience.

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T HE BI G S TE A L

F A N TA S Y

Director: NadiaTass. Producers: NadiaTass, David Parker. Scriptwriter: David Parker. Director of photography: David Parker. Editor: Peter Carrodus. Distributor: RCA-Columbia PicturesHoyts Video. Cast: Ben Mendelsohn (Danny Clark), ClaudiaKarvan (JoannaJohnston), Steve Bisley (George Farkas), Marshall Napier (Mr Clark).

Directors: Geoffrey Brown, Derek Strahan. Producer: Geoffrey Brown. Script­ writer: Derek Strahan. Di­ rector of photography: Geoffrey Brown. Editor: Anthony Egan. Distribu­ tor: First Release.Cast: Colin Borgonon, Claire Clifton Jane Darleyjones, Julia Binns, Maha Hindi.

Winner of several AFI awards and the film which reversed the fortunes of the Tass-Parker team after the surprise disappointment of Rikki andPete. Reviewed in CinemaPapers, December 1990.

C U S TO D Y Director: Ian Munro. Executive producer: Tristram Miall. Script development: Anna Grieve, Anne Charlton. Director of photography: Joel Petersen.

Editor: Denise Haslem. Distributor: Home Cin­ ema Group. Cast: Peter Browne (Andrew Byrne), Judith Stratford (Christine Byrne), Michael Cndlin (Justin Byrne), Sheridan Murphy (Kathy Byrne).

Masterfully realized docu-drama, made for Film Australia in 1987 (as part of a series of television co-productions), examining the workings of die family law court, through the circumstances of a divorced couple’s fighting for custody of their two children.

Whilst actors play the principal roles and others are filled by actual members of the legal profession, Custody certainly triumphs where others often fail, presenting the obligator}' facts and procedures with a forthright dra­ matic tenor. The overall effect is one of so­ bering, nonjudgemental understatement de­ spite the emotionally wrenching nature of the circumstances and the perplexing predica­ ments that the characters find themselves in.

ABOVE: RICHARD (COLIN FRIELS) AN D KATE (CATHERINE McCLEMENTS) IN ARCH NICH OLSON'S WEEKEND WITH KATE. BELOW: ACTOR JOE BUGNER A N D DIRECTOR VINCE MARTIN DURING THE FILMING OF SHER M O U N TA IN S KILLINGS MYSTERY.

PAUL

KALINA

Although it is billed as a psycho-sexual thriller a la 91/2 Weeks, the second scene revealing two nearnaked women in post-coi­ tal recline leaves no doubt that we have strayed into other territory. From there on, this tale of a woman (Clifton) whose sexual fantasies bring her under the spell of a perverted therapist (Borgonon) fogs the view­ er’s mind with a prurient mish-mash of soft­ core porn, lingerie and a brand of nudgenudge comedy that one thought passed away a couple of decades ago.

F A TA L S K Y Director: Frank Shields. Producers: Antony I. Ginnane, Stephen Strick. Scriptwriter: Anthony Able. Based on a story by Brian Williams, David White, Anthony Able. Director of photography: Richard Michalak. Editor: Leslie Rosenthal. Cast: Michael Nouri Jeff Milker), Darlene Fluegel (“Bird” McNamara), Maxwell Caufield (George Abbott), Charles Dunning (Col. Clancy). Dis­ tributor: RCA-Columbia-Hoyts Video.

The search for a plane which has mysteriously disappeared in remote Norway leads a dedi­ cated investigative reporter (Nouri), with the help of a spirited, derring-do pilot (Fleugel), to a conspiracy by the U.S. military to cover up failed military experiments.

This is a standard formula thriller, at least partly redeemed by Fleugel’s vivacious “Bird”, the tough-minded, unconventional ‘outsider’ who can easily hold her own amid the all-male company, though her role is finally less Hawksian than that of the token love interest in the super-hero action genre.

P R EJUD IC E Director: Ian Munro. Executive producer: Tristram Miall. Producer: Pamela Williams. Scriptwriter: Pamela Williams. Director of photography: Stephen Windon. Editor: Robyn Archer. Distribu­ tor: Film Australia. Cast: Patsy Stephen Jessica), Grace Parr (Leticia).

Another in the series of docu-dramas made for television by Film Austtalia in the late 1980s.

Prejudice is based on the details and events of two discrimination cases: Jessica (Stephen), the first female photographer on a metropoli­

tan newspaper; and Leticia (Parr), a Filipino nurse. Although both women are from very different cultural and social backgrounds, both share a deep sense of frustration and injustice.

Their decision to fight against discrimination leads to the courtroom.

S H ER M O U N TA IN S K ILLIN G S M Y S TE R Y Director: Vince Martin. Producer: Phillip Avalon.

Scriptwriter: Dennis Whitburn. Director of pho­ tography: Ray Henman. Editor: Ted Otten. Dis­ tributor: First Release. Cast: Tom Richards (Alex Cordeaux),Phil Avalon (Caine Cordeaux),Abigail (Muriel), Elizabeth Mclvor (Dianne).

Thoroughly unremarkable occult thriller in which a mute possessing mystic powers (Avalon) staves off villains seeking a valuable stone while camping with his older brother in remote bush country.

Ostensibly tailored around an inauspicious cameo by boxer Joe Bugner, this formula thriller was understandably destined to a videoonly release. Vince Martin’s direction is insuf­ ferably languid and flat, the performances uniformly wooden, while the loose-knit script wavers between seriously intentioned family drama and implausible occult fantasy.

W E E K E N D W ITH K A TE Director: Arch Nicholson. Producer: Phillip Emanuel. Scriptwriters: Henry Tefay, Kee Young.

Director of photography: Dan Burstall. Editor: Rose Evans. Distributor: Roadshow Home Video.

Cast: Colin Friels (Richard), Catherine McClements (Kate),Jerome Ehlers Jon Thorne), Helen Mutkins (Carla).

A film that deals with a love triangle between a rock-music prom oter (Friels), his wife (McClements) and a rock’n’ roll star (Ehlers).

Afilm thathad great potential, butwas slighted by its lack of character development which leaves the film realizing neither its comic ele­ ments or dramatic elements' to a satisfying extent. Reviewed in CinemaPapers, March 1991.

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OB I T

U A R I ES

Jacques Deny Stanley Hawes Lino Brocka

JA C Q U E S D E M Y 1931 - 1990 RAFFAELE

CAPUTO

Demy, best known for .the films Lola, J acques La Bale des Anges, and Les Parapluies de Cher­ bourg, died in Paris on 27 October 1990 at the age of 59. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of Demy’s careerwas that in the post-68 period his achievements fell to near obscurity in the English-speaking world. Critical and box-of­ fice success seemed to have bypassed the films of his later years, and yet he stood steadfast to his romantic vision of life in the movies. What follows is an appreciation of two of Demy’s later accomplishments.

One of the final film projects in Jacques Demy’s career is titled La Table Toumante. The film combines live-action material with anima­ tion and was co-directed with cartoonist Paul Grimaultin 1987. Grimault was 83 at the time and this was his first film since 1979, when he was awarded the Prix Louis Delluc, and the Silver Bear in Berlin, for the film Le Roi el 62

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L ’Oiseau. Grimault had sug­ gested the idea to Demy, in part as a way of capping off his career with something of a tribute to his own cartoon creations.

Grimault appears in La Ta­ ble Tournante as himself. One morning he arrives at his studio as he has done many times be­ fore. Nothing is out of the ordi­ nary, only on this day he particu­ larly wants to recall the first film he ever made. As he is about to search for the print, the little clown character from Le Roi el L ’Oiseau pops out of his pocket and requests he be shown the film. Suddenly, a host of Grimault’s other cartoon char­ acters emerge from about the studio. They all start up a lively discussion on the matter of creativity when finally they set­ tle down upon the editing table to view a series of films made by Grimault before they were ever conceived. Le Roi el L ’Oiseau, it should be added, depicts car­ toon figures stepping down from their tableaux in order to en­ gage in the lives of other charac­ ters. La Table Toumante is in the same way a diary ofjust such an encounter of two worlds and, as whimsical as it appears to be, of the special relationship between creator and his crea­ tions. Thus, although Demy shares the direct­ ing credit, the film is largely regarded as Grimault’s.

Even so, as though a series of events are destined to occur by some magical force, La Table Toumante is not inconsistent with either Jacques Demy’s work, or his life.

Demy was born on 5 June 1931 at Pontchâteau (Loire-Atlantique), near Nan tes.

He had directed his first feature film, Lola, by 1960, at a time when the nouvelle vague had already gained notoriety. Butunlike the shared cultural background of the Cahiers du Cinéma group of filmmakers, Demy’s journey to the cinema took a more classical route. He studied at Launay Technical College and took evening courses at art school in Nantes before moving to Paris to study at the Vaugirard school of film ABOVE: JACQUES DEMY DURING THE FILMING OF LA TABLE TOURNANTE. LEFT: MOTHER AN D DAUGHTER (FRANÇOISE FABIAN AN D MATILDA M A Y) IN TROIS PLACES POUR LE 26.AN D , YVES M O N TA N D AS YVES M O N TA N D IN JACQUES DEMY'S TROIS PLACES POUR LE 26.

and photography in 1949. In one respect, it is here that the story of La Table Toumanlehegins.

It was during these early years in Paris that Demy was first acquainted with Paul Grimault and worked as his assistant. Perhaps an inci­ dental occurrence, but one is always struck by the role of incidence in Demy’s oeuvre. This minor fact gathers momentum when consid­ ering La Table Toumantein the world of Demy.

The title itself is suggestive of manifold possi­ bilities, of opportunities missed and destinies crossed, that so mark the films of Demy.

Someone once penned that the penulti­ mate Jacques Demy film would be one in which all the characters of his previous films would eventually encounter one another. In deference to Grimault, La Table Toumantetends to work toward this end; and yet with Demy this premise is one which would overtake itself.

Like a wheel setspinningwithin awheel, Demy in 1987 was also in production with the last achievement of his career, Trois Places pour le 26. It is not the penultimate Demy, but it is a film in which he ensnares biographical details of the life of Yves Montand with his character­ istic ‘rondel’ form. Not surprisingly, Montand - apparently at his own insistence - plays a character named “Yves Montand”.

The film opens with his return to Mar­ seille, the city of his youth, and to the theatre where he made his singing debut, and where he is to stage a musical. Here again, another wheel is set in motion, for the show Montand is preparing for the 26th is a musical version of

his rise in showbusiness. Between rehearsals, however, Montand takes to the city streets in search of Mylène (Françoise Fabian), a bar hostess he once loved and had left behind.

One wonders whether it is by trick of fate that Trois Places pour le 26 should turn out to be Demy’s last film. Unlike the usual Demy edict about the “light weight” quality of his films, there’s certainly a tendency to give this film some extra weight. The film is, after all, dedi­ cated to his wife, Agnès Varda, as though it were a gesture by a man who knew his death was nigh.

Chance or human resolve? This question immediately springs to mind. But the question is finally meretricious for to appreciate Demy’s conception of the world is to appreciate the forces of both. Put Trois Places pour le 26 alongside La Table Tournante and it seems that Demy took to film in much the same way that William Burroughs look to the poems of Rimbaud with scissors to form new work. La Table Tournante literally refers to the editing table. It also refers to 1931 becauseitis theyear of Grimault’s first film which depicts a wander­ ing table, and (incidentally?) is the year of Demy’s birth.

With Demy one is always astounded by the way art continually runs into life as though there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

That, in Trois Places pour le 26, Yves Montand plays a character called Yves Montand who in turn will play Yves Montand on stage is not only the pure consummation of a life, with all its joys, hopes and fears, but of a life lived as a moue, in which all is possible and all can be fulfilled. Godard in interview once said of Demy that, “He has an idea of the world he is trying to apply to the cinema, or else - which comes to the same thing - an idea of cinema which he applies to the world.” In La Table Tournante, Anouk Aimée also makes an ap­ pearance and this of course leads one back to Demy’s first feature, Lola, which leads us, in­ evitably, to the films of Max Ophuls and to the metaphor of the circle with neither beginning nor end. If Demy’s Lola is in reference to Ophuls’ Lola Montes, then Trois Places pour le 26

must echo Ophuls’ La Ronde. Jacques Demy certainly reminds one of Anton Walbrook’s role as the meneurdejeu, gleefully spinning the fate of others on the carousel as well as taking part in the game.

But to be more precise, more realistic, and to lose oneself in the love for Demy, then for many of us Demy is the blood of Jacques Perrin’s Maxance in LesDemoiselles de Rochefort - the shy, young, blond sailor who has painted the portrait of his ideal love before he has encountered her. In the final analysis, the role of chance is of little consequence; it is the perfection of the circle that one marvels; it is not the lightweight quality of his material but the lightness of his touch that made him a premier stylist. In this context, perhaps the words best befitting the life of Jacques Demy are those of the Chinese proverb in the open­ ing of Lola: “Laugh who will, cry who can.”

FILMOGRAPHY

Shorts 1955 Le Sabotier du Val de Loire; 1957 Le Bel In­ different, 1958 Musée Grévin; 1959 La Mère et L ’Enfant, 1959 Ars Television 1980 LaNaissanceduJour {The Birth ofDay) - t e l e ­ f e a t u r e ; 1985 Parking- te le - f e a tu r e Features

Lola; 1962 LesSeptPeches Capitaux: La Luxure {The Seven Capital Sins. Lust) - o t h e r e p is o d e s

1961

b y S y lv ain D h o m m e , E d o u a r d M o l i n a r o j e a n L u c G o d a r d , R o g e r V a d im , P h i l ip p e d e B r o c a

La Baie des Anges {The Bay of Angels); 1964 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg ( The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) ; 1967 Les Demoiselles de Rochefort {The Young Girls of Rochefort) ; 1969 The Model Shop; 1970 Peau D Ane {Donkey Skin); 197 2 The Pied Piper, 1973 L Evénement leplus Important'Depuis queL ’Homme a Marché sur la Lune {A Slightly Pregnant Man) ; 1980 Lady Oscar.; 1982 Un Chambreen Ville {A Room in Town); 1988 La Table Tournante {TheEditing Table); 1988 Hois Places pour le 26 {Three Places for the 26th) a n d C l a u d e C h a b r o l; 1963

STA N LEY HAW ES 1905 - 1991 JUDY

ADAMSON

tanley Hawes, the former Producer-inS Chief for the Australian National Film Board (now Film Australia), died in Sydney on 20 April 1991. He was 86. Two months later, both die Sydney and Melbourne FilmFestivals included large retrospectives of Film Australia films in their programmes. Almost all of these films would not have been made if it had not been for Hawes’ tenacity, determinadon and love of film. It was thanks to him that Film Australia survived. The film buff who said, after the main Sydney screenings, “It’s so im­ pressive ... it’s our own past!”, is one of many people whose lives have been, or will be, af­ fected by Hawes’ achievements.

Hawes’definition of documentary has been widely quoted in the past few months but should be set down in full because of its im­ portance: D o c u m e n ta ry seeks th e d ra m a tic p a tte rn in actuality. A d o c u m e n ta ry film h as a th e m e , w h ich it d ra m a tis e s n o t n ecessarily by a cto rs a n d a stoiy, b u t by a p p r o p ria te c a m e ra a n d s o u n d te c h n iq u e . I t s h o u ld b e in te re s tin g (ab le to h o ld th e a tte n tio n o f th e a u d ie n c e fo r w h ich it is in te n d e d ) ; it m u s t hav e in te g rity (a n d n o t d isto rt reality'); a n d desirably it sh o u ld m ak e so m e social c o m m e n t.

Basically a d o c u m e n ta ry film is m a d e in th e service o f th e com m unity ', in th e b e lie f th a t th e re sp o n sib le s p re a d o f in fo rm a tio n (b e tw ee n th e p e o p le o f d if f e r e n t c o u n trie s a n d b e tw e e n th e p e o p le o f d iffe re n t p a rts o f th e sa m e c o u n try ) c a n n o t b u t im p ro v e th e h u m a n c o n d itio n .

Hawes was brought to Australia to head the film unit of the National Film Board in 1946. He started his career as director-writereditor in British documentary in the 1930s, and was senior producer at the Canadian Na­ tional Film Board for most ofWorld War II. His first film in Australia, School in the Mailbox (1946), about the NSW correspondence school system, was a finalist for the documentary' Academy Award.

The National Film Board’s film unitin the 1940s was under the control of the Depart­ ment of Information and from 1950 under the control of the DOI’s much diminished succes­ sor, the News and Information Bureau of the DOI. It had an impressive staff of filmmakers, includingjohn Heyer, Catherine Duncan, Ron Maslyn Williams, Lee Robinson, GeoffCollings, Hugh Mclnnes and Colin Dean. They came from many areas and many moved on to found other documentary units or to television.

Hawes remained. He fought for the unit against everything from pedantic interference to at least three threats of closure. He trained new filmmakers, leading to a great imaginative revival of filmmaking in the 1960s by such figures as Rhonda Small, Ian Dunlop, John Morris, Richard Mason, Don Crombie. He set firm foundations for the Commonwealth Film U nit of the 1970s in which Oliver Howes, Peter Weir, Greg Reading, Graham Chase, Jason Ollivier, Phil Noyce and many others worked.

He had great enthusiasm for every aspect of film, whether planning the nine-screen CINEMA

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p re s e n ta tio n a t E x p o 70 a t O sak a , r e m e m b e r­ i n g t h e d e ta ils o f t h e s e q u e n c e m is s in g f r o m a n e w p r i n t o f a 19 2 0 s f e a t u r e , c h e e r i n g u p a film s o c ie ty w h o s e p r o j e c t o r h a d b r o k e n d o w n , o r p l u n g i n g i n to th e c u t t i n g r o o m s in a J u b i l e e Y e ar e d it i n g e m e r g e n c y .

H e w as e n d le s s ly a c tiv e o u t s i d e t h e u n i t p r o m o t i n g t h e c a u s e o f film . H e w o r k e d to s u p p o r t U n e s c o , t h e A u s tr a lia n F ilm A c a d ­ e m y , t h e N a t io n a l F ilm T h e a U 'e o f A u s tra lia , t h e A u s tr a lia C o u n c il o f F ilm S o c ie tie s , th e S y d n e y F ilm F e stiv al th e A u s tr a lia n F ilm I n s ti­ t u te . A n d h e w o r k e d o n t h e e n d le s s c o m m i t ­ te e s w h ic h le d to g o v e r n m e n t s u p p o r t f o r f e a t u r e film , i n d e p e n d e n t f ilm m a k i n g a n d a film s c h o o l in t h e 1 9 6 0 s a n d 1970s.

I n t h e A u s tr a lia o f th e p a s t fifty y e a rs t h e r e h a s b e e n a g r e a t n e e d to f i g h t f o r A u s tr a lia n film p r o d u c t i o n

a n d film

k n o w le d g e . H e

f o u g h t.

LIN O B R O C K A 1 9 3 9 - 1991 LARRY MA R S H A L L

L

i n o O r tiz B r o c k a w as o n e o f t h e m o s t r e ­ s p e c te d film d i r e c to r s in T h e P h ilip p in e s .

H e d i e d in a c a r a c c i d e n t in M a n ila o n 22 M ay th is y e a r. B r o c k a w as 5 2 y e a rs o ld .

I n a 2 0 -y e ar c a r e e r , B r o c k a ’s s o c ia l-re a lis t film s w o n h i m a c c la im in F o n d o n , B e rlin , T o r o n t o a n d C a n n e s . H is film s h a v e also b e e n s c r e e n e d in A u s tra lia . B r o c k a w as th e g u e s t o f th e S y d n e y F ilm F e stiv al in t h e m id - ’80s.

T h e s h o c k o f B r o c k a ’s d e a t h will b e k e e n ly f e lt b y h is m a n y a d m i r e r s a t h o m e a n d a b r o a d .

Bayan Ko, sa id to Orapronobis (Pray

I t is s e t in th e a f te r m a t h o f a r e v o lu tio n in

“I t ’s y o u r film s t h a t I w ill b e r e m e m ­

w h ic h a n e w d e m o c r a t i c g o v e r n m e n t r e p la c e s

A q u in o a d m i n i s t r a t i o n .” H is s c r ip tw r ite r , P e te

a c o r r u p t d i c t a to r s h ip . B u t m a n y o f t h e p r o b ­

L a c a b a , sa id ,

A s P h ilip S a lv a d o r, t h e s ta r o f L in o B r o c k a a b o u t th e m o v ie ,

for Us):

b e r e d fo r. I f you say it is i m p o r t a n t , t h e n I w a n t to m a k e th is f i lm .”

LINO BROCKA

le m s e x p e r i e n c e d u n d e r th e f o r m e r r e g im e

I n T h e P h ilip p in e s , 9 8 p e r c e n t o f t h e 150

a r e still e v id e n t.

film s m a d e e a c h y e a r a r e p r e d ic ta b l e m e l o d r a ­

T h e m o v ie fo llo w s th e j o u r n e y o f J im m y

m a s o r v io le n t a c tio n -th r ille r s . T h e s to r ie s o f

( P h ilip S a l v a d o r ) , a f o r m e r p r i e s t a n d p o litic a l

lo v e, lu st, m u r d e r a n d r e v e n g e a r e o f t e n d ra w n

p r i s o n e r u n d e r t h e d i c t a to r , as h e trie s to rally

f r o m t h e e x tr e m e ly p o p u l a r lo c a l m e d i u m , th e

p u b lic o p i n i o n a g a in s t a v ic io u s g r o u p o f vig­

s e r ia liz e d “c o m i x ”. M o r e p e o p le r e a d th e s e

ila n te s r e s p o n s ib le f o r th e b lo o d y m a s s a c r e o f

ill u s t r a te d c o m ic m a g a z in e s t h a n r e a d th e 20

i n n o c e n t f a rm e r s .

T h e film p r e m i e r e d a t t h e 198 9 C a n n e s

L in o B r o c k a w as o n e o f t h e m o s t r e s p e c t e d

F ilm F e stiv al, b u t n o t in C o m p e t i ti o n , e v e n

a n d c o n tr o v e r s ia l film d i r e c to r s in T h e P h ilip ­

t h o u g h t h a t y e a r w as t h e tw o h u n d r e d t h a n n i ­

p in e s . H is b e s t m o v ie s s t a n d in s ta r k c o n t r a s t to

v e rs a ry o f t h e F r e n c h R e v o lu tio n a n d h u m a n

t h e n o r m b e c a u s e th e y s e e k to r e f l e c t a n d

r i g h ts w as t h e t h e m e o f t h e F estival.

M a n y o f t h e film c ritic s a t C a n n e s w e re o f

F ilip in o s w h o live in p o v e rty . I n 1 9 8 6 , B r o c k a ’s

th e o p in io n th a t

c o n t r i b u t i o n s w e r e r e c o g n i z e d by P r e s i d e n t

p r iz e h a d it c o m p e t e d . I t w as o n ly a f te r th e

Orapronobis c o u ld

have w on a

A q u i n o w h e n h e w as a p p o i n t e d as a m e m b e r

F e stiv al w as f i n is h e d t h a t B r o c k a l e a r n e d t h a t

o f t h e c o m m is s io n c h a r g e d w ith r e w r itin g t h e

F e stiv al o r g a n iz e r s w e re c o n c e r n e d t h a t t h e

P h ilip p in e c o n s titu tio n . H o w ev e r, B ro c k a

f i lm ’s su c c e s s w o u ld h a v e e m b a r r a s s e d P r e s i­

w a lk e d o u t in f r u s t r a t i o n a f te r j u s t f o u r m o n th s .

d e n t A q u in o , w h o w as to v isit F r a n c e a m o n t h

C o m m e n t in g l a t e r o n t h e A q u in o g o v e r n m e n t,

la te r. T h e ir o n y w as n o t lo s t o n t h e F r e n c h

h e sa id , “T h e g r a f t a n d c o r r u p t i o n o f t h e

p e o p le . “I ’m s o rry , M r B r o c k a ,” G e n e v ie v e

M a r c o s e r a is still a r o u n d . ”

M o le , a te le v is io n h o s t o f f e r e d p u b lic ly . “I ’m

B r o c k a w as p a s s io n a te a b o u t f ilm m a k in g .

H e o f t e n h a d t h r e e film s o n t h e g o a t o n c e ,

s o rry f o r F r a n c e .”

F ilm c ritic J a c q u e s S ic lie r o f

Le Monde d e ­

s h o o t i n g o n e w h ils t o n p r e - p r o d u c t i o n w ith

s c r ib e d

a n o t h e r a n d p o s t - p r o d u c ti o n o n a t h ir d . “S u re ,

o f e m o t i o n a l u r g e n c y . I t is a c a ll f o r lib e rty , f o r

Orapronobis as “a film

w ith a g r e a t s e n s e

I a ls o m a k e th o s e c h e a p m e l o d r a m a s ,” s a id

r e s p e c t f o r h u m a n rig h ts . I t is a g r a n d film

B ro c k a . “B u t t h a t h e lp s m e to f i n a n c e th e

w h ic h is a f la m e w ith r e a lis m , ly ric ism a n d p a s ­

m o v ie s I r e a lly w a n t to m a k e .”

O n e f i l m t h a t L i n o B r o c k a r e a lly w a n t e d to

s i o n .”

A c c o r d i n g to B ro c k a , ‘T h e m o v ie is m a in ly

Orapronobiswhich h e f in is h e d in

a b o u t h u m a n r i g h t s v io la t io n s u n d e r t h e

m a k e w as 64

• CINEMA

PAPERS

84

1989.

T h e film is y e t to b e s h o w n c o m m e rc ia lly in T h e P h i l ip p i n e s a n d d is t r ib u t o r s h a v e b e e n w a r n e d n o t to t o u c h it, a t t h e ris k o f h a v in g

o r so m o r n i n g n e w s p a p e r s a v a ila b le i n M a n ila .

c o n f r o n t th e h a r s h so c ia l r e a litie s f a c in g t h e

All o f the m aterial for the movie was taken from the pages o f the newspapers. O r a p r o n o b is is based on actual events and in fact the screenplay was toned down because the real­ ity is so shocking.

t h e i r lic e n c e s r e v o k e d . T h e a u th o r i t ie s t h e r e h a v e b r a n d e d it as “v io le n t, d is g u s tin g a n d p o litic a lly m o ti v a te d ”.

I n r e s p o n s e to a v itrio lic a tta c k a g a i n s t h im by t h e g o v e r n m e n t c e n s o r a n d o t h e r s w h o h a d n o t e v e n s e e n t h e film , B r o c k a s c r e e n e d

Orapronobis p riv a te ly

a t t h e U n iv e rs ity o f T h e

P h ilip p in e s . T h e r e s p o n s e w as h e a r t e n i n g . O v e r f o u r h u n d r e d p e o p l e c r o w d e d i n to e a c h o f t h e t h r e e s h o w in g s a n d t h e film r e c e iv e d a s t a n d ­ in g o v a tio n f r o m M a n ila ’s a rtis ts , j o u r n a l i s t s a n d h u m a n r ig h ts activists.

As

Orapronobis a n d

h is o t h e r w o r k sh o w s,

B r o c k a w as a m a g ic a l s to ry te lle r. H e h e l d s tr o n g a n d p r i n c i p l e d view s o n e v e r y th in g f r o m m o v ­ ies, c e n s o r s h ip a n d festivals, to p o litic s , r e lig io n a n d sex . H e le a v e s a le g a c y o f film s w h ic h a r e m ile s to n e s in P h i l ip p i n e a n d w o r ld c in e m a .

TOM H A Y D O N 1 9 3 8 - 1991 A FULL O B IT U A R Y W IL L A P P E A R IN T H E N E X T IS S U E

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G a b le r , h o w e v e r, is b a r e ly i n t e r e s t e d in w h a t o n e m i g h t t e r m t h e J e w is h s u c c e s s sto ry .

H is c o n c e r n is h o w th is g r o u p o f m e n - w h o s e m e m b e r s w e n t o n to e s ta b lis h th e m a j o r H o l ­ ly w o o d s t u d io s - s u p p l a n t e d t h e i r n o t i o n s o f E a s te r n E u r o p e a n a r is to c r a c y o n to t h a t o f th e ‘A m e r ic a n D r e a m ’, r e je c t e d t h e i r p r o g e n y a n d a n c e s tr y t h r o u g h a n o v e r w h e lm in g e m b r a c e o f t h e g e n te e l A m e r ic a , a n d c r e a t e d a sy ste m t h a t fin a lly r e n d e r e d t h e m ir r e le v a n t.

O n e o f G a b l e r ’s a im s is to a n a ly s e ( a lb e it

Neal Gabler, Anchor Books, New York, 1989, 502 pp, pb, rrp $24.95 PAUL

KALINA

I n 1 9 3 6 , i h e e d it o r s o f

Fortune m a g a z in e r e ­

p o r t e d t h a t, o f 8 5 n a m e s e n g a g e d in p r o d u c ­ t io n in H o lly w o o d , 5 3 w e r e Je w s. “A n d th e J e w is h a d v a n ta g e h o l d s in p r e s t ig e as w ell as n u m b e r ”, t h e m a g a z i n e d i p lo m a ti c a l ly a n ­ n o u n c e d . F. S c o tt F itz g e r a ld , i n f e w e r w o rd s , d e s c r i b e d H o lly w o o d as “a J e w is h h o lid a y , a g e n ti l e s [sic] t r a g e d y .”

T h e m a i n p a r ti c i p a n ts in th is ‘J e w is h h o l i ­ d a y ” - L o u is B. M a y e r, A d o l p h Z u k o r , H a r r y C o h n , C a rl L a e m m l e , M a r c u s L o e w , W illia m F o x , H a r r y a n d J a c k W a r n e r , N i c h o la s a n d J o s e p h S c h e n c k : a v ir tu a l ro ll-c a ll o f t h e p io ­ n e e r s o f H o lly w o o d a n d t h e A m e r ic a n film in d u s t r y - w e r e J e w s a n d i m m i g r a n t s h a il i n g m a in ly f r o m t h e p r im itiv e

shtetls o f E a s te r n

E u ro p e . T h e ir c h ild h o o d s w e re c h a ra c te riz e d , fa irly u n if o r m ly , b y p o v e rty , h a r d s h i p a n d p a ­ t e r n a l c ru e lty . T h e y h a d l it d e o r n o f o r m a l e d u c a t i o n , a n d w e r e s n u b b e d b y t h e g e n ti l e E s t a b l i s h m e n t o f A m e r ic a .

T h is is o n e a s p e c t o f t h e p a r a d o x t h a t is t h e s p r i n g b o a r d f o r N e a l G a b l e r ’s lively b o o k o n

...w o n d e r i n g w h o ’s g o i n g to d r a w f ir s t”. G a b le r ,

m e t a p h o r i c w o r ld s t h a t r e f l e c t e d t h e i r o w n

e q u a t i o n . T h e r e w as i n d e e d a m e t h o d b e h i n d

sy ste m s o f v a lu e s, b e lie fs a n d m o r a ls . T h e M G M

h is m e a n n e s s , w h ic h is r e v e a le d a t l e n g t h in

film s, w rite s G a b le r , w e re d i s t in g u i s h e d b y a

C o h n ’s l o n g - s t a n d i n g r e l a t i o n s h i p w ith F r a n k

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C a p r a , w h o s e g r e a t e s t film s w e re p r o d u c e d u n d e r C o h n ’s e v e r-v ig ila n t e y e a t C o lu m b ia .

M ayer was play in g o u t th r o u g h his stars a n d th e ir o p u le n t ro m a n tic m e lo d ra m a s [sic] his ow n fan tasies o f attrac tiv e n e ss a n d social m o ­ bility. [p. 214]

J e w s m a y h a v e a p p e a r e d , t h e i r l o n g i n g to as­

T h e le a d in g w o m e n a n d m e n , h e a rg u e s,

s h o r t o f f a n a tic a l. O n e c o u l d h a r d ly f i n d a

H o w e v e r ‘u n - A m e r i c a n ’ t h e H o lly w o o d s im ila te , to f a b r ic a te th e m s e lv e s a c c o r d i n g to t h e id e a ls o f t h e i r n e w h o m e l a n d , w as n o t h i n g

w e r e b e a u t i f u l , e le g a n t , s m a r t a n d y e t c o o lly

m o r e p o t e n t sy m b o l o f th is y e a r n i n g t h a n

u n a p p r o a c h a b l e , in s h a r p c o n t r a s t to t h e n e rv y

L o u is B. M a y e r w h o , c la im in g to h a v e f o r g o t ­

a n d sassy s ta rs a t W a r n e r s a n d C o lu m b ia . R e ­

t e n e x a c tly w h e r e a n d w h e n h e w as b o r n in

f le c tin g t h e i r ‘w o r ld v ie w ’, t h e W a r n e r B ro s,

R u ssia , a p p r o p r i a t e d fo r h is b ir th d a y t h e F o u r t h

film s w e r e f ille d w ith “v a g u e u n d e r d o g l ib e r ­

o f J u ly , w h e n h e w o u ld s ta g e a ty p ic a lly g r a n ­

a lis m ”, “a d a r k s h a d e o f d e s p a i r ”, “a n e n v i­

d io s e a n d p a tr i o t ic p a r a d e .

r o n m e n t c r u e l a n d i n d if f e r e n t , o n e a lm o s t

E v e n t h e j e w s ’ b r a n d o f w a te r e d - d o w n f a ith

c o s m o lo g ic a lly a d v e r s a r ia l, w h e r e a h o s t o f

f o u n d its w ay i n to th e m a i n s t r e a m o f A m e r ic a n

f o r c e s p r e v e n t e d o n e f r o m easily a tt a in i n g

life. R e f e r r i n g to R a b b i M a x N u s s b a u m , w h o s e

v i r t u e .” (p . 196)

lis t o f c o n v e r ts i n c l u d e d S a m m y D av is J r a n d

T h e a n a ly sis is illu m in a t in g , b u t o n ly e v e r

E liz a b e th T a y lo r, G a b l e r w rites:

s p e c u la tiv e . R e f e r r i n g to F r a n k C a p r a ’s p o p u ­ list sa g a s, a n d th e s m a r t, a s t r i n g e n t m o r a l

The Awful Truth, His Girl Fri­ day, The More the Merrier, G a b l e r w rite s o f C o ­

c o m e d i e s s u c h as

lu m b ia a n d H a rry C o h n : C o lu m b ia p u rv e y ed life p a rtly as it was fo r H a rry C o h n a n d partly as h e w ish ed it to be.

O n th e o n e h a n d , C o h n th e in d iv id u alist, C o h n th e p o p u list, C o h n th e k e en -sig h ted d e b u n k e r o f p re te n s io n a n d duplicity. All o f th ese C o h n th o u g h t h e was. O n th e o th e r h a n d , C o h n th e v erb al d u elist, C o h n th e r h e to ric ia n a n d p h ilo s o p h e r, C o h n th e m o r­ alist. All o f th ese C o h n a sp ire d to b e to c o m ­ p e n sa te fo r w h a t h e believ ed w ere deficiencies.

(F o r a m a n w h o h a d difficulty e x p ressin g h im s e lf w ith o u t ex p le tiv e s, his stars w ere a m o n g th e m o st verbally d e x te ro u s in th e m ovies.) [p. 201]

p r o d u c t s o f t h e i r p r o g e n y , a n c e s tr y a n d , o f te n , h e lp le s s v ic tim s o f a p e r s o n a l i t y t h a t w as d e e p ly la c k in g . T h e p o r t r a i t s a r e w e l l- r o u n d e d a n d vivid. H e r e , f o r i n s t a n c e , t h e n o to r io u s ly b e lli­ co se a n d fe ro c io u s H a rry C o h n (th e c h a p te r d e d i c a t e d to C o h n is p e r f e c tly c a p t i o n e d “I D o n ’t G e t U l c e r s , I G ive ’E m ”) c o m e s a c ro s s as t h e e q u iv a l e n t o f a m a l a d ju s te d a d o le s c e n t b u lly :

< CINEMA

A c c o r d i n g to a n e m p lo y e e , a n a u d i e n c e w ith C o h n m a d e o n e f e e l “all o f a s u d d e n a lo n e q u i te r ig h tly , s e e s th is as o n ly o n e h a l f o f t h e

G a b l e r p r e s e n t s t h e s e m a i n p la y e r s as

66

[p. 154]

g u ls, t h r o u g h t h e film s t h e y p r o d u c e d , c r e a t e d

t h e ‘H o l l y w o o d J e w s ’: T h e p a ra d o x is th a t th e A m e ric an film industry, w h ic h W ill H ays, p r e s id e n t o f th e o rig in a l M o tio n P ic tu re P ro d u c e rs a n d D istrib u to rs o f A m e ric a, c alled “th e q u in te s s e n c e o f w h a t we m e a n by ‘A m e ric a ’”, was f o u n d e d a n d fo r m o re th a n 30 years o p e r a te d by E a s te rn E u ro ­ p e a n Jew s w h o th em selv es s e e m e d to b e any­ th in g but th e q u in te s s e n c e o f A m e ric a. [Au­ t h o r ’s italics, p. 1].

th e dy n am ics o f class in to a k in d o f v icious D arw inism , C o h n obviously fe lt h e was re ­ vealin g th e real values in th e g a m e o f po w er,

f a r to o b rie fly a n d s k e tc h ily ) h o w th e s e m o ­

g e n e r a l a ir o f u n r e a lity , in w h ic h

AN EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN: HOW THE JEWS INVENTED HOLLYWOOD

In C o h n , as in th e o t h e r H o lly w o o d jew s, class, lack o f e d u c a tio n , re lig io n h a d all c o n s p ire d to m ak e a g r e a t h u r t - th e h u r t o f th e o u ts id e r ... H is fla g ra n t c o n te m p t a n d his cynicism w ere a rm a m e n ts o f a n g e r. By strip p in g d o w n

A n d surely only in th e p e c u lia r u n iv erse o f H ollyw ood c o u ld a ra b b i g o to a television stu d io to a p p e a r o n a p ro g ra m a b o u t th e m e a n in g o f th e H ig h H olidays, as N u ssb a u m d id in S e p te m b e r 1958, a n d in ste a d have R alp h E dw ards sn e a k u p a n d s u d d e n ly d eclare, “R abbi M ax N u ssb a u m - th is is your life!” [p.

309] T h e E sta b lish m e n t d id o ffe r th e ir b ra n d i s h m e n t s to t h e H o lly w o o d je w s . B u t it c a m e a t a tr a g ic c o st. A s t h e H o lly w o o d J e w s ’ d o m i ­ n a t i o n o f A m e r ic a n p u b l ic life i n c r e a s e d , so to o d i d t h e p itile s s a tta c k s f r o m a n ti- S e m itic , n a tio n a lis tic , rig h t-w in g e le m e n ts , w h o s e c a u s e s w e r e i g n it e d b y t h e o u t b r e a k o f W o r ld W a r 2, t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f H U A C a n d t h e e s c a la tio n o f t h e C o ld W a r.

G a b l e r m a k e s it p a te n t ly c le a r , h o w e v e r, t h a t t h e H o lly w o o d J e w s p la y e d a s i g n if ic a n t p a r t i n t h e i r o w n d e m is e . A t a n e a r ly s ta g e th e y a li g n e d th e m s e lv e s w ith t h e c o n s e rv a tiv e s a n d a r i s t o c r a t s o f t h e R e p u b l i c a n P a r ty .

(T h e

W a r n e r s w e r e t h e o n ly o n e s a m o n g s t t h e f ir s t g e n e r a t i o n H o lly w o o d J e w s to f l ir t w ith t h e D e m o c r a ts , a lb e itv e r y b rie fly .) T h e i r r e s p o n s e s to t h e o u t b r e a k o f W o r ld W a r 2 w e r e , a t b e s t, a m b i v a le n t a n d te n ta tiv e ( C o h n w a s a n a d ­ m i r e r o f M u s s o lin i, r e le a s e d a d o c u m e n t a r y o n

him and accepted an invitation to visit him in Rome!), but by the time of the HUAC investi­ gations and witch-hunts the Hollywood Jews were locked into an insidious bind.

W h a t w as in te r e s tin g w as h o w m u c h th e H o l­ lyw ood Je w s’ h a tr e d o f c o m m u n is m s e e m e d really to b e a fe a r t h a t Je w ish ra d ic als w o u ld m a k e a llje w s su sp ec t, r a th e r t h a n id e o lo g ic a l o p p o s itio n . T h e H o lly w o o d Jew s w o u ld have d o n e a lm o st a n y th in g to d isasso ciate th e m ­ selves fro m th e o ld c a n a r d t h a t lin k e d Jew s to p o litica l rad icalism ; iro n ically a n d r a th e r sadly, t h e ir e ffo rts o fte n m a d e th e m b e d fello w s w ith th e sa m e re a c tio n a ry g ro u p s th a t h a d a tta c k e d them f o r c o n tro llin g H o lly w o o d in th e first p la c e , [p. 320]

Gabler dedicates this book “to all those who stand outside the corridors of power and privilege”. The sublime irony of this dedica­ tion is the way it simultaneously vindicates and casts aspersion on the Hollywood Jews. Even when Gabler is railing against the Hollywood Jews’ contradictory and often reprehensible moral standards, arch-conservatism, guilelessiness and sheer arrogance, he leaves the moral prophecies open to judgement. It is this spirit that so palpably resonates throughout this book, and was so succinctly captured by Lillian Heilman when she defended the Hollywood Jews from a right-wing, anti-Semitic attack: I d o n ’t th in k th e h e a d s o f m ovie c o m p a n ie s, a n d th e m e n th ey a p p o in te d to r u n th e studios, h a d ev er t h o u g h t o f th em selv es as A m e ric a n c itizen s w ith i n h e r ite d rig h ts a n d o b lig a tio n s.

M an y o f th e m h a d b e e n b o r n in fo re ig n la n d s a n d i n h e r ite d fo re ig n fears. It w o u ld n o t have b e e n p o ssib le in R ussia o r P o la n d , b u t it was p o ssib le h e r e to o ffe r th e C ossacks a bow l o f c h ic k e n so u p . [p. 374]

SILENT WITNESSES: RUSSIAN FILMS 1908-1918

Research and co-ordination by Yuri Tsiman, edited by P.C.Usai, L.Codelli, C. Montanaro and D. Robinson, British Film Institute VERINA

GLAESSNER

The rediscovery of Russian (and I mean Rus­ sian in the sense of pre-Revolutionary) film history comes at an extremely pertinent time for the cinema in the Soviet Union. Now mercifully divested to most intents and pur­ poses of the dead hand of bureaucratic cen­ tralization, butwithoutyethaving surrendered to the realities of market forces; divested of the constraints of ‘stagnation’ and its attendant weapon, irony, and without as yet any clearly functioning cultural consensus concerning ‘quality’ or ‘value’, there sometimes seem as many ‘cinemas’ in the Soviet Union as there are opportunists, or, to give events a more positive reading, opportunities. Such are the discomforts and challenges of pluralism.

“Contemporary Soviet cinema lacks every­ thing ... technology, money, inspiration”, says Yuri Tsivian, the Latvian film historian, phi­ lologist and semiologist who began his re­ searches with Eisenstein but found himself insistendy attracted by the challenge “of the unexplored” offered by pre-revolutionary cin­ ema. It was his work that was drawn on in mounting the Pordenone Giornate del Cin­

ema Muto in 1989, a festival devoted to the silent cinema which last year mounted an exhibition of Russian silent cinema. (It is the catalogue of this event that the British Film Institute has published in a finely illustrated bi­ lingual Italian-English edition edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith.)

Tsivian found the archive well annotated and catalogued despite the political vicissi­ tudes. “Silent film research had been looked on as a specialist area, a non-political almost clerical job.” He also began to read trade magazines and reviews of the period, and found in them no whiff of the naive or primitive. In his essay in Silent Witnesses, Tsivian begins to map a typology of Russian cinema, seeing it principally as a cinema of performance that was linked to the highly sophisticated and rapidly evolving theatrical tradition of the time.

It was a cinema of “psychological veracity and exploration (rather than action) giving rise to an aesthetics of immobility”which he traces to the co-opting of “psychological pauses” in the MoscowArt Theatre style, and the influence of Danish and Italian cinema.

W h e n th ey m e t in R u ssian c in e m a th e s e so u rc es tra n s fo rm e d o n e a n o th e r: th e o p e r ­ atic p o s tu rin g o f th e Italian diva a c q u ire d psy ch o lo g ical m o tiv a tio n , w hile th e in to n a tio n a l a co u stic p a u se s o f th e M oscow A rt T h e a tr e gave rise to th e m in im a list te c h n iq u e o f th e R ussian film a cto r.

The word contemporary writers used was “full”. A full scene was one in which the actor was “given the opportunity to depict in stage terms a specific spiritual experience, no mat­ ter how many metres of film it takes”.

This kind of history carries intimations of problems current Russian cinema might face in adjusting to a market economy built on the premise of contemporary Hollywood product, if indeed one were to construct a ‘necessary’ relationship between this history and contem­ porary Soviet cinema. Tsivian for his part is keen to establish continuities between a preand post-Revolution cinema but he is, he stresses, not in the business of “reading off’ from the films any notion of a “spirit of the age”. Instead, he stresses the notion of film in Russia as a sort of third sister in a highly theatrical and literary culture, a third sister from the beginning with, and this is again a difference from American cinema, high cul­ tural pretensions. Tsivian’s own project is a far more stricdy archaeological one. He is keen to accompany the restoration of the films widi a reconstruction of their conditions of recep­ tion.

To a non-specialist, the films themselves seem often mere shards from times past, news­ reel footage whose interest lies in the frank­ ness of the glances of those caught for a mo­ ment by the camera, the documentation of another time and place. Others seem archaeo­ logical in a dustier sense, almost amateur in their realization. Still others, and it is impossi­ ble not to become auteurist, describe a quite purely fluid and persuasive cinematic space.

Generally they are the work of Evgeny Bauer, author of some eighty films in four years dur­ ing the second decade of this century. They are films in which an almost inevitably melodra­ matic plot is “put to work” by a resonant visual

style and consummate skill with actors. A Parisian-Russian paper of 1925 (by which time this phase of cinema was all over) puts it thus: V e ra K h o lo d n a y a ( p e rh a p s th e m o st ev oca­ tive o f th e p e r io d ’s fe m a le stars) a n d P o lo n sk ii c am e b a c k fro m th e ball in a car, fa c in g th e a u d ie n c e in close u p , e a c h im m e rs e d in th e ir ow n p riv ate p a in ; th ey d id n o t lo o k a t o n e a n o th e r a n d th ey n e v e r m o v ed . It was in th is im m o b ility th a t th e ir fa te was d e c id e d . T h is was th e d ra m a . N o b o d y c h a s e d a fte r t h e ir car.

It d id n o t g a th e r s p e e d . N o th in g b e y o n d its w indow s ex iste d . I t d id n o t ro ll d o w n a slo p e b e ca u se th e d e n o u e m e n t d id n o t n e e d c h a n c e as its a c c o m p lic e ...

The rediscovery of these films carries a strong sense of righting wrongs. Western histo­ ries, echoing Soviet official views, have tended to assign the cinema of those years to the waste bin of decadence for sins of commission, “deaths, crimes, perversions, cosmopolitan­ ism [a term implying anti-semitism] and por­ nography” or omission, revolution, civil war and the abject misery of the millions living through the years of starvation do not appear.

Even that great historian of the Soviet Cinema, Jay Leyda, while noting the importance of the period before the establishment of Soviet cin­ ema, failed to do much more. In the West, conscientious scholarship can make littie headway against our own over-arching need for more dramatic interpretive metaphors and the one that comes most potentiy and readily to hand is that of “treasures from the Tsarist archive”, with all tiiat implies of opulence, exoticism, decadence and a “lost world”.

We would do well, and much of the docu­ mentation in Silent Witnesses helps, to recog­ nize that as our own fantasy. But for a Russian cinema (and I use the term in the national sense) seeking direction and a sense of iden­ tity, the chance to re-examine these films, and indeed the context in which they were made, could carry quite different and far more re­ warding implications.

BEHIND THE MASK OF INNOCENCE: SEX, VIOLENCE, PREJUDICE, CRIME: FILMS OF SOCIAL CONSCIENCE IN THE SILENT ERA

Kemn Broumlow,Jonathan Cape, London, 1990, 579pp., hb, rrp$70 RAFFAELE

CAPUTO

If lacking in interpretative insight and the eloquence of critical style, Kevin Brownlow’s Behind theMask oflnnocenceis nonetheless a very informative and entertaining book that should ensure a good deal of back-logging work for film historians. Brownlow, author of The Pa­ rade’s Gone By, once again takes a perspective on the silent period of the cinema that is both a social history and a history of censorship. In this book, the silent cinema appears not as the ‘soft focus’ purveyor of an innocent period in America’s history celebrated for its wholesome values, but as a strong communicator of much of the nation’s social ills and discontents.

The first thing to be said of this book is that it allows at least a glimpse of the astonishing CINEMA

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number of “social films” balanced, and which does actually produced during BEHIND THE MASK not place undue emphasis the silent period, the exon the landmark case un­ tentofwhich overwhelmed less there truly is a land­ even Brown low when re­ mark case.

Going by introduction searching the book. De­ spite its ample size, the alone, it would appear that theinterestBrownlow takes book really represents the in film is only as social his­ tip of the iceberg, but it is a tory. But it becomes appar­ tip that the reader should ent that he is equally con­ take graciously for it is an cerned with the history of indicator of the need to film, and a particular one revise film history. at that. It is in part con­ The reader should also cerned with the wayvarious be grateful for Brownlow’s forms of censorship af­ thorough research, and fected film production. The manner of presentation, book is structured accord­ which synthesizes docu­ ing to the (taboo) subject ments from clergymen, matter in what is referred to as the age of politicians, filmmakers, critics, censorship reform. Each chapter is a self-contained whole committees and others with production histo­ that is mainly concerned with illuminating the ries of the films in question and Brownlow’s (shifting) relationship between reformers, state sometime aesthetic judgements. As a conse­ authorities and the film industry. For such a quence, Behind the Mash of Innocence is an af­ massive book, the bonus is that the reader can fecting (revisionist) portrait for those who still randomly select chapters without being at a come upon the silent cinema as the province loss. of a few visionary businessmen and filmmak­ The book has eleven chapters in all. Chap­ ers. In 1983, there appeared a book titled Film ter 1, not surprisingly, is on censorship; sur­ Before Griffith.which was edited byjohn L. Fell; prisingly, it sets the tone for the remaining Brownlow’s book could easily be retitled “Film chapters only part of the way. It is there to Before, After and During Griffith”. provide a broad overview of the history, and Brownlow’s case is essentially laid bare the inherent contradictions, of the various with the book’s title (the silent period wasn’t endeavours of self-imposed regulation and/or the way we thought it was), and from here on state imposed censorship up until the time of the emphasis is largely descriptive rather than Hays Office. This suits the reader fine for it is analytical. But the book is certainly not a pot­ the following chapters that get into the ‘nittypourri of superficial anecdotes or a collection gritty’ of specific cases. of plot synopses. Considering the scope of The subject ranges of the following chap­ material Brownlow puts to use, the cumulative ters are not areas of the social problem film effect of this descriptive detailing is a portrait that the reader is unlikely to have already come of the silent era that is inclusive, precise and

OF INNOCENCE

BOOKS C O M P I L E D

BY

RE CE I VED R AFFAEL E

John Waters, Fourth Estate, London, 1991, 144 pp., pb, rrp $16.95

Crackpolbrings together the contributionsjohn Waters has made to a number of publications over the past decade. The opening chapter, ‘John Waters’ Tour of L.A.”, is an appropriate 68

• CINEMA

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C A P U T O

starting point, for it fairly much puts into perspective the remaining contributions of the book. It is essentially a tour guide to “bad taste” artifacts and attitudes. But the welcome aspect of the book is that it isn’t overly filled with the banal, predictable,“do’s and don’ts” definitions that can be a favourite among devotees of “bad taste”. Collected together, the essays indeed cultivate a philosophy. There are the perennial accounts of personalities, films and events that one expects, but often there’s the material that reflects a genuinely personal devotion to “bad taste”, and to the art of the raconteur. Waters is not the best of ra­ conteurs, but he comes across as a veiy enjoy­ able, quick-witted cultural commentator.

CRACKPOT: THE OBSESS-IONS OF JOHN WATERS

across. The mcyority of the chapters, where applicable, are further subdivided by theme.

For example, the chapter titled “A Matter of Sex ”exhaustively covers the areas ofThe Vamp, Divorce, Companionate Marriage, Birth Con­ trol, Social Diseases, The White Slave Films and Virtue Triumphant. This is not breaking new ground, but what results is an interesting collection of case studies of films that only at times are marginally familiar.

It is also an enjoyable book to read for a number of reasons: (i) because of the first­ hand comments of some of the players in the game (the best expectedly are those by the reformers and state officials); (ii) for some of the practices employed by exhibitors to get around state impositions, or how they turned the stigma of bad publicity to their own advan­ tage; and (iii) for the way certain taboo subjects were handled for the screen: in disguised form some made for innovative aesthetic possibilities, but often were disguised out of existence.

Although Behind the Mask of Innocence in­ corporates a good deal and is abundantly re­ searched, it is still far from exhaustive. This does not do the book much harm for it leaves room for interpretation of a period that is still partially in view. If the book on the whole is critical of the role of censorship in shifting public attention away from social issues, then as the brief epilogue suggests it is possible to view another side. Movies that seemed incon­ sequential and trivial in the face of social ills, and which resulted from the advent of moral restrictions, could have done more to abate an ever-more passionate rise of factional, selfrighteous groups than a reasoned call for freedom of speech. To a certain extent, Brownlow is being tentative, but it must cer­ tainly be calculated in view of omissions of historical material.

are for Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, and the never-produced, never-seen “Flamingos For­ ever”, the would-be sequel to Pink Flamingos.

The screenplays come, of course, from the days before the current cult following ofjohn Waters with films like Hairspray and CryBaby. So on this score alone the screenplays have some value in reflecting the pre-respectable period ofjohn Waters.

TRASH TRIO: THREE SCREEN­ PLAYS BY JOHN WATERS

John Waters, Fourth Estate, London, 1991,258pp, pb, rrp $24.95

Trash Triois a collection of screenplays to three ofjohn Waters’films, two ofwhich put Waters, Divine and Baltimore on the map. The scripts

5

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s’

EMOTION PICTURES: REFLECTIONS ON THE CINEMA

Wim Wenders, Translated by Shaun Whiteside in association with Michael Hofmann, Faber & Faber, London, 1991,146 pp., pb, rrp $16.95 This is perhaps the most disappointing of Faber & Faber’s continuing series of publica­ tions on and/or by internationally noted con­ temporary filmmakers. Emotion Pictures is a collection of writings on film by Wim Wenders spanning the years 1968 to 1984, including his lengthy poetical work, ‘The American Dream”.

Given the extent of ideas, topics and experi­ ences, it attempts to address in regard to film - rock ’n ’ roll in movies, the avant-garde, German identity, personal obsessions and so on - what is astonishingly dissatisfying about this work is how barren and inconsequential Wenders’ perceptions are.

In the essay titled “Repertoire”, for exam­ ple, mostly about Anthony Mann’s Westerns, Wenders makes some rather intriguing claims that ultimately leave the reader frustrated over the fact that more should have been said or explained. He claims, “In Mann’s films you cross the landscapes that help you understand the geography of other Westerns.” Well, of course, all Westerns are largely concerned with landscape or geography, but in a number of different (even if limited) ways. Wenders seems incapable of being more specific: for instance, what has Wenders perceived of this geography as opposed to that in the work of directors like Ford, de Toth, Stevens, et al?

What kind of conflicts is it the site of? And so forth. All that Wenders is saying in this exam­ ple is that Mann’s Westerns, and those of others, merely amount to picture postcards.

Touches of poetic endeavour are there at times, but this book mostly reads like a passion­ less, personal account of film screenings at­ tended. Considering it in this regard, the writ­ ing collected here certainly seems to have missed the meaning of its title.

THE BIG STEAL SCREENPLAY

Damd Parker, University of Queensland Press, Australia, 1991, 66pp., pb, rrp $18.95 A screenplay published on the heels of a film’s success would seem to have no other interest than to quickly capitalize on the ready-made market of the film’s enthusiasts. The Foreword

by David Williamson, however, tends to point

to the contrary. It is unfortunately very brief, though it does open up enough space to high­ light the areas of special interest in David P arker’s screenplay for the potential screenwriter.

SWEETIE: THE SCREENPLAY

Gerard Lee andJane Campion, University of Queensland Press, Australia, 1991, 64 pp., pb, rrp $18.95 What was said of The Big Steal Screenplay also pertains to this one. Introductory notes this time are from Gerard Lee (once again dis­ mally brief) and give an account of the script’s development (unfortunately this does not necessarily mean dramatic development).Also included is “An interview with Jane Campion”

by David Stratton, though this is actually re­ printed from David Stratton’s recent book The AvocadoPlantation and is hardly what one would call an interview.

THE AUSTRALIAN VIDEO GUIDE

Peter Malone, Collins Dove, Melbourne, 1990,394 pp., pb, rrp $20 Any guide on video releases in Australia is essential, no matter the predilections of the author’s taste. That one may agree or disagree with the author’s rating of a particular film does not overshadow the knowledge that the film in question is indeed available on video in Australia. For this reason alone, TheAustralian Video Guide is worth purchasing.

If anything, critical recommendations in this case are a bonus upon bonus for they provide relevant information; and its method of listing films according to groupings, much like one’s local video store, makes for a very resourceful reference book.

THE PREMIERE GUIDE TO MOVIES ON VIDEO BY PREMIERE MAGAZINE

George Miller won the world over by outdoing Hollywood at its own game ... ”).

The Guidebegins with a series of directors’ favourites (David Lynch goes for Sunset Boul­ evard, Lolita, 81/2 and Persona - no surprises there). This is followed by critics’ choices; then, the real sectionalization begins: “En­ hancing Your Bad Moods”, “Food”, “Love and Marriage”, “School Days”, et al. At the end is a detailed index which cross-references with the chapter listings.

There is masses of information for buffs in the various film entries, some stale but much of at least passing interest. The critical opinions are typical of Premiere magazine.

COPYRIGHT: A HANDBOOK FOR STUDENTS

Peter Kavanagh and Carol Brands, Paradigm Press - Cw~tin University of Technology, Western Australia, 1991, 57pp., pb, rrp $12.

This handbook may not cover all the intricate, dicey areas of copyright, but it is a good start.

It should be welcomed by students and inde­ pendent filmmakers with no experience in obtaining copyright clearance. It aims to make this group familiar with copyright laws, espe­ cially when pertaining to music. For instance, not many would know that, when clearing copyright for a film excerpt containing a mu­ sical piece, a separate copyright may exist for the music.

It is an essential guide for avoiding the common pitfalls of those making their way in the industry.

TARKOVSKY: CINEMA AS POETRY

Maya Turovskaya.

Translated by Natashia Ward. Edited and ivith an Introduction by Ian Christie, Faber & Faber, London, 1989, 177pp., hb, rrp $35 Personal reminiscences by Maya Turovskaya of the great Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky.

To be reviewed next issue.

Edited by Howard Karren. HarperPerennial, New York, 1991, 319pp., pb, rrp $14.95.

This guide to films on video comes courtesy of the crew at Premiere (U.S.) magazine. As read­ ers of that journal would assume, this has a light and witty, though sometimes juvenile, approach (“Before there was a “Crocodile” Dundee, girls and boys, Australian director CINEMA

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AUSTRALIAN FILM FINANCE CORPORATION FUNDING DECISIONS APRIl - JUNE 1991

STAFF APPOINTMENTS FILM

VICTORIA

Film Victoria has appointed a new Executive Director Jenifer Hooks, who took up the position on 15 July.

Hooks, a writer, director and producer, has served on the boards of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, the Melbourne Film Festival, the State Film Centre Council and the Board of Film Victoria.

The chairman of Film Victoria, John Howie, said, Ms Hooks’ excellent background in film and television production and administration will ensure that the Corporation maintains its standing in the film industry, and is steadily steered through the next challenging period in its history.

19 APRIL FEATURE

SECRETS (90 mins) Victorian International Pictures. A co­

production between Australia and New Zealand. Executive producers: William Marshall, Phil Gerlach, David Arnell.

Producer: Michael Pattinson. Director: Michael Pattinson.

W riterjan Sardi. Principal cast: Nadine Garner, Noah Taylor, Danii Minogue. Five teenagers are trapped in a Melbourne hotel on the day in 1964 when The Beatles visited. One by one, through the night, they bare their souls.

TELEVISION

BUTTERFLY ISLAND (Series III, 16 x 30-minute children’s FFC

The Australian Film Finance Corporation has appointed Maureen Barron as Business Affairs Manager. Barron works in private practice as a solicitor in the film and television industry. She specializes in copyright, contracts, companies and fund raising.

Barron is also director of a number of companies involved in film and television production, and is a founding member and director of Com­ pany B Limited (which produces at and manages Belvoir Street Theatre) and Women in Film and Television.

DOCUMENTARIES ABC

AGREEMENT

A new agreement on funding for Australian documentaries pre-purchased by the ABC has been announced by the FFC’s Chief Executive, John Morris.

The agreement has led to a set of guidelines for the funding of documentaries with ABC pre-sales, a first for the FFC. Provided normal criteria for funding are satisfied, the FFC aims to fund approximately 20 projects per year, with ABC International provid­ ing world distribution.

The guidelines provide a level of pre-sale from the ABC of $65,000 per hour for films with budgets between $240,000 and $300,000; $70,000 when the budget is less than $350,000; and $60,000 when the budget is below $240,000. For material which the FFC considers has a high level of demonstrated international support, the pre-sale level required from the ABC will be a minimum of 15 per cent of the budget or $40,000, whichever is the greater.

CO-PRODUCTIONS

Amendments have been made to the AFC’s Co-production Guidelines in order to clarify the eligibility of documentaries.

Established in 1986, the Official Co-production Programme aimed to encourage Australian producers who wish to produce film and television projects in collaboration with foreign colleagues, where the storyline demands foreign creative participation or where the budget demands substantial foreign equity.

The programme now includes agreements between the Australian government and those of Canada and the UK, and a memoranda of understanding between the AFC’s counterparts in France and New Zealand. Germany, Italy and the USSR are still negotiating.

The amendments mean that documentary co-productions are allo­ cated eight points (under the AFC’s point system), with at least three points related to Australian involvement in key creative positions (direc­ tor, researcher/writer, director of photography, sound recordist, film or off-line editor, on-screen presenter).

CONFERENCE

The Second Australian Documentary Conference will be held from 29 November to 2 December at the Australian National University, Can­ berra. Directed by Marguerite Grey, it will address contemporary docu­ mentary form and content, and assess the role documentaries play in Australia’s intellectual life. There will be film screenings, presentations of research papers and debates. For more information, contact: Maria Farmer, Maria Farmer Publicity. Phone or fax (02) 327 8774.

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series) Mediacast. Executive producer: Jim Dale. Directors: Di Drew, Frank Arnold. Writers: Ian Coughlan, John Misto.

Principal cast: Grigor Taylor. The adventure continues at Butterfly Island with the arrival of the Royal Yacht of a deposed Polynesian monarchy, carrying the 14-year-old prince.

D O CUMENTARY

DIAMOND EMPIRE (3x1 hour) Impact Media Productions.

Executive producers: Laurie Flynn, David Fanning. Producer: Jan Roberts. Director: Greg Lanning. Co-director, writerjan Roberts. An international investigation of the diamond world - a world of shadowy intrigue and geo-politics based on sexrole advertising and the materialization of love.

29 MAY D O CUMENTARY

FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE (57 mins) Bower Bird Films.

Producers: Megan McMurchy, Pat Fiske. Director: Pat Fiske.

Writer: Pat Fiske. A portrait of Professor Fred Hollows,and a study of his pioneering eye health programmes in Eritrea, Nepal and outback Australia.

21 JUNE FEATURE

DAY OF THE DOG (90 mins) Barron Films (Features). Ex­

ecutive producer: Paul Barron. Producer: David Rapsey.

Director: James Ricketson. Writer: James Ricketson. When Doug Dooligan gets out of gaol he has plans for a crime and trouble-free future, but his best friend has different plans.

TELEVISION

DRAMA

FRANKIE’S HOUSE (4 x 50-minute mini-series) An official Australia-UK co-production. Roadshow Coote &Carroll. Pro­ ducers: Matt Carroll (Australia), Eric Feliner (UK). Director: Peter Fisk. Writers: Andy Armitage John Lonie. Young photo­ journalist Tim Page arrived in war-torn and hedonistic Sai­ gon in 1965. He went on to record the atrocities of the Vietnam War and win world acclaim.

D OCUMENTARIES JOHN OLSEN: PAINTING AUSTRALIA (90 mins) Don

Bennetts. Executive producer: Stuart Purves. Producer: Don Bennetts. Director: Don Bennetts. Writer: John Olsen. A study of one of our greatest painters.

VAUDEVILLE (55 mins) Joanna Stewart. Producers: Jane Ballantyne, Joanna Stewart, Director: Mario Andreacchio.

Writer: Mario Andreacchio. Vaudeville in Australia is about extraordinary people, extraordinary performances and our inherent fascination with the comic and the unusually skilled.

YITALI’S AUSTRALIA (52 mins) Looking for Australia. Pro­ ducer: Jonathan Lester. Writer: Vitali Vitaliev. A prolific and acclaimed Russian journalist, now living in Melbourne, takes us on a whimsical journey in search of the real Australia.

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Music Composed and Conducted by BRIAN HAY

Interest in film music soundtracks, either as an adjunct or important component of a film, or merely as a souvenir of an enjoyed experi­ ence in the cinema, continues unabated. Since the advent of CDs, soundtrack recordings seem to have proliferated and the recent scores of such composers asjohn Barry7,Miklos Rozsa Jo h n Williams,Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman, James Horner and Hans Zimmer, to name just a few, are well represented.

This renewed interest by the public and the recording companies has happily led to the appearance on disc and tape of a number of local composers’ work for film, and this is good news both for them and collectors.

Some of the music dealt with in this brief round-up is from recent releases, some not, but in those latter cases the recordings have been released only in recent months.

Wendy Cracked a Walnut (1991) may not have been the most successful of Australian movies - in fact, it was close to a total failure - but salvaged from the wreckage is the score, the work of composer Bruce Smeaton and multi-talented performer Jo Chindamo.

Almost worth buying for the idiosyncratic notes on the music by Smeaton that come with the disc, notes which reveal a fair amount of frustration over the plight of Australian movie composers as well as a generous (and well deserved) tribute to the input of Chindamo, this is avaried and pleasant score.

Produced by, to quote Smeaton, a “daisychain of seventeen computerized devices”, the sounds range from the lush to the jaunty and all were physically produced by Chindamo, an amazing one-man-band. Try tracks 7: “Closing Credits”, 8: “Midnight Rainbow” and 9: “Fax of Life” to sample the sound and the variety before you decide if this is your thing.

Sky Pirates (1984) and Thirst (1979) both have scores by the prolific Brian May which have recently been issued by One M One Records on CD. These are typical examples of May’s expansive work with a big orchestra.

Sky Pirates, as one could tell from the art­ work on the disc without investigating any further, was an attempt at a local version of Spielberg’s Raiders, and the music (over one

original score by Bruce Smeaton with Joe Chindamo

hour of it on disc) pays its own allegiance to the work ofjohn Williams. Heavy on the brass and percussion, full of harp glissandi and string tremolandos, the 18 tracks have titles such as “The Crash”, “Fighter Attack”, “Truck Chase” and so on. It was a relief to get to track 10: “Faulkner’s Bar”, for a version of “Saints Go March In”, which didn’t threaten to dam­ age the eardrums.

Thirstis a variation on the vampire theme, has plenty of imaginative eerie sounds and makes good use of an added chorus (track 6: ‘Vampire Chorus”), but the romantic theme is bland. The final excerpt (14: “Dr. Fraser Helps/End Titles”) shows May at his most eclectic.

Both these discs may suffer from what Jeffrey Jones in Amadeus thought was wrong with Mozart’s music - “Too many notes”-b u t they are typical examples of May’s work and his knowledge of orchestral effects is undeni­ able.

More interesting thematically, however, is the work of Simon Walker for the 1983 mini-series For the Term of His Natural Life. He was just twenty7when he wrote this score, and the disc shows a wide variety of style and a shrewd use of orchestral colours.

There is far more variety here than in May’s scores though some of Walker’s “busy” episodes are almost interchangeable with that composer’s work. Sample track 13: “Rever­ end Meekin”and 14: “Fightln the Coal Mine” to get an idea of the contrast in style and mood on this disc.

The Columbia release of the soundtrack from Flirting {1991) also includes music from director John Duigan’s earlier The Year My Voice Broke (1987). There is no new music here, but the tape is an enjoyable mix of pop music of the period and some classical pas­ toral music from Vaughan Williams (his name is incorrectly hyphenated on the notes ac­ companying the release.)

TheDelinquents (1989) didn ’t do much for Kylie Minogue’s career and it doesn’t do much either for local composers. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Gene Vincent and The Platters all set the period for the film’s ac­ tions, and there’s a song from Kylie herself

(“Tears On My Pillow”). Miles Goodman’s original music is confined to the film’s theme (last track on side 2 of the tape). Again an enjoyable tape if you’re into the music of that period, but more a nostalgic compilation than anything else.

More interesting are the soundtracks from The Big Steal (1990) and Death In Brunswick (1991), both featuring a considerable amount of music from Philip Judd. The former, as well as containing tracks from Mental As Anything, Boom Crash Opera and other groups, does have some songs written and performed by him with Tim Finn, as well as a few tracks (“Hope”, “Low Clearance”, “TaiChi”) which are purely orchestral.

The themes here aren’t particularly memorable and seem to have little real rele­ vance to the images, but his work on Death In Brunswick is a considerable advance in this area. The Greek influence in the music is entirely appropriate to the setting and char­ acters in this funny black comedy, and adds considerably to the overall effect.

With the assistance of Peter Volaris, who composed three of the tracks as well as play­ ing accordion, Judd has come up with a very listenable and attractive set of themes. As well as an extract from Mahler’s 5th, there’s a short dialogue excerpt from Sam Neill (“Carl’s Third Confession”) which really does give the flavour of the film.

Like the movie itself, I found this sound­ track release very entertaining and the addi­ tion of dialogue sequences something more movie soundtrack releases should copy.

TITLE

CAT. NO.

Wendy Cracked a Walnut Sky Pirates Thirst For the Term of His Natural Life Flirting The Delinquents The Big Steal Death in Brunswick

IMICD1007 IMICD1002 IMICD1003

CD CD CD

IMICD1001 468392-4 TVC93312 9031725714 903174188-4

CD TAPE TAPE TAPE TAPE

CINEMA

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KINGSGROVE 14 FITZROY STREET ST KILDA TELEPHONE (03) 536 3000 FACSIMILE (03) 525 4571 TOLL FREE (008) 033 786 MELBOURNE

AUSTRALIA

LUXURY APARTMENTS

S pecial industry rates: $75-125 per n ight, $395-690 per w eek.

A ll apartm ents feature usual luxury appointm ents, separate livin groom / bedroom (s), very fu lly eq uipped k itchen, fu ll size bath/show er over.

In-house laundry, sauna, spa. In-house m ovies; direct d ia l-in phones; answ ering service and facsim ile on request. Full b u sin ess service.

Room service lunch and dinner. C ontinental breakfast on request (in apartm ent). 24 hour reception. H igh security b u ild in g . We are the film and entertainm ent sp ecia lists, attentive to your sp ecial n eed s.

STOCK FOOTAGE LIBRARY

CHRIS ROWELL PRODUCTIONS ETON ROAD LINDFIELD NSW 2070 TEL: (02) 416 2633 FAX: (02) 416 2554

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NOTE: Production Survey forms now adhere to a revised format. C inem a P apers regrets it cannot accept information re­ ceived in a different format, as it does not have the staff to re-process the informa­ tion. Information is correct a s o fl/7 /9 1 .

FEATURES PRE-PRODUCTION HAMMERS OVER THE ANVIL Prod. cos.

SAFC Harvest Prods Budget S4 million Pre-production 5/8/91...

Production 30/9/91...

Post-production 15/11/91...

Principal Credits Director Ann Turner Co-producer Exec, producers

Scriptwriters

Peter Harvey Wright Janet Worth Gus Howard Peter Gawler Peter Hepworth Ann Turner

Based on stories H a m m e r s over the A n v i l Alan Marshall Written by Script editor Peter Gawler 35 mm Gauge 95 mins Length Cast: [No details supplied] Synopsis: A funny, moving, inspirational loss of innocence story set in the early days of this century. Twelve years old and crippled with polio, Alan dreams of becoming a great horseman. He must learn that life is not necessarily what he wants it to be, but it’s worth living anyway.

THE NOSTRADAMUS KID Prod. co.

Simpson Le Mesurier Films October 1991 ...

Production Principal Credits Bob Ellis Director Terryjennings Producer Roger le Mesurier Exec, producers Roger Simpson Bob Ellis Scriptwriter Planning and Development Roger Simpson Script editor Government Agency Investment AFC Development FFC Production Cast: [No details supplied] Synopsis: A gentle romantic comedy about the end of the world. The religious and sexual coming of age of a 1960s Seventh Day Adven tist boy, who acquires a taste for drink, women and philosophy, and believes the end is nigh during the Cuban Missile Crisis, even though the much longed-for apocalypse seems to keep getting postponed.

SHOTGUN WEDDING David Hannay Prods Prod. co.

Beyond Films Dist. co. $4,141,485 Budget 19/8/91 - 11/10/91 Pre-production 14/10/91-6/12/91 Production 9/12/91 - April 1992 Post-production Principal Credits Paul Harmon Director David Hannay Producers Charles Hannay David O’Brien Scriptwriter Kim Batterham DOP Other credits Brenda Pam Prod, manager Lea Collins Prod, accountant DDA Associates Publicity

■ I

Unit Publicist Fiona Searson Laboratory Atlab Australia Gauge 35 mm 95 mins Length Cast: [No details supplied] Synopsis: Set in the late 1960s, S h o tg u n W e d d in g is a bizarre drama, a love story and a comedy of errors. Jimmy Becker, fresh out of gaol, and pregnant girlfriend Helen leave Kings; Cross to seek their dream of a normal life in the outer suburbs ofSydney. However, their dream is quickly shattered with the arrival of a ‘bent’ cop, Taylor, and an arsenal of weapons left by Helen’s schizoid brother. A siege begins which captures the attention of the nation, during which the Police Commissioner acts as best man at Jimmy and Helen’s wedding.

David Elfick John Winter Nina Stevenson John Cundill Scriptwriter Steve Windon DOP Guntis Sics Sound recordist Stuart Armstrong Editor David McKay Prod, designer Clarissa Patterson Costume designer Planning and Development Glenda Hambly Script editor Christine King Casting Ali Roberts Extras casting Directions Andrew Mayhew Storyboard artist Ruth Osborne Choreographer Production Crew Prod, manager Maggie Lake Prod, co-ord.

Julie Sims

Editing rooms Mighty Movies Film Stock Kodak Government Agency Investment Production FFC Cast: Craig Adams (Ken), R honda Findleton (Gwen), Martin Sacks (Max), Aden Young (Barry), Russell Crowe (Arthur), Samantha Murray (Maisie), Maya Stange (Ivy), Bill Young (Herbert Bollinger) Jill Perryman (Dorry),Vincent Ball (Cyril Williams).

Synopsis: Romantic comedy about an art­ istic 16-year-old with a rampant libido and a passionate interest in the female form.

Set in Perth and Kalgoorlie in the 1950s.

FEATURES PRODUCTION

Liz Kirkham Jillian Harris Unit manager Simon Hawkins Giancarlo Mazzella Unit assts.

Philip Taylor Mark Hawthorne Prod, runner Liane Lee Prod, accountant (Moneypenny) Accounts asst.

Christine Robinson Hammond &Jewell Insurer Completion guarani.

Film Finances Jet Aviation Travel co-ord.

Showfreight Freight co-ord.

Base-office liaison Basia Plachecki Camera Crew Mark Spicer Camera operator Steve MacDonald Focus puller Clapper-loader Annie Benzie Samuelson Camera equipment Film Service Ray Brown Key grip Ian Bird Asst, grip Gaffer Craig Bryant Steve Johnson Best boy Simon Frost Camera attach.

John Lee Electrician On-set Crew Colin Fletcher 1st asst director 2nd asst director Sarah Lewis Lisa Farinosi 3rd asst director Jan Piantoni Continuity Boom operator Mark Keating Make-up Karen Sims Jan Zeigenbein Hairdresser

SECRETS Victorian International Pictures Avalon Pictures NFU Studios Production Dist. co.

Beyond International Group 17/6/91...

Production Principal Credits Michael Pattinson Director Producer Michael Pattinson Lynda House Line producer David Arnell Exec, producers Michael Caulfield William T Marshall Jan Sardi Scriptwriter David Connell DOP Ken Saville Sound recordist Peter Carrodus Editor Prod, designer Kevin Leonard-Jones Planning and Development Casting Liz Mullinar (Aust) Penny Oldfield (NZ) Production Crew Sue Thompson Prod, manager Mary Hands Prod, co-ord.

Colin McLellan Prod, ass’t Prod, secretary Sarah Bailey Alex Collins Location manager Location asst Rachel Stewart Dave Norris Location scout Alex Collins Unit manager Prod, accountants Jim Hajicosta (Aust) Maureen Zust (NZ) Comp, guarant.

Film Finances Steeves Lumley Insurer Camera Crew Camera operator IanJones Greg Ryan Focus puller Clapper-loader Warren Bradshaw Warren Grieef Key grip Trevor Rowe Asst grip Steve Latty Gaffer Thad Lawrence Best boy Alan Woodfield Electrician Generator operator Alan Woodfield On-set Crew Dave Norris 1st asst director 2nd asst director Wi Rakete 3rd asst director Anna Cahill Karen Alexander Continuity Boom operator Myk Farmer Make-up Fiona Campbell Debra East Make-up asst Hairdresser Peter Underdown Visual fx Nick Rowney Choreographer Tony Bartucchio Stunts co-ord.

Peter Bell Still photography Martin Stewart Art Department Art director Kevin Leonard-Jones Art dept runner Cameron Feast Set dresser Brad Mill

■ 1

BLINKY BELL Prod. co.

Yoram Gross Film Studios Dist. co.

Beyond International Group Pre-prod. July 1990 - December 1990 7 /1 /9 1 -3 1 /1 /9 2 Production Post-production 1 /2 /9 2 -3 0 /5 /9 2 Principal Credits Director Yoram Gross Yoram Gross Producer Exec, producer Sandra Gross Yoram Gross Scriptwriters John Palmer Leonard Lee Based on T h e C om plete A d v e n tu r e s o f B lin k y B ill

Dorothy Wall Written by Other Credits Animation director Robert Smil Guy Gross Composer Prod, supervisor Robert Smit Jeanette Toms Prod, manager Jane Barnett Producer’s asst Sarah McDougall Prod, ass’t Jan Egger Prod, accountant FIUA Insurer Completion guarani.

Film Finances Martin Cooper & Co. Legal Sendees Atlab Australia Laboratory' 35 mm Gauge Kodak Shooting stock Government Agency Investment NSW Film & Development Television Office FFC Production Beyond International Marketing Group Marketing Tim Brooke-Hunt Marketing cons.

Inter, sales agent Beyond International International dist. Beyond International DDA Publicity Voices: Robyn Moore (female voices), Keith Scott (male voices).

Synopsis: Animated feature film of the adventures ofBlinky Bill, the mischievous koala, and his friends (Splodge, Flap Platypus and Nutsy Koala) in the Australian bush. They battle against illegal loggers who destroy their homes and attempt to destroy the bush, but Blinky Bill rallies his friends and together they fight to preserve their homes.

THE GREAT PRETENDER Palm Beach Pictures Prod. co.

Beyond Films Dist. co.

10/6/1991 ...

Production Principal Credits David Elfick Director

Producers

Location m’gers

(Ziggy)

Still photography Skip Watkins Catering Steve Marcus Catering asst Debbie Hansen Rob Greenough Safety officer Unit publicist Fiona Searson, DDA Art Department Michael Philips Art director Art dept, coord. Tracey Hyde-Moxham Richard Blackadder Art dept, runner Alicia Walsh Set dresser Props buyers Denise Goudy Glen Johnson Robert Moxham Standby props Wardrobe Wardrobe supervisor Jo Malcolm Lisa Galea Wardrobe buyer Delia Spicer Standby wardrobe Wardrobe dept, attachs. Jackline Sassine Emily Steel Construction Dept.

Const, super.

Peter Carmen, Dakota Scenic artist Frank Falconer Post-production Carryl Irik Asst editors Isla Carboon John Hopkins Music supervisor Laboratory Atlab Australia

ROUND THE BEND (formerly Over the Hill) [See previous issue for details]

Prod.

co.

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Asst set dresser Props buyer Standby props Wardrobe Costume supervisor Standby wardrobe Construction Dept Const, manager Scenic workshop coord.

Scenic artists Design estimator Staging Standby staging Set makers

Set finishers

Nick Rowney Brad Mill Jania Bates

Producers

Paul Sayers Andrea Bunn

Assoc, producer Scriptwriters

Tony Arnold Wayne Rtuherford Mike Travers Richard Martin Vaughan Schwass Hori Heath John Flowers Colin Pacey Tony Evensen Anton Buys Kerry Dunn Karen Baker

Post-production Asst editor David Clark Unit publicity Fiona Searson (DDA) Cast: Beth Champion (Emily), Malcolm Kennard (Danny), Dannii Minogue (Didi), Willa O’Neill (Vicki), Noah Taylor (Randolf), Eddie Campbell (Randolfs father), Peter Dennett (Cop), Nicki Hooper (Girl fan), Christopher Lorimar (Kid), Lorae Parry (Reporter) Jo an Reid (Sister Anuzia), Peter Vere-Jones (Jock), Joy Watson (Randolf s m other).

Synopsis: June, 1964. Madness! Music!

Emotion! Five teenagers trapped in the giant basement of the hotel where the Beatles are staying during their Australian tour. As the night unfolds, they slowly start to reveal their deepest secrets, their hopes, their dreams. Featuring some of the most famous music ever written.

STRICTLY BALLROOM Prod. co.

M & A Film Corporation Ronin Films Dist. co.

Principal Credits Baz Luhrmann Director Producers Tristram Miall Ted Albert Popsy Albert Exec, producer Jane Scott Line producer Baz Luhrmann Scriptwriters Craig Pearce Steve Mason DOP Ben Osmo Sound recordist Jill Bilcock Editor Catherine Production designer Martin Angus Strathie Costume designer David Hirshfelder Composer Other Credits Fiona Production manager McConaghy Keith Heygate 1st asst director Martin Brown Art director Bill Marron Asst prod, designer Still photography Philip de Masurier Unit publicity Dina Gillespie, Ronin Gauge 35 mm Length 95 mins Cast:Paul Mercurio (ScottHastings),Tara Morice (Fran), Bill Hunter (Barry Fife), BarryOtto (DougHastings), PatThomson (Shirley Hastings), Peter Whitford (Les Kendall), Gia Carides (Liz Holt), John Hannan (Ken Railings), Sonia KrugerTayler (TinaSparkle),PipMushin (Wayne Burns), Leonie Page (Vanessa Cronin).

Synopsis: Strictly B allro o m is a romantic comedy borrowing from the classic Holly­ wood dance films of the 1940s. When 21year-old ballroom champion, Scott Hast­ ings, commits the cardinal sin of dancing his own steps and not those laid down by the all powerful Federation, retribution is swift. But help comes from an unexpected quarter.

WIND (formerly Radiance) Prod, co.s Filmlink International Zoetrope Studios Principal Credits Director Carroll Ballard 74

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84

Exec, prod.s

D.O.P Editor Prod, designer Production Crew Prod, managers

Tom Luddy Mata Yamamoto Francis Ford Coppola Fred Fuchs Betsy Pollock Rudy Wurlitzer Kimball Livingstone Roger Vaughan John Toll Michael Chandler Larry Eastwood

Lab liaison Gauge Shooting stock

Denise Wolfsen 35 mm Kodak Eastmancolour

Marketing Publicity Annie Wright Publicity Cast: Matthew Modine (Will Parker), Jennifer Grey (Kate), Cliff Robertson (Chandler), Rebecca Miller (Abigail) Jack T hom pson (Jacl(. Neville), Stellan Skarsgard (Joe Heiser), Ned Vaugh (Charley).

Synopsis: An outdoor adventure drama set against the background of the America’s Cup.

Grant Hill (Aust) Dianna Phillips (U.S.) Production runners Sara Probyn Robert Helliwell Financial cont.

FEATURES 1 Cynthia Quan 1 Robert Threadgold I Prod, accountant POST-PRODUCTION I Juanita Parker Accountant BLACK ROBE Financial asst Angela Kenny [See previous issue for details] Insurer Rubens Completion guarani.

InternaBREATHING UNDER WATER tional Film Guarant.s [See previous issue for details] Legal services R. Garton Smith & Co EIGHT BALL Helen Francis Travel co-ord.

Meridian Films Mike McLean Prod. co.

Freight co-ord.

25/3/91 - 10/5/91 Pre-production Base-office liaison Anne Gilhooly 13/5/91-28/6/91 Lisa Farinosi Production Attachments 1/7/91...

Post-production Jacqui Sassine Principal Credits Camera Crew Ray Argali Director Leigh Mackenzie Focus puller Timothy White Producer Clapper-loader Angelo Sartore Exec, producers Jill Robb Cameraman Ian Pugsley ( M a k i n g of...)

Bryce Menzies Sound Glenn Martin ( M a k i n g o f...)

Ray Argali Aerial photography Stan McClain Scriptwriters Harry Kirchner Gary Capo 2nd unit DOP Mandy Walker Colin Deane DOP 2nd unit focus Ian Crcgan Leilani Hannah Sound recordist 2nd unit clapper Editor Ken Sallows Aaton, Arri, Eclair Camera types Kerith Holmes Paul Marbury Prod, designer Camera maint.

Jane Hyland Costume designer Key grip Dave Nichols Planning and Development Toby Copping Asst grips John Cruthers Mike Vivian Script editor Mick Morris Casting Dina Mann Gaffer Jane Hamilton Terry Lee Casting assts Helicopter pilot Cameron Harris On-set Crew Production Crew 1st asst directors L. Dean JonesJnr. Denise Patience Prod, supervisor (main unit) Marion Pearce Prod.manager Colin Fletcher (2nd unit) Brendan Campbell Prod, co-ord.

Jenny Barty 2nd asst directors Producer's asst Judith Hughes (main unit) Georgia Carter Prod secretary Sarah Lewis (2nd unit) Leigh Ammitzboll Jenny Quigley (main Unit manager Continuity unit) Prod, runner Jacqueline Perske Prod accountant Mandy Carter Chris O’Connell (2nd unit) Sophie Siomos Kirsten Veysey Accounts asst Make-up Insurer Steeves Lumley Paul Pattison Hairdresser Film Finances Special fx supervisor Brian Cox Comp, guarant.

Roth Warren Menzies Legal services David Hardie Special fx co-ord.

Kerin Hansen Camera Crew Special fx asst Camera operator Mandy Walker Chris Anderson Stunts co-ord.

Campbell Miller Arch Roberts Focus puller Safety officers Trevor Moore Clapper-loader Art Thompson Arriflex BL4 Jacqui Ramsay Camera type Unit nurse Max Gaffney Jim Sheldon Key grip Still photography Richard Allardice Asst grips Unit publicist Annie Wrighi Daryl Pearson Chris Smith Gaffer Catering Trevor Ripper Deni Gordon Best boy Malcolm McLean Generator op.

Roger Jarrett On-set Crew Art Department Euan Keddie 1st asst director Nicholas Bonham Art directors Tony Gilbert 2nd asst director Deborah Eastwood Karen Mahood Michelle McGahey 3rd asst director Asst art director Ann Beresford Tim Burns Continuity Art dept runner Tony Dickinson Boom operator Set dresser Richard Hobbs Amanda Rowbottom Vicki Longbottom Graphics Make-up Bill Schober Tech, adviser John Osmond Standby props Jennifer Mitchell Still photography Wardrobe Miranda Brown Unit publicist Kerry Thompson Wardrobe super Keith Fish Julie Barton Catering Standby wardrobe Art Department Wardrobe assts Heather Laurie Hugh Bateup Julie Frankham Art director Sharon Young Art dept coord Alison Coop Bus Paul Macak Art dept runner Boats Adele Flere Set dresser Boat auditor Caitlain Samways Daryl Porter Propsperson Ross Bridekirk Boat wranglers Adele Flere Gertjacoby Props buyers Marita Mussett Construction Dept Daryl Porter Const, supervisor Alan Fleming Standby props Wardrobe Post-production Bronwyn Doughty Atlab Australia Standby wardrobe Laboratory

Construction Dept Leading hand

Herb Stephens (workshop) Const.

Walter Sperle (Swan Hill) Set const.

ABC Scenery workshop Post-production Maria Kaltenhaler Asst editor Eugene Wilson Sound transfers by Sound Services Dean Gawen Sound supervisor Chris Gough, Mana Music coord.

Music Cinevex Laboratory Ian Anderson Lab liaison 35mm Gauge Kodak Eastmancolor Shooting stock 5248 Government Agency Investment Development Script: Film Victoria AFC Production FFC Film Victoria Cast: Matthew Fargher (Charlie), Angie Millikcn (}ulie), Paul Cantoni (Russell), Lucy Sheehan (Jacqui), FrankieJ Holden (Mai), Matthew Krok (Douggie), Ollie Hall (Biggs), Desmond Kelly (Bert).

Synopsis: Charlie isayoungarchitect with seemingly everything going for him.

Russell, the complete opposite, has just been released from prison. Their paths cross when Russell is employed to work on Charlie’s latest project: the construction of a giant Murray Cod as a tourist attrac­ tion for a small Victorian town.

THE FATAL BOND [See previous issue for details] THE GIRL WHO CAME LATE (formerly The Girl Who Had Every­ thing) [See previous issue for details] THE LAST DAYS OF CHEZ NOUS [See previous issue for details] ON MY OWN [See previous issue for details] UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD [See previous issue for details] RECENTLY COMPLETED See previous issues for details on: BACKSLIDING TURTLE BEACH

DOCUMENTARIES INTRAVENOUS REGIONAL ANAESTHESIA Production co.

Flinders Media Flinders Medical Centre Flinders Media Dist. co.

Budget $8,500 Principal Credits Director Mike Davies Producer Mike Davies Exec, producer Stuart Boyd Tech, producer Rod Larcombe Scriptwriters Mike Davies Dr Richard Willis Based on idea by Stuart Boyd Editor Mike Davies Sound recordist Andrew Ganczarczyk Composer Matthew Atherton Camera operator Mike Davies Music perf. by Matthew Atherton Narrator Michael Habib Gauge low band U-matic Length 17 mins Synopsis: The intravenous regional anaesthesia procedure is described and demonstrated on two patients.

SMOKING CESSATION COUNSELLING IN PREGNANCY Prod. co.

Medical Illustration Unit Flinders Medical Centre Dist. co.

Flinders Media

Principal Credits Director Producer Exec, producer Assoc, producer Scriptwriters

Mike Davies Mike Davies Alan Bentley Rod Larcombe Jan Chorley Melanie Wakefield Sound recordist Andrew Ganczarczyk Composer Clive Hicks Camera operator Mike Davies Narrator Caroline Ainslee Gauge low-band U-matic Synopsis: A counselling session in which a pregnant woman is encouraged to give up smoking.

SOOTHING THE PAIN OF CHILDBIRTH Production co.

Flinders Media Flinders Medical Centre Dist. co.

Flinders Media Budget 112,000 Principal Credits Director Mike Davies Producer Mike Davies Exec, producer Alan Bentley Assoc, producer Rod Larcombe Scriptwriters Delia Connery Dr Peter Brownbridge Mike Davies Editor Mike Davies Composer David Kottlowy Camera operator Mike Davies David Music performed by Kottlowy John Ovendon Narrator Gauge 3/4" video 12 mins Length Synopsis: The viewer follows a woman from before the birth of her child until after the birth. An anaesthetist explains the various forms of pain relief available to the woman, and these are demon­ strated. Explanation is given of the ad­ vantages of using each of the pain reliev­ ing techniques.

For details of the following see previous issue: SATELLITE DREAMING WHEELING FREE

A POCKETFUL OF RYE Mulga Wire Prod. co.

Principal Credits John Stoddart Director Frances McDonald Producer Ian David Scriptwriter Ross Berryman DOP Leo Sullivan Sound recordist Sara Bennett Editor John Wingrove Prod, designer Anna Senior Costume designer Robert Gavin Composer Other Credits Prod, manager Patricia L’Huede Sam Thompson Prod, co-ord.

Richard Montgomery Unit manager Trudi Latour Prod, runner Anna Howard Focus puller Jeremy Kirkpatrick Cam. dept attach.

Ian Plummer Gaffer Johnny Earthmover Best boy Glen Day Grip Kent Santilla Asst grips Mark Greene Asst electrics Adrian Pickersgill 1st asst director Karen Kreicers 2nd asst director Sue Wiley Continuity Sue Kerr Boom operator Peggy Carter Make-up Ines Ullmann Make-up asst Peggy Carter Hairdresser Sandy Wingrove Set decorators Jock McLachlan James Wingrove Art dept asst Will Morley Asst editor Antony Gray Sound editor Phil Heywood Sound mixer Chris Rowell Neg. matching

Gauge 16mm Length 29 mins Cast: Helen Noonan (Margo Clements), Adam Bowen (Spencer Field), George Spartels (Benny Lagrange), Colleen Clifford (May Brown), Maggie Blinco (Beryl Carmody), Doug Parkinson (Cog Carmody), Penny Biggins (April Millett).

Synopsis: At the end of a country tour singing twenty favourite arias, an opera singer and her piano-player go through storm and tempest to reach an understanding.

RHINO CHRISTMAS Prod. co.

Armstrong-Cochrane Budget SI 19,000 Pre-production December 1990...

Production January 1991...

Post-production Feb -June 1991.

Principal Credits John Armstrong Director Producer Fiona Cochrane Scriptwriter John Armstrong DOP Zbigniew Friedrich Sound recordist Mark Tarpey Editors Michael Bladden Clayton Jacobson Art directors Margaret Eastgate Adele Fiere Other Credits Prod, manager Wendy Clarke Unit manager Tania Paternostro Steeves Lumley Insurer Camera operator Zbigniew Friedrich Camera asst Kathy Chambers Ken Connor Key grip Gaffer Ron1Ti money Steve Westh 1st asst director Robyn Crawford Continuity Steven Vaughan Boom operator Judith Hall Still photography Vanda Millicer Art dept asst Philip Millar Puppet by Garry Richards Asst editor Ray Boseley Sound editor Iain Mott Music performed by Film Soundmack Mixed at Editing facilities Four Plus One Prods Titles Leif Pedersen Laboratory Cinevex Gauge 16 mm Shooting stock Kodak Cast: Emily Mortimore (Mott), Jacek Roman (Raoul), Doris Younane (Trace), Lynda Gibson (Jane), David Swann (Bruce), Jeffrey Walker (Jeffrey), Frank Thring (Voice), Bill Bennett, Esme Melville (Old couple).

Synopsis: [No details supplied]

Prod. co.

SECRETS Swinburne Film & Television School Australian Film Institute

Dist. co.

S I 6,000 Budget Principal Credits Director Robert Murphy Robert Murphy Producer Ken Mahlab Line producer Exec, producer Chris McGill Robert Murphy Scriptwriter Steve Amis DOP Richard Caon Sound recordist Robert Murphy Editor Anna Liedel Art director Anna Liedel Costume designer Peter Donnison Composer Planning and Development Chris McGill Script editor Shooting schedule by Ken Mahlab Carol Gregory Budgeted by Production Crew Ken Mahlab Prod, managers Robert Murphy Ken Mahlab Unit manager Angie Black Unit assts Samantha Dams Gabrielle Hodson Prod, runner Leanne Evans Base-office liaison Camera Crew Luis DaSilva Camera operator

Focus puller Clapper-loader Camera asst 2nd unit DOP 2nd unit focus 2nd unit clapper Camera type Camera main.

Key grip Asst grips Gaffer Best boys

Joanne Donahoe Samantha Dams Joanne Donahoe Steve Amis Joanne Donahoe Joanne Donahoe Arriflex SR II Joanne Donahoe Daryle Stokes Steven Oyston Angie Black Jos Morgan Darren Mitchel Ken Mahlab

Alec Morgan Directors Chris Oliver Exec, producer Alec Morgan Written by Other Credits Jenny Middlemiss Researcher Hilary May Prod, manager Fiona Schmidberger Prod, co-ord.

Janine Trapp Prod, accountant Marketing consultant Francesca Muir Lesna Thomas Publicity Synopsis: A film about the secrets behind Australia’s post-war immigration policies.

JOHNSON & FRIENDS (II) FA Prod. co.

FA Samantha Dams Dist. co.

3 /6 /9 1 -5 /7 /9 1 Production Angie Black 8 /7 /9 1 -2 5 /1 0 /9 1 Post-production Ken Mahlab Principal Credits Chris Drake Ian Munro Samantha Dams Director Ron Saunders Exec, producer Veronic Peril John Patterson Written by Samantha Dams Kim Batterham DOP Samantha Dams Robin Archer Ray Fenner Editor Robert Dein Prod, designer Chris Drake Caroline Jones Costume designer Tibor Hegedis Chris Neal Composer John Roberts Catering Production Crew Fay Murphy Kim Anning Prod, manager Dianna Robertson Joanne Holliman Prod, co-ord.

Art Department Glen Daly ABC Liaison David Shepard Asst art director Bronwyn Thompson Prod, ass’t Anne Liedel Set dresser Megan Gilmour John Fox Prod, accountant Armourer Camera Crew Wardrobe Matthew Temple Camera assist Anne Liedel Wardrobe buyer Gaiy Burdett Key grip Post-production Bob Woods Asst grip Robert Murphy Post-prod, super.

Richard Curtis Gaffer Sound transfers by Swinburne Film & Pierre Drion Electrician Television Bruce Young Asst electrics Robert Murphy Sound editor Other Credits Peter Donnison Musical director Terry Cook Technical directors Peter Donnison Muisc perf. by Don Hogan Peter Frost Mixer Jim Townley Film Soundtrack Australia Still photography Mixed at Matthew Bartley Opticals Victorian Film Laboratories Standby props Rob Ricketson Construct, manager Titles RobertMurphy Nicole Roller Dubbing editor Laboratory Victorian Film Paul Bertram Laboratories Narrator Robert Sullivan Lab liaison AustinBartolo Mixer 1" video Gauge Neg matching MegKoernig Kim Henderson Marketing Grader AustinBartolo Lesna Thomas Publicity Gauge 16 mm Cast: Arky Michael (Johnson), Katrina Screen ratio Standard 16 mm frame Sedgwick (McDuff), Bruce Wedderburn (Diesel), Peter Browne (Alfred), Kristen Shooting stock Kodak 7248. 7292 Lyons (Squeaky).

Video transfers by Charlie Ellis AAV Synopsis: Johnson the Elephant, McDuff Marketing Publicity RobertMurphy the Concertina, Diesel the truck, Alfred the hot water bottle and Squeaky the Poster design RobertMurphy Robot continue their adventures in a Cast: Paul Lum (Michael Graden), Rod further 14 episodes.

Mullinar (Des Cameron), Peter Hosking (Police Sergeant), Sheila Florance HEROES OF OUR TIME (Beverly), Esme Melville (Norma), Katrina Lambert (Sarah), Anita Rasa (Jenna), Prod. co.

FA Principal Credits David Houston (David), Rod Densley Directors Catherine Marciniak (Barry), Adam Cunningham (Trevor).

Cathy Henkel Synopsis: Secrets centres on a young writer, Exec, producer Chris Oliver Michael, who receives a brief, unexpected Scriptwriters Catherine Marciniak female visitor while house-sitting one Cathy Henkel evening. His ensuing search into who she DOPs Paul Costello is leads him to uncover a much darker Pieter De Vries community secret that proves to be far Erica Addis more bizarre than any of his own works of Sound recordists Pat Fiske fiction.

Bronwyn Murphy Editor Denise Haslem For details of the following Other Credits see previous issue: Prod, supervisor Hilary May BEEN THERE, DONE THAT Prod, managers Marguerite Grey AUSTRALIAN FILM, TELEVISION Ann Holland AND RADIO SCHOOL Prod, co-ord.

Fiona Schmidberger Prod, accountant Janine Trapp Still photography Jim Townley For details of the following see previous issue: Editing assts Imelda Cooney HOPE Felicity Neale Danni Cooper Gauge 16 mm FILM AUSTRALIA Marketing consultant Francesca Muir Publicity LesnaThomas IMAGEMAKERS Synopsis: An inside look at the environ­ Prod co.

FA mental group, Greenpeace.

Pre-production July 1991 Principal Credits Generator operator On-set Crew 1st asst director 2nd asst director 3rd asst director Boom operator Make-up Make-up asst Special fx make-up Hairdresser Tech, adviser Still photography

CINEMA

PAPERS

84

• 75

LA STUPENDA RM Associates FA Principal Credits Director Derek Bailey Producer Brian Adams Exec, producers Chris Oliver Neil Mundy Scriptwriter Derek Bailey DOP Peter De Vries Sound recordist Rob Stalder Other Credits Prod, manager Hilary May Prod, co-ord.

Fiona Schmidberger Gauge SP Betacam Marketing consultant Francesca Muir International dist. RM Associates & FA for BBC Radio Telefis Eireann RTP Decca International Publicity Lesna Thomas Cast:Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge, Luciano Pavarotti, Franco Zefferelli, Marilyn Horne, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Sidney Nolan.

Synopsis: A combination of live perform­ ance and archival footage highlighting Joan Sutherland’s 42-year opera career.

Prod, cos

For details of the following see previous issue: THE ARTIST, THE PEASANT ENVIRONMENT PLAGUED

FILM VICTORIA ART OF DROWNING Prod. co. Frame Film & Television Prods Budget $141,123 Production March 1991...

Post-production April 1991...

Principal Credits Director Jaems Grant Producer Tony Wright Scriptwriter John Trigg DOP Mandy Walker Phillip Healy Sound recordist Editor Uri Mizrahi Prod, designer Neil Angwin Planning and Development Casting Tess Hill (Liz Mullinar) Storyboard artist Alistair Hardiman Production Crew Prod, manager Ann Darrouzet Prod, co-ord.

Fiona Eagger Unit manager Leigh Ammitzboll Prod, runner Claire Jackson Prod, accountant Monika Genht Insurer Steeves Lumley Legal services Roth Warren & Menzies Camera Crew Camera operator Kathy Chambers Camera type Aaton Key grip Ken Connors Gaffer Rory Timoney Asst electrics Josh Winterson On-set Crew 1st asst director Steve Westh Continuity Robyn Crawford Stephen Vaughan Boom operator Make-up Lloyd James Safety officer Eddie McShortall Still photography Ponch Hawkes Catering Sam Bathurst Boat wrangler Ted Watson Art Department Art director Neil Angwin Art dept runner Susan Kennett Post-production Editing asst Davor Dirlic Editing rooms Open Channel Sound transfers by Eugene Wilson Sound editor Uri Mizrahi Music mixer Peter Frost Film Soundtrack Mixed at Opticals Cinevex Laboratory Cinevex Ian Anderson Lab liaison 16 mm Gauge 76

• CINEMA

PAPERS

84

Screen rauo 1.85:1 Shoodng stock Kodak 7248 Video transfers by Iloura Government Agency Investment Production Film Victoria Cast: Max Garner Gore (Tommy), Natasha Pincus (Ruth), Dalibor Satallic (the Painter), Nicholas Bell (Harry, Tommy’s father), Sarah Peirse (Judy, Tommy’s m other), Victoria Eagger (Painter’s friend), Peter Farago (Jeff, Ruth’s father).

Synopsis: A young boy in a small, declin­ ing fishing town lives to draw and paint.

His father tries to prevent him pursuing his interests and wishes only that he would take more interest in the fishing business.

Things change when an old painter and his co.ion come to town.

MR NEAL IS ENTITLED TO BE AN AGITATOR Prod. co.

Film Art Doco Production 29/4/91...

Principal Credits Director Daryl Dellora Producer Sue Maslin Scriptwriters Daryl Dellora Jenny Hocking Ian Wansbrough DOP Vlad Osherov Sound recordist Mark Tarpey Editor Dany Cooper Composer David Bridie Other Credits Interviewer Jenny Hocking Prod manager Ian Wansbrough Prod, ass’t David Atkins Prod, accountant Sophie Siomos Camera asst Sonia Leber Grip Michael Madigan Gaffers Rory Timoney Sam Beinstock Lighting asst Peter Scott Stills photography Janusz Molinski Art director Edie Kurzer Art dept asst Amanda Lovejoy Asst editor Piers Douglas Dubbing editor Livia Ruzic Laboratory Cinevex Lab liaison Ian Anderson Neg. cutter Meg Koernig Gauge 16 mm Stock Fuji Colour Government Agency Investment Development Film Victoria Production Film Victoria AFC Synopsis: A film about the late High Court Judge, Justice Lionel Murphy.

SHEEP Prod. co.

Motion Arts Australia Budget $130,000 Principal Credits Director Wain Fimeri Producer Roslyn Walker Scriptwriter Daniel Lillford Based on the play Sheep Written by Daniel Lillford DOP Vlad Osherov Sound recordist Ray Boseley Editor Catherine Birmingham Prod, designer Georgina Campbell Costume designer Lisa Collins Composer Maurie Sheldon Production Crew Prod, manager Jo Bell Prod, ass’t Stuart McDonald Prod, accountant Janine Matorejo Insurer BRA Insurance Camera Crew Camera asst Peter Stott Key grip Michael Maddigan Gaffer Peter Scott Best boy Mez O’Brien On-set Crew 1st asst director Steve Westh Coninuity Victoria Sullivan Boom operator Garry Richards Make-up Lisa Collins Special fx Peter Stubbs

Jeff Little Safety officer Peter Culpan Still photography Peter Gunn Catering Conquest Catering Art Department Asst art director Julian Faull Graphics Daniel Lillford Armourer John Fox Post-production Edge numberer Oliver Streeton Sound transfers by Cinevex Sound editor Ray Boseley Mixed at Soundfirm Laboratory Cinevex Lab liaison Ian Anderson Neg matching Cinevex Gauge 16 mm Shooting stock Eastman 7292, 7248 Government Agency Investment Production Film Victoria Cast: Bill Kerr (Harry), Jeff Kovski (Bernie), Paul McCarthy (young Harry), Christopher Coe (young Smithy), Terry O ’Brien (Royalist leader).

Synopsis: In 1975 they buried Jack Lang and sacked Whitlam. It was a bad year and a worse night. Harry and Bernie are sheep thieves. On this foul night, with the wind tearing at the roofing iron, they wait for a telephone call. Sheep is a political analogy.

It is about murder, some funny buggers and a truck bumping through an uneven night down a winding memory.

Jack Swart Music Library Prod, manager Ned Lander Laboratory Visualeyes Prods 26:45 mins Length Gauge SP Betacam Sponsor Family & Community Services Synopsis: Interviews with young females and male drug offenders in detention.

They talk about their lifestyles and drugs.

For use in training youth workers.

HOUSING IN HARMONY Prod. co.

Wildfire Prods Director Jason Oliver Producer Gay Dennis Scriptwriter John Young DOP Bruce Hogan Sound recordist George Weiss Editors Martha Babinau Alan Hind Music Library Prod, manager Roseanne Donaldson Narrator Peter Sumner Laboratory Acme Video Length 9:30 mins Gauge SP Betacam Sponsor Department of Planning Synopsis: Shows how medium-density housing can be effectively integrated into existing metropolitan residential areas while environmental and heritage con­ cerns are met.

NSW FILM AND TELEVISION OFFICE

MAIN STREET Prod. co.

VisualeyesProds Director Mark Lamprell ACCESS TO ENGLISH Producer JoanEvatt (3 programmes) Scriptwriter Mark Lamprell Prod. co.

Inland FilmsDOP JackSwart Director JudyRymer Sound recordists PeterRead Producer Sandra Alexander Michael Gissing Scriptwriter Stephen Measday Editor Fiona Strain DOP Jan Kenny Music Library Sound recordist MarkTanner Prod, manager RuthEvatt Editor John Gilbert Narrator NickHolland Music SteveFrancis Laboratory VisualeyesProds Neil Sutherland Length 15mins Prod, manager Sandra Alexander Gauge SP Betacam Narrator Sandy Gore Sponsor Department of Planning Laboratory Visualeyes Prods Synopsis: Designed to encourage retail Length 3x22 mins communities to revitalize and enhance Gauge SPBetacam their shopping areas using the Main Street Sponsor Depart, of School Education programme. Shows the Main Street pro­ Synopsis: Three programmes for teacher gramme at various stages of development training designed for Intensive, Primary in both urban and rural environments, and Secondary classes. They explain the language.

GARDEN OF FRIENDSHIP Prod. co.

John Lowndes Film & TV Prods Director John Lowndes Producer John Lowndes Scriptwriter John Lowndes DOP Frank Biffone Sound recordist Matthew Gormly Editor Gary Hillburge Music Library Prod, manager Julie Adams Narrator Julie McCrossin Graphics-animation Lumagraph Laboratory AMTV Length 10 mins Gauge SP Betacam Sponsor Darling Harbour Authority Synopsis: Shows the development of The Chinese Garden at Darling Harbour, NSW. The programme reveals the beauty and tranquility of the garden, as well as how the garden is used by the public.

HEAR ME TALKING TO YOU Prod. co.

INMA Prods Directors Ned Lander John Whitteron Producer Ned Lander Scriptwriter Ned Lander DOP John Whitteron Sound recordist Bronwyn Murphy Editors Tony Stevens

Prod. co.

The Production Team Director Paul Haines Producer Pru Colville Scriptwriter Pru Colville DOP Jon Matthews Sound recordists Jon Leslie Steve Foy Editors Paul Haines Music Library Prod, manager Karen Myers Narrator Jim Pike Laboratory McCabe Studios Length 16 mins Gauge SP Betacam Sponsor Adult Literacy Information Office Cast:Jim Pike (presenter).

Synopsis: Shows a selection of International Year of Literacy innovations which were designed tc1 encourage people to seek help with reading and writing probelms.

PEOPLE FIRST Prod. co.

Davis Film & Video Prods Director Linda Blagg Producer Cathy Miller Scriptwriter David Poltorak DOP Phillip Bull Sound recordists Paul Finlay Phillip Maguire Editor Vicki Ambrose Music Gary Hardman Prod, manager Cathy Miller

Laboratory Length Gauge Sponsor

Acme Post Production 30 mins SP Betacam Premier’s Dept, Office on Disability Cast: Penne Hackforth-Jones, David Franklin, John Bonney.

Synopsis: Designed to raise the awareness of employers to the advantages of hiring people with physical or intellectual dis­ abilities. Drama shows a keen but unaware videomaker who becomes aware as he conducts his research to make a video.

Programme includes interviews with em­ ployees with disabilities and employers.

Principal credits Directors

Producers DOP Sound recordist Art director Other Credits Casting Prod, manager Prod, co-ord.

Prod, secretary Location manager Unit manager Prod, accountant Accounts asst Focus puller Clapper-loader Boom operator Key grip Grip Gaffer Best boy 1st asst directors

Chris Langman Gary Conway Paul Maloney Marc Callan Jan Bladier David Lee Nino Martinetti Andrew Ramage Vivian Wilson

Jan Russ Stewart Wright Jo Warren Maryann Daniels Jamie Legge SIGNS OF THE TIMES Shane Warren Prod. co.

Notion Picture Co. Simone Semen Director Greg Swanborough Luise Preiss Producer Max Lloyd Warwick Field Scriptwriter Frank Harvey Trish Keating DOP Mike Jackson Steve Haggerty Sound recordist Richard Hill Ken Conner Editor Marc Van Bueren Stuart Crombie Music Library Nick Payne Prod, manager Mary-Joy Lu Adam Williams Narrator Peter Harris Ian Kenny Laboratory Apocalypse Post Andrew Merrifield Length 15 mins 2nd asst director Rachel Evans Simon Warnock Gauge SP Betacam 3rd asst director Continuity Judy Whitehead Sponsor Roads & Traffic Authority of 3rd electrics Anthony Tulloch NSW Viv Rushbrook Cast: Peter Harris, MarUn Vaughan, Nino Make-up super.

Doug Glanville the dog.

Make-up Doug Glanville Synopsis: The Roads and Traffic Author­ Hairdresser asst Stunt co-ord.

Danny Baldwin ity BME division manufactures a variety of Nurse Barbara Datsun street signs. This video illustrates the Liz Harvey manufacture and sign erection processes Unit publicist Bob Murphy Bus driver using a combination of dramatized and Catering Sam Bathurst, Two Can Do documentary styles.

Brian Alexander Asst art director Toni Forsyth SYDNEY AUSTRALIA/AUSTRALIE Art dept coord.

Brian Alexander Set dressers Prod. co.

Greg Richards & Assoc.

Souli Livaditis Director MichaelGiddens Marian Murray Producer GregRichards Vanessa Thomas Standby props Scriptwriter GregRichards Souli Livaditis DOP MichaelGiddens Props buyers Marian Murray Sound recordist Phil Cole Wardrobe super Victoria Thompson Editor GregRichards Anna Baulch Standby wardrobe Music Art Phillips Barry Kennedy Construct, m’ger Prod, manager Steve Jensen Dave O’Grady Scenic artsist Laboratory Atlab Construction crew Screwed & Glued VTS Editpoint The Editng Machine Length 6:40mins Editing rooms Atlab Laboratory Gauge Film & SP Betacam Cast: Cameron Daddo, Barnum Burnum, Sponsor Premier’s Dept Mandy Bowden.

Synopsis: Designed to attractinternational [No further details supplied] spordng events to New South Wales.

CHANCES (serial) WE STAND FOR SAFETY Prod. co.

CadillacProds [See previous isssue for deatails] Director Peter Willisee Producer MikeConway THE CROCODILE ON TRIAL (tele-feature) Scriptwriter PaulLeadon Prod. co.

Australian Pacific Films DOP GregHunter (Cairns) Sound recordist TerryKelly Beyond International Group Editor AngusReid Dist. co.

Principal Credits Music Library Mark Eliot Director Prod, manager Molly Pullicinio Mark Eliot Producer Narrator David Sheerin Planning and Development Laboratory Frame Set & Match Rick Rogers Length 1x6mins Researcher Mark Eliot Script editor 1x30 secs Community Service Monica Mesch Shooting schedule Annoucement Monica Mesch Budgeted by Gauge SPBetacam Synopsis: This two-hour tele-feature puts Sponsor Roads & Traffic Authority of the crocodile on trial and investigates NSW attacks from all over the world. The Cast: David Sheerin, Spike Cherry. crocodile, theworld’soldest creature, has Synopsis: A dramatized video designed to survived the dinosaurs, and, although increase public awareness of safety for savagely hunted by man for the past milRoads and Traffle Authority road worksite lion years, of the 21 original species not crews. It illustrates the difficulties and one has yet been made extinct. But how hazards experienced by crews when much longer can the crocodile hang out? making roads safer for the motorist.

TELEVISION PRODUCTION ALL TOGETHER NOW (series) [See previous issue for details]

Prod. co.

BONEY (series) Grundy Television

A COUNTRY PRACTICE (series) JNP Films Prod. co.

Principal Credits Robert Meillon Directors Peter Dodds Chris Martin-Jones

Producers Exec, producer Scriptwriters

Technical directors

Sound recordists

Editor Prod, designer Composer Other Credits Researchers

Mike Smith Julian McSwiney Robyn Sinclair Denny Lawrence James Davern Judith Colquhoun David Boutland David Phillips Sally Webb Ray Harding Bill Searle David Alley Peter Youngman Robert Clyne Phil Tipene Ross Boyer Russell Thompson Kerry Fraser Graeme Andrews Steve Muir Mike Perjanik

Linda Grail Helen Cumming Jane Hathaway Sue Ellis Script editors Graeme Koetsveld Margaret Morgan Jo Horsburgh Shauna Crowley Casting David Watts Prod, manager Barbara Lucas Prod, co-ord.

Prod, secretary Libby Sharpe Peter Warman Location manager Margi Muir Unit manager Glenn Steer Camera operators Peter Westley Alan Strange Michael Healey Steven Fisher Deitrich Boch Camera asst Hitachi Camera type Mark Moroney 1st asst directors ' Ed Prylinski Grant Brown John Hartley 2nd asst directors Brian Rees Karen Willing Directors assts Elizabeth Russell Karen Mansfield Colleen McNamara Boom operators Anna Jakovich Paul Lehmann Phil Jones Make-up Rachel Dal Santo Kit Moore Jo Stevens Jane Wheeler Art directors Kevin Smith Set dressers Doug Kelly Marco Dercole Jane Parker Props buyer Malcolm Gregory Standby props Gerard Brown Julie Puglisi Allan Burns Standby wardrobe Lauryn Forder Amanda Bloomfield Glenn Shapter Construct, super.

Scenic artist Neil Beck Leading hand Cameron Stanton Neil McIntosh Asst editor Custom Post-prod, facilities Video Australia Cast: Shane Porteous (DrTerence Elliott), Lorrae Desmond (Shirley Gilroy), Brian Wenzel (Sergeant Frank Gilroy), Gordon Piper (Bob H atfield), Syd Heylen (Cookie), Joyce Jacobs (Esme Watson), Sophie Heathcote (Steve Brennan), Matt Day (Luke Ross), Maureen Edwards (M atron Rosemary P rior), Andrew Blackman (Dr Harry Morrison), Michelle Pettigrove (Kate Bryant), Georgie Parker (Lucy Gardiner), John Tarrant (Matt Tyler).

Synopsis: On-going drama series in ficti­ tious Wandin Valley about a close-knit community. The stories are based around a hospital, a clinic and a club, and always deal with day-to-day social issues.

THE FLYING DOCTORS (VIII, series) Crawfords Australia Prod. co.

Principal Credits Catherine Millar Directors Kendal Flanagan Ian Gilmour Brendan Maher Jan Marnell Producer Terry Ohlsson Exec, producer Marie Trevor Scriptwriters Jutta Goelze Vince Mdran Denise Morgan Ron Hagen DOPs Zenon “Butch” Sawko John McKerrow Sound recordists Philippe DeCrausez Andrew Reese Art director Sally Grigsby Costume designer Planning and Development Tony Cavanaugh Story editor Matthew Lovering Script editors Robert Greenberg Jan Pontifex Casting Production Crew Pan Tummel Prod, manager Christine Hart Prod, co-ord.

Wendy Walker Producer’s asst Kathryn O ’Brien Prod, secretary Greg Ellis Location manager Peter Allen Transport manager Gene Van Dam Unit managers Wayne Mortimer Brad King Production runner GTV 9 Assembly editor Ron Sinni Prod, accountants Dean Hood Camera Crew Craig Barden Focus pullers John Mounsey Jeff Fleck Clapper-loader Cameron Dunn Kerry Boyle Key grips Stuart Crombie Travis Walker Asst grips.

Llew Higgins Con Mancuso Gaffers Miki Mato Andrew Moore Best boys Brett Hull On-set Crew Arnie Custo 1st asst directors Chris Odgers Chris Page Christian Robinson 2nd asst directors Mark Chambers 3rd asst director Paul Hogan Joanne McLennan Continuity Paul Kiely Jenny Sutcliffe Boom operators Craig Walmsley Make-up Lisa Jones Brad Smith Make-up assts Julieanne Chapman Peta Hastings Special fx Film Tricks Stunts New Generation Stunts Peter Culpan Safety officer Barbara Datson Unit nurse Unit publicist Susan Elizabeth Wood Art Department Art director Andrew Reese Kate Murray Asst art directors Michael Rumpf Rolland Pike Set dressers Fiona Ashton Hugh Richards Peter Bennett Props buyer Christopher Davenport Standby props Vanessa Thomas Stuart Redding Armourer John Fox Wardrobe Standby wardrobe Alban Farrawell John Shea Sue Miles Construction Dept Construct, m’ger Peter McNee Leading hand Michael Gyucha Carpenters David Sims Arthur Kaye CINEMA

PAPERS

84

Set finishers

Mark Walters Stewart Burchall

Post-production Post-prod, super.

Editors

Sue Washington Bill Murphy Scott McLennan Grant Fenn Editing assts Angie Cocks Sound editors Michael Carden Colin Swan Asst sound editor David McDonald Post-sync super.

Steve Lambeth Musical director John Clifford White Foley Justin Gaffney Mixer Andrew Jobson Mixed at Crawford Prods Laboratory Cinevex Lab liaison Ian Anderson Grader Robert Weybury Gauge 16 mm - 1" Screen ratio 43:24 Shooting stock Kodak Video transfer by GTV 9 Cast: Robert Grubb (Dr Geoff Standish), Lenore Smith (Sister Kate Standish), Maurie Fields (Vic Buckley), Val Jellay (Nancy Buckley), Christopher Stollery (Captain Johnno Johnson), Beverley Dunn (Clare Bryarit), Nikki Coghill (Sister Jackie Crane), David Reyne (Dr Guy Reid), Sophie Lee (Penny Wellings), Paul Kelman (Steve Macauley).

Synopsis: Set in outback Australia in the town of Coopers Crossing, T h e F ly in g D octors tells the story of the highs and lows, the battles and life of the community and the doctors.

GOOD VIBRATIONS Prod. co.

Southern Star Films Dist. co.

Southern Star Pre-production 6 /5 /9 1 -2 8 /6 /9 1 Production 1 /7 /9 1 -2 /8 /9 1 Post-production 5 /8 /9 1 -4 /1 0 /9 1 Principal Credits Director Graham Thorburn Producer Lynn Bayonas Line producer Rod Allan Exec, producers Kim Williams Des Monaghan Scriptwriters David Phillips Morris Gleitzman Lynn Bayonas DOP Gary Moore Sound recordists John Wilkinson John Budge Editor Bill Russo Prod, designer Michael Bridges Costume designer Bruce Finlayson Planning and Development Casting consultants Liz Mullinar Production Crew Prod, manager Ros Tatarka Prod, co-ordinator Sue Edwards Prod, secretary Jill Brooks Location manager Maurice Burns Unit manager Michael Batchelor Prod, accountant Margot Brock Insurer Hammond Jewell Film Finances Comp, guarant.

Maureen Barron Legal services Camera Crew Camera operator Camera type Key grip Asst grips Gaffer On-set Crew 1st asst director 2nd asst director 3rd asst director Continuity Boom operators

• CINEMA

HALFWAY ACROSS THE GALAXY AND TURN LEFT (series) Prod. co.

Crawfords Australia Pre-production 4/91-5/91 Production 7/91-8/91 Principal Credits Producer Jan Marnell Exec, producer Terry Ohlsson Develop, producer Peter Herbert Scriptwriter John Reeves Script editor Graeme Farmer Synopsis: After winning the government lottery for the 27lh time, Father finds questions being asked of his honesty. He decides to escape and so begins the story of this strange little family from the planet Zyrgon as they travel halfway across the galaxy, turn left and land on earth.

[No further details supplied] HOME AND AWAY (serial) [See issue 80 for details] THE MIRACULOUS MELLOPS (mini-series) Prod. co.

Millenium Pictures Pre-production 6/5/91 24/6/91 Production Post-production ... 15/11/91 Principal Credits Director Karl Zwicky Producer Posie Graeme-Evans Co-producer Andrew Blaxland Ian Fairweather Exec, producer Maureen Ann Moran Scriptwriters Anthony Ellis A1 Webb Ray Harding Paul J Hogan Richard Tulloch DOP David Scandol Editors

Steve Scoble Betacam SP Barry Hanson Noel Mudie Frank Racina

David Clarke Rosemary Morton Matthew Wilson Christine Lipari Ray Phillips Julian Glavacich Kirsten Veysey Make-up Cheryl Williams Hairdresser Special fx super.

Brian Pearce Sue Ellen Cox Choreographer Stunts New Generation Stunts Margaret Kelly Unit nurse Ross Dearing Still photography 78

Unit publicist Victoria Buchan Catering Bande-Aide Catering Runner Christine Hutchins Art Department Art director Jennifer Carseldine Art dept co-ord.

Phil Chambers Set dresser Maritta Mussetl Props buyer Mark Dawson Standby props John Osmond Wardrobe Wardrobe super.

Sandra Cichello Standby wardrobe Gabrielle Dunn Animals Animal handler Anne Hura Horse wrangler John Baird Post-production Off-line facilities The Editing Machine Video special fx Animal Logic Government Agency Investment Production FFC Cast: Stephen Wh ittaker(Raf),Gene vieve Picot (Kate), Felicity Soper (Sky), Alan Hopgood (Cec), Sasha Close (Lily), David Hoflin (Donovan), Jeffrey Walker Jack), William Mclnnes (David), MelissaJaffer (Annie), Neil Melville Jim).

Synopsis: A fragmented family learn to live together with an obnoxious ghost in a haunted house in the country.

P APE RS 84

Peter Fletcher Roy Mason Prod, designer Andrew Blaxland Costume designer Margarita Tassone Composer Chris Harriot Planning and Development Script editor Greg Haddrick Casting Helen Salter Shooting schedule Brett Popplewell Budgeted by Stephen Jones Production Crew Prod, manager Vicki: Popplewell Prod, co-ord.

Amanda Selling Location manager John Meredith Unit manager Phil Urqtihart Prod, runner Justine Scott Jill Coverdale Prod, accountant Insurer FIUA Completion guarant.

Film; Finances Legal services Lewis Webb

Camera Crew Jenny Lewis Story liners Camera operator Michael O’Rourke Gary Jan son Valda Marshall Camera asst Mark Gledhill Key grip Jan Russ Adam Good Casting Xenia Michael Asst grip John Reynolds Bob Villinger Gaffer Location manager Chris Fleet Joe Battaglia Best boy Camera operators Stephen Asker On-set Crew Geoff Biggs 1st asst director Brett Popplewell Andrew Currie 2nd asst director Adam Spencer Andrew Berry Paul Barnett 3rd asst director Debbie Atkins Contiunity Mark Allen Alison Ely Peter Hind Boom operator Mark Van Kool Kirsten Brewster Make-up Lesley Rouvay Make-up asst Rebecca Symon Ray Lindsay Floor managers Mark Hancock Special fx make-up Bob McArron Alan Williamson Stunts co-ord.

Bernie Ledger Jane Daniels Unit nurse Sue Andrews Directors assts Still photography Patrick Riviere Pauline Walker Unit publicist Wendy Day Linda Walker Catering Out to Lunch Lighting supers John Cleverley Art Department Rod Harbour Art director Sound recordists John Pryce Jones Keith Harper Art dept coord Lisa Harrison Sam Caserta Art dept runner Hierouim Kalwinek Tony Walker Set dresser Jon Ronde Grant Vogler Propsperson Alky Avramides Make-up William Mcllvaney Props maker Lewis Morley Dallas Stephens Standby props Murray Gosson Hairdressers Laura Punteri Wardrobe Maggie Kolev Wardrobe super.

Margarita Tassone Wardrobe Marion Boyce Wardrobe asst Emma Jacobs JulianneJonas Cutter Lindy Wiley Caroline Hardy Seamstress Randa Sadda Jocelyn Creed Animals Props buyers Alison Hilditch Animal trainer Luke Hura Murray Kelly Construction Dept Standby props Sue Birjak Const, super Alan Fleming Paul Harding Scenic artists Michael O ’Kane Music editor Warren Pearson Bill Undery Off-line editing The Editing Machine Carpenters David Scott Vision switcher Wendy Parker Bob Paton Tech directors Howard Simmons Sven Johnsen Tim Palmer Greensman Gregg Thomas Barry Shaw Studios Hoyts North Ryde Studios Runner Angie Limmoncelli Post-production Tutor Catherine Pearson Opticals Chris Godfry, Animal Logic Catering Helen Louwers Laboratory BobDog Post-prod, facilities ATV 10 Gauge SP Betacam Melbourne Video transfers by BobDog Cast: Anne Charleston (Madge Bishop), Off-line facilities BobDog Alan Dale Jim Robinson), Anne Haddy Video special fx Chris Godfry, Animal (Helen Daniels), Stefan Dennis (Paul Logic Robinson), Ian Smith (Harold Bishop), Government Agency Investment Kristian Schmid (Todd Landers), Mark Development Little Joe Mangel), Lucinda Cowden NSW Film & Television Office (Melanie Pearson), Maggie Dence Production FFC (Dorothy Burke), Gayle Blakeney Marketing (Christina Alessi), Gillian Blakeney Marketing consultant Robyn (Caroline Alessi).Terence Donovan Watts (Doug Willis).

Film Australia Int. sales agent Synopsis: Love ’em or hate ’em, but eve­ International dist.

Film Australia ryone’s got ’em: Neighbours. Ramsey Publicity Wendy Day Street, the stage for an exciting drama Cast: Max Phipps (Albert Dump), Drew serial. Drawing back the curtain to reveal Forsythe (Ralph) Julie Godfrey (Jocelyn), the intrigue and passions of Australian SallyWarwick (Samantha), Troy Beckwick families and their neighbours.

(Michael), David Walters (Jason), Bill Conn (Bill),MichelaNoonan (Harmony), TELEVISION David Gibson (Grand Baby), Kyla (Ajax).

POST-PRODUCTION Synopsis: Not supplied BRIDES OF CHRIST (series) Prod. co.

Grundy Television Principal Credits Directors Various Producer Margaret Slarke Exec, producer Don Battye Exec, in charge of prod.

Peter Pinne Scriptwriters Various Original idea by Reg Watson Sound recordists Keith Harper Sam Caserta Tony Walker Grant Vogler Prod, designer Otello Stolfo Other Credits Prod, manager Vicki Popplewell Prod, co-ord.

Reita Wilson Script supervisor Ray Kolle Story editor Wayne Doyle Script editors Barbara Angell Jason Daniel

CLOWNING AROUND (tele-feature) (formerly C lo w n in g S im ) Prod. co.

Barron Films (Television) Dist. co.ies Channel 7 ABC Wonderworks (PBS) BBC Pre-production 1/1/91...

Production 18/2/91-21/4/91 Post-production 22/4/91 - 7/9/91 Principal Credits Director George Whaley Producer Barron F’ilms (.Television) Co-producers Paul D. Barron Antonia Barnard Exec, producer Paul D. Barron Scriptwriters Tony Cavanaugh Shane Brennan

Based on novel C lo w n in g S im Written by David Martin DOP Laszlo Baranyai Sound Recordist Kim Lord Editor Geoff Hall Prod, designer Peta Lawson Costume designer Ccerrie Barrnett Composer Peter Best Planning and Development Script editor David Rapsey Casting Liz Mullinar Casting Extras casting Ali Roberts Directors Storyboard artist Michael Robertson Shooting schedule Gillian Harris Budgeted by Elizabeth Symes Antonia Barnard Production Crew Prod, manager Catherine Bishop Prod, co-ord.

Kerry Bevan Prod, secretary Lindsay van Niekerk Location manager Liz Kirkham Unit manager Simon Hawkins Prod.runner Claire Blake Assembly editor David Fosdick Prod, accountant Liane Lee (Moneypenny) Accounts assist Christine Robinson Insurer Willis Faber Johnson & Higgins Completion guarant.

Performance Guarant.s Legal Services R Garton Smith & Co. Travel co-ord.

ShowTravel Freight co-ord.

ShowFreighl Base-office liaison Kerry Bevan Camera Crew Focus puller Peter Goodall Clapper-loader Sion Michel Camera asst Danny Featherstone 2nd unit camera Brad Pearce Key grip Karel Ackerman Asst grips David Cross Greg McKie Gaffer Craig Bryant Best boy Steve Johnson Electrician Antony Tulloch On-set Crew 1st asst director Gillian Harris 2nd asst director Emma Schofield 3rd asst director Giancarlo Mazzella Continuity Jan Piantoni Boom operator Gary Carr Liddy Reynolds Make-up Make-up asst Jane Kyle Hairdresser Liddy Reynolds Asst hairdresser Jane Kyle Stunts co-ord.

Peter West Safety officer Peter West Gail Goodall Unit nurse Skip Watkins Stills photo.

Anna Wheatley tJnit publicist Catering Steve & Margo’s gunner Clare Blake Art Department Sue Vivian Art director Sue Jarvis Art dept coord.

Richard Blackadder Art dept runner Glen Johnson Set dresser Propsperson Alicia Walsh Nigel Devenport Bropsbuyer Robert Moxham Standby props Wardrobe Wardrobe buyer Lisa Galea Delia Spicer Standby wardrobe Construction Construction supervisor Dakota Peter Colias Scenic artist Post-production

Post-prod, super Post-prod, accountant

David Rapsey Liane Lee, Moneypenny Geoff Hall David Fosdick Jolie Chandler Meredith Watson Editing Hall ABC Glenn Martin David Fosdick Robin Clark Kim Lord ABC (Perth) Movielab Warwick Driscoll 16 mm Kodak

Supervising editor 2nd picture editor Asst editor Editing asst Cutting rooms Sound transfer by Sound editor 2nd sound editor Asst sound editor Mixer Mixed at Laboratory Lab liaison Gauge Shooting stock Marketing Marketing consultants R.A. Becker Madeleine Warburg Cast: Clayton Williamson (Sim), JeanMichel Dagory (Anatole), Ernie Dingo (Jack), Van Johnson (Neville Rathnow), Margaret Ford (Martha Rathnow), Nell Feeney (Lilly Rathnow), Steve Jodrell (Skipper Crealey), Annie Byron (Una Crealey), Rebecca Smart (Linda Crealey), Noni Hazlehurst (Sarah Gunner), Jill Perryman (Miss Gabhurst).

Synopsis: Simon (Sim) is a 13-year-old boy determined to become a famous clown. His dreams are treated by his foster parents,schoolacquaintancesandwelfare officers with amusement, tolerance and indifference. He runs away and joins up with an outback rodeo, travelling with a one-ring circus and busking in a city mall in attempts to reach his goal. He meets Anatole, an old clown who recognizes Sim’s talent, and whom he follows to Paris where he finally gets his big chance under a big top.

EMBASSY (II, series) [See previous issue for details] HEROES II - THE RETURN (mini-series) Prod. co.

Anthony Buckley Prods Budget $6.5 million Pre-production 2/91...

Production 4/91...

Post-production 7/91...

Principal Credits Director Donald Crombie Producer Anthony Buckley Exec, producer Graham Benson Assoc, producer Carol Hughes Scriptwriter Peter Yeldman Roger Dowling DOP Sound recordist David Lee Editor Wayne Le Clos Prod, designer Bernard Hides Costume designer Graham Purcell Composer Peter Best Planning and Development Casting Susie Maizels & Assoc.

JaneJohnson Extras casting Production Crew Prod, manager Elizabeth Symes M. J. Yates Prod, co-ord.

Prod, secretary Michelle Murray Location manager Henry Osborne Unit manager Will Mathews Dennis Hulm Asst unit manager Paul Naylor Unit assis Mark Taylor Noelle Maxwell

Prod runners

Prod, accountant Accounts assts

Ian Hamilton Brett Nutting Andrew Condor Marianne Flynn Isabelle Eder Gabriella Nagy Steeves Lumley Film Finances Philip Luca Set in Motion Martha Coleman

Insurer Comp guarant.

Legal services Travel co-ord.

Base-office liaison Camera Crew Camera operator David Williamson John Foster Focus puller Clapper-loader Lyddy Van Gyen Roger Lancer 2nd unit camera Bob Foster 2nd unit focus Aaton Camera type Robbie Morgan Key grip Asst grip Robbie Van Amstel Graeme Shelton Gaffer Best boy Andrew Smith Electrician Scott Brokate On-set Crew Toby Pease 1st asst director 2nd asst director Emma Schofield 3rd asst director Christie McGuinness Nikki Moors Continuity Boom operator Cathy Gross Jill Porter Make-up Make-up assts Nicky Gooley Jane Stewart Wigmaker Ascot Wigs Hairdresser Cassie Hanlon Special fx supers Chris Murray Steve Courtley Ray Fowler Special fx Pauline Grebert Blair Maxwell Albie Hastings Bernie Ledger Stunts co-ord.

Unit nurse Jane Stewart Boat wrangler Gary McNamara Still photography Vivian Zink Catering Kollage Catering Kaos Catering Art Department Virginia Bieneman Art director Asst art director Caroline Polin Art dept coord Jennifer Des Champs Art dept runner Jackie McCreachan Phil McPherson Set dressers James Cox Yann Vignes Props buyers Sue Maybury Sam Trumble Props maker Walter Van Veenandaal Standby props Harry Zettel Armourer Brian Burns Asst armourers David Young Gillian Ivey Wardrobe Wardrobe super Albie Farrawell Barbara Zussino Standby wardrobe Wardrobe asst Paul Warren Seamstress Mouse Head Construction Dept Scenic artist Ray Pedler Construct, manager Phil Worth Leading hand Tony Bardolph Bob Booker Carpenters Martin Croydon Gary Crosby Yvonne Gudgeon Steve Huxtable Greg Hajdu Mark Jones Andrew Staig Gary McNamara Studios North Ryde Studio Complex Post-production Post-prod, super Elizabeth Symes Asst editor Wayne Hayes Editing asst Simon Martin Sound transfers by Spectrum Sound editors Frank Lipsom Peter Burgess Post-sync super Wayne Hayes Mixer Peter Smith Mixed at Hendon Studios Laboratory Atlab Australia

Ian Russell Arthur Cambridge (film) Anna Webb (video) 16 mm Gauge 15:1 Screen ratio Kodak Shooting stock Kodak Print stock Videolab Video transfers by Marketing Shelley Nellor Publicity Cast: N athaniel Parker (Lyon), Christopher Morsley (Bob Page), John Bach (Davidson), Ian Bolt (Ross), Mark Lewis Jones (Ingleton), Ken Teraizumi (Furuta), Craig MacLachlan (Carey), Anne-Louise Lambert (Nancy), Miranda Otto (Roma Page) , Simon Burke (Ellis).

Synopsis: Twenty-three heroic young men face an uncertain future when they sail on a mission to destroy Singapore in the dying days of World War II. Lab liaison Graders

SIGN OF THE SNAKE [See previous issue for details] TOMORROW’S END [See previous issue for details] TRACKS OF GLORY (mini-series) Prod. co.

Barron Films Television Paragon International Dist. co.

Pre-production 2 1 /1 /91-28/3/91 2 /4 /9 1 -2 1 /6 /9 1 Production Post-production 2 3 /6 /9 1 -3 /1 2 /9 1 Principal Credits Director Marcus Cole Producers Damien Parer Paul D Barron Exec, producer Paul D Barron Based on biography M a jo r T a y lo r D o w n U nder

Jim Fitzpatrick Written by Scriptwriter Tony Morphett DOP Julian Penney Sound recordist Phil Tipene Editor Lyn Solly Prod, designer George Liddle Costume designer Ross Major Composer Bruce Rowland Planning and Development Casting Liz Mullinar (Aust) The Dinman Co. (US) Extras casting S.A. Casting Writing attach.

Glenyss Steedman Production Crew Prod, manager Ron Stigwood Prod, co-ord.

Barbara Ring Prod, secretary Sally Clarke Location manager Mason Curtis Unit manager Brian Scragg Unit ass’ts Lawrence “Truck” Humphries Bernie Phillips Phil Taylor Driver Paul Winter Prod runner Rosetta Ashton Prod, accountant Sharon Jackson Asst accoutant Celine Line Accounts asst Val Smithers Insurer Willis Faber Johnson & Higgins Comp guarant.

Film Finances Legal services R. Garton Smith & Co Camera Crew Focus puller Michael Wood Clapper-loader Rod Bolton 2nd unit camera David Foreman Key grip Jon Goldney Asst grip John Smith Gaffer Trevor Toune Best boy Werner Gerlach Generator op Darren Ballangarry 3rd Electrics Darren Ballangarry On-set Crew 1st asst director Brian Giddens 2nd asst director Monica Pearce 3rd asst director Miriam Ready Continuity Carmel Torcasio Boom operator Des Kenneally Make-up Fiona Rees-Jones Make-up asst Sue Taylor Hairdresser Sash Lamey CINEMA

PAPERS

84

• 79

Asst hairdresser Choreographer Stunts co-ord.

Safety officer Unit nurse Cycling advisor Still photography Unit publicist Catering Unit runner Art Department Art director Art dept coord.

Art dept runner Set dresser Design asst Props buyers Standby props

Natalie Shepherd Beverly Waters Glenn Boswell Zev Eleftheriou Jenny Richard Mike Turtur Skip Watkins Anna Wheatley Steve & Margot’s Sean McGovern Vicki Niehus Deborah Wilde Jolyon Watkins Liam Liddle John Axe (Max) Tony Cronin Christopher Webster Stuart Polkinghorne John Santucci

Wardrobe Wardrobe supervisor

Ruth de la Lande Anita Seiler Standby wardrobe Andrea Hood Standby w’robe asst Sandy Cichello Cutter Tracey Richardson Seamstress Animals Horse wrangler Bill Willoughby Asst wrangler Gerald Egan Construction Dept Scenic artist Peter Collias Const, m’ger John Whitfield-Moore Carpenters Arthur Vette Brenton Grear Will Davidson Graeme Bambridge Signwriter Guy Allain Painter Post-production Post-prod, supervisor Lyn Solly Laboratory Atlab Australia Lab liaison Kerri Jenkins Gauge 16 mm Screen ratio 12:1 Government Agency Investment Development NSW Film & Television Office Production FFC Marketing WA Film Council Marketing Internat’l dist.

Paragon International Publicity Anna Wheatley Cast: Phil Morris (MajorTaylor), Cameron Daddo (Don Walker), Richard Roxburgh (Hugh McIntosh), Renee Jones (Daisy Taylor), Justine Clarke (Kate O’Brien), Nicholas Eadie (Floyd MacFarland) Joan Sydney (Mrs W alker), Brett Climo (Jonathan Dodds), Scott Burgess (Pat Calloway),John Ewart (Syd Melville).

Synopsis: Mini-series concentrating on the relationships between black American cycling champion, Major Taylor, his wife Daisy, Australian cyclist Don Walker and his girlfriend, Kate. The story is set in a colourful period in Australia’s history.

Promoters, fellow cyclists and the crowds are all infected by the racial bigotry of the times, and what follows is one of the most exciting seasons of cycle racing ever seen.

WHEN THE WAR CAME TO AUSTRALIA [See previous issue for details]

80

• CINEMA

PAPERS

84

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MARCH 1991 G (GENERAL EXHIBITION) Cinderella Walt Disney, U.S. 74 mins, Vil­ lage Roadshow Corporation Company of Strangers, The D. Wilson, Canada, 98 mins, Newvision Film Dis­ tributors Fare to Remember - The Great Taxi Ad­ venture, A M. Dillon, Australia, 71 mins, Michael Dillon Spinning Out Anne Deveson, Australia, 56 mins, Anne Deveson Productions PG (PARENTAL GUIDANCE) Defending Your Life M. Grillo, U.S. I l l mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Lowlevel coarse language, L(i-l-g) Delirious L. Cohen-F. Freeman-D. Claybourne, U.S., United International Pic­ tures, Occasional low-level violence and coarse language, L(i-l-g) V(i-l-g) King Ralph J. Brodsky, U.S.-U.K. 96 mins, United International Pictures, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-j) Mister Johnson M. Fitzgerald, U.S.-Nigeria 99 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri­ star Films, Occasional low-level violence, V(i-l-j) O(adult concepts) Not Without My Daughter H. Ufland-M. Ufland, U.K. 115 mins, United Interna­ tional Pictures, Adult themes and occa­ sional violence, V(i-mj) O(adultconcepts) Red Dust (said to be the title) H. Feng, Hong Kong, 91 mins, Yu Enterprises, Adult concepts 0(adult concepts) Stanno Tutti Bene (Everybody’s Fine) A. Rizzoli, Italy, 120 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Low-level coarse language, L(i-l-j) O(nudity) Three Men and a Litde Lady T. Field-R. Cort, U.S. 105 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-g) Tricky Brains (said to be the title) Wins Movie Production, HongKong, 100 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Low-level coarse lan­ guage and violence, L(i-l-g) V(i-l-j) M (MATURE AUDIENCES) Belle de Jour R. Hakim, France, 97 mins, Premium Group, Sexual allusions, adult concepts, O (adult concepts) O (sexual al­ lusions)

Discamates, The S. Sugisaki, Japan, 105 mins, Japan Information and Culture Centre, Sexual scenes, S(i-m-j) Doors, The B. Graham-S. Harari, A. Kitman Ho, U.S. 136 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri-star Films, Drug use and frequent coarse language, 0(drug use, adult concepts) L(f-m-g) S(i-m-g) Eve of Destruction D, Madden, U.S. 100 mins, Villages Roadshow Corporation, Medium-level violence and coarse lan­ guage, L(f-m-g) V(i-m-g) Farewell. China A. Crow, PIongKong, 111 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Medium-level violence and coarse languange, L(i-m-g) V(i-m-g) O (sexual allusions) Green CardP. Weir, Australia-U.S.-France, 106 mi ns, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Highlander II - The Quickening P. DavisW. Panzer, U.S.-Argentina, 98 mins, Vil­ lage Roadshow Corporation, Impactful violence and occasional coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(i-m-g) Home Too Far, ANotshown, HongKong, 95 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Frequent violence and occasional coarse language, V(f-m-j) L(i-m-g) KhoonKaKarzB. Sonie, India, 162 mins, KW. Krishna, Occasional violence, V(im-g) Magic Cop Hong Kong, 84 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional violence, V(i-m-g) O (adult concepts) Milou en Mai L. Malle, France, 104 mins, Newvision Film Distributors, Adult con­ cepts, 0(drug use, adult concepts) Nirvana Street Murder F. Cochrane, Aus­ tralia, 72 mins, Newvision Film Distribu­ tors, Occasional coarse language, violence anddrugabuse,L(i-m-g) V(i-m-g) 0(drug use) Nocturne R. Dobbs, U.K. 57 mins, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Ltd, Adult concepts, O (adult concepts) Nothing But Trouble R. Weiss, U.S. 91 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Oc­ casional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Once a Thief L. Kuk-T. Chang, Hong Kong, 107 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional violence, V(i-m-g) L(i-m-g) Once Around A. Robinson-G. Dunne, U.S. 115 mins, United International Pictures, Occasional coarse language L(i-m-g) Perfect Match (said to be the title) S.

Shin, Hong Kong, 87 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Low-level violence, V(i-m-g) L(im-g) Porte Aperte (Open Doors) A. Rizzoli, Italy, 112 mins, Ronin Films, Low-level violence V(i-m-j) Row of Crows, AC. Kottenbrook, U.S. 100 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri-star Films, Medium-level coarse language and vio­ lence, L(i-m-g) V(i-m-j) S(i-m-g) Royal Scoundrel, The (said to be the title) R. Wong, Hong Kong, 86 mins, Yu Enter­ prises, Occasional violence and coarse language, V(i-m-g) L(i-m-g) Sleepingwith the Enemy L. Goldberg, U.S. 95 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri-Star Films, Occasional violence and sexual scenes, S(i-m-g) V(i-m-g) L(i-m-g) Texasville B. Spikings, U.S. 121 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri-star Films, Oc­ casional coarse language, L(i-m-j) We Were One Man P. Vallois, France, 91 mins, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Ltd, Occasional sexual scenes, S(i-m-j) 0(adult concepts) Weakness of the Man J. Cheung, Hong Kong, 88 mins, Yu Enterprises, Occasional violence, V(i-m-g) R (RESTRICTED EXHIBITION) Erotic Ghost Story II (said to be the title) Paragon Films, Hong Kong, 96 mins, Chi­ natown Cinema, Frequent sexual activity, S(f-m-g) 0(adult concepts) Erotic Tattoong & Body Piercing Parts 1 & 2 Flash Video, U.S. 107 mins, PsychopathiaSexualis, Exploitative nudity, O (exploitative nudity) Phantom War (said to be the title) Regent Film, Hong Kong-U.K. 90 mins, Yu Enter­ prises, Occasional graphic violence, V(fm-g) Queen’s High (said to be the title) Rising Fortune Films, Hong Kong, 85 mins, Yu Enterprises, Medium-level violence, V(fm-g) Thunder Cops II (said to be the title) Hoi Wong, Hong Kong, 93 mins, Yu Enter­ prises, Occasional graphic violence, V(im-g)

FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATION StensolS.Neiman-P. Anderson, Denmark, 12 mins, Australian International Video Festival.

Films examined in terms of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations as States’ Himcensorship regulation are listed below.

An explanatory key to reasons for classifying non “G” films appears hereunder.

EXPLICITNESS/INTENSITY

FREQUENCY Infrequent S (Sex) 1 V (Violence) 1 L (Language) 1 1 O (Other)

Frequent f f f f

Low 1 1 1 1

Title

Producer

Country

Medium m m m m Submitted length

PURPOSE High h h h h

Applicant

Justified j j j j Reason for decision

Gratuitous g g g g

Bank of Melbourne

Free C h eques!

N o Fees!

(Even on balances below $500) ■ Free Cheques No Fees, regardless of account balance size.* ■ Earn up to 9 fi daily interest ■ Receive a free VISA Card or Bank of Melbourne Card and a free cheque book.

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BANK 42052

Bank of Melbourne cuts the cost of banking Head Office: 52 Collins Street, Melbourne, 3000.

At Qantas,\ve don’t ju st applaud Australian talent,we help keep the show on the road.

It’s always been a long way to the top for aspiring artists. But at Qantas we’re making sure they get there quicker by providing travel and promotion for actors, writers, even circus performers.

So when they return to Australia they’ll have a world of experience from which to draw And we’re sure Australia will rise to its feet and call for more.

The spirit of Australia.

QPR5349