Cinema Papers No.82 March 1991

BARBET SCHROEDER O N 'R E V E R S A L OF FO R TU N E p l u s

BRUCE BER ES FO R D'S 'B L A C K ROBE

L U C H I N O V I S C O N T I / ' G R E E N C A R D ' / 'G O L D E N B R A ID

AL PACINO IN

?

'

FRANCIS FORD COPPj O L A ' T THE GO DFA TH ER P A R T J J f

continues to be the principal film and television developm ent a ge n cy in Australia.

The AFC offers assistance to filmmakers through

• script and project developm ent funding • production investment • marketing loans • co-productions and financing mechanisms • assistance to film and video organisations • special research and publication funding

The AFC also undertakes research, formulates policy, represents the Australian film industry internationally and provides business, marketing and festival advice.

A U S TR A LIA N FILM COM M ISSION Sydney 8 West Street North Sydney NSW 2060 Telephone 02 925 7333 Toll Free 008 22 6615 Facsimile 61.2.954 4001 M elbourne 185 Bank S treet, South M e lb o u rn e V ic 3205 Telephone 03 690 5144 Toll free 008 33 8430 Facsimile 03 696 1476 Europe 2nd floor Victory House 99-101 Regent Street London W1 Telephone 44.71.734 9383 Facsimile 44.71.434 0170

CONTENTS 2

BRIEFLY

6

BLACK ROBE: LOCATION

REPORT

ANDREW L. URBAN

14

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA INTERVIEW BY ANA MARIA BAHIANA

21

VIRDJINA: LOCATION REPORT MIKE DOWNEY

COVER: AL PACINO AS MICHAEL CORLEONE IN FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S THE GODFATHER PART III. SEE INTERviEW WITH COPPOLA ON P. 14

24

RAYM OND HOLLIS LONGFORD PHILLIP DUCHAK

EDITOR Scott Murray

32

MARK CHIPPERFIELD

ADMINISTRATION

Debra Sharp TECHNICAL

34

REVERSAL OF FO R TUN E:

B A R B ET SCH RO EDER

INTERVIEW BY ANA MARIA BAHIANA

EDITOR

Fred Harden

BACKSLIDING

40

DESIGN

TE C H N IC A L ITIE S FRED HARDEN

Ian Robertson

46 EDITORIAL

ASSISTANT

BARRIE PATTISON

Raffaele Caputo MT V

BOARD

OF

DIRECTORS

John Jost [Chairman], Patricia Amad, Gil Appleton, Ross Dlmsey, Natalie Miller, Chris Stewart

O B ITU A R Y : SERGIO C O R BUC C I

49 50

D IR TY DOZEN FILM REVIEW S ALMOST AN ANGEL JIM SCHEMBRI GOLDEN BRAID JAN EPSTEIN

LEGAL

ADVISOR

GREEN CARD GEOFF MAYER

Nicholas Pullen

HEAVEN TONIGHT GREG KERR ADVERTISING

METROPOLITAN BRIAN McFARLANE

Debra Sharp

WEEKEND WITH KATE PHILIPPA BURN WHAT THE MOON SAW ADRIAN JACKSON

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Paula Amad

58 FOUNDING

PUBLISHERS

FILM ING A R TIS TS : BILL B EN N ETTS MARK CHIPPERFIELD

Peter Bel Iby, Scott Murray, Philippe Mora

59 DISK

FRENCH FILM W EEK

PROCESSING

HELEN BARLOW, SCOTT MURRAY

On The Ball PRI NT I NG

64

BOOK REVIEW S THE AVOCADO PLANTATION BRIAN McFARLANE

Photo Offset Productions

BETWEEN THE STARS RAFFAELE CAPUTO

DISTRIBUTION

LUCHINO VISCONTI SCOTT MURRAY

Network Distribution

BOOKS RECEIVED

68

S C R IP TW R ITIN G ON TH E M AC IN TO SH DANIEL KAHN

CINEMA PAPERS IS PUBLISHED WITH FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM THE

70

PR ODUCTION SURVEY

78

FILM CENSORSH IP LISTING S

AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION AND FILM VICTORIA COPYRIGHT 1991 MTV PUBLISHING LIMITED.

C O N T R I B U T O R S

Signed articles represent the views of the authors and not necessarily that of the editor and publisher.

While every care Is taken with manuscripts and materials supplied to the magazine, neither the editor nor the publisher can accept liability for any loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not be reproduced In whole or part without the express permission of the copyright owners. Cinem a P apers Is published (approximately) every two months by MTV Publishing Limited, 43 Charles Street, Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia 3067.

Telephone (0 3 ) 429 5511. Fax (03) 427 9255.

Telex AA 30625. Reference ME ME 230.

ANA MARIA b a h ia n a is a Brazilian film writer based in Los Angeles; HELEN b a r lo w is a Sydney-based writer on film; p h ilip p a b urn Is a freelance writer on film; m a r k c h ip p e r f ie l d is a freelance writer on film specializing in the entertainment industry; MIKE d o w n e y is an international film correspondent based in Germany; PHILLIP DUCHAK is making a film on the life and work of Raymond Longford; JAN EPSTEIN Is film reviewer for The Melbourne Report; FRED h a r d en is a Melbourne film and television producer specializing in special effects; Ad ria n ja c k s o n is a jazz lover and a music writer for The Age-, d a n ie l k a h n is Computer Operations Manager at the Australian Film Commission; gr eg k err is a freelance writer specializing in the entertainment industry; BRIAN McFARLANE is an associate professor in the English Department of Monash University; g e o f f m a y e r is a lecturer in film; b a r r ie p a ttis o n is a writer and film producer; jim s c h e m b r i writes on film and entertainment for The Age\ A n d r ew l . ur b a n is the Australian correspondent for Moving Pictures International.

[JBlIRâD

F ILM F IN A N C E C O R P O R A T IO N F U N D I N G D E C IS IO N S N O V EM B ER - DECEM BER 26

NOVEMBER

DOCUMENTARY (30 mins) Yarra Bank Films.

Producers: Sharon Connolly, Trevor Gra­ ham. A look at one of the world’s most environmentally controversial industries, tracing Eden’s woodchips to their ultimate fate in Japan as high-quality gift wrapping.

w oodochippu

MINI-SERIES At a previous meeting, the FFC also com­ menced negotiations with the producers on: clowningsim (8 x 30 mins children’s series) Barron Films. Producers: Paul Barron, An­ tonia Barnard. Director: George Whaley.

Script: Tony Cavanaugh, Shane Brennan.

13-year-old Sim is determined to become a famous clown. When he meets Anatole, an old man who has been forced to give up his career as a clown, Sim recognizes his chance.

Based on the book by David Martin.

20

DECEMBER

FEATURES fatalbond (90 mins) Intertropic Films. Pro­ ducer: Phillip Avalon. Director: Karl Zwicky.

Script: Phillip Avalon. Two thrill-killers leave a trail of destruction-until the father of one of their victims begins a hunt of his own. hom icide (95 mins) Overcliffe Films. Prod.: Charles Waterstreet. Director: Pino Amenta.

Script: Philip Dalkin, Kim Gyngell. Cast: Kim Gyngell. No-holds-barred genre send-up of the Australian police force in the 1960s.

ON MY OWN (90 mins) Colosimo Film Pro­ ductions. Australian-Canadian-Italian co­ production. Exec, producers: Rosa Colosimo (Aust.), Lael McCall (Canada). Prod.: Leo Pescarolo (Italy). Director: AntonioTibaldi.

Cast: Judy Davis. An intelligent but haunted fifteen-year-old takes ajourney into love and loss, triggered by his mother’s breakdown.

To be filmed in Canada and England.

TELEVISION ANIMAL PARK (16 x 30 mins) Sunshine Pro­ ductions. Executive producers: Michael Lake, Nick McMahon. Producer: Ken Methold. Director: Karl Zwicky. Script: Roger Moulton. Three children re-build a run­ down animal park on the Queensland coast.

HEROES II - THE RETURN (2 X 120 mins) Anthony Buckley Productions. Executive producer: Graham Benson. Producer: Anthony Buckley. Script: Peter Yeldman.

Lyon and his men sail back to Singapore Harbour but are captured by the Japanese.

DOCUMENTARIES lift OFF (26 x 30 mins) ACTF Productions.

Producers: Ewan Burnett, Peter Clarke. Se­ ries of innovative, quality television docu­ mentaries for children aged three to eight. trackrecord (4x 30 mins) Sorena. Produc­ ers: John Mabey, Rhonda Mabey. Script: Dion Boehme. The story of the past and future of Australia’s railway system.

2

• CINEMA

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LETTERS

CORRIGENDUM

DEAR SIR

In your issue of December 1990, the “Production Survey” lists the feature Flynnas being reshot with a new director. As the original director of the film, may I suggest that only portions of the film are being reshot.

The production was halted due to the pilots dispute. My contract expired at the end of Janu­ ary 1990 with the film uncompleted and awaiting additional scenes.

As producer of the film, Boulevard Films was entitled to do what it saw fit to complete the film, but I would state that at no time dining the original production did the producer indicate to me that he was unhappy with my work and had approved the fine cut of all the completed scenes.

Yours sincerely Brian Kavanagh editor : According

to producer Frank Howson:

J&M [the sales agent] saw a cut of the film in Cannes [last year] and loved the concept but felt certain things weren’t explored the way they could be. So we had a major rethink about the film and J&M had enough faith in us to put up the money to reshoot.

This included replacing two Australian actors with a British actor and an American actor. Fiji also became the location for New Guinea.

A full report on Flynnby Katherine Tulich will appear in the next issue of Cinema Papers.

DEAR E DI T OR

Asian Cinema, the semi-annualjournal of the Asian Cinema Studies Society, seeks articles, book re­ views and news items dealing with Asian and Asian-American film.

Please send submissions to Mira Binford, Editor, Asian Cinema, Quinnipiac College, Box 91, Hamden, CT 06518, U.S. Annual subscrip­ tions are available for $U.S.12 (students $10; institutions $20) from Linda Ehrlich, ACSS Treasurer, 501 McClung Tower, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, U.S.

In the previous issue of Cinema Papers, the “Briefly” item on the AFI Awards (p. 5) wrongly attributed Best Achievement in Production Design to Lawrence Eastman.

The award was in fact won by Roger Ford for Flirting. Cinema Papers apologizes for the error.

SCRIPT READINGS Another season of film script readings is to start mid March at the Harold Park Hotel, Glebe, in Sydney. Beginning 13 March (and continuing on the next three Wednesdays), the readings are of Werner Meyer’s “Final Touch”, Bob Ellis’ “Local Boy”, Helen Hodgman’s “Beyond This Point” and Gina Roncoli’s “Strange World of My”.

Contact Peter Rasmussen on (02) 51 2799 for details.

AN EDITOR'S CHOICE Best Film of the Year: Un Monde sans Pitié (A World Without Pity, Eric Rochant) Runners-up: Shi no Toge {The Sting ofDeath, Kohei O guri), Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappaneau) Best Australian Film of the Year: Return Home (Ray Argali) Most Disappointing Film by a Recognized Direc­ tor: Blue Steel (Kathryn Bigelow) Runners-up: Korczak (Andrzej Wajda), Wild at Heart (David Lynch), Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) Most Disappointing Australian Film: Blood Moon (Alec Mills) ERIC ROC HA NT, DIRECTOR OF U N M O N DE SANS PITIÉ

Thank you Mira Reym Binford Editor, Asian Cinema

CANNES

1991

"THE 'FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM' AT CANNES WILL BE HELD FROM 9 MAY TO 20 MAY.

,

AS THE NEXT ISSUE OF CINEMA PAPERS WILL BE THE ANNUAL SPECIAL CANNES ISSUE, ALL PRODUCERS HOPING TO ATTEND THE FESTIVAL, OR HAVING THEIR PRODUCT REPRESENTED THERE, SHOULD CONTACT RAFFAELE CAPUTO ON (03) 429 5511.

"SPAA declares war” he issue of Actors Equity’s position on imported artists has again flared.

It began at last year’s annual conference of the Screen Prod-ucers ofAustralia Association. SPAA announced that it was no longer holding to its 1988 agreement with Equity, and which some producers felt was far too concessionary.1 As a result of SPAA’s announcement, Actors Equity replied with an article published in the November issue of its magazine, Equity. SPAA then issued a public reply in January 1991. Given the on-going importance of the debate, both pieces are reprinted here (with the kind permission of Equity and SPAA).

E Q U ITY “SPAA DECLARES WAR” The Screen Production Association of Australia (SPAA) has • ‘declared war’ on Equity and announced its intention to withdraw from its Agreement vyth the union over the entry of imported artists; • announced that Australian producers wish to stand on their own feet, free of government assistance; • attacked the payment of American residuals to Australian actors working in American films.

The recovery of the industry is now in jeop­ ardy. Equity must defend the minimal levels of protection currently in force.

SPAA’s propaganda will only encourage those in government who are anxious to end assistance to the film industry.

The abandonment of SAG rates on U.S. pro­ ductions will mean that the Australian actors employed will take a massive 75 per cent cut in pay, while the majority of the cast - the American performers - remain on SAG rates.

THE FACTS Since the introduction of the joint Equity-SPAA Policy in 1988, Equity has given its blessing to the entry of 181 overseas artists - 41 in productions supported by the Film Finance Corporation (FFC).

Roughly 75 per cent of FFC productions, exclud­ ing documentaries and low-budget productions, have used at least one overseas artist. As John Morris, the Chief Executive Officer of the FFC, commented at a recent public seminar in Sydney, “discussion [surrounding the imported artists debate] indicates that people are speaking from entrenched positions. Personally I think that Equity has been extraordinarily supportive over the past two years. ” SO WHAT DOES SPAA WANT? SPAA wants the removal of all specific restrictions on the entry of foreign performers for all produc­ tions, including those funded by the public purse.

They want entry to be regulated by the Depart­ ment of Immigration’s (DILGEA) “net employ­ ment benefit” test.

Ironically, when DILGEA introduced this test in 1987 it encouraged the industry to develop a 1. For an earlier discussion, see “Hal and Jim McElroy”, an interview by Scott Murray, in Cinéma Papers, No. 79.

self-regulatory code that defined the “net employ­ ment benefit” criteria. The Equity-SPAA agree­ ment represented an effort to reach such a defi­ nition.

The difficulty Equity has with reliance on this test alone is that it is vague and incapable of precise definition. Some producers may also share our concerns. After all, whatever criticisms they may have of the Equity-SPAA Policy, it at least clearly outlines the situations when overseas art­ ists may be engaged. Reliance on an undefined net employment benefit test will mean decisions about entry will be made by government bureau­ crats who will be guided by uncertain and highly subjective criteria. Equity, if dissatisfied with their determination, will be free to protect its members industrially.

Quite clearly, SPAA’s move is motivated by the hope that government will find the task of assessing “net employment benefits” too difficult and effectively ‘rubber stamp’ all applications for entry. If successful, Australia would find itself, together with New Zealand, being the only Eng­ lish-speaking countries with no regulation on the temporary entry of performers.

PROFITABILITY SPAA is running the line that, unless their mem­ bers are given an unfettered right to cast from the ranks of the international acting community, they will be unable to deliver ‘profitable’ films.

Their argument assumes that there is some magic formula which will guarantee box-office success.

Why then have a large number of films pro­ duced over the past decade which used foreign performers died at the box office?

Why then have so many of these productions failed to secure a release?

They have failed to explain why, for example, The Delinquents, which cast the young U.S. per­ former Charlie Schlatter to ensure that the pro­ duction “opened in the U.S.”, did not open in the U.S. They have failed to comment on why Wendy Cracked a Walnut, starring Rosanna Arquette, closed after a very short run, grossing little over $100,000 in Australia.

Greg Bright, a respected analyst of the Aus­ tralian industry, believes that films using all-Aus­ tralian casts have a better chance of returning their budgets than those which used American leads. This comment is based on his analysis of the performance of the 400 films made in Australia in the last 12 years. (Encore, 15 November 1990) The fact is that the reasons for the commer­ cial success of a production are complex. What is clear, however, from the experience of the Aus­

tralian film industry is that the use of foreign performers will not necessarily guarantee boxoffice success. Indeed, there may well be an argu­ ment that inappropriate foreign casting may jeopardize both artistic and box-office success.

GOVERNMENT FUNDING In a radical departure from previous policy, SPAA has announced that it is “working towards a situ­ ation where government assistance is no longer necessary”. This is ideologically driven madness there is not a film industry outside of the U.S. and India which exists withoutgovernment assistance.

It is effectively inviting the government to aban­ don support for the industry as a ‘trade-off for the deregulation of importation guidelines.

WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT FUND THE INDUSTRY ANYWAY? As our agricultural and manufacturing industries are all too well aware, government is no longer prepared to support industries which cannot stand on their own feet. Industry protection is ‘on the nose’ in Canberra.

To date, however, an exception has been made for our film and television industries be­ cause of their cultural significance. Government has considered it important that Australian and overseas audiences have access to programmes with so-called “significant Australian content”.

This is the same policy objective that underpins our television drama quota.

The “significant Australian content” require­ ment does not mean, as is often mischievously alleged, that Australian filmmakers are obliged to contain their filmmaking ambitions and concen­ trate on quaint pieces o f‘Australiana’. Australian filmmakers have available to them all genres of filmmaking, from fantasy to horror. Whatgovernment policy attempts to achieve is that “nonAustralian”or so-called “mid-Pacific”films should be ineligible for government assistance.

1. WHAT IS THE SPAA-EQUITY AGREEMENT? The SPAA-Equity Agreement regulates the entry of foreign performers. The policy distinguishes between government-assisted, privately financed and foreign-funded productions. The policy is more restrictive in relation to government-funded productions and less so in relation to foreign productions.

2. HOW DOES IT WORK IN RELATION TO FFC PRODUCTIONS? All FFC productions (except low-budget produc­ tions) are automatically entitled to use one over­ seas artist in any role providing that at least one third of the budget raised is outside Australia.

Additional artists may be used in films with budg­ ets more than $7,500,000 or mini-series more than $900,000 per hour.

3. WHAT ABOUT FOREIGN PRODUCTIONS? Essentially, foreign productions can bring in who they want, providing that reasonable employ­ ment opportunities are available to Australians.

By way of example, Equity agreed to 27 U.S. performers being imported for the series Mission: Impossible. > CINEMA

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We have recently given in principle agree­ ment to the engagement of up to twenty Ameri­ can performers in a U.S. feature. On occasion we may even agree to the importation of an entire cast, as was the case for the television pilot, Aaron’s Way? 4. WHAT IF THE PRODUCER CANNOT FIND A SUITABLE ACTOR? Where the producer is unable to find a suitable performer from the ranks of the Australian acting community, he/she is entitled to import overseas performers providing that a reasonable attempt has been made to locate an Australian for the role.

This provision applies irrespective of the budget of the production or whether or not the producer has already used an imported artist, under the one-third foreign-finance rule de­ scribed above.

5. SAG RATES: HOW DO THEY FIT IN? They don’t really, except in so far as SPAA has decided to challenge our so-called “better rates” principle at the same time as withdrawing from the imported artist agreement.

The better rates principle provides, in short, that if (say) a U.S. production is made in Austra­ lia, U.S. rates and residuals apply. This has been the case on all U.S. features and television pro­ grammes produced in Australia since 1985. The rationale for this policy is self evident. Australian producers enjoy the lowest actor fee structure in the English-speaking world (bar New Zealand).

We are quite happy to continue with this position to give indigenous programmes a competitive edge. We are not prepared to extend this subsidy to international productions where Australian actors would be working alongside their interna­ tional colleagues engaged on superior contracts.

6. WHAT IF EQUITY APPLIES THE RULES UNFAIRLY? CAN THE PRODUCER APPEAL? Yes, the policy includes an independent arbitra­ tion mechanism which the producers may call upon if they consider themselves unfairly treated.

7. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF AN OPEN-DOOR-ENTRY POLICY WERE INTRODUCED? There would, of course, be a number of produc­ ers who would continue to cast primarily from the ranks of the Australian community. However, while difficult to predict, we suspect there would be others who would elect to import foreign performers for the majority, if not all, leading roles.

Authorised by Michael Crosby Federal Secretary Actors Equity of Australia

SPAA

The Screen Production Association of Australia considers that Actors Equity’s recentarticle “SPAA declares war” in the November issue of Equity is misleading and inflammatory as indicated below: 1. EQUITY: “The Screen Production Associa­ tion (SPAA) has ‘declared war’ on Equity SPAA: Wrong. In July 1990, SPAA’s executive requested a meeting with Actors Equity in a bid to • CINEMA

2. EQUITY: “SPAA ... has announced that Austra­ lian producers wish to stand on their own feet, free of government assistance ... In a radical departure from previous policy, SPAA has an­ nounced that it is ‘working towards a situation where government assistance is no longer neces­ sary’ ... It is effectively inviting government to abandon support for the industry as a ‘trade off” for the deregulation of importation guidelines.”

SPAA: What SPAA actually stated was:

(i) “If the decline in the Australian film and television industry is to be reversed without everincreasing injections of public money, its entre­ preneurs must be allowed to operate in a commercially-driven environment that will encourage more internationally appealing and hence profitable productions ...” (ii) “Our goal is to remove arbitrary restrictions on importation of overseas actors and thereby provide the right environment in the Aus­ tralian film and television industry to: allow producers to manage their own affairs in accordance with commercial reality; en­ courage foreign investment; increase the international competitiveness of the industry; export Australian film and television produc­ tions; create more jobs in the industry; assist Australian actors to have an international presence; and decrease reliance on government assistance." (iii) “With the ability to increase opportunities for private investment in the film and television industry it can be anticipated that the indus­ try can achieve increased independencefrom gov­ ernment subsidies. ” 3. EQUITY: “The recovery of the industry is now in jeopardy.”

SPAA: This would only occur if, as threatened, Actors Equity invokes industrial action and thwarts SPAA’s attempts to create the right environment to enable recovery: i.e., to increase our industry’s international competitiveness and hence increase the level of productions andjob opportunities for all in the industry.

4. EQUITY: “SPAA’s propaganda will only encour­

age those in government who are anxious to end assistance in the film industry ... government is no longer prepared to support industries which cannot stand on their own fe e t... To date, how­ ever, an exception has been made for our film and television industries because of their cultural significance.”

SPAA: SPAA’s policy does not reject the cultural

SCREEN PRODUCTION ASSOCIATION of AUSTRALIA: IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN ACTORS

4

open up dialogue between the two organizations on this and other issues with a persuasive/consul­ tative approach. This approval was flatly rejected by the union. Furthermore, in announcing our decision to terminate the 1988 Agreement, SPAA stated, “much of the success in achieving [the] recovery [of our industry] depends on the achievement of a spirit of co-operation between SPAA and Actors Equity. ”

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argument for government funding of this indus­ try. We acknowledge that government’s primary interest in supporting our industry is cultural and hence SPAA has and will continue to vigorously lobby government for assistance to the industry.

But given that Equity is correct that there are those in government anxious to end that assis­ tance, then producers must convince govern­ ment that they are operating their businesses in accordance with commercial realities so as to justify continued assistance. The government has already announced that it proposes to reduce the level of financial assistance to the film industry.

Actors Equity are out of touch with government if they believe that our industry can be allowed to operate outside the wider industrial and com­ mercial context.

Actors Equity should read the FFC’s Funding Guidelines for 1991. The FFC’s own objectives include: ‘T o support projects with demonstrated market interest and with budget levels commen­ surate with the potential market and realization of returns; to develop a committed and active private sector involvement in the financing of Australian films; and to maximize returns on each of its investments commensurate with the potential returns for the appropriate production categories. ” The requirements of FFC funding include: “An overall private sector participation level of 40% [an aggregate target] in its approvals during the 1991 calendar year; substantially more than 40% in the case of high-budget projects or projects where the potential for FFC recoupment has been significantly diminished due to secured pre-sale commitments; television drama to be supported by Australian television pre-sales; and in the case of high-budget feature films,... signifi­ cant distribution attachments, either in the form of direct investments or advances for at least one major territory.”

5. EQUITY: “Since the introduction of the joint Equity-SPAA Policy in 1988, Equity has given its blessing to the entry of 181 overseas artists-41 in productions supported by the Film Finance Cor­ poration.”

SPAA: What this so-called ‘fact’ conveniently omits

to make clear is that, of this alleged figure of 181, only 63 were ‘blessed’ under the 1988 EquitySPAA Agreement between 1988 and 1990. This figure of 63 includes 4 Japanese imported for Blood Oath, 9 Japanese imported for The Tas­ manian Story, and 5 others imported on ethnic grounds.

6 . EQUITY : “The difficulty Equity has with reliance

on this [DILGEA’s ‘net employment benefit’] test alone is that it is vague and incapable of precise definition ... Reliance on an undefined net em­ ployment benefit test will mean decisions about entry will be made by government bureaucrats who will be guided by uncertain and highly subjec­ tive criteria.”

SPAA: This is totally inaccurate and misleading.

‘Net employment benefit’ is in fact defined in DILGEA’s Procedures Advice Manual as: “Net employment benefit means that the entry of each overseas artist or non-performing creative or administrative professional taking part in an Australian production, concert, recording or presentation will result in the employment of at least one additional Australian resident within the entertainment industry. Sponsors need to show that the entry of the overseas entertainer would generate more employment than a local entertainer would generate, if a local entertainer were to undertake the same activity.”

There is nothing uncertain or subjective about that test. It is nothing short of rapacious for Equity to suggest that it should have the decision­ making power as to who should be allowed entry into Australia rather than DILGEA. 7. EQUITY: “Quite clearly, SPAA’s move is moti­ vated by the hope that government will find the task of assessing ‘net employment benefits’ too difficult and effectively ‘rubber stamp’ all appli­ cations for entry.”

CONTINUED

ON

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45

$100,000 IN SCREENW RITING FELLOWSHIPS The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invites applications for its 6th annual Screenwriting Fellowship Awards.

Up to five Fellowships of $20,000 each will be awarded to new screenwriters.

Deadline for application is June 1,1991.

The Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting are open to persons who have not earned money writing feature films or television.

Submission requirements include a completed feature screenplay, written originally in English.

For entry rules and an application form, write to: Th e Nicholl Fellowships Academ y of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Dept. J 8949 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills, C A 90211

O SC A R © A.M.P.A.S. ®

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CINEMA

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LOTHAIRE BLUTEAU AS THE JESUIT PRIEST, FATHER LAFORGUE! IN BRUCE BERESFORD'S BLACK ROBE.i 1

1 %} N

EiR S

REPORTS FROM THE SET OF BRUCE BERESFORD’S tALI AN ADAPTATION OF BRIAN MOORE’S NOVEI IN THE 17TH CENTURY TO CONVERT THE CANADIA

There’s only one simple shot in the whole film, and there are over 900 copulation is difficult shots. The logistics are huge: because of the weather, we need extra to manage - for all concerned. things to keep interiors warm, to keep the actors warm ... and there are The young actress is on all fours the location moves, the catering, the transport, everything. on the floor, laughing with em­ And the fact that Beresford’s working with a part-Australian, barrassment, after each of the part-Canadian crew - not always ajolly marriage. But it is worth it for first few takes; the young actor Beresford, because he allowed is finally making a film h e ’s been chasing for crouched behind her would be blushing, if his dark features it. Both are inexperienced as actors: the girl is a body double for the several years.

Black Robe is an adaptation of a novel by Brian Moore, which itself actress in the film, and the boy is a blues guitarist from Montréal who is based on fragments of manuscripts compiled over the years in scored his small role because he is a Sioux Indian and has a great France. face.

Beresford had wanted to make a film of it ever since the book was Director Bruce Beresford checks with camera operator Danny published, but the rights had already been acquired by Canada’s Batterham how it looks through the lens, but he is clearly not Alliance Communications, which had also signed a director. satisfied. He decides on a new angle, and Peter James, director of T hat arrangem ent fell through, but Beresford again missed the photography, sets about relighting the scene. Beresford steps out boat; nevertheless, he kept in touch with Moore. And when a third into the snow and grey mid-afternoon air of N orthern Q uebec’s director failed to get the film going, Beresford was finally in the right early winter for a breath of chilly air. He says, m atter of factly: place at the right time. He says unceremoniously: When you have spaceships and special effects, people will believe IMULATED

S

anything. But with sex, you can’t fool them. It has to be absolutely credible. It’s something they know.

By the third time, Driving Miss Daisy was about to win the Academy Awards, so they thought they were onto a good thing here.

The scene involves the captive girl’s seducing an Iroquois guard in order to escape, together with her father, h er lover and the central character, Father Laforgue, who have been tortured and are now trussed up at the other end of the hut, feigning sleep.

Beresford is making Black Robe, arguably the most difficult film of his career. The multi-national cast and crew includes Quebeçois, Indians, Canadians and Australians; the locations are isolated, the conditions are harsh, the extras are inexperienced, the language is foreign, and the budget is finite. After nine weeks of an 11-week shoot in progressively colder and colder Canadian autum n/w inter, Beresford is acutely aware of all of this:

Alliance is now the Canadian co-production partner, with its chief executive, Robert Lantos, as executive producer.

Although Black Robe is not a factual story, it is built on factual accounts sent back to Jesuit headquarters from New France in the 17th Century by Jesuit priests from their mission to convert the Indians of the region to Christianity.

In the process, they clashed with a primitive culture ju st as adam ant as their religion, and faced extreme conditions, bleak prospects for success, frequent torture and often death. As Brian Moore writes in the introduction to his novel:

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I was made aware of a strange and gripping tragedy that occurred when the Indian belief in a world of night and in the power of dreams clashed with the Jesuits’ preachments of Christianity and a paradise after death ... Each of these beliefs inspired in the other fear, hostility and despair, which would later result in the destruction and abandonment of the Jesuit missions, and the conquest of the Huron people by the Iroquois, their deadly enemy.

Although Beresford is after the hum an interest and the sheer dram a of it all, he concedes that during the research he learnt a lot: You can’t research this story without coming out admiring the Jesuits.

Even if you went into it as the greatest anti-cleric of all time, you’d come out of it thinking those guys were so brave. Talk about tough ! They make Schwarzenegger look like a sissy.

Perhaps the most crucial aspect of successfully making this film had always been the casting of the lead actor in the role of Father Laforgue, the young Jesuit whose journey relies on his absolute faith, as it becomes a struggle for survival amidst the most cruel and inhospitable circumstances. Beresford recognized that it was a hard role to cast, because he felt it was essential to have someone with a degree of spirituality and depth, otherwise there was the real danger of the actor looking absurd. Lothaire Bluteau, who played the lead role in Denys Arcand’sJesus of Montréal, Beresford feels has qualities that make him convincing: I’d suggested Lothaire Bluteau a long time ago, but I was told he didn’t speak English. And then I was in London editing MisterJohnson, and he came on in a West End play [BeingatHomemth Claude] in which he played a psychotic male prostitute. I went to see it and thought, ‘He’d have to be pretty good learning all that by rote! ’ So I called his agent in London and we met the next day.

Bluteau, of course, speaks English quite well, albeit with an accent. This may well work in the film’s favour.

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: FATHER LAFORGUE, W HO IS SENT TO CONVERT THE INDIANS TO CHRISTIANITY. AN ALGONQUIN INDIAN CHILD, FATHER LAFORGUE AND DANIEL (ADAN YO U NG). ANNUKA, DAUGHTER OF THE ALGONQUIN CHIEF, AND THE LOVER OF DANIEL. BRUCE BERESFORD'S BLACK ROBE.

Set in New France (Quebec), the script is in English except for the Indian dialogue, which is spoken in the languages of the various tribes- Huron, Iroquois and Algonquin - and subtitled. The reason it is an English language film is that it would not have had the commercial potential, and could not have been financed, if made in French.

Moore’s own adaptation, a sparsely written script that Beresford admires immensely, required that the film be shot in sequence, as the journey into the wilderness begins in late autum n and ends in bitter winter. This m eant a degree of haste in getting the co­ production partners and papers in place, so filming could start in September 1990.

Beresford asked Sue Milliken of Sydney-based Samson Produc­ tions to handle the Australian end, after having worked happily and successfully together on The Fringe Dwellers, and later having spent eight m onths and $3 million on preparing for Total Recall, which in the end they didn’t get to make, as Carolco bought the projectfrom a cash-strapped De Laurentiis.

The production, budgeted at $11 million, needed 30 per cent Australian finance, and the Film Finance Corporation investment has to be spent on Australian elements. Milliken came to a point where she had 26% of the budget in place from Australian sources, and, in the face of weather deadlines, finally borrowed the balance through her own company so the shoot could go ahead.

This is a milestone venture for both countries, and, despite a degree of friction between the crews, the film came in on time and on budget.

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CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT; FIGHT SCENE IN THE INDIAN VILLAGE. THE ALGONQUIN CHIEF, CHOMINA (AUGUST SCHELLENBERG), LEFT, CONFERS WITH HIS LEADERS. FATHER LAFORGUE, DANIEL AND CHOM INA IN DISCUSSION WITH ALONQUIN INDIANS. BLACK ROBE. AUSTRALIAN CO-PRODUCER SUE MILLIKEN AND: CANADIAN FILM FINANCES REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL SPENCER. DIRECTOR BRUCE BERESFORD, LEFT, WITH DOP PETER JAMES AND CANADIAN FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PEDRO GANDOL ON THE SET OF THE AUSTRALIANrCANADIAN CO-PRODUCTION, BLACK ROBE.

production designer - first worked with Beresford as construction m anager on ‘Breaker’Morant and Money Movers, and later did the design for The Fringe Dwellers and MisterJohnson.

GARY WILKINS, sound recordist -has worked on sound with Beresford on four previous films: The GettingoJWisdom, ‘Breaker’Morant, The Club, Puberty Blues.

TIM w e l l b u r n , editor - has edited m ore than one hundred films and television series, only one before with Beresford, The Fringe Dwellers.

HERBERT PINTER,

Peter Jam es emphasizes the close-knit working relationship between the two of them: Bruce is the only director I’ve worked with whose coverage of a scene is exacdy as I’d do it. There’s always a technical sympathy; we tend to agree on just about everything. After the first couple of days on Driving Miss Daisy, I felt compelled to remark that I didn’t have much to say. But when there is a difference of opinion, it’s slight and we quickly agree. For example, it was my idea to shoot that copulation scene between the girl and the guard through the flames of the fire in the hut. I thought it would be a visual reflection of a quote I read during research, when a: Jesuit priest remarked about the Indians: ‘They spend their lives in smoke - and eternity in flames.’

The smoke is a reference to the Indians’ frequent use of smoke as a way of keeping insects away, and isjust one piece of inform ation that comprehensive research uncovered. T here are 74 volumes of letters from missionaries that effectively provide a history of 17thCentury Quebec.

By the last two weeks of the 11-week shoot, everyone was anxious to get to the end, and go home. The complications and difficulties were swelling in proportion to the fatigue. Jam es could be expected to have reached a kind of frenzied animation, but is totally relaxed, even smiling gently. The reason is Beresford: I feel comfortable and secure because he’s done his homework, so there are no sudden seat-of-the-pants changes that require re-lighting. Unlike other directors, he’ll shoot every corner of the set, giving the audience a feel of being there, in a 360 degree perspective. It’s technically tricky for lighting, but very satisfying.

The friction came about simply by the different way of doing things, says Milliken: Australia has the best production system in the world. We’ve taken the best of the British and American systems. There is a good chain of command, people help each other and there is a directness that avoids trouble. Elsewhere, each department has its own little area. They’re less interactive and so it runs less smoothly. Also, the Australian system encourages anticipation, whereas other systems are reactive.

But Milliken is not really negative about the project,because she believes it is a worthwhile co-production, with valid benefits to all parties: Australia is able to help Canada make a film that is important to their social history; and we’re getting the experience of working in another country, with Bruce Beresford, on a film that he really wanted to make.

Among the Australian crew is a core unit of departm ent heads that make up what could be called the Beresford team, a factor that has considerable significance when the film is as difficult to make as this one. The collaborative elem ents becom e crucial, and the creative decisions simply must interlock. The ‘team ’ is impressive: director of photography - first worked with Beresford twenty years ago on a few television commercials. They planned to shoot Tender Mercies and Total Recall together, but both fell through for differing reasons. They finally team ed up on Driving Miss Daisy, and went on to make MisterJohnson.

PETER JAMES,

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Beresford does indeed do his homework: as usual, he storyboarded the film well in advance, then prepared each day’s filming the night before. But even this m uch preparation can’t diminish the work of directing performances. With the copulation scene, he was faced with two inexperienced actors trying to do a scene that entailed considerable potential for embarrassment, especially as it wasn’t a closed set. Beresford dealt with it by being very direct and straightforward, but at the same time being fully understanding of the actors’ feelings.

The scene was one of a few that were shot out of sequence, simply because it was an interior. The Iroquois hut was crammed with carcasses of rabbits and geese, hanging by their feet, and hundreds of skins from varying animals.

Originally, the carcasses had been frozen, to limit decomposi­ tion, but, in view of the action, the hut had to be kept warm and the animals’blood soon began to drip slowly onto the cast and crew. The fire in the middle helped matters warm up, and by the end of the day there was enough genuine atmosphere to please anyone.

It took that long to shoot the scene, partly because Beresford wanted the main action to circle the fire. The girl approaches the Iroquois guard, her hands and feet bound, and indicates she wants a drink. As he obliges, he also helps himself to a fondle, which she encourages with body language, since she is an Algonquin and they speak different languages.

This part takes place on one side of the fire, then he has to manoeuvre her behind the fire across to the other side, so, after he has m ounted her, she can have access to a giant moose foreleg, with which she smashes him across the head, and he falls into the fire.

This second action is of course stunt work, so the shot is as complicated as any in the film, with complex but subtle lighting needs, disciplined action and restricted camera access.

Then the long shots have to be done, from behind the trussedup ‘sleeping’ bodies at the other end of the hut, and finally some reaction close-ups.

It is as detailed as the production design: H erbert Pinter has created a remarkably authentic look, mostly because it is authentic.

He is adam ant that it is the best way: Some people said to me, ‘It’s the 17th Century, so who’s going to remember?’, but that’s not how I work. I’d say 99 per cent of what you see is accurate. We really did a lot of research. It’s actually easier this way, because if you do your homework, you avoid silly mistakes.

But doing the homework wasn’t easy: There’s not much around about 1634 from this region; and what there is is not always reliable. People then saw things differently. Also, we found conflicting reports. In 1629, the English took Quebec and burnt it down. There are differing accounts of what fortifications they found.

The English captain tried to save face and boosted the figures, and wrote that it was almost impossible to take the fort. But the account by Champlain [the captain of the resident French regiment], which is corroborated elsewhere, shows that the fort was in fact extremely weak and poor.

Pinter fashioned rectangular shovels out of birch bark, used shoulder bones of moose for another digging implement, bound stone axes with spruce roots, knitted ropes out of fibre and used cedar bark (obtained free from a m erchant in Vancouver, but costing $37,000 in transport) to build the outer walls of the huts.

In the Huron village seen at the end of the film, Pinter created a strikingly authentic little chapel, lit only by candles waxed onto pieces of stone that are wedged into the forks of stag antlers.

The look of the film will move from the amber of autumn to the grey/green of autum n and winter, with cold blues, and gradually moving into the contrast of black and white as the snow thickens. As Peter James sees it, the trees and the rivers are as much characters as the people: they look brighter or bleaker, and they contribute to the mood.

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A DA N

YOUNG

Australian Equity had no wish to impose an Australian on an intrinsically Canadian story, and the co-production had enough ‘points’ to qualify anyway. But as there was nobody obvious for the role o f Daniel in Canada, the producers decided to have a look in Australia, anyway.

Casting consultant Allison Barrett produced three likely actors for an interview, including Adan Young, who had been bom and bred in Canada, migrating with his family at the age o f 9.

The interview, between Barrett, Milliken and Young, was taped and sent to Beresford, who asked Young to screen test in Canada, before offering him the role.

Beresford thought Young had the right look: “And there is something fresh about him that I liked ... he has a natural talent.”

Young had studied with Peter and Penny Williams at the Phillip Street Theatre, and also worked briefly with the Australian Young People’s Theatre (YPT). He was two weeks into rehearsals as Romeo when the call came that he had the part, but the YPT gladly released him: I was working at Darling Harbour at the Crepe Escape as a cook - and cooking suddenly made no sense. They had to let me go for the rest of the day; I was so excited.

By a refharkable coincidence, his father, Chip Young, a writer and broadcaster, had written the history of the Sault St Marie region as a children’s book. Young read the book as the first step in his research.

Now, he is tom between trying to get into the Shake­ speare company in Ontario, and returning to Sydney, which also has a lot to offer him: I always had a dream to do Hamlet in Central Park - or in London. Somewhere it can be appreciated, by all walks of life. In New York and London especially, there are so many subcultures. I never want to actjust for one audience; I want to appeal to farmers as well as statesmen.

Young clearly remembers what triggered his interest in acting: I was about 14, and I was cleaning my room, when I came across a picture book. It was told by Shakespeare as a boy, about travelling players in courtyards and inns, doing dif­ ferent plays each day. People wanted to see magic ... the blood ... the poetry of it all. It really spurred me on.

Learning fast from Beresford and his fellow actors, Young hopes to be an all-rounder, like the actors in that Shakespeare storybook: I’m working on it. I walk like a moose and sing like a duck, sword fight like an emu ... but I’m working on it.

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Rushes show the cast paddling canoes in icy water (Beresford fell in twice), dragging canoes on slippery, icy snow along the riverbanks, stumbling through forest, trudging through bush. This is neither glamorous n o r comfortable.

The landscape around the St Laurence river is a mix of wide valleys and mountains; ice has choked some of the rivers into narrow channels, and the light is steely grey. By four in the afternoon, daylight is gone.

Much of the script is intense emotionally, and there are austere images: but there are also beautiful images, striking silhouettes or vibrant, earthy moments to reflect the changing circumstances.

There are scenes, for example, where a m idget Indian witch doctor, Mestigoit, confronts Laforgue: here, the exotic facial paint of Mestigoit contrasts with the pale, bearded face of Laforgue, each a symbol of their respective magic.

It is easy to see why Beresford cast Bluteau as Laforgue. A diminutive figure who prefers a monk-like solitude off the set, Bluteau is, first of all, the most dedicated actor I have ever seen on a set. W hether he is called or not, he is there, absorbing, watching - and discussing ideas with Beresford, or James. He wants to know every frame, and has a possessive view of the film. He is n ot an arm ’slength participant, he says. He has to know, and to agree with, all the major creative decisions. He wants it to be a film he fully endorses.

T hat spiritual credibility that Beresford speaks about is clearly evident, perhaps because he has a certain inner stillness and a trem endous self-discipline. That, together with his dedication, makes him a formidable actor in this sort of role.

O f the lead actors, he is the most experienced, with the excep­ tion of the prolific August Schellenberg, who plays Chomina, the old Algonquin chief.

His daughter A nnuka is played by Sandrine Holt, a 17-year-old Eurasian from Toronto making her debut, and Adan Young is making his debut as Daniel, the young carpenter who accompanies Laforgue into the wilderness falling in love with A nnuka along the way.

Young, just turned 18, is a Canadian-born Sydney resident, who was found almost casually during a brief audition session earlier this year (see separate story).

Several Indians playing support roles are well experienced: Billy TwoRivers, Lawrence Bayne, Harrison Liu and Tantoo Cardinal are all long-time professionals.

There are, however, several extras, some of whom were hired from a rem ote Quebec settlement, and had never before seen a camera. They were needed for a scene in the Iroquois village where Laforgue, Daniel and Chomina, who have been taken captive, are stripped naked, tortured, hum iliated and forced to sing. The villagers are supposed to look on, laughing.

The shots of the actors were done, and Beresford wanted to do the cover shots of the villagers laughing. The actors had been very convincing; the long house in which the scene takes place was damp, it was several degrees below freezing and they had all endured perform ing naked. Bluteau and Young had movingly sung “Ave Maria”, and Schellenberg had keened a chilling Indian death chant on the com m and of the Iroquois chief.

W hen it came to it, the villagers found it impossible to laugh convincingly, after seeing such nice people treated so badly. Ber­ esford tried several times before changing tack. He took the actors aside, and then reset the scene for another take; by this time the actors were rugged up and they would sing off cam era for the Indians’ reaction.

T hen Beresford called “Action!” and the three actors launched into a rousing version of “Waltzing Matilda”, sending the Indians and the crew into fits of laughter. Beresford got his shot.

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oppola’s last season in hell has just been completed: 120 days between Rome, Sicily and New York putting together - amidst star defections, cast crises and budgetary tribulations f the third and final act in the Corleonefamily saga, The G od­ father Part IU,

a film that, to begin with, Coppola didn’t want to make.

“But I also didn’t want to make number two ”, he admits with a grin. “I felt I had told the whole story and that there was nothing more to say. Butfilms, you know, have a life of their ozm; they kind of make you make ’em. ” In this particular case, Paramount’s generous carte blanchepolicy and Coppola’s passion - one could even say jealousy —for his characters combined to create an offer he couldn’t refuse. Now, after another sleepless night completing the final editing stages, i t ’s up to the canolli and cappuccini of the “authentic Sicilian high tea” with which Paramount is celebrating thefirst screenings of The G odfather Part m . And, of course, also up to the American critics who, after much agonizing over Coppola’s last, sombre instalment of his “American royalty” trilogy, were basically left with one crucial dilemma: Is a flawed masterpiece still a masterpiece?

Coppola says that, from now on, he’s on hold. He doesn’t want to read the newspapers - or, better yet, he wants to “go read the paper in the morning without being terrified of what I ’ve done wrong”. He wants to travel in Europe and play with his granddaughter. And cook. “You know, just little, modest things ”, he says with, a really wide smile.

The Godfather Part III is an end o f a cycle, a tale o f maturity and atonement, pretty much like Shakespeare’s King Lear. Is this your impression?

First of all, I didn’t know I was going to make three Godfather films.

W hen I made the first one, many people criticized it heavily because they said, “You’re glorifying gangsters, making them nice. The people we know in reality are really very disreputable, terrible people.” I was very concerned about that.

Then, I realized that I really had approached the Corlednes more as a royal family. The Godfather is the story of a great king who had three sons, and each got a different part of his palace. Michael got his cunning, Sonny his hot tem per and Alfredo his sweetness. So, I was already thinking of the movie as a kind of a story of a king.

W hen I started working on this one, I kind of felt The Godfather Part I I had said all I could say. I d id n ’t know where to begin. It gets harder the more you do, because you have less to work with. So, I looked for inspiration to Shakespeare and the g re a t artists of the past. Although we will never be on their plane, it’s still all right to look to them for guidance. I did; I looked to King Lear.

Lear had a successful career as a king and he had done hard things in his life. Now, if I could make Michael like King Lear ...B ut I d idn’t try to go too far with the analogy, because I also found inspiration in Greek tragedy and Italian opera. As in all classic stories, the daughter always represents purity, like G ildain Rigoletto.

I rem em ber that when I was a child, I was always so heartbroken at the end of Rigoletto because he lost his daughter, his only love.

Which touches on one of the main controversies surrounding The Godfather Part HI: the casting o f your daughter, Sofia, in the crucial part of Michael Corleone’s daughter, Mary. Why did you choose Sofia?

Well, Sofia was cast at the last m inute. We had been hoping to haive W inona Ryder play the part, but W inona began to be delayed oiryher

FACING PAGE: "THE CORLEONES BECAME LIKE AN AMERICAN ROYAL FAMILY", HERE WITH FRIENDS AT PALERMO'S TEATRO MASSIMO. MARY (SOFIA COPPOLA), KAY (DIANE KEATON), MICHAEL (AL PACINO), B. J. HARRISON (GEORGE HAMILTON), ANDREW HAGEN (JOHN SAVAGE), DOM (DON NOVELLO), VINCENT MANCINI (ANDY GARCIA) AND CONNIE (TALIA

film Mermaids. I had wanted W inona so m uch because I felt she had the youth, the innocence and the acting experience that I was looking for. So, I refused to replace her and we kept stalling while we waited for Winona. Then, on the day W inona arrived, she was ill, so they said, ‘W inona can’t do it.” I had no alternative and I d idn’t know what to do.

Now my daughter, who had been visiting the set, was about to go back to college and she was in the shower apparently. I suddenly thought, “L et’s get Sofia down here and get her in; she’s got to do it.” And Sofia came.

Sofia d id n ’t really have aspirations to be an actress, although she had done some little things. She’s interested in clothing and fashion design. But she said, “I’ll try”, and she was very brave.

Obviously, she caused quite an unnecessary commotion. I mean, it is true that I was using her m ore like an Italian realist director would, as a real person who happens to be in a fictional situation.

Mary is, of course, essential to the story. A man like Michael Corleone, in every great tragic tale of kings and stuff, always has a part of him that is a sinner, that is evil, and another that is pure and innocent. The daughter symbolizes that and, in the end, when he loses her, he loses that innocent, pure part of himself.

Since Godfather II, you have been making Michael Corleone (A1 Pacino), more and more, the focus o f your story. In this film, he is the centre o f a major moral dilemma. Why Michael?

W hen I began this story, in the first Godfather, I felt that Michael had always been a good man. He was the one in the family who wanted to be legitimate. He was a Marine and he d id n ’t want to go into his family business. Yet, circumstances forced him to protect his family.

I always felt there m ust be m ore about Michael that could make him turn into a m urderer. Many of us really wouldn’t be able to do this. So, there is this dynamic within his personality. T here is som ething horrible about him, som ething m urderous in the tree of his existence.

SHIRE). ABOVE: AL PACINO AS MICHAEL CORLEONE: "LEAR HAD A SUCCESSFUL CAREER AS A KING ... NOW, IF I COULD MAKE MICHAEL LIKE KING LEAR." SOFIA COPPOLA AS MARY CORLEONE: "IN ALL CLASSIC STORIES, THE DAUGHTER ALWAYS REPRESENTS PURITY." THE GODFATHER PART III.

But I think that when a man maybe gets older, he wants very much to be a good man, wants to do good things and leave good things for his children. He wants to confess and be redeem ed for his sins, and the Church becomes an opportunity for him to become legitimate, to become good.

The Catholic church plays a key role in your film and, clearly, a not very flattering one. Why did you pick up religion to portray the moral dilemma, the delicate balance between good and evil?

First of all, the Catholic religion has confession, where you can be redeem ed for your sins. I thought that it was very powerful for a man to wish to be redeem ed.

And, of course, the Vatican represents thousands of years of a very strange history and politics like any institution. I thought it would be very interesting if, the higher Michael tried to go to redeem himself, the more and more he got closer to what is the real Mafia, the real power.

Also, all the Godfather films had one thing in common, which is a thread of history running through them. In the first Godfather, it was the end of W orld War II; in the second, the Cuban Revolution.

W hen I began to read about the history connected with the Bank Ambrosiano scandal and the death ofjo h n Paul I - and I d o n ’t know the truth about either - 1 felt that perhaps the Vatican was very arrogant in not allowing the investigators from Rome. If a powerful institution like the Church says they d o n ’t have to answer anything, that allows us to imagine whatever we will!

This film, of course, is purely fictional. And I think it is a very spiritual film with a great love for spiritual matters. It is a religious film in terms of the real principles of Christianity.

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Is it true that, in its inception, this third Godfather'was pretty much Mario Puzo’s idea?

Not really. Mario had been involved in a num ber of drafts that were done with other producers and other directors. Then he called me and said, “Why d o n ’t YOU do The Godfather?” I didn’t want to, but I looked at his script and, well, Mario’s dialogue is wonderful but it wasn’t about Michael Corleone, and I really felt that this is Michael Corleone’s story all along. The script I read had a lot to do with Colombian drug lords and was sort of an action picture. I said that I thought people wanted something a little more serious, and I told him to focus on A1 Pacino and write him a big role.

Then I got a call from Mr Mancuso [Frank Mancuso, president of Param ount Pictures] and he said, “Well, you can do that.” So, I said I’d try, and I did. I brought him a report that said I would like to make it as a kind of King Lear and that it had a big part for Al. It would be a story of business, of finance, and the higher levels of the finance in the world and what the real Mafia is: people in the world who run everything and have absolute power without having to account to anyone about it.

You once said that the tragedy o f the Corleones is the tragedy of America. Now that you have completed the Corleones’ saga, and that America seems to be, again, at critical crossroads in its history, do you still see that parallel?

When I finished the first Godfather, and it was, as I said, heavily criticized, I realized that it was true that it wasn’t really about gangsters. It was more about a cycle of stories, about family and loyalty. And I also noticed that Michael Corleone, the secondgeneration Italian-American, rem inded me of America itself. The Mafia, of course, comes from years and years in the past but, when it was planted in American soil, it found real strength. Michael represented the kind of phases that America was going through. In Godfather I f if you remember, Michael was becoming very cold and self-righteous and suspicious, and he had people murdered, even his own brother! He was like how America was in that period: paranoid, suspicious and violent, as we perhaps experienced with the presidency during Watergate.

Now, I felt, is a new time for America. This America, instead of moving right away into violent action, must become reflexive.

America must really tell the truth about what it has done over the years and sort of rise above it. There must be a new, reflective America, an America that’s prepared to take part with the other countries honestly and not just in this self-righteous kind of mood that Michael Corleone was into. The Michael Corleone of this story is more trying to deal with the truth, confessing to be redeemed, and I feel that the United States will do that.

You know, we are in a difficult period right now. Our armed forces are in another country and it’s the old America wan ting to act.

But I also believe there are people here who are starting to realize that this is a time for reflection, an era of spiritual maturity. So, I tried to show Michael being less of the paranoid instigator of violence and more someone confessional, trying to find new mean­ ing, trying to make a place for himself spiritually. I don’t know if that is a correct analogy for our country, but it would be wonderful if it could be.

What do you feel is the reason behind the enduring appeal of the Corleone saga, not only in America, but all over the world?

TOP: A CELEBRATION FOLLOWS MICHAEL CORLEONE'S BEING HONOURED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ("THE REAL MAFIA"). BOTTOM (LEFT TO RIGHT): MICHAEL AND VINCENT MANCINI, THE ILLEGITIMATE SON OF SONNY CORLEONE. VINCENT AND MARY CORLEONE. VINCENT DEFENDS HIMSELF.THE GODFATHER PART III.

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]erinventing and seeing what I can learn ... I think my roller-coaster • the fact that I don’t have one consistent style ...”

HW "D O N 'T FORGET, I DIDN'T MAKE THIS FILM ALONE. I HAD AROUND ME SOME OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS OF OUR TIME": TOP: DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY GORDON WILLIS, WITH COPPOLA; MIDDLE: PRODUCTION DESIGNER DEAN TAVOULARIS (RIGHT); AND COSTUME DESIGNER MILENA CANONERO (RIGHT).

ago. Like all actors, h e ’s spoiled, he doesn’t want to wake up in the m orning, h e ’s n ot comfortable, etc., but I always knew that the way to deal with A1 is with his intelligence.

Now that h e ’s approaching 47, 48, h e ’s also gotten a wonderful technique so he can come in and do things effortlessly. H e’s a wonderful American actor now. You can truly see a com bination of his intelligence and his experience.

Did the fact that The Godfather Part III was one of the anticipated films o f the year in any way jeopardize the project?

Much of the time I was very depressed and very frightened. I would be frightened on Monday, I ’d get encouraged on Tuesday, and depressed Wednesday. It was kind of a very up or very down experience for me.

However, there were times when I was very excited and thrilled with the beautiful photography that I saw being done. D on’t forget, I d id n ’t make this film alone. I had around me some o f the greatest artists of our time: A1 Pacino and [costume designer] Milena Canonero and [director of photography] G ordon Willis and [pro­ duction designer] Dean Tavoularis, so I was in good company.

Your whole career could also be described as a roller-coaster ride, with peaks o f wonderful filmmaking and troubled periods plagued by financial problems and accusations o f excesses. How do you reconcile your ups and down? Is it the industry’s or your own fault that they happen?

I d o n ’t know exactly. I think that maybe the Corleones became like an American royal family. People are interested in a family with this kind of power and wealth. And because we d o n ’t have a royal family, perhaps the fascination has to do with that.

Also, people have always been fascinated with outlaws and bandits. But I d o n ’t know the real answer.

What makes A1 Pacino so special to you?

I think primarily his intelligence. H e ’s a very talented and very intelligent actor, as h e ’s always been, even when I knew him years 20

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Certainly it has to be my fault because I d o n ’t know who else’s fault it could be. But I think my career shows I always try to do som ething in a different style. If you look at a list of my films - Apocalypse Now, Rumble Fish, One From the Heart, The Godfather - they’re all very dif­ ferent in style. W hen I make a film, I enjoy very m uch experim enting and seeing what I can learn. Some styles the public has enjoyed, but it’s like food: if I were to give you some food you aren ’t familiar with, you might be put off by it. So I think my roller-coaster career has been partly related to the fact that I d o n ’t have one consistent style in my work.

As for my excesses, I have always tried to be a professional film director and the only examples in the twenty odd films where I had excessive budgets were when it was my own money. W hen I made Apocalypse Now and One From the Heart, I financed them , and I said, “I love this. I want to do this. It’s my money. I’ll do it! ” But whenever I deal with someone else’s money, as in this case Param ount Pictures’, I am as scrupulous and as not excessive as I can be.

All in all, my career is like any of our lives: it has ups and downs.

And at least I try always to do som ething th at’s a little beyond my reach, so that I ’ll try my best. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I almost succeed, but I think this is what life’s all about.

But do you, as an artist who has to deal with the intricacies o f money and power, defend yourself from the corruption that comes with them, and that you portray so well in your Godfather cycle?

Well, I’ve been spared from the corruption of money for a very long time. As for power, as of the last eleven years I’ve just been pedalling very hard to hang on to my life. If I do have a period in which I know some power and money, I will watch out that it Hoes n o t corrupt me.

Y

ugoslav director Srdjan Karanovicisnostrangerto Australian audiences. His

most recent feature, A Film No N am e (2 a naslova ,

with

sada bez dobrog

1988), winner of the

Golden Tulip at the Istanbul Film Festival (an honour bestowed by a ju r y th a t in clu ded Theo Angelopoulos, Krzysztof Kieslow­ ski and Nikita Mikhalkov), was recently screened at the Sydney Film Festival. His previous fea­ tures have also received theatrical distribution and television airings inAustralia.

MIKE DOWNEY

took two trips to the rough moun­ tainous region around Knin in Croatia to talk to Karanovic about his work in progress, Virdjina (V irdjina - A K ind of W oman ),

which a t time of going to press was plagued by bad weather, near civil war and earthquakes, putting the movie’s completion in jeopardy.

even the most meticulous preparation for a production is never good enough. T hat is what star Yugoslav director Srdjan Karanovic and his producer, Mladen Koceic, found out when they started shooting their latest project, a Yugoslav-French co-production, Virdjina - A Kind of Woman.

In choosing to build authentic sets in the form of houses and churches in and around this wild coastal area, the produc­ tion didn ’t realize it was sitting on a political time bomb. On day one of shooting, as their large blue camera car headed back from the set to their hotel through the misty Balkan evening, strange shapes appeared on the road up ahead. “The van drew nearer”, com m ented one crew member, “and it seemed as if we were in the middle of our own movie. It was like the wild west: a complete barricade surrounded by arm ed m en.”

The arm ed m en were members of the Serbian minority living in the Knin area who had declared a kind of UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) in their region for fear of renewed attacks from Croatian nationalists. The biggest fear was that, on the eve of democratic elections in the region, discrimination against Serbs in the area could go as far as it did during the war time when the Nazi’s Quisling governm ent slaughtered hundreds of thousands ofjews, Gypsies and Serbs.

Karanovic is seated in his caravan in a break between shots at the location of a specially built church ju st west of the seaside town of Zadar:

S

o m etim es

The result of that first encounter with the barricades was that several members of the crew got scared and left. We had to make a decision whether to continue with the production or not. So we talked with our co-producers in Paris, Belgrade and Zagreb and decided to stop the shooting for 10 days until after the elections were finished.

The wait paid off and the production, financed by Rajko Grlic’s and Mladen Koceic’s Maestro Film of Zagreb, Djordje CINEMA

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Milojevic’s Centar Film and Claudie Ossar’s Constellation Films of Paris, wrapped, slightly behind schedule and above budget, in the middle of December.

Virdjina - A Kind of Woman is a story based on an old tradition in the Balkans where, if too many girl-children are born to a single family with no male heir, then the next-born girl has to grow up and live her whole life as a man. She must carry the secret to the grave or bring shame on the whole family and death to herself. Such children were known as virdjinas. Karanovic: It is ironic we are shooting the film under these conditions, political conditions which seem to threaten the independence of the individual.

Virdjina is about the freedom of the individual to choose whatever he or she wants to be, even though the idea is presented in extreme terms.

Broadly speaking it is an apt metaphor for the human condition.

But it has been a long haul to get the production going in the first place. Karanovic had been kicking the idea around for more than eight years. Originally it was based on the true story of one Albanian woman who had had this experience, and the first scripts focused on h er adult life, coming to a head in World War II when, as a (male) partisan, she falls in love with an allied officer.

The whole war thing made it just so expensive that we couldn’t get the financing together. So I was forced to re-think - especially since anything with the war in it is now considered dreadfully dull.

When I was teaching in the States last year, I got to thinking about how to save the story. It was then this whole child-abuse theme exploded in the press. I decided to take Virdjina back into her childhood [at the turn of the century] and to deal with the years between birth and adolescence.

A nother irony is that this film is a Croatian-Serbian co-produc­ tion, a rarity in these times of nationalist strife, and even m ore of an oddity in that it is the first such film to receive subsidy money from the Croatian governm ent. This fact is largely due to Karanovic’s R IG H T: STEV AN (M A R TA KELER), R IG H T, HAS HER BREASTS B O U N D FOR THE FIRST TIME BY HER M O TH ER . A N D , THE LAST RITES FOR S TE V A N 'S M OTHER., V IR D JIN A - A K IN D O F W O M A N .

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relationship with Maestro Film chief, and filmmaker in his own right, Rajko Grlic. They studied together at the Prague Film School and have since collaborated on various projects. Grlic is highly thought of in Croatia, but both are sick of this nationalistic “ganging u p ” and Karanovic in particular solidly declares himself a Yugoslav, having nothing to do with what Orwell would call “these smelly little orthodoxies”.

More cash was thrown into the pot by French culture minister Jack Lang’s new fund for the support of eastern European cinema, and Virdjina was the first to benefit from this.

After the elections Karanovic finally got together with the rebel Serbs and reached an agreem ent that would allow them to pass through the barricades unhindered. The production could go on, but not without more difficulties: they were further into winter and the weather became as changeable as the political climate.

In the end the rebels were helping us. Our generator kept on breaking down and it turned out that one of the guys on the barricades was an engineer, so he came and did what he could. In the end, we had the best shoot in terms of morale and enthusiasm of any of my films. The cast and crew are a total reflection of the true multi-national nature of Yugoslavia, and proof that we can all work together and rise above these cheap nationalist feelings.

When the trouble broke out on day one of shooting, more than two thirds of the crew wanted to stay and get on with it, unafraid of the potential threat. We have Serbs, Croats, Hungarians, French, Bosnians and a Slovak working with us, and everyone, whatever their nationality, behaved like a true professional. There are going to be a lot of tears at the end of this shoot. The film is against all fanatical madness, and I think that the crew realizes the importance of this, here today, and are pulling that much harder for it.

Karanovic claims that it is probably the first film he has made that

FAC IN G PAGE: O N L O C A TIO N FOR V IR D JIN A - A K IN D O F W O M A N A T THE SPECIALLY BUILT CHURCH 80KM IN LA N D FROM THE C R O A TIA N C O A S TA L T O W N OF Z AD AR .AB O V E: STEVAN'S MOTHER (IN A G O G A L O V A ) A ND FATHER (M IODRAG KRIVOKAPIC) IN VIRDJINA - A KIN D OF W O M AN .

does not have any overt political connotations, unlike others from his œuvre which includes Montréal entry Hard to Swallow (Jagode u grlu, 1985), Venice selection Petria’s Wreath (Petrijin venae, 1980) or Cannes successes Social Games (Drustvena igra, 1972), Fragrance of'Wild Flowers (Miris poljskog cveca, 1978) and Something in Between (Nesto izmedju, 1983). He concludes wryly: If we have to speak about the genre, it does correspond to the general scheme of what I call ‘documentary fairy tales’, but this one is probably the toughest, cruellest fairy tale I have yet told. I am sure that Yugoslavia will find it difficult to take, but it is a universal story. As with many of my previous films, it may have a bigger audience abroad than at home.

With world sales already being handled by UGC (France), some pre-sales have already been made on the strength of Karanovic’s track record. And if this track record is anything to go by, the film is very likely candidate for selection in Competition at Cannes this year.

SRDJAN K AR AN OV IC FILM O G R A P H Y

1960-67 Paznja snima se! (Attention, We Are Filming!, short); Pronadjite naslov (Find the Title, short); Dorucak (TheBreakfast, short); Ponedeljak (Monday, short); Barbara (short) 1967-75 Seventy documentaries for Belgrade TV, the best known being Neobavezno (Miscellany), Nepravde (Injustices), Portreti muzike i muzicara (Portraits of Music and Musicians), Ljudi (People), Muzika, muzika ...

(Music, Music...) 1972 Drustvena igra (Social Game, feature) 1974 Pogledaj me, nevemice (Look at Me, Unfaithful Woman, tele-feature) 1975 Grlom ujagode ( The Reckless Years, tele-series) 1978 Miris poljskog cveca (The Fragrance of Wild Flowers, feature) 1980 Petrijin venae (Petria’s Wreath, feature) 1983 Nesto izmedju (Something In Between, feature) 1985 Jagode u grlu (Hard to Swalloiu, feature) 1988 Za soda bez dobrog naslova (A Film with No Name, feature) 1991 Virdjina (Virdjina-A Kind of Woman, feature) CINEMA

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IS WOR

AUSTRALIA HAS BEEN DELINQUENT IN RIGHTFULLY REMEMBERING ITS CINEMATIC PIONEERS. IT IS EXTRAORDINARY, FOR INSTANCE, THAT NO BIOGRAPHY EXISTS ON RAYMOND LONGFORD. (THANK­ FULLY, ONE ON CHARLES CHAUVEL, BY STUART CUNNINGHAM, HAS JUST APPEARED.) IN LONGFORD’S CASE, TWO BIOGRAPHIES WERE BEING PREPARED, BUT BOTH MERVYN WASSON AND LES BLAKE WERE UNABLE TO FINISH THEIR SEPARATE WORKS BEFORE THEIR DEATHS. WHO IS CURRENTLY PREPARING A FILM ON'LONGFORD (WITH PRODUCER TONY BUCKLEY), PRESENTS HERE FRAGMENTS OF HIS NEW RESEARCH. THESE PALIMPSESTS OF LONG­ FORD’S LIFE HELP REMIND ONE OF A BIOGRAPHICAL VACUUM THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED.

TOP: LOTTIE LYELL, LONGFORD'S PARTNER, RETURNED FROM TREATMENT FOR TUBERCULOSIS TO PLAY A SMALL ROLE IN LONGFORD'S RUDD'S NEW SELECTION (1921). CENTRE (LEFT TO RIGHT) THE BLOKE (ARTHUR TAUCHERT) AND DOREEN (LOTTIE LYELL) IN LONGFORD'S CLASSIC THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE [ 1918). BOTTOM: A SCENE OF THE FAMILY W ORKING ITS PROPERTY FROM LONGFORD'S O N OUR SELECTION (1920). BOTTOM: FILMING PAT H AN NA'S WALTZING MATILDA IN 1933. LONGFORD, W HO WAS ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, IS AT LEFT; WITH ARTHUR HIGGINS (BEHIND CAMERA) AND PAT HAN NA (CLOSEST TO CAR DOOR).

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,

RAYMOND HOLLIS LONGFORD

eturning by freighter from Germany and England in early 1.930, Raymond Longford fell in with the small group of passengers ships of this type sometimes carried.

A week or so out to sea, everyone was getting on so well with one and another that, in Longford’s opinion, the whole affair was becoming quite boring. In an effort to enliven the journey, Longford started circulating various rumours among his fellow travellers. Things quickly livened up to the point that when the ship docked in Sydney no one was talking to anyone.

It is a typical Longford story, though this version does not have the embellishments and theatrical re­ enactments only he could bring to bear when in full flight. It is wrong, however, to assume that the tale is a total fabrication. At the bottom of every Longford story is an element of truth and the more seemingly outlandish the story, the closer to fact it is.

RAYMOND HOLLIS LONGFORD The Man They Would Not Hang For a man who loved to tell a story, there are few like the above about Raymond Hollis Longford. Somehow, ^ p r o m in e n t silent film di­ rector of the early Australian cinem a has escaped the anecdotal rem em brances which either enfeeble or engage o n e ’s opinion of him. And a lot of this lack is due to the story of Raymond Longford’s refusing to settle in any one niche. He is no sooner occupying one place in history than he is moved to another.

Hopefully, every time such a revision occurs, the story of Ray­ m ond Longford, his partner Lottie Lyell and the other personalities who had a part in their lives gets advanced a step further. However, this isn’t what has happened. W hen film history only grabs the public’s attention if a past director is having a theatre nam ed after him or being challenged over a flawed reputation, and this has largely been the case, there is little opportunity to get at any story through the froth and bubble. The whole thing becomes too narrow; there are simply too many wheelbarrows to push. What follows is not so m uch how the story was missed, but how a good story refused to be told.

Joining the Story in O ctober 1950, Ernest Harrison, writing in A.M., ‘fo u n d ’ Longford working as a casual watchman at the ‘deadhouse’ on the Pyrmont wharves in Sydney. U nder the title, “He Invented the Close-up”, Harrison repeated some of Longford’s exaggerated claims, threw up incorrect or sketchy details of Longford’s film and personal life, and devoted space and photos, supplied by Longford, to his then ‘lost’ 1918 silent classic, The Sentimental Bloke. The article, along with Longford, quickly faded from the public mind, but the beginnings o f the Longford myth had been born.

In 1955, a com plete 35mm copy o f The Sentimental Bloke turned up, via M elbourne, in some old wooden crates at the National Library in Canberra. T here was now som ething tangible to hold on to. Screenings at the Sydney and M elbourne Film festivals soon afterwards created interest for a dedicated few. Les Blake, a teacher and historian, wrote to Longford asking for details to the making of The Sentimental Bloke. Larry Lake, partly responsible for getting the film to the National Library, sought out Longford on the P & O wharves.1 It was all too little, too late. By the time of Longford’s death on 2 April 1959 at Waverton, the story was still in fragments. A filmed interview with Longford in 1958 was mostly erased in an agency mixup. The occasional articles published during this time kept up the tantalizingly, sketchy details. Highlighting Longford’s claim about beating the Americans by inventing the close-up, or tearing the roof off a house to be the first person to shoot interior scenes in Australia, was to print the story before the facts. Still, it was wonderful copy, a

fact which did n ’t escape the reporters and papers which ran the articles, or Longford himself.

All this, of course, was having little effect in the land that has “too much of sunshine, too much of sky”. Yet the story of Raymond Longford was growing. Writing in Nation (November 1958), Tom Weir lam ented the lack of films being produced in Australia. U nder the heading “No Daydreams of O ur Own”, Weir held up the talent and achievement evident in Longford’s The Sentimental Bloke and his 1920 On OurSelectionm stark contrast to the dismal state the industry had fallen into. A connection and a precedent had been made: Longford’s story was now bound up with the story of Australia’s past.

No one was quite sure what that history was. It would be years before Anthony Buckley’s or Joan Long’s films were to appear, or books by Eric Reade, Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, and Graham Shirley. It was also years away from the country’s being interested in being Australian, its past and a film industry. Longford as myth had taken a step closer to Longford as icon.

In the 1970s, there was now a film industry with titles like Pure S..., The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The nuts and bolts of this were “almost entirely the result of governm ent subsidy and investment”. The National Library now had a section for the acquiring, cataloguing and storing of Australian films. In con­ junction with all this activity was a lot of talk and print about this being “Australia’s Second Wave” of filmmaking. There was a hiccup in the midst of the bustle: it wasn’t clear what the ‘first wave’ had been about. There had been considerable research done into Australia’s film past since the dark days in the ’50s, but the history the headlines were so confidently proclaiming was still being com­ piled.

There had been no model, no guide, for the few doing the work.

People had started from what am ounted to a blank page. Eric Reade painstakingly went through issues of the old trade magazines, Everyones, Film Weekly and Photoplay, in the writing of his 1970 book, Australian SilenlFilms. Ross Cooper found details to film productions in files held by the NSWPolice Departm ent. Records were either lost (which implied they could be found if one knew where to look), destroyed (though it was never sure w hether they were simply lost), incomplete (it is always a peculiar feeling to find the next page of a docum ent missing), or biased to the point of inaccuracy (but, as they were not lost, fragm ented or held in New Zealand, were somewhat of a find).

The overall problems of trying to get at a history so far removed by time, where the people who had made that history were now gone, scattered or in decline, were making the work difficult. Given also that research is largely unpaid and done on a part-time basis, this m eant that the past which the current industry was talking about was not going to happen tomorrow, or next m onth, or next year. It was not surprising, then, that the general nature of the history being found had its share of partial truths, misconceptions and gaps.

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RAYMOND HOLLIS LONGFORD

In this atm osphere, Longford found him self with a M elbourne cinem a nam ed after him and the annually presented API Raymond Longford Award. It was an example of history working in reverse.

Longford had becom e icon on the strength of his surviving films, and a com bination of details and myths, without the ‘right ques­ tions’ being asked.

More of the facts started to catch up to Longford with the appearance in 1980 of Andrew Pike and Ross C ooper’s Australian Film 1900-1977 and later, in 1983, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years by G raham Shirley and Brian Adams. It was, however, John T ulloch’s Legends on the Screen, published in 1981, which specifically took Longford to task. In chapters on Longford and The Sentimental Bloke, the ‘study’, being m ore an analysis of the facts than an historical account, challenged Longford n o to n the ’50s newspaper interviews but on L ongford’s claims and charges at the 1927 Royal Commission Into the Moving Picture Industry. Unfortunately, the academic style of writing kept the book from the public. Similarly, the reference nature of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol­ ume 10, with entries for both Longford and Lottie Lyell by Mervyn Wasson, understandably failed to find a wide audience. T here was a growing num ber of readers for part, some or all of these books, but it fell well short of com m on acceptance, with the result that Long­ fo rd ’s legend rem ained unaltered.

By the m iddle o f the 1980s, Longford’s fame had rendered him invisible. But if Longford was static, the society and industry around him had changed. Film schools and the film industry were drawing women into all aspects of film. It was a reflection on the changing role of women in the workforce and in society. Increased opportu­ nity translated into increased expectations. W omen were interested in their own careers, lifestyles and history. Andrée W right’s film, Don ’l Call Me Girlie, and later book, Brilliant Careers: Women in Aus­ tralian Cinema, were an answer, or answers, to the topical call.

Spanning Australian film history, she focused on a group of women whose contribution to film had been both before and behind the camera.

O ne of these women was Lottie Lyell, Longford’s partner until h er death from tuberculosis in Decem ber 1925, who had found her place in history as “Australia’s first film star”. T hough articles and the early film books had increasingly noted the partnership between she and Longford, this emphasis had not m ade it into the interviews the newspapers conducted with Longford in the late ’50s. W right brought Lyell back from beyond. Along with details of Lyell’s life and individual achievements in film, she stressed the “creative partnership’’between Lyell and Longford being “primarily depend­ e n t” on her. It was the story of a quiet ‘battler’ that Australians always have time for and the fact that Lyell was a women had contem porary appeal. The m edia responded with two filmed dramatizations on Lyell, newspaper articles and some bicentennial madness books.

In the process, the air was taken out of the Longford bubble.

This in itself would have had a balancing effect if things had stopped here. However, opinions have gone on to the point that in some quarters there seems to be doubt as to w hether Longford directed his own films. Adding to the lack of balance are the ‘gaps’ which are still present in the Longford story. Clearly, it’s time Longford be allowed to have parents and a start to life further than a birthdate.

Also, with Lottie Lyell’s position now secure in history, it is time for anoth er look at Raymond Longford.

RAYMOND HOLLIS LON0FÔRD Beginnings Raymond Longford’s father had come south from Sydney some­ time in the 1860s to seek his fortune in the boom ing colony of Victoria. He eventually took up his trade and residence in the then outer M elbourne suburb of Camberwell. T here he m et his future wife, an English governess from-Chelsea. Accordingly, at the Regis­ 28

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try Office in Fitzroy, on 20 O ctober 1870, Jo h n Walter Longford m arried Charlotte Maria Hollis. Particulars from the marriage certificate put their ages as 22 and 24 respectively, and Longford’s occupation as harnessmaker. Setting up in Camberwell, a surviving son, M ontague (Monty) John, was born soon afterwards.

It is unclear why things went downhill for the Longfords but, by 1877, the family was living in reduced circumstances in the poor M elbourne suburb of Fitzroy. Longford was no longer following his trade and had been forced to take on a labouringjob to support the family. T here had also been personal loss. Four children born since the birth of Monty had not survived, with the most recent, Edward, dying from diarrhoea in July. The Longfords’ fortunes were at a low ebb and the lack of adequate sanitation in the suburb of Fitzroy put the survival of any more new-born children to the Longfords at a decided risk.

Their luck changed when, on 11 Ju n e 1878, Jo h n Walter Long­ ford was appointed an Assistant Inspector of Fisheries for the Colony ofVictoria. Employed as a ‘supernum erary’, he received half the annual wage of a perm anent m em ber of the Civil Establishment and could be dismissed on a m om ent’s notice. In spite of this, governm ent jobs were much sought after and there is little doubt that Longford had help in gaining the position. With his wife sixm onths pregnant, Longford quickly moved the family to the upand-coming suburb of Hawthorn.

At 11 pm on 23 Septem ber 1878, a son was born at William Street, Hawthorn, and nam ed after his father, Jo h n Walter Long­ ford. T hat child, in fact, was Raymond Longford.

A short time later, the family moved down to the coastal town of Paynesville in line with Longford’s duties for the government. By 1880, they were renting a house there. A third son, Victor William, was born in July and the Longfords were now giving the nam e of their second-born as Raymond Longford. Why the parents decided to change his name, and in doing so chose the nam e Raymond, is open to question. However, in an effort to avoid confusion, they may have decided one John Walter was enough and taken the new nam e from Raymond Island opposite Paynesville.

W hen Ray m arried in 1900, he gave his nam e as Raymond John Walter Longford. But on taking to the stage as an actor, sometime around 1905, he took his m other’s maiden nam e and became Raymond Hollis Longford. Longford was a sentim ental m an and his m other did live into the 1920s, but his adoption of the Hollis name was largely for stage effect.

Ray’s older brother, Monty, eventually became a clerk and accountant. Being old enough to recognize the family’s hard times in Fitzroy, his choice of a stable and financial career is not surpris­ ing. Ray was born after these troubles. His earliest m emories would have been travel and the sea. He was never to be very worried by money. In this light, Longford’s 1958 com m ent that “as a young fellow I had been apprenticed in sail”, and continued to be a seaman into his twenties, makes sense given his early childhood.

Ray’s m other, Charlotte, would have had some education past reading and writing. Whatever his father’s failings, he possessed the natural intelligence to pick up the skills necessary to perform his duties as an Assistant Inspector. In this regard, Ray was very m uch like his father. Ray was never well educated yet, through his career as a seaman, he eventually held a third-m ate’s ticket; as an actor and later as a director and producer, he showed a natural ability.

Surviving friends of Raymond also rem em ber him as enjoying a good read.

The quiet life in Paynesville ended with Longford snr ’s losing his position with the D epartm ent of Trade and Customs on 31 O ctober 1880. His loss of em ploym entwas one of the drawbacks to being a ‘supernum erary’ in the Civil Establishment. Shrinking economic prospects in Victoria and the promise of stabler governm ent in New South Wales persuaded the Longfords to mdve to Sydney. I§§tf|e early ’80s, they took a coastal firry up north to try th eir luck.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PUBLICITY SHOT OF LONGFORD IN THE 1920S; LONGFORD IN COSTUME, CIRCA 1909; LONGFORD ON THE SET OF SNOWY BAKER'S THE JACKEROO O f COOLABONG (1920); LONGFORD AS THE GERMAN SPY, VON SCHIELING, IN PAT HANNA'S DIGGERS IN BLIGHTY (1933); LONGFORD'S MOTHER AND FATHER. CINEMA

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LONGFORD'S THE DINKUM BLOKE (1922), WITH NELL GARVIN (LOTTIE LYELL) AND PEGGY GARVIN (BERYL G O W ). THE FILM TEAMED LYELL A GAIN WITH ARTHUR TAUCHERT AS THE HUSBAND AND WIFE. LOTTIE LYELL AS THE MAORI GIRL, WITH JIM AND THE PRIEST IN LONGFORD'S A MAORI MAID'S LOVE (1916). LOGO OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY FORMED BY LONGFORD AND LYELL. MRS TRACEY (MARJORIE OSBORNE), RIGHT, WITH MAID IN LONGFORD AND LYELL'S THE BLUE M OUNTAINS MYSTERY (1921). FILMING ONE OF THE AUSTRALIA CALLS SERIES OF FILMS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT IN 1923. LONGFORD IS SECOND FROM RIGHT, NEXT TO LYELL. LACEY PERCIVAMS BEHIND THE CAMERA. 30

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RAYMOND HOLLIS LONGFORD

LOTTIE LYELL With the appearance of Brilliant Careers by Andrée W right in 1986, a controversy overtook Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell. As stated previously, Lyell had been known only as the female lead in nearly all of Longford’s films. T here was evidence that h er involve­ m ent in filmmaking had been m uch more. Joan Long, writing in Lumiere (O ctober 1972), in one o f the few articles expressly about Longford, talked about the “close working relationship” between Lyell and Longford, adding that “he had put this on record him self’.

This is quite true. At the 1927 Royal Commission Into the Moving Picture Industry, Longford in his opening statem ent to the Commis­ sion had said: I first entered the motion picture industry in Australia seventeen years ago in conjunction with my partner, the late Miss Lottie Lyell ... [RCE 1927, page 144]

Longford was also on record about his ‘p artn er’ through the trade press o f the time. In a quote W right also cites, Longford had stated: I’ll he glad when Miss Lyell is with the company again. She understands work through and through, and is a great help to me. [Brilliant Careers, p. 8; first appearing in Picture Show, 1 March 1921.]

However, the intervening sixty years had washed away these comments. Using the facilities of the newly-created National Film and Sound Archives, digging for ‘lost’ docum ents and using oral histories, Brilliant Careers not only rediscovered Lottie Lyell, but took the notion of a partnership between Lyell and Longford a step further. W right concluded: ... that although Raymond Longford’s story is a moving one, it is only half the story ofacreative partnership [my emphasis] dependent on the considerable talents of Lottie Lyell. [Brilliant Careers, p. 14]

Even given all of the book’s hard-won research, it was an interpretation o f the facts, from an interpretative history. As Wright points out: I make no apology for the fact that the work of men like Raymond Longford... is explored primarily in relation to the women they worked with. Although each receives here his most extensive treatment to date, it is not the place of the first book devoted to women in Australian cinema to write the definitive history of men’s achievements in the medium of film. [Brilliant Careers, p. xi.]

This aspect of W right’s work seems to have escaped general notice. Openly declaring in the “Preface” o n e ’s bias as W right has done, instead of insidiously hiding it away, is very honest. But in the case of Brilliant Careers, its interpretative view of events has been repeated through film dramatizations of Lyell and passed on to the public as definitive.

O ne of W right’s assertions is that Lottie Lyell was a “m odest” person and this virtue had kept h er from getting the credit she deserved. T here is another view to this claim. Lyell started her stage career with an 85 town-and-city tour of eastern Australia and New Zealand when she was 18 years old. She made h er screen debut at 21, when she appeared in Longford’s first film, The Fatal Wedding2. As early as March 1918, she was billed or allowing herself to be billed as “Australia’s Film Star” (advertisement for The Woman Suffersin The Advertiser, Adelaide, 23 March 1918). This was beforethe huge success of The Sentimental Bloke. In terms of public profile, it was Lyell whose face was appearing before the public and whose nam e enjoyed top . billing.

In an interview with Sheila Higgins, the wife o f the late A rthur Higgins who was director o f photography on nearly all of Long­ ford’s films, Higgins rem em bered that Lottie could only stand one

star on set, and that was Lottie. Higgins added that Lyell could “wrap Ray around her little finger” and usually did so to “get her way”3. It is both true and applaudable that Lyell in her interviews with the press never engaged in exaggeration, but how “m odest” this very public person was is another matter.

The saga of L ongford’s reputation did not end with Lottie Lyell.

Largely on the suggestion of French filmmaker and activist Pierre Rissient, The Sentimental Bloke was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987. The Newsletter for the National Film and Sound Archives noted, “It was the first time Cannes had honoured an early film­ maker in this way. ” It added that due to.the film’s good reception the Archive had been invited “to exhibit Australian archival film in festivals in Italy, Spain and the U.S.”.

There is a great deal of irony in this belated overseas notice, as Longford had made exaggerated claims to greatness in the 1950s and before. There is also a certain am ount of truth to this reputa­ tion. Longford was an Australian, who believed in Australian film.

In his capacity as an independent filmmaker, as President of the Australian Motion Picture Producers’ Association and, later, as President of the New South Wales Talking Picture Producers’ Association, he led deputations and lobbied for governm ent sup­ port of a locally established film industry. His international status as a filmmaker has rem ained cloudy by the lack of research done into Australian films overseas. Longford claimed that twelve of his films were successfully marketed in England. There are further rum ours of releases in Canada, India and the U.S. It is known that The Blue Mountains Mystery, co-directed with Lyell, seems to have obtained some sort of general release in America.

Film historians in Australia have given Longford credit for having made one great film, The Sentimental Bloke, and a very good film in his On Our Selection, mostly on the strength of copies for both films having survived into m odern times. Until more is known of how well Longford’s films travelled internationally, tagging him as only an Australian director is prem ature.

Finally, it perhaps matters little that Longford came out of obscurity in the 1950s, became a symbol for Australia’s past in the ’70s, got attacked in the ’80s and seems destined to vanish in ’90s.

What is unfortunate is that most of the story remains untold. For people like Longford, Lottie Lyell and A rthur Higgins, who created some of the first and enduring images of Australia and Australians, it’s a poor end.

ACKNOW LEDGEM ENTS The author wishes to pay thanks to the family of the late Mervyn J. Wasson. By thengenerosity, access was granted to Wasson’s twenty years of research into the Raymond Longford story, including Longford’s scrapbooks. Without this assistance, I would still be a long way from what Wasson called "the whole story”. At the time of his sudden death, Wasson was writing a biography of Raymond Hollis Longford. A portion of his incomplete manuscript appeared in Cinema Papers No. 46 under the title "The Woman Suffers, Why Ever Was She Banned”.

All photos are courtesy of the Wasson estate.

1 Information taken from letter to Mervyn Wasson.

2. Sources: The Theatre Magazine, 1July 1913; Longford scrapbooks of newspaper reviews, and theatre programmes.

3. Interview with Sheila Higgins, December 1989.

Sources: Registry ofBirths, Deaths and Marriages, Melbourne, Victoria; Sands and McDougall Melbourne Directory, Latrobe Library; Sands Sydney and NSW Directory, Latrobe Library; Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1880-1881, Latrobe Library; Statistical Register of the Colony of Victoriafor 1879, Part 1, Public Records Office, Laverton, Victoria; Victorians: Making Their Mark, Susan Priestley; A History ofAustralia, Volume IV C. M. H. Clark; Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, editors Nairn and Serle; letters from Mr L. Fiy to author; letter and conversations with Mr T. O. Davis to author; conversations with Mr J. Armstrong, vice-president Coburg Historical Society; Victorian Parliamentary Li­ brary; Performing Arts Museum, Victoria Centre for the Arts.

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REPORT BY MARK CHIPPERFIELD nglish boin duecloi Simon r.irget (the sec­ ond 1l" is silent) had a bi llliant idea 101 a lowbudget thriller set in the Australian desert and a brother working as a film financier in I ondon. The i est, he thought, would be a piece of cake.

Wrong. Everyone seemed to like his off-beat script about violence and born-again Christians, but the po­ tential backers invariably melted away at the last moment. The Sydney-based Target recalls: :

E

It was like hot and cold Nazi watei torture One minute a potential distributor would love the script and promise a deal. then, the next morning someone in the s\ stem would nuke it and we'd be back when we started ■',!

Target, with the help of his brother, eventually struck a $2.3 million funding deal with the Film Finance ( orporation, and Film I oui International and Itel in the UK. I ndei the financing agi eement, the FFI, which has a 65 per cent share in the pi ojec t, 1 etains telev ision rights, while Itel will handle world-wide distribution.

Shooting was completed in South Australia in early December 1990, and Electric Pictures has guaranteed a theatrical release throughout the UK in July 1991. The Australian release is scheduled for later in the year.

Given the state of the film industry, both in Austra­ lia and the UK, 1ai get says that he is amazed how little time it took to get Backsliding into production: Wewereverylucky. Wewrote, financed and shot Backsliding in not much more than a year, a record time foi most

MAIN PICS TOP TO BOTTOM- TOM WHITTON (TIM ROTH), A CYNICAL ENGLISHMAN WHO HAS LIED TO GET THE JOB O tJ

CHRISTIANS ALISON TYSON (ODI1E LE CLEZIO) TALKS ABOUT HERSELF TO TOM, WHOM SHE HOPES WILL BECOME

Having a London-based venture capitalist for a brother was an important factor in getting the finance together, but Target attributes the smooth-running of the shoot to his Australian producer Sue Wild: Sue, who spec ializes in helping new direc tors get started, surrounded me with a no-hassle crew who had a lot of experience and who worked with horrific efficiency. I was terrified of sleeping in, in case I arrived late and found they’d shot the whole thing without me.

Ihe 28-year-old 1argot also has nice things to say about his English lead, Tim Roth (Rosencrantz and Guildenstem art Dead, Tin Cook Tht ThiefHis Wife & Her Lover), an actoi with a reputation for being difficult on the set “In reality, Tim’s very professional and full of good ideas”, he said.

Backsliding also stars Odile Le Clezio, Jim Holt and Ross McGregor.

This film is Target’s first full-length feature. Most of his previous experience had been gained making documentaries for Australian and British television. It was while researching a programme for BBC television in Yustralia that 1arget hit on the idea of making a film about a foreignei stuck in a remote place, surrounded by people he couldn’t get on with: I was stranded on a property in far-west Queensland for two weeks waiting foi the mail plane to take me home. Ihe manager took a dislike to my Englishness and chased me around with his rifle - a game he called hunt the Pom’.

Target plans to take Backsliding to Cannes in May. The energetic young diiectoi has already been ap­ proached by a number of Ymei ic an pi oduc ers, but says he is also interested in developing the potential for more co-productions with the UK. '«¡L

HER FRIEND.AUSON TENDS THE SUNBURNT SKIN O F ^ h | HUSBAND (JIM HOLT) AFTER HE HAS SPENT MANY HOURS IN THE DESERT UPPER RIGHT TOM AND ALISON LOOK ON IN DISBELIEF AS THE PASTOR'S PLANE CRASHES. SIMONl TARGET S BACKSUDING LOWER RIGHT THE CREW FILMS

IS AT THE CAMERA ON THE LEFT, DIRECTOR OF PHOTO­ GRAPHY TOM COWAN WITH THE HAND-HELD CAMERA ON RIGHT. DIRECTOR SIMON TARGET UES ON THE GROUND

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CLAUS VON BULOW (JEREMY IRONS) COMFORTS SUNNY (GLENN CLOSE) AFTER HER FIRST, INEXPLICABLE LAPSE INTO COMA. BARBET SCHROEDER'S REVERSAL OF FORTUNE. S B

TH E MOR NING OF B 7 DECEMBER 1980, SUNNY VON BULOW, M B I L L I O N AI R E , A C T IV E jSOC I A L IT E fAND W I F E 6

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TO A H O S P I T A L , SH E L A P S E D I N T O A D E E P C O M At FRO M W H IC H S H E H AS YET T% R ECO V ER ,

"One thing that amuses me is that, remembered as the fictional Von B

unny’s son, Alex, and daughter, Ala, as well as her faithful chambermaid, Maria, are extremely suspicious of Claus. They hire private detectives to look into the matter. One year earlier Sunny had lapsed into a coma as sudden and inexplicable as this one, but had recovered. Now, they want to prove that Claus has been trying to m urder Sunny for a long time, with injections of insulin.

Brought to trial under a barrage of m edia attention, Claus Von Bülow is found guilty of m urder in 1982. He immediately enrols the services of Alan Dershowitz, a star lawyer known for his defence of helpless cases, and who, until then, has specialized in destitute defendants. Against all expectations, Dershowitz takes the case and, in less than a year, manages to accomplish the almost impossible: he and his crew of law students reverse Von Bülow’s case. Again amidst a veri table mediafrenzy, Claus Von Bülow marches out of the Rhode Island Supreme Court a free, innocent man.

This real-life meoldrama, rich with social, legal, political and amorous implications, finds in Barbet Schroeder’s film, Reversal of Fortune, a truly memorable portrait. Jerm ey Irons, impeccable and subtle, plays a mephistophelic Claus Von Bülow, for whom “inncn cence” is too vague aword. (In one key scene, Dershowitz, admirably played by that most underrated American actor, Ron Silver, defines his client’s conundrum : “Legally, Claus, you’re a free, innocent man. Morally, though, you’re on your own.”) Glenn Close, finetuned like a superb violin, is a desperate, manic-depressive Sunny, who, in the most outrageous narrative device since Sunset Boulevard, narrates her own dram a from her coma bed.

Passionately attuned with Nick Kazan’s magnificent screenplay, Barbet Schroeder paints his material with larger-than-life strokes* deftly employing three distinct narrative styles to construct what he calls “a puzzle”: W ho’s innocent and guilty? Whose love is lost?

W ho’s morally responsible for whom?

Produced by Oliver Stone, Reversal of Fortune is Schroeder’s second American film, and the first after Barfly. Born in Teheran in 1941 of German parents, and raised between South America and Europe, Schroeder defines himself as “someone who is at home everwhere - and nowhere. There is no place in the world that I can say I come from .”

S

The Claus Von Billow case was, at least in the U.S., an extremely wellknown - in fact, over-publicized - affair. Were you concerned that this could affect your vision o f the story, or the public reaction to it?

No. For me the fact that it’s known is not really important. In every movie I ’ve done, I have dealt with real characters. All the heroes in my movies existed in reality. The only difference here is that they were actually having their own names.

W hen I make a movie, I have to hope that it is not only good enough for me, but good enough to be playing twenty years from now. By then, the public will have forgotten completely the real characters and it will have to stand on its feet.

One thing that amuses me is that, twenty years from now, if Von Bulow is rem em bered, he will be rem em bered as the fictional Von Bulow of the movie, not as the real person.

What interested you more in this: the moral dilemma, the courtroom drama or the whodunit?

Well, many things ... many things. The main elem ent was the fact that it was written by Nick Kazan. I d o n ’t think I would have done it if this subject had been written by somebody I didn’t admire as much as Nick.

The other thing, of course, is the story itself. In 1981,1was trying to make Barfly, and I started doing something that I had never done

, twenty years from now, if Von Biilow is remembered, he will be Billow of the movie, not as the real person.”

before, which is to collect clippings. But there was something about this case which was interesting to me, partly because I knew a little bit about that world.

However, once I had cut those things out, I decided there was no way a movie could be done about it because how could you have Von Bùlow as a hero? So, I gave up on the idea of a movie. Then later, when Nick was doing the screenplay, I saw he was taking the direction of having the lawyer as the hero. T hat was a brilliant idea and the only way o f en terin g the story.

There were other reasons, too, such as discovering how the legal process works outside o f the courtroom . For me, one movie that is absolutely great is O tto Prem inger’s Anatomy of a Murder. It was part of my wanting to make movies at the time. So I said, “Okay, now we’re going to do an Anatomy, the same thing about the law, but outside the courtroom .” Anatomy of a Murderis the best courtroom drama I’ve seen. And all the criminal lawyers who have seen the movie said it is the first movie that was honest to their work.

Otherwise when they see Hollywood movies they scream; they d o n ’t recognize the way they work at all.

Did you ever meet Von Biilow?

No. I had such a precise idea o f the character that I was afraid that in meeting him I ’d be disappointed or have another idea to the one in my mind, or I would suddenly decide that this m an was absolutely innocent of everything. In that case, there would be no movie! Why make a movie about som eone unjustly accused?

Has Von Biilow expressed an opinion on the making o f the movie?

I don’t know even if he has seen the movie, because h e ’s been in London all this time and there has only been one or two screenings in London. But I know he wasn’t there.

How did you come to the conclusion that Jeremy Irons was the actor to play Von Biilow?

It is quite simple. Normally to cast Von Biilow, you would imagine someone Germanic. If you took a poll in America and asked people who is Von Biilow, they would say, “Well, h e’s some bad Germ an.”

There is this cliché o f the bad, nasty German. Yet when I started looking into Von Bùlow’s life, I discovered he had come to London at the age of seven. T hat started me thinking: maybe we can use this British ambiguity and play him as somebody who is trying to be British instead of some Germ an aristocrat. O f course, as soon as you open that door, you come to the greatest British actor alive, Jeremy Irons.

I think it was the most incredible injustice that he d idn’t get nominated for Dead Ringers. T h atfo r me was a historic performance.

Whatkind o f vision did you have o f VonBulow? Did you direct Irons to play him as this cool, detached, aloof, cynical man?

I wrote a poem about the character o f Von Bùlow, describing the traits that were essential to the character. It was done in the first person, as Von Bùlow would describe himself. At one point he speaks of him self as a free spirit, a libertine or libertin in the French tradition o f the 18th Century. Ultimately, nothing for him had any importance - you know, like a true aristocrat. From that point on we discovered slowly who was the character. > LEFT: ON CLAUS VON BULOW: "MAYBE WE CAN ... PLAY HIM AS SOMEBODY W HO IS TRYING TO BE BRITISH INSTEAD OF SOME GERMAN ARISTOCRAT. OF COURSE, AS SOON AS YOU OPEN THAT DOOR, YOU COME TO THE GREATEST BRITISH ACTOR ALIVE, JEREMY IRONS." RIGHT: ON SUNNY V O N BULOW: "TO MAKE THAT PERSON COME ALIVE ...

DEMANDS A DEVASTATING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS SO ... W HO ARE THE BEST ACTRESSES IN AMERICA TODAY? WE WERE LUCKY GLENN CLOSE SAID YES." CINEMA

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BARBET SCHROEDER

BELOW: CLAUS AND SUNNY: "BASICALLY, THE MOVIE IS A PUZZLE." FACING PAGE: CLAUS VON BÙLOW'S BRILLIANT ATTORNEY, ALAN DERSHOWITZ (RON SILVER), WITH AN ASSOCIATE (ANNABELLA SCIORRA). REVERSAL OF FORTUNE.

I

I only “directed” Jerem y when he was doing som ething out of character, which d id n ’t happen very often. To give you an example, Jerem y has a natural tendency to walk in a very nonchalant way; h e ’s very soft and you can see his niceness when he walks down a street.

He has a w andering sort of walk. Now, we were shooting this scene where Claus is walking down a street and I said, “No, no, no. It has to be a military walk. You have to be somehow military, with an internal discipline that shows.”

Most of the time, though, Jerem y had it all figured out and he delivered an amazing perform ance.

What about casting Glenn Close as Sunny - a tricky part, since she narrates the film from her coma bed - and Ron Silver as Von Billow’s attorney, Dershowitz?

The Sunny Von Bulow part was very, very difficult. To make that person come alive on screen, to make you feel for that person, dem ands a devastating perform ance by an actress. So, in a sense, it was simple. Who are the best actresses in America today? We were lucky Glenn Close said yes.

Now for Ron Silver, we considered many possibilities but in the end he really was the best, the one with the most energy. At one point, we could have gone and m ade the movie without him - we had all the m oney - but we decided we ’d wait the three m onths until he was free. He really was the best solution.

Your film actually looks like three films rolled into one, with three distinctive narrative voices and styles. Can you explain that a littie?

Basically, the movie is a puzzle, and it has three different styles or main elem ents o f narration. O ne p artis the present, the immediacy of life - th a t’s the lawyer Dershowitz with his students and Von Biilow. At this level you shouldn’t feel that you’re watching a movie; it should be like life. T h a t’s the idea, the style.

Now, there is an o th er level which is what people would call 38

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flashbacks, which are set in the past, in Clarendon [the Von Bülows’ m anor in Newport], with different versions of what happened. Now, I d o n ’t call them flashbacks, I call them movies - M aria’s movies, Von Bülow’s movies. W hoever is narrating has a theory about what happened in the past.

At this level, I wanted the audience to feel that they were at the movies, that they were in the m iddle of a fiction. So you have film music like in the old Hollywood movies. You never have that in the rest of the film, where the music is always source music; it feels like it’s part of life and n ot com ing from the sky or from the speakers in the back of the theatre. At this level, the cam era m ovem ent is always dramatic, n o t always justified by the m ovem ent of the actors.

You really should have the feel­ ing that you are in the movies and, as reference, I used the melodram as of the 1950s.

The third style is Sunny narrating. We had Sunny narrating because we wanted to be as close as possible to her. W hen you read the news about the case in the paper, she was always left out. In the movie, we wanted to be close to h er and discover what really happened in this marriage that was falling apart. So we have h er narrating the story.

Now, she’s narrating from a coma. T hat means, m ore or less, we can imagine h er soul is floating in the room. T hat gave me the idea of this hovering camera, constantly moving about and very often high up. In the opening shots, you have the shot from the helicopter that actually represents this soul of Sunny floating around. Even when you enter the hospital, it’s always floating a little above the scene. So, the third style is a little surreal.

In a sense, you are blending the styles o f a fiction film and a documentary, and you have done both in your career. Where do you draw the line between documentaries and fiction?

I did a docum entary on Idi Amin Dada that was actually fiction, b ut the fiction was created by Idi Amin Dada. It was a self-portrait we improvised together and whatever fiction there was was introduced by the character who was the subject of the documentary.

Now, I’ve done only two docum entaries and six feature films, so my field is mostly features, but I try to introduce fiction in the docum entary and docum entary in the fiction.

For me, every great fiction movie has a docum entary in it. This is what André Bazin, the great theoretician of film, once said. Even if you have a movie that takes place in a studio with one actor talking, this becomes a docum entary on an actor doing his m onologue.

I ’m excited by the things that come from life and n o t from the im agination of a screenplay writer, because life is always better. O f course, when it’s n ot properly dram atized, it can becom e very boring and needs some editing. But the inspiration comes from life, yes, always.

“ For me, every great fiction movie has a documentary in it. This is what André Bazin, the great theoretician of film, once said. Even if you have a movie that takes place in a studio with one actor talking, this becomes a documentary on an actor doing his monologue.”

Which o f your eight films is the most personal for you?

h e ’s an incredible lesson and an incredible source of joy for me.

Very frankly, I would say none of them is personal except maybe the first [More, 1969]. O ne always says that the first book or first film is slightly autobiographical, but I d o n ’t consider my films personal in the sense that I ’m n o t talking about myself. I ’m ju st curious about exploring various subjects through movies and through drama.

Was it especially challenging or refreshing, coming from a film that dealt with the low-life, Barfly, to do a film like Reversal of Fortune, concerned mainly with the high life?

Is that the reason why you studied philosophy?

No, merely because that was the most interesting thing. I still read a lot of philosophy, but I d id n ’t go very far at university because it looked too m uch like school. I thought it was going to be different, b ut it wasn’t. I was m ore interested in movies and actually I left - for India. I was supposed to be pre-production assistant for Fritz Lang, b ut it d id n ’t work out because the film was cancelled. I ended up doing some photographs instead - and this was when I was supposed to be in university. So, you see, I was m ore interested in movies.

Did any filmmaker in particular influence your work or your deci­ sion to become a filmmaker?

Influence, I d o n ’t know. I know people I like, but I d o n ’t know if they have influenced me. Maybe Rossellini is the only one that can almost talked of as an influence. And I ’m not the only one: all the French New Wave comes out of Rossellini. And I’m not the French New Wave. I’m like the post-New Wave, but still Rossellini is there. And also Nicholas Ray, who was a close friend of mine.

I started looking at movies at the age of fourteen and something very interesting happened: I knew m ore about the work of Raoul Walsh and Howard Hawks and Minnelli than about Shakespeare. I had to catch up with the rest of the culture later. But I discovered the world through cinem a and mostly through the great classical Ameri­ can cinema.

I was very happy because the idea was to be able to show, hopefully, that the hum an misery is everywhere, that the hum an condition is everywhere. O f course, there is the line in Barflydbout “nobody suffers like the po o r”, but s till... the failure of a marriage ... the failure of a life. You can always identify with Von Billow and Sunny when they are arguing in bed - the heart of that argum ent you can find in the middle class, in the poor people, everywhere. The misery is still there.

Earlier in this conversation you said that you knew something o f the world in which the Von Billows live. How is this world? Is it true, as Scott Fitzgerald said, that the rich are different?

I think there is a curse on them. There are people who are extremely rich and work twelve hours a day, who care about their work, but I’m talking about the idle rich. And, yes, there is some kind of curse because they end up not having to pay for anything. I’m using an excessive formula, but there is some truth to this. And so a drama there can take more tragic overtones.

If you look at the story of the daughter of Onassis, for example, you find out thatjust because she had all that money you have a little extra tragedy and a little extra dram a that enters her life when things go wrong. And the one thing that you know is that things somehow do go wrong sometimes. There is an elem ent of self-destruction because they d o n ’t have to fight for survival. They sometimes end up using that energy against themselves instead of using it for survival.

You are an extremely cosmopolitan filmmaker. Where is it easier, better, to work: Europe or America?

Is Charles Bukowski high on your list o f references?

O h yes, sure. H e ’s been a major influence in my life and h e ’s a very dear friend. I will always try to be as close as possible to him because

The Americans are more serious and more professional and Ameri­ can actors know their lines better. T hat’s basically the difference in general, of course. Otherwise, cinema is an international lan­ guage. There is no real differ­ ence between making a movie here or there. You always need a camera. You always need an actor. You always need a story.

F I L M O G R A P H Y

AS DIRECTOR 1969 More 1971 Sing-Sing (documentary) 1972 La Valée 1974 General ldi Amin Dada (documentary) 1976 Maîtresse 1978 Koko a Talking Gorilla 1987 Barfly 1990 Reversal ofFortune AS PRODUCER 1965 Paris Vu Par...

1966 La Collectioneuse 1969 Ma Nuit chez Maud (co-producer) 1970 Le Genou de Claire 1973 Celine etJulie vont en Bateau CINEMA

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-

Pure Virtue It is virtually real but is it cinemaft

he apocalypse-sodden last “Technicalities” was influenced by my attend­ ance at the Ausgraph 90 show. The Australian Computer Graphics Association ’s bi-annual event was biased in emphasis this year to creative image creation. This was in contrast to the probably more substantial areas of Computer Aided De­ sign (CAD) and manufacturing.

In the conference papers, there were still sizable dollops of (to me) arcane subjects such as “A Topology of Visualization Algorithms in the Volume and Surface Domains” and “Boolean Operations on Boundary Representations of Solids Using n-Manifold Geometry”, but the ma­ jority of overseas guests was interested in the presentation of graphics and film as art or enter­ tainment. The hand of the tireless Paul Brown (ex-Swinburne, now RMIT) was also evident in a season at the State Film Centre of the best com­ puter film and video features and documentaries.

With exhibitions, art installations and per­ formances around the city by people such as Jill Scott, it was obvious that soon we are going to have to face a few new issues in our narrow definition of cinema.

The first is, I venture: Is projected video cinema? Are we too precious about our definition (and our “Cinema”Papers?). If we are, something has to change in how we approach the work of the computer-graphics artists because the issue is

T

upon us. High-resoludon computer graphics are not video as we use the term in talking about television. They can use a number of display mediums, such as video projectors, and are suc­ cessfully being transferred to high-resoludon film.

(Tin Toywon an Oscar in 1988, and Oscars are for film, aren’t they?). This has meant that computer generation of images has become a truly alter­ native form of production for cinemas.

Does “cinema” mean sitting in the dark in a theatre watching a large (projected) screen im­ age in the company of more people than you could fit in your living room? Or is itjust as much the video projector in the Gallery at Davidjones showing the work of William Latham to a crowd of shoppers sitdng on the carpet floor?

3-D (as in two-dimensional representadon of solid objects, not “stereo 3-D” ) computer images represent the first form of modon animadon that doesn’t use the camera as an essendal part of the process of translating frame-by-frame-created im­ ages into motion. Drawing direcdy on film is another moth-to-the-light argument that is talked about in the Can trills piece below; itjust confuses the issues, whether you use sdcky-tape or a laser.

And the quality of these fabricated images is approaching Realism or at least Photo-realism, while simultaneously diverging into other realides of their own making (again the example of Bill Latham’s Hornweb sculptures come to mind).

The backstage gossip of the guest speakers from

Los Angeles was about a new mega-million dollar George Lucas feature that was going to use “a lot” of computer-generated images. Scott Anderson from Industrial Light & Magic showed his computerworkon the water creature for TheAbyss and made it sound deceptively easy, explaining how they created a realistic image of the water crea­ ture in a relatively short time after several at­ tempts to use conventional special effects failed to produce successful results.

It will not remain the domain of sciencefiction genre films. It will provide a number of creative ‘special effect’ film images and, if a high­ brow definition of its acceptance as cinema re­ quires it, it is already very moving Art. SC U LPTIN G CINEM A

The role of the Computer Graphics Artist-inResidence has been an enlightened and accepted tradition with the big companies involved in com­ puter research. William Latham experimented with print-making and hand-drawn animation in 1984while at the Royal College ofArt, and evolved a set of rules that defined sculptural transforma­ tions from geometric primitives (cone, sphere, cube, cylinder and torus). These are the basic building blocks for computer modelling, a reali­ zation not lost on Latham when he saw scientific computer images in journals from SIGGRAPH. He had tried to sculpt in plastic and wood some of his evolutionary images, but found the process slow and restricting. In computers he found a way to work at great speed as the computer is a tireless construction slave capable of carrying out thou­ sands, even millions, of sculpting operations. It will work all day, all night and all weekend executing the sculptures. 'i

A Research Fellowship at the IBM UK Scien­ tific Centre in 1987 has led to the final results that were shown at Ausgraph 90. Latham’s The Con­ quest of Form is a feast of movement and mathe­ matics that shift from recognizable surfaces, tex­ tures and organic forms to impossible Escher-like twists of perception. Latham acknowledges his interest in Alien and Aliens, the Gothic qualities in Heavy Metal music, and the work of the Surreal­ ists and Russian Constructivists, all ofwhich shows in his work. But it doesn’t mean that he is trying to recreate reality; in fact, he says, “The machine has given me freedom to explore and create complex three-dimensional forms which previ­ ously had not been accessible to me, as they had been beyond my imagination.”

His aim, he states, Is not to simulate or copy natural forms such as bacteria, viruses, orchids, starfish, sea anemones and lobsters which I have seen in great detail in scientific journals, but to create forms that do not exist in the real world. My-interest in natural forms

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ISSUES:

CINEMA

PAPERS

NUMBER 1 (JANUARY 1974):

NUMBER 60 (NOVEMBER 1986)

David Williamson, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Weir, Antony Ginnanc, Gillian Armstrong, Ken G. Hall, The Cars that Ate Paris.

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

NUMBER 2 (APRIL 1974):

NUMBER 61 (JANUARY 1987)

Censorship, Frank Moorhouse, Nicolas Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under Allende, Between The Wars, Alvin Purple

Alex Cox, Roman Polanski, Philippe Mora, Martin Armiger, film in South Australia, Dogs In Space, Howling III.

NUMBER 3 (JULY 1974):

NUMBER 62 (MARCH 1987)

Richard Brennan, John Papadopolous, Willis O ’Brien, William Friedkin, The True Story O f Eskimo Nell.

Screen Violence, David Lynch, Cary Grant, ASSA conference, production barometer, film finance, The Story O f The Kelly Gang.

NUMBER 10 (SEPT/OCT 1976)

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

NUMBER 63 (M AY 1987)

Gillian Armstrong, Antony Ginnane, Chris Haywood, Elmore Leonard, Troy Kennedy Martin, The Sacrifice, Landslides, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Jilted.

NUMBER 11 (JANUARY 1977)

Emile De Antonio, Jill Robb, Samuel Z. ArkofF, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The Picture Show Man. NUMBER 12 (APRIL 1977)

Ken Loach, Tom Haydon, Donald Sutherland, Bert Deling, Piero Tosi, John Dankworth, John Scott, Days O f Hope, The Getting O f Wisdom.

NUMBER 13 ( JULY 1977)

Louis Malle, Paul Cox, John Power, Jeanine Seawell, Peter Sykes, Bernardo Bertolucci, In Search O f Anna.

NUMBER 14 (OCTOBER 1977)

Phil Noyce, Matt Carroll, Eric Rohmer, Terry Jackman, John Huston, Luke’s Kingdom, The Last Wave, Blue Fire Lady.

NUMBER 15 (JANUARY 1978)

Tom Cowan, Francois Truffaut, John Faulkner, Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri Lankan cinema, T he Irishman, The Chant O f Jimmie Blacksmith.

NUMBER 16 ( APRIL-JUNE 1978)

Gunnel Lindblom, John Duigan, Steven Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa Project, Swedish cinema, Dawn!, Patrick.

NUMBER 17 (AUG/SEPT 1978)

Bill Bain, Isabelle Huppert, Brian May, Polish cinema, Newsfront, The Night The Prowler.

NUMBER 27 (JUNE-JULY 1980)

NUMBER 47 (AUGUST 1984)

Randal Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald Richie, obituary of Hitchcock, NZ film industry, G rendel Grendel Grendel.

Richard Lowenstein, Wim Wenders, David Bradbury, Sophia Turkiewicz, Hugh Hudson, Robbery Under Arms.

NUMBER 28 (AUG/SEPT 1980)

NUMBER 48 (O CT/NO V 1984)

Bob Godfrey, Diane Kurys, Tim Burns, John O’Shea, Bruce Beresford, Bad Timing, Roadgames.

Ken Cameron, Michael Pattinson, Jan Sardi, Yoram Gross, Bodyline, The Slim Dusty Movie.

NUMBER 29 (O CT/NO V 1980)

NUMBER 49 (DECEMBER 1984)

Bob Ellis, Uri Windt, Edward Woodward, Lino Brocka, Stephen Wallace, Philippine cinema, Cruising, The Last Outlaw.

Alain Resnais, Brian McKenzie, Angela Punch McGregor, Ennio Morricone, Jane Campion, horror films, Niel Lynne.

NUMBER 36 (FEBRUARY 1982)

NUMBER 50 (FEB/MARCH 1985)

Kevin Dobson, Brian Kearney, Sonia Hofmann, Michael Rubbo, Blow Out, Breaker Morant, Body Heat, The Man From Snowy River.

Stephen Wallace, Ian Pringle, Walerian Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti, Brian May, The Last Bastion, Bliss.

NUMBER 37 (APRIL 1982)

Lino Brocka, Harrison Ford, Noni Hazlehurst, Dusan Makavejev, Emoh Ruo, Winners, The Naked Country, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Robbery Under Arms.

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

NUMBER 38 (JUNE 1982)

Geoff Burrowes, George Miller, James Ivory, Phil Noyce, Joan Fontaine, Tony Williams, law and insurance, Far East.

NUMBER 39 (AUGUST 1982)

NUMBER 18 (O CT/NO V 1978)

Helen Morse, Richard Mason, Anja Breien, David Millikan, Derek Granger, Norwegian cinema, National Film Archive, We O f The Never Never.

John Lamond, Sonia Borg, Alain Tanner, Indian cinema, Dimboola, Cathy’s Child.

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER 1982)

NUMBER 19 (JAN/FEB 1979)

Antony Ginnane, Stanley Hawes, Jeremy Thomas, Andrew Sarris, sponsored documentaries, Blue Fin.

Henri Safran, Michael Ritchie, Pauline Kael, Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, My Dinner With Andre, The Return Of Captain Invincible.

NUMBER 41 (DECEMBER 1982)

NUMBER 20 (MARCH-APRIL 1979)

Ken Cameron, Claude Lelouch, Jim Sharman, French cinema, My Brilliant Career.

Igor Auzins, Paul Schrader, Peter Tammer, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins, The Tear O f Living Dangerously.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH 1983)

NUMBER 22 (JULY/AUG 1979)

Bruce Petty', Lueiana Arrighi, Albie Thoms, Stax, Alison’s Birthday

Mel Gibson, John Waters, Ian Pringle, Agnes Varda, copyright, Strikebound, The Man From Snowy River.

NUMBER 24 (DEC/JAN 1980)

NUMBER 43 (MAY/JUNE 1983)

Brian Trenchard-Smith, Ian Holmes, Arthur Hiller, Jerzy Toeplitz, Brazilian cinema, Harlequin.

Sydney Pollack, Denny Lawrence, Graeme Clifford, The Dismissal, Careful He Might Hear You.

NUMBER 25 (FEB/MARCH 1980)

NUMBER 44-45 (APRIL 1984)

David Puttnam, Janet Strickland, Everett de Roche, Peter Faiman, Chain Reaction, Stir.

David Stevens, Simon Wincer, Susan Lambert, a personal history of Cinema Papers, Street Kids.

NUMBER 26 (APRIL/MAY 1980)

NUMBER 46 (JULY 1984)

Charles H. Joffe, Jerome Heilman, Malcolm Smith, Australian nationalism, Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, Water Under The Bridge.

Paul Cox, Russell Mulcahy, Alan J. Pakula, Robert Duvall, Jeremy Irons, Eureka Stockade, Waterfront, The Boy In The Bush,A Woman Suffers, Street Hero.

NUMBER 51 (M AY 1985)

NUMBER 52 (JULY 1985)

John Schlesinger, Gillian Armstrong, Alan Parker, soap operas, TV News, film advertising, Don’t Call Me Girlie, For Love Alone, Double Sculls.

NUMBER 53 (SEPTEMBER 1985)

Bryan Brown, Nicolas Roeg, Vincent Ward, Hector Crawford, Emir Kusturica, New Zealand film and television, Return To Eden.

NUMBER 54 (NOVEMBER 1985)

Graeme Clifford, Bob Weis, John Boorman, Menahem Golan, rock videos, Wills And Burke, The Great Bookie Robbery, The Lancaster Miller Affair.

NUMBER 55 (JANUARY 1986)

James Stewart, Debbie Byrne, Brian Thompson, Paul Verhoeven, Derek Meddings, tie-in marketing, The RightHand Man, Birdsville.

NUMBER 56 (MARCH 1986)

Fred Schepisi, Dennis O’Rourke, Brian Trenchard-Smith, John Hargreaves, DeadEnd Drive-In, The More Things Change, Kangaroo, Tracy.

NUMBER 58 (JULY 1986)

Woody Allen, Reinhard Hauff, Orson Welles, the Cinémathèque Française, The Fringe Dwellers, Great Expectations: The Untold Story, The Last Frontier.

NUMBER 64 (JULY 1987)

Nostalgia, Dennis Hopper, Mel Gibson, Vladimir Osherov, Brian TrenchardSmith, Chartbusters, Insatiable.

NUMBER 65 (SEPTEMBER 1987)

Angela Carter, Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Derek Jarman, Gerald L’Ecuyer, Gustav Hasford, AFI Awards, Poor Man’s Orange.

NUMBER 66 (NOVEMBER 1987)

Australian Screenwriters, Cinema and China, James Bond, James Clavden, Video, De Laurentiis, New World, The Navigator, Who’s That Girl.

NUMBER 67 (JANUARY 1988)

John Duigan, George Miller, Jim Jarmusch, Soviet cinema- Part I, women in film, shooting in 70mm, filmmaking in Ghana, The Tear My Voice Broke, Send A Gorilla.

NUMBER 68 (MARCH 1988)

Martha Ansara, Channel 4, Soviet Cinema Part II, Jim McBride, Glamour, nature cinematography, Ghosts O f The Civil Dead, Feathers, Ocean, Ocean.

NUMBER 69 (M AY 1988)

Special Cannes issue, film composers, sex, death and family films, Vincent Ward, Luigi Acquisto, David Parker, production barometer, Ian Bradley, Pleasure Domes.

NUMBER 70 (NOVEMBER 1988)

Film Australia, Gillian Armstrong, Fred Schepisi, Wes Craven, John Waters, AJ Clark, Shame Screenplay Part I. NUMBER 71 (JANUARY 1989)

Yahoo Serious, FFC, David Cronenberg, The Year in Retrospect, Film Sound - the sound track, Toung Einstein, Shout, The Last Temptation of Christ, Salt Saliva Sperm and Sweat NUMBER 72 (MARCH 1989)

Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit, Australian Sci-Fi movies, Survey: 1988 Mini-Series, AromSrama, Ann Turner’s Celia, Fellini’s La dolce vita, Women and Westerns NUMBER 73 (M AY 1989)

Cannes Issue, Phil Noyce’s Dead Calm, Franco Nero, Jane Campion, Ian Pringle’s The Prisoner of St. Petersburg, Frank Pierson - Scriptwriter, Australian films at Cannes, Pay TV. NUMBER 74 (JULY 1989)

NUMBER 59 (SEPTEMBER 1986)

Robert Altman, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka, Agnes Varda, The AFI Awards, The Movers.

The Delinquents, Australians in Holly­ wood, Chinese Cinema, Philippe Mora, Yuri Sokol, Twins, True Believers, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, Shame screenplay.

FILMVIEWS

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LIMITED NUMBER o f the beautifully designed catalogues especially prepared for the 1988 season of Australian film and television at the UCLA film and television archive in the U.S. are now available for sale in Australia. Edited by Scott Murray, and with exten­

sively researched articles by several of Australia’s leading writers on film and television, such as Kate Sands, Women of the Wave; Ross Gibson, Formative Landscapes; Debi Enker, Cross-over and Collaboration: Kennedy Miller, Scott Murray, George Miller, Scott Murray, Terry Hayes; Graeme Turner, M ixing Fact and Fiction; NUMBER 123 AUTUM N 1985

NUMBER 131 A UTUM N 1987

The 1984 Women’s Film Unit, The Films ofSolrun Hoaas, Louise Webb, Scott Flicks, Jan Roberts

Richard Lowenstein, New Japanese Cinema, Ken Russell, Taking a Film Production Overseas, Richard Chatavvay and Michael Cusack

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

The Back of Beyond Catalogue is lavishly illustrated with more

NUMBER 124 WINTER 1985

Films for Workers, Merata Mita, Len Lye, Marleen Gorris, Daniel Petrie, Larry' Meltzer

NUMBER 132 WINTER 1987

than 130 photographs, indexed, and has full credit listings for

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

some 80 films.

PRICE:

NUMBER 125 SPRING 1985

Rod Webb, Marleen Gorris, Ivan Gaal, Red Matildas, Sydney Film Festival NUMBER 126 SUMMER 1985/86

The Victorian Women’s Film Unit, Randelli’s, Laleen Jayamanne, Lounge Room Rock, The Story of Oberhausen

NUMBER 133 SPRING 1987

Wim Wenders, Solveig Dommartin, The Films of Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Michelangelo Antonioni, Wendy Thompson, Michael Lee, Jonathan Dennis, Super 8

The Catalogue price is $24.95, which includes postage and

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NUMBER 134 SUMMER 1987/88 NUMBER 127 AUTUM N 1986

AFTRS reviews, Jane Oehr, John Hughes, Melanie Read, Philip Brophy,Gyula Gazdag, Chile: Hasta Cuando?

Recent Australian Films, Film Music, Groucho’s Cigar, Jerzy Domaradzki, Hong Kong Cinema, The Films of Chris Marker, David Noakes, The Devil in the Flesh, How the West Was Lost

NUMBER 128 WINTER 1986

NUMBER 135 AUTUM N 1988

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

Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Ansara, New Chinese Cinema, Lindsay Anderson, Sequence Magazine, Cinema Italia, New Japanese Cinema, Fatal Attraction NUMBER 136 WINTER 1988

NUMBER 129 SPRING 1986

Reinhard Hauff, 1986 Sy'dney Film Festival, Nick Zedd, Tony Rayns, Australian Independent Film, Public Television in Australia, Super 8

Film Theory and Architecture, Victor Burgin, Horace Ove, Style Form and History' in Australian Mini Series, Blue Velvet, South of the Border, Cannibal Tours NUMBER 137 SPRING 1988

Sogo Ishii, Tom Haydon, Gillian Leahy, Tom Zubrycki, John Hanhardt, Australian Video Festival, Erika Addis, Ross Gibson, Super 8, Camera Natura

Hanif Kureishi, Fascist Italy and American Cinema, Gillian Armstrong, Atom Egoyan, Film Theory' and Architecture, Shame, Television Mini Series, Korean Cinema, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid ■

NUMBER 75 (SEPTEMBER 1989)

NUMBER 78 (MARCH 1990)

Sally Bongers, The Teen Movie, Animated, Edens Lost, Mary Lambert and Pet Sematary, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader, Ed Pressman.

George Ogilvie’s The Crossing, Ray Argali’s Return Home, Peter Greenaway and The Cook, Doe Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Michel Ciment, Jack Clayton, Bangkok Hilton and Barlow and Chambers

NUMBER 130 SUMMER 1986/87

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Cannes report, Fred Schepisi career interview, Peter Weir and Greencard, Pauline Chan, Gus Van Sant and Drugstore Cowboy, German Stories.

NUMBER 77 (JANUARY 1990)

NUMBER 81 (DECEMBER 1990)

Special John Farrow profile, Blood Oath, Dennis Whitburn and Brian Williams, Don McLennan and Breakaway, “Crocodile” Dundee overseas.

Ian Pringle Isabelle Eberhardt, Jane Campion An Angel A t My Table, Martin Scorsese Goodfellas, Alan J. Pakula Presumed Innocent ■

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NUMBER 76 (NOVEMBER 1989)

Simon Wincer and Qiiigley Down Under, Kennedy Miller, Terry Hayes, Bangkok Hilton, John Duigan, Flirting, Romero, Dennis Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland, Frank Howson, Ron Cobb.

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FACING PAGE: HORNWEB I, COMPUTER VIDEO IMAGE BY BILL LATHAM. RIGHT: SCENE FROM THE ABYSS, WITH WATER CREATURE DESIGNED

BY SCOTT ANDERSON.

from nature serves only as an inspirational depar­ ture point. Last year, for example, I produced a series of impossible double-coiled mushroom shell­ like forms which could not exist in nature.

This rejection of simulation of the real world was also the point of a number of other artists at Ausgraph. This has been a noticeable change in how the medium has matured. It seems that the time and expense of re-creating the visual density of photographic reality has become an end in itself, for some a dead end.

But, paradoxically, it is the realism of the visual cues of motion and surface textures that give the work of artists such as Bill Latham a fascinating quality. Some of the large, still Cibachrome images on display in Latham’s exhi­ bition are pumpkin-like sculptures, which he rec­ ognizes in the catalogue as developing from a fascination with Halloween pumpkins. There are just enough suggestions of the real object but these objects you know could not exist.

Latham thinks of the computer screen as, Being like the mirror in Alice through the Looking Glass, for it leads to another world, a world constructed by the imagination. What I find interesting about working in this computer space is that it is a world free from physical constraints such as gravity, mate­ rial resistance and time.

This freedom is also the attraction of the other graphics buzz-of-the-moment that was also the backstage talk at the Ausgraph show (and in a lot of the computer and science fan magazines recently), Virtual Reality. The hand-waving ex­ planation goes (gesture, gesture) like this: Put on your (eventually) lightweight helmet with the colour LCD display screens, one for each eye, and put your hands into your data-gloves, attach the body sensors to your legs and start your compu­ ter. Presented on the screen will be a true threedimensional representation of a room; as you turn your head, sensors will detect the movement and the computer will construct new views. Move your legs and you can move around the room and examine the objects in it, or look out the window.

There are many practical applications to in­ dustry: no more expensive three-dimensional car mock-ups as designers can construct hundreds of variations and everyone can walk around them with their helmets, sit in the driver’s seat and look at the dashboard layout; architects can take cli­ ents on a walk through the new building looking at the features, showing the room lighting condi­ tions for night and day, summer and winter. It is a useful, money saving and important application and development of the current 3D graphics technology. But wait, it gets better.

Now reach out your hand and the sensors in the glove will detect its position in space and let you pick up an object in the room, or turn the

door handle and step outside, start the prototype car you are sitting in and drive off. You can interact physically with the computer-generated world around you.

The applications quickly move from industry to entertainment and the hand waving becomes more frenetic. Imagine the ultimate video game where you can walk on alien landscapes, shoot the locals with your laser and smell them burn. If they unreasonably fight and hit you in the legs, those sensors stop working and you have to drag your­ self back to your space ship.

If the bulk of popular cinema is escapist entertainment, then this is a true alternative to watch. You could be Mel Gibson’s buddy helping clean up the town, or fly through your own Never Ever Ever Ending Story. What about interactive

porno movies? Here, just slip on this data-condom.

It is all possible: already the data glove is available in a limited form to replace the joystick with the Mattel/Nintendo games computers, and three-dimensional displays from video disk are selling well injapan. But it needs massive amounts of data and fast computers to make the “Virtual” Reality realistic enough to be even partly Virtual.

I am not even considering joining the Cyber fanatics, but I can smell the mildew on our insis­ tence on photographic reality presented on a flat, two-dimensional screen with Dolby stereo sur­ round sound (in selected theatres) as the best and cheapest way to tell an entertaining story.

There is a definite crackle of inevitability in the air about these developments.

(Film) Notes on Technology ith the next is­ sue of Cantrills Filmnotes, Arthur and Corinne will have been publishing their magazine for twenty years. In that time, they have covered that area of filmmaking and video that is ambiguously called “alternative”, “avant-garde”, “experimental” and “independent”. This is the work of both local and overseas film- and video­ makers, and has been an important part of main­ taining the links in an Australian film culture that is almost ignored by most magazines.

Just acknowledging the magazine’s impor­ tance is enough reason to mention it here, but, in keeping with my interest and the “Technicalities” brief, I am also considering the changes that the Cantrills have seen and their magazine has docu­ mented in the film and video technology of the avant-garde in that time.

The magazine appeared at the same time as the Super 8 format was replacing standard 8mm, but for the bulk of the film work 16mm still held its place. The changes since have been the demise of film stocks and print stocks, with very few changes in the production tools like cameras. It is

W

video that has understandably shown the most changes. The first mention of video and televi­ sion screen photographs in the magazine were from a 1 /4 ” reel-to-reel, black-and-white Akai portapak. That format has gone, along with reelto-reel 1 /2 ” and the “portapak” designation.

However, the coverage of video has been deter­ mined by the Cantrills’ reservations about the impact of the medium on that of film and some significant developments are only mentioned in passing.

As always, it is how technology changes the way we work that is the most interesting factor.

The following filmmakers and topics are selected from 54 issues of the magazine. I urge people to look at the back issues for a full examination of the many more artists than are mentioned here.

Space is the consideration for my selection of typical examples; the Cantrills know and men­ tioned many more.

In these conversations with the Cantrills, one of them would often start a comment and the other elaborate on it, as is often the case in the film work, so some of these comments are really a mix of them both.

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82

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41

LEFT: FRONT AND BACK COVERS OF CANTRILLS FILMNOTES, NO. I, MARCH 1971.

BELOW: IMAGE BY LEN LYE, "THE FATHER OF HAND-MADE FILM". REPRODUCED FROM CANTRILLS FILMNOTES, NO. 3, MAY 1971. RIGHT: IMAGES FROM LYNSEY MARTIN'S WHITEWASH, 1969-1973.

REPRODUCED FROM CANTRILLS FILMNOTES , NO. 16, DECEMBER 1973.

After giving screenings all over the world for more than twenty years, the amount of damage and scratching of prints is much less today than it was then.

It was the arrival of Xenon lamp Super 8 projectors (the Elmo was the most common) that changed the exhibition of Super 8. Instead of the small, dark image, now festivals could run a mix of the mediums and one could confuse the original Kodachrome images with a 16mm print. Corinne:

EXPANDING THE CINEM A

The Can trills’ motivation for the first issue of the magazine was partly to document the Expanded Cinema show, and, as the National Gallery of Victoria had neglected to print enough pro­ gramme notes to give to people who came to see it, to disseminate the notes in some form.

“Expanded Cinema” had been applied to many of the mixed-media events from the 1950s on. Film, music, dance, painting and sculpture were being combined in ‘events’, and film pro­ jection was being explored in work as diverse as Stan Vanderbeek’s Moviedromescreenings, and to the slicker and larger multi-screen presentations at the World Fairs and Expos.

The screenings took place in The Age gallery in February 1971. In a three-week period, the Cantrills drew from their earlier work in Can­ berra with projecting onto water and burning screens. It all had, as Corinne says, “Very much to do with analysing the nature of the film screen. It had all been done before but, unless you’ve seen it, it is one of those things that you have to do again for yourself.”

And a large audience did come to see a range of different film styles projected onto gauze, coneshaped, painted and rotating screens. A film called Eikonwas shown onto gold and silver screens, while Concert for Electric Jugs was an image of a boilingjug projected onto other boilingjugs, the real and projected steam mixing. The sessions concluded with a number of triptych films pre­ sented on a large screen from three non-interlocked projectors.

Slightly before this gallery screening, the Cantrills had begun regular Sunday screenings at a coffee lounge-art space called The Maze in Flinders Street. Mixes of media continued, such as the Videocinemapoetry night where poets such as Garrie Hutchinson and dancers like Benny Zable performed, competing with film projec­ tions (and often winning).

Arthur mentioned the contribution of Hugh McSpeddon, whose light shows and mixed film and slide projections made, he feels, a real contribution in Australia, especially his real­ time abstract images of light that originated from various optical devices. They rather nostalgically have connections back to 19th-Century magic lan­ terns and resonances that are sometimes very mov­ 42

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ing and quite thrilling to watch. Hugh is still work­ ing and refining, but doesn’t have as much chance to publicly perform.

Lynsey Martin was another person doing ambi­ tious multi-screen work that we documented.

HAND-MADE FILMS

Corinne then mentioned their abiding interested in hand-made films: When you think of the large number of people in Australia who are working with hand-made films, the variety of approaches, ideas, obsessions and techniques is phenomenal. There are very few coun tries in the world that have the body of in teresting hand-made work that we have in Australia.

It stretches back, Arthur believes, to Len Lye, who was a New Zealander but studied animation in Sydney in the 1920s. He was really the father of hand-made film.

In the hand-made film issue, we had everyone from a chemist Terry Turney working with Andrew Pike on chemical action on film emulsion to par­ ticular things that Albie Thoms and Aggy Read where doing in Sydney. Overseas we mentioned the work of Harry Smith and, of course, Stan Brakhage with Mothlight, where he sticky-taped insect wings and flower petals to the film.

It continues today with the work of people like Marcus Berger, who is writing on film with such skill. It really is a form of calligraphy and attracts me because it is low-tech and an extension of the body and the ways of working with film.

PROJECTION

In the presentation of independent films, Arthur believes that the standards of projection have always been pretty arbitrary, with a cavalier atti­ tude in many places. And that isjust single-screen; three-screen projection compounds the prob­ lem. He pointed out an incident at the recent Experimen ta Film festival presen tation of a French two-screen: We had seen the work earlier in Berlin and it was a total mess-up at the State Film Centre: they ended up superimposing the two images and then at the end of show had to run it again. Things haven’t changed much since the 1970s.

It is kind of touching how the technology hasn’t changed; there is just a few more buttons.

Corinne feels that there has been one posi­ tive improvement in projection:

While we were in Europe, we were staggered with the quality of the Super 8 prints, especially those from France: you couldn’t believe it was Super 8.

Perhaps the people doing prints here haven’t in­ vested the money to get the best quality, which has affected the use of Super 8.

VIDEO

The Cantrills have an aversion to film on video.

Corinne: Above all to VHS, which is a very poor format. My other hatred is video shown on a projector. When presented on a monitor, it becomes television. Ide­ ally, there should be some other way to present video that distinguishes it.

Arthur elaborates: It is due to a confusing of the two media. It is inevitable that there is some overlapping of tech­ nique and even creative work in film and video, but it is the expediency of showing on video programmes that have originated on film, that are photochemi­ cal and not electronic images, which we are quiedy fighting against. We don’t expect to make much impression on this problem.

There is interesting work being done to exploit the essentially low-resolution image of video com­ pared to, say, 35mm film. There will eventually be a high-resolution electronic imaging system that will rival film but, until then, we would like to have a

demarcation between the two media and have them being used creatively in their own ways.

The magazine has covered more installation video work in the past, but in recen t years we haven ’t given it as much space because we feel that film is a threatened medium and we are trying to do as much on film as we can while it is still with us.

I was interested in the things that people like Warren Burt were doing on the big screen in the [Melbourne] City Square. They did some very inter­ esting things there, and in Japan there is a lot of big outdoor public screens that artists like Stelarc have participated with for performance events.

(The Melbourne City Square screen was a 6 metre by 15.25 metre mosaic of 25,000 tungsten filament light bulbs controlled by a computer to give 16 brightness levels of a warm sepia brown.

The first of the big screen displays in Australia, its potential as an art display was never realized, and as a vehicle for commercials it failed to make money.)

The Cantrills first visit to the U.S. was on a travel grant to study Film Education. A lot of the time, Corinne says, We concentrated on visiting videomakers like Woody and Steina Vasulka, and Nam June Paik, and in San Francisco Brice Howard at Video Free America. We met up with Jud Yalkut, who was talking about the Film/Video interface, Jim Wiseman, Dan Sandin, and Ron Hays, who was a major figure in experi­ mental video at that time. We were trying to come to grips with video, and we went to a lot of video theatres, rooms set up with multiple monitors that either showed the same image or they played with two or three different images.

Among the work of Australian videomakers discussed in a number of issues of special signifi­ cance was Mick Glasheen’s Buckminster Fuller tape, Telelogic Telecast from Spaceship Earth, as an example of one of the early sophisticated uses of colour video-keying techniques.

American video Artist-in-Residence Ron Hays talked (in 1973) about video synthesizers, the Paik-Abe, and how he hoped a mass distribution videocassette system would accept dubbing from the cheaper 1/2" video formats so that it could be used by video artists. He also mentioned the (failed) RCA videocassette system that used a laser scanned film strip and talked about the potential for popular music videos: Cartrivision has something called ‘Colourmusic’...

Every 5- and 10-cent store is going to offer you a music-image cartridge when everyone has videocar­ tridges. Give it ten years and it’ll be as common as the television set is now.

The cost of video versus film issue was a discussion point for years. There is a comparison in Issue 4 (July 1971) of the cost of 20 minutes of B&W film stock and processing ($40) with a 20minute B&W Akai tape ($9).

SIGNIFICANT BOOKS

The magazine Arthur asserts had never been terribly bookish or criticism oriented, being mostly visual and concerned with documenting work that often disappears from view: For us, recording something’s existence, even if people will not be able to go and see it, seems important. But with all the good books turning up, such as Lipton’s Independent Film Making, Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema and P. Adams Sitney’s Visionary Film, we felt that we had to men­ tion them and have gone on doing so.

PAUL WINKLER

One significant recent innovation was from Paul Winkler. Arthur believes that, His real-time travelling matte is quite unique in terms of technology. No one has taken it up in any commercial or independent way that I know of. He has a computerized device that moves masks in a certain way and can repeat the exact movement for various exposures of the film in the camera. This allows him to accurately matte-in parts of the image that were blacked out on previous exposures.

GAUGING THE REVOLUTION

The so-called Super 8 revolution never quite happened, but there had always been people working in Standard 8mm and they took up the new format as did a new generation. Even then it seemed that blow-up prints to 16mm were the only way to ensure widespread distribution. There seemed to be a split into a 16mm group and a

Super 8 group, something that Arthur feels is changing: These days, as the last few issues of the magazine show, there is equally 16mm and Super 8. More people are working between the gauges, Super 8,16 and 35mm, depending on the money that is avail­ able to them.

Arthur explained that, Although we work mainly in 16mm, we have made a number of Super 8 films. The idea of working with the larger gauges is of course attractive to a lot of us, if we had the money. We made a 35mm film Floterian and have had a 35mm print struck from it, although we mainly show a 16mm reduction print. We have seen it projected in 35mm at the State Film Centre and it is a very different film to the reduction print.

Our friend Pat O ’Niell in Los Angeles recently made Water úf Power, a 35mm film that exploits the higher definition and control that he can get on his optical printer. And, of course, Stan Brakhage has recently made a hand-painted film in the giant IMAX format, but he is showing a reduction print as I don’t think he can get an Imax theatre to run itfor him. It is a dream that eventually Imax theatres might run interesting stuff rather than the intermi­ nable travelogue stuff.

LOWERING COSTS

There were preoccupations in those earlier issues with things like do-it-yourself printing, black-andwhite processing, scratch removal from prints and cheaper electronic soundtracks, all, as Arthur says, designed to lower the high cost of filmmak­ ing. Processing your own film was quite popular, and it seemed that everyone bought one of the Russian OMO flat spiral developing tanks. Arthur: In the years we spent in America [1973-75], we noticed that all these things were more advanced there; whereas we had had the plastic OMO tanks, they had the stainless-steel JOBO tanks and access to low-cost printers. The Americans seemed much more comfortable and fluent with the technology, building optical and contact printers and other equipment. Stan Lawder had a very simplified com­ puter device so that he could leave the printer ticking over while he was out. There were a lot of army or navy surplus Bell & Howell contact printers around that they could buy cheaply.

We have always been disciples of technology going back to Harry Hooton and his anarcho-technology thing. The point is, because technology is expensive, it tends to be used for commercial ends rather than the more interesting creative ones.

We were always saying back in the 1960s and ’70s that now everyone can be a filmmaker and Cocteau said, ‘Film will be an art when materials are as accessible as pencil and paper. ’ If video is making the medium accessible to everyone, how come we haven’t seen the works of video art?

CHANGING THE IMAGE

Arthur points out as examples painters and printmakers who are continually experimenting CINEMA

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with uncommon pigments and materials to see what can happen: We don’t often get the chance to work in this way, but it is nice when it happens.

There are some real connections between ex­ perimentation and ancient image techniques, like the work of one of my students in Oklahoma, Rob Danielson, who was experimenting with pinhole movie photography. The images are very different from what you get through systems of ground-glass lenses, almost as ifyou were seeing the image through the eye of another creature like an insect; it was so different to human vision.

Rob also was working with 7381 print stock as a camera original stock, which set us trying it out and reminded us that we don’t have to just stick with what Kodak has provided us to put in the camera.

We used a lot of that to make the negative images in our central Australian films. When it is printed onto reversal stock, because it doesn’t have the orange dye-coupling cast that Eastmancolor neg has; it looks more like what you feel a true negative would be. It is very slow, about 3 ASA, so you need lots of light. When you print it onto itself you get very peculiar blueish-purple, mainly high-contrast im­ ages.

HOM AGE TO THE BOLEX

The Bolex is still the most robust and accessible 16mm camera for independent work, while not denying the importance of a range of other cam­ eras such as the Bell & Howell, Cine Kodak and the Beaulieus. The cover of issue 10 has stills from Michael Lee’s National Geographic, a film that I suggested was a homage to the Bolex as it ex­ ploited the ability of the Bolex H-16 to backwind a frame with reasonable accuracy and the manual fade attachment that allowed a set fade length by manually closing the shutter. Corinne: Michael Lee’s National Geographicis one of the great films of the Australian scene. But the technical complexity is not understood by most of the people who see it. It is a classic example of how individual filmmakers use their understanding of the medium to devise techniques for their own needs.

Arthur adds: And there is all that intriguing work that he did with black carbon powder on a sheet of glass that was an

infinitely manipulable matte shape. That is real lateral thinking.

Like the work of Paul Winkler, these things are designed to bypass all the lab technology, which is designed just to do one thing well. It laterally uses stuff that you would find around the house to produce incredible images.

COM PUTER GRAPHICS

The work of one of the ‘fathers’ of computer graphics, John Whitney (and father of John Whitneyjnr, who is still a major figure in commer­ cial computer work), was discussed in 1974. John Whitney also used the available military surplus equipment to build (from bomb-sighting, ana­ logue-computer equipment) complex, repeatable film animation stands that manipulated back-lit art work and created a whole genre of Motion Graphics. John jn r has worked on a lot of true computer, three-dimensional image generation, an area of work that Corinne has misgivings about: A lot of work that is being churned out in this area looks so similar. The Experimenta programme on computer graphics had a lot of work from Swin­ burne and, because they are working with the same software, a lot of their images look the same. They all had the same diamond-shape image for the floor, for example.

Arthur adds that, It seems there is an enormous potential theoreti­ cally, but it is still being constrained by the technol­ ogy. There are times when I get excited at being transported into these other world environments.

SOUND

The use of a non-synchronous soundtrack played from cassette or reel to reel has continued from the first days of sound recording. In independent filmmaking, it continues because of the high cost of a sound print, but also, Arthur feels, because of the poor quality of 16mm optical sound. Home hi-fi expectations have increased with things like CD, but 16mm optical tracks are a real disappoint­ ment. It seemed that the quality of optical sound on reversal to reversal actually seemed to go backwards as if the labs couldn’t hold quality for some techni­

ARTHUR CANTRILL: "I [W ANT] TO TOUCH THE HOLOGRAPHIC PLATE BECAUSE IT IS STILL BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING.

cal reason. We had a few prints done in London that had much better tracks. When we need stereo sound, we go back to reel to reel.

Australia never seemed to get onto magnetic stripe sound like a lot of countries do. Filmmakers in Indonesia, for example, use it a lot, but we couldn’t get the labs here to import the striped print stock. Super 8 stripe at 24 frames is really quite good and there is the option to have a stereo track if needed, which is an improvement on 16mm.

There were other options that are now un­ available, Corinne mentioned: We recently got VFL to kindly agree to go from the magnetic to a direct electronic optical track on the reversal print, which we had done in the past but now required them to run cables from one side of the building to the other. The quality was much better, but they finally said they weren’t going to offer the service any more.

THREE-COLOUR PROCESS

This is a technique from film history that the Can trills have used to make some of their most beautiful colour films. Apparently there were filmmakers in Vancouver and Paris who came to the technique at the same time, but in Arthur and Corinne’s case it came from a visit to the Eastman House museum in Rochester, where one of the displays had enough detail to get them started on “Cantrillcolour”, making their colour prints from three separate black-and-white original negatives photographed through red, green and blue col­ oured filters.

It came about Arthur explains, also partly because of Kodak’s cutting out some of the film stocks we had been using - a lot of reversal materials - that meant we were stuck forever with Eastmancolor neg, which we were unhappy about.

We had a lot of Pan F negative stock which isn’t really the most suitable but, with some help from VFL, we came up quickly with the right exposures through Kodak’s standard Wratten Filters, and then it took a bit more time to get the right printer lights.

The result was beautiful colours, better than Eastmancolor neg we thought, and similar to some of the earlier Technicolor films. The process is the same although we didn’t have the camera that would expose the three negs simultaneously, so we would do them one after the other. This gave us the time shifts that give the multicoloured shadows and reflections. It was a process that in 1975, when we started, we thought we would quickly master with a still-life film and a landscape film. We realized that there were so many avenues opened that we have continued to investigate.

Corinne calls them Time and Colour separa­ tions: And because there are no colour dyes to fade, they will last. We will only have to worry about some shrinkage of the film stock affecting registration.

To echo earlier praise of the Bolex, Arthur mentions being surprised that, The Bolex we bought in 1960 was still accurate enough to be almost spot on for registration on the three-colour separation films we made fifteen years later.

REFILM ING

Refilming the front- or rear-projected image be­ came almost an Australian film ‘movement’ that came from the lack of optical printers and devel­ oped into a style of its own. Arthur feels that We actually made an advantage of this and came up with images that you couldn’t get with an optical printer, such as the camera moving around the projected image, a technique akin to what can happen with digital video image manipulation. In a very primitive way we were_getting this rectangular plane of images moving in-space and twisting, mov­ ing around.

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the stereo effect on a big screen using silhouettes lit in different colours. The audience had coloured glasses and he was actually generating artificial 3D by the careful placement of the shadows.

Standish Lawder was thinking of a very abstract stereo which was denying the normal human per­ ception of depth and playing around with getting the space to merge. Lenny Lipton had two Nizo Super 8 cameras and two interlocked projectors, and was treating it as a more technical exercise.

Corinne notes that, Before this, we had made sharp defined images and it was almost as if having exhausted this we moved onto an image that was inherently obscure, soft and monochromatic.

It was almost an impressionistic effect that we exploited and added multiple superimpositions that increased the softness. The frame-by-frame exami­ nation, often turning the frame advance by hand, led to using the effect of the film frame pulling through the gate, like a video frame losing its vertical hold.

HOLO G R APHY

Arthur described his interest in Holography as a basic thrill:

STA Y IN G ALIVE

On the subject of the archival qualities of the mediums we have chosen, the Can trills have strong views and disturbing experience. Corinne begins by mentioning that, All the videos that were made in the early 1970s can’t be played now. It is a problem with film as well.

Apparently the first safety films are starting to break­ down now; there is colour fading.

That magic bafflement is like a re-run of the early cinema experience and gives a feeling and a sense of what the first cinema audiences must have felt. At the first Lumière screening, people went up to touch the screen to try and get some idea of this new illusion. I have the same feeling with wanting to touch the holographic plate because it is still be­ yond our understanding.

For the magazine, we interviewed in 1979 Margaret Benyon, who was then a major figure in Holography, which she remains today. She was living in Australia and struggling with terrible technical problems. I find most of the holographic work remains a terribly primitive experience.

STER EO FILM

Arthur believes, The whole area of stereoscopic cinematography is a real problem. Just holding together the technology seems to be almost insuperable.

Of the people mentioned in the magazine, Ken Jacobs seems to have been the most successful, though he wasn’t really using film, but recreating

Arthur adds their own experiences:

SPE C IFIC M AGAZINE ISSU ES M EN TIO N ED

We have spoken to people who can no longer play the tapes they made because of the trouble with the binder [which holds the oxide to the base]. We suddenly found that some of the Ampex audio tapes we made ten years ago couldn’t be played. When you start to play them, after about fifteen seconds all this gunk accumulates on the head and sets up this dramatic mechanical squeal and vibration.

Ampex says that the solution is heat and to cook the tapes in an oven. Chris Knowles has had to do this with some of his tapes, using a fan heater in a small space and then immediately transferring them. I’ve salvaged some of our tapes by running them backwards and forwards over a razor blade and scrapingoff the binder which has come through the oxide.

Expanded Cinema: Issue No. 1, March 1971.

Cinemapoetry at The Maze: No. 3, May 1971.

Video in A Public Space - Melbourne City Square Video Screen - 1 year later: Nos 35, 36.

George Kuchar Interview: Nos 55, 56.

George Kuchar is one interesting case but his technique is low tech and pure underground. He is using Video 8 (standard not high-band) and in

“SPAA declares war” CONTINUED

SPAA: On the contrary, SPAA is motivated by the hope and expectation that DILGEA will, in accor­ dance with its own quite clear Procedures Advice Manual, decide each case on its merits based on the objective ‘net employment benefit’ criterion.

8. EQUITY: Actors Equity points to two films with overseas artists, TheDelinquentsand Wendy Cracked a Walnut, and states that SPAA has failed to com­ ment why they were unsuccessful.

SPAA: Neither film was made by any SPAA mem­ ber and who knows why they were not successful?

There are probably a number of factors. In any event, both were successful in raising the requi­ site budget in order to be shot at all. Equity’s statement that “the reasons for the commercial success of a production are complex” also applies in analysing why films are not successful, com­ mercially or otherwise. Moreover, many films without foreign elements are also unsuccessful.

FROM

a very basic way. For example, whenever he wants some mood music, he has a cassette player draped around his neck and he presses the button and has this schlock Hollywood mood music come in.

His one concession is that he uses a line input rather than the mike. If there is a bit that he later decides is dull, he goes back and inserts over the top of it - usually a shot of his face - and drops in a comment. He wanted to demolish the High Art of film that was typified by the Anthology Film Archive.

Corinne asked him if he wasn ’t worried about the impermanence and short life of these vide­ otapes, of the video dying so quickly. His answer was, “I’m worried about MYSELF dying, notabout the films or video.” For him, the important thing was for him to keep alive and working, and let someone else worry about when the tapes fade.

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the government contain significant Australian content through DASSET certification and, in addition, represent wise investments on a com­ mercial basis.

10. EQUITY states that it “agreed to” 27 U.S. per­ formers being imported for the series Mission: Impossible, and an entire cast in Aaron’s Way. SPAA: The Mission: Impossible approval was not made under the 1988 SPAA-Equity Agreement as the producers were not members of SPAA. Fur­ thermore, Equity omits to mention that in return for its generosity SAG rates were demanded and paid.

In the case of Aaron’s Way, an overseas pilot production shot in Australia, the producers were not SPAA members and this production took place before the 1988 Agreement commenced in any event.

9. EQUITY: “What government policy attempts to achieve is that ‘non-Australian’ or so-called ‘midPacific’ films should be ineligible for govern­ ment assistance.”

11. EQUITY: “What if Equity applies the rules un­ fairly? Can the producer appeal? Yes, the policy includes an independent arbitration mechanism which the producers may call upon if they con­ sider themselves unfairly treated.”

SPAA: As the FFC’s own objectives and funding requirements clearly indicate, the government’s policy is aimed at ensuring that films funded by

SPAA: This is the most blatant example of Equity’s attempt to mislead readers of its article. Only in the case of non-government assistedfilms, mini-series

The last single Issue of Canrills Filmnotes, was 16 in De­ cember 1973 after a double issue, 14/15. Since then the issues have been double numbers appearing twice a year.

CANRILLS FILMNOTES FOR SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS, CONTACT ARTHUR AND CORINNE CANTRILL, BOX 1295L, G.P.O. MELBOURNE VIC. 3001.

and tele-features is there a provision for private arbitration if no agreement is reached. In the case of all government-assisted projects, under the Agree­ ment, the producer can ask Equity for one further overseas artist to play a supporting role, but Eq­ uity’s decision regarding any such request is ‘final and cannot be challenged by the producer".

This is a major omission of fact by Actors Equity given that most, if not all, projects cur­ rently occurring in Australia at the moment are government-assisted.

12. EQUITY: “What would happen if an open-doorentry policy were introduced? ... while difficult to predict, we suspect there would be [producers] who would elect to import foreign performers for the majority, if not all, leading roles.”

SPAA: SPAA’s policy does not amount to an “opendoor-entry policy”. It is ludicrous to suggest that producers will import foreign actors just for the sake of it- an exercise which involves considerable money, time and effort, the expenditure of which any producer would prefer to avoid.

SPAA will not support the indiscriminate use of foreign actors. SPAA will support a producer’s decision to cast overseas actors where there are compelling artistic an d /o r commercial reasons.

In any event, DASSET certification, which is re­ quired in the case of government-assisted proj­ ects, where Actors Equity’s stated concern lies, ensures “significant Australian content” in any such projects.

Editor’s note: The above articles have been subbed according to Cinema Papers house style, but other­ wise no editing has occurred.

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B arrie P a tt i s o n t was a surprise to find the death, at 64, of Ipublications Italian director Sergio Corbucci recorded in which had ignored his eighty-odd features. Even here, however, he was shadowed by references to Sergio Leone, whose firsf film Cor­ bucci had written and whose gladiator and spa­ ghetti-cowboy productions were taken as the ma­ jor works of those cycles when the distinction rightly belonged to Corbucci.

Either side of the days when you might find a Corbucci running at your neighbourhood Odeon, he had an intriguing career. An economics-stud­ ent- become-film cridc, he trained in the Italian films of the end of the neo-realist period in the late 1940s, made documentaries in Canada and began directing features in 1951, with his second film, La Peccatrice dell’isola, establishing early the pattern of wide circulation in the international programmer market.

Parallel with his successes with some of the best of the muscle-man epics - IlFiglio di Spartacus (Son ofSpartacus/TheSlave, 1962) and RomoloeRemo (Duel ofthe Titans, 1961) -Corbucci worked in the uncommented-on Italian burlesque cycle: Dolce Vita (1961), starring To'to; IDueMaresccialli (1961), with Toto and De Sica doing Bourvil and Gabin 46

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from Traversée de Paris; and I Figli del Leopardo (1965) with Ciccio Ingrassia playing both the Lancaster and Cardinale roles from the Visconti original, courtesy of the split-screen camera which was to be a feature of the Corbucci films. His The‘ Shortest Day (1962) was the only example of the export-resistant genre to achieve international distribution.

It was with the Westerns that Corbucci really hit his stride, actually beating Leone into the cycle with a couple of early efforts. However, it was when his old copyist skills were called on in 1966 to produce a bogus Dollars film that he launched Franco Nero in the much-sequelled, muchbanned Django, easily excelling its model.

Even better followed. Johnny Oro (1966) and the two films with Nero, who had been biding time on the Camelot set till he could get back to his Italian Westerns, IIMercenario (A Professional Gun, 1968) and Vamos a Matar, Compañeros (Compañ­ eros, 1969), proving the two most accomplished of their kind, followed by II Bianco, II Giallo, II Nero (1974), which hoes in to Red Simwith T ornas Milian in the Mifune role.

Corbucci’sglory days accelerated in the 1970s.

The excellent ErPiu (1971) began his long-run-

ning collaboration with Adriano Celantano, the rocker-turned-actor who can be glimpsed in La Dolce Vita doing his act and was to become the greatest Italian popular star of the next decade, though his refusal to travel or learn English meant he is unknown outside Europe. Their films to­ gether included the 1974 hit Bluff, with Anthony Quinn, and Di Che Segno Sei (1975), with Alberto Sordi.

Corbucci became the master of the outra­ geous: hippy cowboyjohnny Halliday forcing the town bourgeois to crawl naked through the carttrack mud in Gli Specialist (Drop Them orI ’ll Shoot), the distant introduction of Burt Reynolds as Navajo Joe, Franco Nero pondering how Jack Palance’s Wooden Hand John got down off the cross he

LEFT: BURT REYNOLDS IS ON THE RECEIVING END IN SERGIO CORBUCCI'S N AVA JO JOE. RIGHT: STEVE REEVES DEFIANT IN ROMOLO E REMO. AND, ELI WALLACH AND TOMAS MILIAN IN IL BIANCO, IL GIALLO, IL NERO. BELOW: VIRNA LISI, GORDON SCOTT AND STEVE REEVES IN ROMOLO E REMO.

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nailed him to, Celantano looking round for a larger piece of marine life to fish-whip Mauricio Arena or swarthy Mark Damon facing the cleancut, white-wearing teenage villain whose family he has bounty-killed to be told, “Smile at me Ringo for I am death!”

Then there was the time II Grande Silendo did its week in the Paris action houses before its star, Jean Louis Trintignant, carried off the Cannes Grand Prix. A sharp exhibitor brought it back with its alternative grim ending in “the original English language version ”and it played for months as an art film.

Giancarlo Giannini actually got a sub-titled release in II Bestione (The Eight-Wheeled Beast).

However, the critics had been dismissive of Corbucci’s made-in-Italy (or Germany or Spain or Yugoslavia), spoken-in-English pieces. (Trintignant opted out, playing his character as a mute.) Itwas only as the Italian Western dwindled thatafew commentators acknowledged that these, too, could represent a worthwhile skill.

Corbucci ’s ferocious style should have earned him the status of a Sam Fuller or a John Milius.

Instead, another pattern set in: as with the films of Jack Smight orjohn Avildsen, lack of recognition encouraged the abandonment of their directors’ most distinctive traits.

Corbucci’s career continued to the present.

In 1990 he completed the television production Women in Arms. He worked with all the greats of the Italian Comedy: Mastroianni in Giallo Napolitano (1978) and Atti Attrocissimi di Amove e di Ven­ detta (1979), Manfredi andTognazzi in LaMazzelta (1978), and Gassman in II Conte Tacchia (1982), along with local favourites like Johnny Dorelli and Paollo Villaggio. There was even a return to international distribution as Terence Hill and Bud Spencer cast their one big shadow in WhoFinds a Friend Finds a Treasure and the American-made Odds and Evens (both 1981) aimed at the kiddie market.

Many of these films survive in the Italianlanguage video outlets and it is not unlikely that among the unfamiliar titles lurk some with the familiar zest. For those of us who tracked down Sergio Corbucci’s work in the ethnic cinemas and double-feature flea pits round the globe, he holds a larger place in our affections than many more applauded, more solemn art-film celebrities. He will be missed.

JACQUES DEM Y 1931 - 1 9 9 0 It is not uncommon to think of only five filmmakers when we speak of the nouvelle vague: Godard, Tru­ ffaut, Chabrol, Ro­ hmer and Rivette. Al­ thoughJacques Demy can be mentioned in the same breath as the above notaries of the French cinema, it is still inconceivable to many to viewDemy as a new wave figure. This is unfortunate for, along with many others, his wife Agnès Varda included, one can argue he was a part of the ‘other’ new wave (on the left bank of the Seine, so to speak), a movementjust as lively andjust as significant as the official nouvelle vague; and, with Demy in its guard, evermore sensual.

Indeed, this oversight is doubly unforgiv­ able, and the following issue of Cinema Papers will publish a necessarily detailed, critical obitu­ ary to honour a man who honoured himselfwith the words: “I prefer blue to black, births to funerals, red wine to Vichy water, the sun to the rain.” rc ABOVE: DIRECTOR JACQUES DEMY. BELOW: A N O U K AIMEE AS LOLA IN DEMY'S FIRST MASTERPIECE, LOLA.-

CINEMA

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COSTsEMPORARY;■'

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To celebrate the launch of Contemporary Video Visions — a new mail-order video company — we are offering Fellini’s masterpiece La Dolce Vita for the first time on videotape in Australia. Set in the 1960s, the film is a stylisjh tale of decadence, the pursuit of fame and the good life.

La Dolce Vita is considered by many overseas and local critics to be one of the best films of the last 30 years.

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F E L L IN I’S M A S TE R P IE C E Starring Marcello Mastroianni and A nita Ekberg

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Twelve

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D BTY DOZEN A P A N EL O F TW ELVE FILM REVIEW ERS HAS RATED A SELECTION O F THE LATEST R ELEA S ES ON A S C A LE O F 0 TO 10 , TH E LATTER BEING TH E OPTIMUM RATING (A DASH M EANS NOT S EEN ). TH E CRITICS A R E: BILL COLLINS (C H ANN EL 10 ; THE DAILY MIRROR, S YD N EY); JOHN FLAUS (3RRR, M ELB O U R N E); SANDRA H ALL

(THE BULLETIN, SYD N EY); PAUL HARRIS (“ EG ” , THE AGE, M ELB O U R N E); IVAN HUTCHINSON (SEVEN NETW ORK; HERALD-SUN, M ELB O U R N E); STAN JAM ES (THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER); NEIL JILLETT ( THE AGE)] ADRIAN MARTIN (TENSION, M ELBO URN E); S C O TTM U R R AY; TOM RYAN (3L0; THE SUNDAY AGE, M ELB O URN E);

FILM TITLE Director

BILL COLLINS

JOHN FLAUS

SANDRA HALL

PAUL HARRIS

IVAN HUTCHINSON

STAN JAMES

NEIL JILLETT

ADRIAN MARTIN

SCOTT MURRAY

TOM RYAN

DAVID STRATTON

EVAN WILLIAMS

DAVID STRATTON (VARIETY] SBS, SYD N EY); AND EVAN W ILLIAMS (THE AUSTRALIAN, SYD N EY).

ALMOST AN ANGEL John Cornell

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[T IE M E U P ! T IE M E D O W N !]

LA VIE ET RIEN D'AUTRE

[LIF E

Pedro Amaldovar

a n d

n o t h in g

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WEEKEND WITH KATE Arch Nicholson WHAT THE MOON SAW Pino Amenta WILD AT HEART David Lynch

]

Bertrand Tavernier

CINEMA

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THIS ISSUE: AL MOST A N A N G E L ; GOLDEN BRAID; GREEN CARD; HEAVEN T O N I G H T ; ME TR O P OL I T AN ; WEEKEND WITH KATE; A N D , W H A T THE M O O N SAW.

ABOVE: TERRY DEAN (PAUL HO GAN ), THE FORMER CRIM WHO BECOMES

A L M O S T AN A N G E L J IM

SCHEMBRI

GOOD BY BECOMING AN ANGEL. JOHN CORNELL'S ALMOST AN ANGEL. FACING PAGE: >BERNARD (CHRIS HAYWOOD) AND TERESE (GOSIA DOBROWOLSKA).

PAUL COX'S GOLDEN BRAID.

50

* CINEMA

PAPERS

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aul Hogan once said a very wise thing: that Australians are very well-balanced people be­ cause they have a chip on each shoulder. That is, they feel they have something to prove to the world and, time permitting, to themselves.

Hogan had an awful lot to prove with Almost an Angel that he could make a successful film without the word “Crocodile” in the tide; that he escape his Mick Dundee typecasting; that he could play down his ambassadorial role for Aus­ tralia; that he could still be funny; and that he likes God a lot.

What Hogan didn’t say, but should have said, is where those chips come from. Somedmes they are the result of a person’s own cynicism, para­

P

noia and anxiety. More often, though, they are the result of someone else’s cynicism, paranoia and anxiety. (Film cridcs, in pardcular, have turned the art of Trans-Shoulder Chip Transfer­ ence into a science.)

In the case of Paul Hogan and his third feature film, Almost an Angel, he had an enormous chip on either shoulder. The one on the left was the size of Uluru and was the result of his huge popularity through his two “Crocodile” Dundee films, which were historic successes for the Aus­ tralian film industry.

The one on the right was given to him by the public and the media, who hailed him as a tower­ ing icon of laconic, good ol’ cut-’em-down-to-size Australianness in the American market. That chip was the size of the credibility chasm currendy facing the Australian film industry.

But regardless of where these chips come from, Hogan, and his partner John Cornell, couldn’t ignore them, however much they tried.

High expectadon is what awaited Almost an Angel and is probably what killed it. Working from under the weight of these chips didn’t help.

This is a pity because the film isn’t bad. It is certainly many dmes funnier and more watchable than either of the Dundee films which, while being masterful exercises in exploidng cultural novelty value, struck this viewer as being largely laughless and dull.

In Almost an Angel, Hogan plays a petty crim, Terry Dean, who, after his release from prison, resumes his bank-robbing career. After a close call with death and an interview with a heavily bewhiskered Charlton Heston, playing proxy for God (as he did in Airport ’75), Terry believes he has been given another chance at life. Back on earth as a probationary angel he will remain in God’s good books as long as he does good things, helps handicapped people, spreads the odd Bible fable around and looks heavenward a lot.

Hogan did have a lot to prove with Almost an Angel and, at least aesthetically, he has made a good crack at all these things, particularly the stuff about liking God. God is big at the moment and popular cul­ ture over the past few years has been brimming with the Guy. Filmwise, Ghost, the biggest film of 1990, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Raiders ofthe Lost Ark, two of the biggest films of the century, had screamingly spiritual themes in them, as did Flatliners (if you want a sermon about atoning for your sins, rent this film).

Even in pop music, artists such as U2, Simple Minds, Madonna, Jon Bon Jovi and even she of the bursting bustand catty one-liner, Bette Midler, have openly declared their religious bent. And the Bible continues to sell well.

So Hogan (and Cornell, of course) knew there was money and a market in all this Godstuff.

Building a film around it may seem like a cynical

exercise (and maybe it was, although to accuse Hogan of this is too uncharitable even for an Australian critic), but the humour underlying these Holy references in the film at least gives it the veneer of sincerity and makes its religious aspects more palatable than they might otherwise have been.

For instance, the way Terry’s belief that he is an angel is engineered is subtle and clever. Dur­ ing a fumbled bank robbery after his encounter with Heston and a clip from Highway to Heaven, he is shot by a rival crim at point-blank range but is not hit. Terry and the crim react accordingly and, it is only after the audience has entertained the possibility that Terry might just be an agent of Heston, that it is revealed the gun had blanks.

Terry’s subsequent attempts to fly are a nice touch, as is the odd reaction from the priest when Terry tells him that he is bullet-proof but can’t fly yet.

There is also a charming scene where Terry unsuccessfully tries to sermonize to two kids about the wisdom of King Solomon. And having Heston play God is an inspired piece of tongue-in-cheek casting, and an effective way of saying that Hogan wasn’t taking his spiritual pretensions too seri­ ously.

The character of Terry also effectively under­ cuts Dundee. As every man, his dog and its pup­ pies know, Mick Dundee was a mythical, largerthan-life, loveable hero with a human heart, an Aussie in an alien landscape. He had a quiet confidence and an endearing naivety that under­ mined the arrogance and bluster of the New York he visited. The films were shot in Panavision because the screen had to be big enough to accommodate the character. Anything smaller would have worked against it. Presence was every­ thing.

There is no such loftiness with Terry Dean in Almost an Angel The former-crim-goes-good-bybecoming-an-angel device invests Hogan’s char­ acter with a specific humanistic purpose which motivates him from within. This is most unlike Dundee, who had to have situations clumsily foisted upon him to get him and the movie moving. CrocodileDundeewas virtually plotless and “Crocodile ”Dundee II involved Dundee in a battle with a drug baron.

Terry’s ‘hard knocks’ background also gives him a pragmatism and earthiness to look life in the face. Hence the excellent scene when he first meets Steve (Elias Koteas), a man in a wheelchair and with a self-generated chip on his shoulder (if you’ve just jum ped into this review at this point, see beginning of story). He inhabits a bar where he is patronized and his obnoxious behaviour tolerated because he is crippled. “I see a man in a wheelchair acting like ajerk in a wheelchair”, says Terry, who then fights Steve by sitting in a chair, thus winning his friendship by refusing to patron­ ize him.

The other important thing to note is how Dundee’s whole existence relied upon his being an Aussie among aliens. Everything depended on culture clash. In Almost an Angel Terry’s origin is irrelevant, with only one reference to it (a crack about his accent). That it is never explained what an Australian is doing living in America is to be loudly applauded, just as Bryan Brown’s Australianosity was never an issue in FX. Such recognition that Australians are cosmospolitan enough to live in the world without having to explain themselves is a most heartening backhander to the dreaded and deeply-set cultural cringe.

though Hogan almost won an Academy Award for Crocodile Dundee as Best Foreign Film in 1987, he will never win one for acting and he knows it.

He has limits, is thankfully aware of them and works well within them. His humour is laconic and he prides himself on the ‘slow burn’school of comedy, something which Almost an Angel shows has remained blessedly unchanged since his won­ derful London television comedy specials in the mid-1970s.

The only problem with this appraisal of Hogan and Almost an Angel is that it is wrong. The film has had a very cool critical reception in the U.S. and here, and the box-office has been poor. Why? I have a theory about that.

It’s pretty obvious: people liked Mick Dundee too much. Hogan had created an image that was too big to shake off successfully with just one film.

It might take the next one to click, or the next again (and he and Cornell apparently have the backing). But at least Hogan had the sense not to make a third Dundee film. H ere’s hoping he has the good sense to continue not making one. (A couple of the local critics flippantly suggested in their reviews that a third Dundee would have been preferable to Almost an Angel. About the only thing the world needs less than nuclear war is another Dundee.)

But why was the critical response, especially in Australia, so cold? I have some theories about that, too.

If Hogan has not already used this particular line of defence, he inevitably will: it’s the old, trusty ‘tall poppy’ syndrome, which, painful as it is to suggest, seems very much in evidence here.

Hoges had got too big for his boots, was a bit too successful, a bit too cocky, and it was time to bring him down a notch or two. Indeed, the film’s slogan, “Who does he think he is?”, could very well represent the collective thoughts of the criti­ cal community towards Hogan.

One must also remember that it was after “Crocodile"Dundee //th at Hogan divorced his 50year-old wife, Noelene, who had borne him five children. He then married his co-star, the young, blonde, extremely attractive Linda Kozlowski.

This attracted enormous tabloid publicity and some witty television footage, including an angry Hogan on 60 Minutes saying how he wanted to “cave in heads”.

Hogan has a right to a private life, but the press was so intense that it was difficult to ignore the multi-projected image of a man effectively ‘trading in’ an old wife for a beautiful young one.

Indeed, comedian Whoopi Goldberg got quite a

lot of mileage out of it during her Australian tour at the time.

So, in a sense, the reviewers could have been indirecdy ‘punishing’ Hogan for this. (Whether this has anything to do with the cool public reaction to Almost an Angel remains an even big­ ger mystery. My guess is that audiencesjust wan ted more Mick.)

A second theory explaining the cool local criucal reaction to the film embraces the possibil­ ity that the reviewers didn’t like it much. But that’s their own look out.

It was perhaps inevitable that Hogan had to flop at some time post-Dundee II, and I’m begin­ ning to suspect he knew this full well. Realizing that, he may have written this one off.

Of all the things Hogan was meant to achieve with Almost an Angel, perhaps the most valuable will be to see how well he can survive failure. He may lose a bit of money, but not a lot of sleep.

Besides, it’ll probably be a big hit on video.

Alm ost an Angel Directed by John Cornell. Producer: John Cornell. Executive producer: Paul Hogan. Associ­ ate producer: Jane Scott. Scriptwriter: Paul Hogan. Di­ rector of photography: Russell Boyd. Production de­ signer: Henry Bumstead. Costume designer: April Ferry.

Editor: David Stiven. Composer: Maurice Jarre. Sound: Tom Brandau. Cast: Paul Hogan (Terry Dean), Elias Koteas (Steve), Linda Kozlowski (Rose), Charlton Heston (God), Doreen Lang (Mrs Garner), Joe Dallesandro (Thief). Ironbark Films. Australian distributor: UIP. 35mm. 95 mins. U.S. 1990.

GO LDEN BR AID JAN

EPSTEIN

olden Braid is Paul Cox’s newest film and one of his finest. Based on a short story by Guy De Maupassant about a man who falls in love with a lock of hair, Cox continues his exploration of the human condition using lonely figures in crisis. In one way or another, his alienated characters are all searching desperately to be reunited with meaning through other people. Cox’s themes are deeply embedded in his stories, and the ideas generated by these themes are fleshed out as he develops his characters, so that sometimes at a first viewing his films seem more obscure than they actually are.

In Cactus, the central metaphor is blindness, expressing the need to see things afresh by expos­ ing ourselves to truth, pain and other people. My First Wife is about divorce, from oneself and oth­ ers, a groping through bewilderment and disbe­ lief to the edge of understanding. Man of Flowers

G

Hogan’s performance (of course) and the nature of his humour (of even more course) are essentially unchanged in Almost an Angel. Al­ CINEMA

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is a study in intactness: how it is possible to survive in isolation and be strong with only tenuous links to other people, but links nonetheless. Island, not as successful as the others, compares cultures and explores spiritual exile, and points to the need for the spoiled, materialist West to turn inwards.

In Golden Braid, Cox has chosen to explore the way a fear of death can often mask a fear of life, and how we sometimes fear love most of all because it can make us vulnerable.

Bernard (Chris Haywood) is a watchmaker and restorer of old clocks, an intense man ob­ sessed with time and locked into himself. Clocks of all descriptions crowd his house, and they glow with the golden patina that attaches to loved and cherished objects. In the film’s opening shots, the clocks tick and chime with all the orderly preci­ sion of the music of the spheres, and we can understand Bernard’s fascination with them - to a point.

There is an edgy uptightness to Bernard, an obsessiveness in the way he resets and checks his clocks that makes us feel that he may have an odd sexuality. When the doorbell rings and a pretty young woman appears suddenly on his doorstep, dressed in the unlikely costume of the Sally Ann, we wouldn’t be surprised if she were a prostitute, butsheisnot. SheisTerese (GosiaDobrowolska), Bernard’s mistress.

As distinct from Charles in Man of Flowers (a film that bears some comparison to Golden Braid), Bernard is a sexually active man. He is, it tran­ spires, even something of a womanizer. This knowledge surprises us, though it clearly delights Terese, whose marriage to Joseph (Paul Chubb), a Salvation Army Major - a good but dominating, child-like man - is all but over.

Bernard’s relationship with Terese is ongo­ ing. We learn something about his attitude to her from conversations Bernard has with his psychia­ trist (Norman Kaye). He no longer dreams about funerals; he has a new lover in his life now; he’s attracted to her because she is a social worker; and he has no objection to her being married. On the contrary, “How could you trust a woman who doesn’t belong to anybody?”, he asks. We also learn that Bernard is off his medication, lithium.

Apart from his trysts with Terese, consum­ mated sometimes on the staircase of his house during the evenings that she stays with him, Bernard pours most of his passion into beautiful objects he has collected from the past. His house is filled with treasures, paintings, furniture. Clocks move him the most. “A clock takes possession of you, like a woman’s face”, he tells Terese. Some­ times he weeps with grief, haunted by death and moved to pity by the thought of those now dead who once lived. He loves to see the little watch he repaired for Terese, sitting between her breasts.

It reminds him of the dead woman it once be­ longed to. “When a watch is fixed,” he explains to her, “you make new links between the living and the dead. ” One day, fate decrees that Bernard shall be given a chance to indulge to the full his desire to build a bridge to the dead. He takes possession of an old cabinet, said to be Venetian, and, while restoring it, discovers a panel which conceals a secret drawer. Inside the drawer, which is lined with blue velvet, lies a marvellously preserved golden braid of hair.

Bernard is feverish with the thrill of his dis­ covery. He tells no one about the treasure, hug­ ging his secret to himself. Who was she? How miraculous that the hair is preserved intact, yet the woman no longer exists. How sad. At first, he simply strokes the braid, inhaling the traces of the dead woman’s perfume, or he takes it out obses­ sively to look at it. Soon, he cannot bear not to 52

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carry the braid with him in his jacket pocket. He talks to it, sleeps with it, makes love to it, takes it out to dinner with him to a restaurant. Finally he takes it to a concert, laying it out surreptitiously on the empty seat beside him that was reserved for Terese. To all intents and purposes, Bernard has exchanged a living woman for a dead one.

In the story by Maupassant, Bernard goes mad. In Cox’s story, Bernard suffers a crisis, and recovers. At first it seems inconsistent with such pathological behaviour as Bernard displays, that he should be cured in much the same way as someone suffering from pneumonia, who goes through a crisis (fever, high temperature) and recovers. But the metaphor of madness, as used by a novelist or filmmaker, is not necessarily the same as clinical madness. (Not that we should ever be seduced by the idea that there is common agreement or understanding about what consti­ tutes madness, as Cox acknowledges when he has Bernard reply to a question by his psychiatrist, “How do you know the wise from the mad?”). Cox makes this distinction between metaphorical amd clinical madness clear in his style of filmmaking which is at heart poetic and dreamlike, and con­ cerned with how the mind perceives reality. More simply, Bernard’s obsession with the golden braid reflects his state of mind.

What Bernard is suffering from is not mad­ ness so much as depression, a melancholia brought on by many factors: his getting older, a natural sympathy and compassion for human life (he is a good man, which Terese makes clear by her protective response to him, “Everything he does comes from the heart”) , and his mourning, still, for a woman in his past who died. In a larger, more global sense, Bernard’s madness and flight from reality is symptomatic of malaise, brought on by the state of the world.

Many of our own dissatisfactions with the world are expressed through Bernard. His brother, Ernst (Robert Menzies), a sponger, is always after him for money, which he gives. At the bank, he is no longer treated as a valued customer, but as one more client trying to default on an overdraft.

“There’s no trust left in the world!”, Bernard bellows in anger and frustration at the bank manager (George Fairfax).

Bernard defends himself from the soulless­ ness and ugliness of the world he lives in, evoked humorously and compassionately by the electric clock in the form of an antelope brought to him for repair by an old lady (Sheila Florance), and by surrounding himself in his Victorian terrace house with antiquities. What these beautiful objects rep­ resent, the clocks especially, is nostalgia. And nostalgia is always part of a search for home.

Bernard no longer feels at home in the mod­ ern world. He feels suspended in time, caught in a no-man’s land, which is why he flees to the past.

Time is out ofjoint, and nothing expresses this so well to Bernard as the replacing of the mechani­ cal clock by the quartz battery. When the bank manager, in an attempt to mollify Bernard’s rage, shows him the watch he has been given to mark his retirement, Bernard shows some insight into what makes him tick as a man. “This watch is out of time with time! ”, he exclaims angrily. “We have to hear it tick so we’re aware of the passing of time. That’s why I repair them.”

The tick of a clock is like a heartbeat. It connects us to life past, present and future, the minute before and the minute just past. By trying to escape the present (in which he feels alien and out of place), through a mystical union with the past, Bernard places himself in jeopardy. He is in danger of locking himself out of life altogether, and going mad. Bernard comes to his senses, so to speak, when the braid begins to fray and unravel.

The crisis is precipitated when he realizes that he is living a fantasy. The golden braid, like every­ thing else, is corruptible. Death cannot be neu­ tralized. Time cannot be stopped.

Cox uses madness as a metaphor for isola­ tion, being locked away in the mind from other people, lost in oneself. When we first meet Ber­ nard, he is engaged in a love affaire with Terese, but we can see that he is also locked into himself.

Bernard is neurotic and depressed rather than classically mad, and the most observable symp­ tom of this neurotic depression is his braid fetish.

Cox has melded the Freudian and Marxian no­ tions of fetishism by focusing less on Bernard’s sexual perversion, and more on making us sympa­ thetic to the alienation which is driving him mad.

And he does invoke our compassion. We see clearly that he is trapped in a horrible circle. The fetishism with the braid contains his griefs, but it also isolates him from everybody, including Ter­ ese.

Terese represents salvation to Bernard through love. The fact that Terese and her harm­ less immature husband are members of the Salva­ tion Army is, of course, a deliberate irony. Cox places no trust in the power of either conven­ tional religions or psychiatry to help Bernard solve his problems. (The nice touch of Cox’s playing the priest, to whom Bernard turns in a last desperate plea for help, is a dig, perhaps, at any pretensions the artist may have that his work has the power to change the world.) Ultimately, Bernard must confront and solve his problems himself, but he can only do this by accepting Terese’s love.

There is another deeper meaning to Golden Braid which gives the film a satisfying cohesion.

Bernard has a grainily realized, recurring dream which haunts him. It is set in the open. The camera lurches towards a cow in a field. It is a pastoral scene with a milkmaid. A calf pulls on its mother’s udders. The maid is now seen to be old.

The calf tugs at her long skirt. There is blood on her foot. Bernard has the dream after he has made love with Terese, and its suggested meaning is that Bernard is fearful of loving Terese because he fears he will be engulfed by her, made powerless, and destroyed.

Bernard is afflicted by the fear of women. The Great Goddess here is seen in Bernard’s dream in her three incarnations: maid, mother and crone.

Bernard associates loving with dying.

To love is to be opened up and wounded.

Bernard seeks to remain intact and enclosed, but he is driven to the brink of madness by it.

Golden Braid is the story of a neurotic man who is brought back from isolation and discon­ nection, by his recovery of faith in the love between him and a generous woman. It is a simple, bal­ anced, profound film, rich in detail, and Cox tells the story with humour and genuine eroticism, helped by a splendid cast which includes many of his friends.

GOLDEN BRAID Directed by Paul Cox. Producers: Paul Cox, Paul Ammitzboll, Santhana Naidu. Executive pro­ ducer: William T. Marshall. Scriptwriters: Paul Cox, Barry Dickins. Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant. Director of photography: Nino G. Martinetti. Production designer: Neil Angwin. Wardrobe co­ ordinator: Gail Mayes. Editor: Russell Hurley. Sound recordistjames Currie. Cast: Chris Haywood (Bernard), Gosia Dobrowolska (Terese), Paul Chubb (Joseph), Norm an Kaye (Pyschiatrist), Marion H eathfield (Cleaning woman), Monica Maughan (Antique shop owner), RobertMenzies (Ernst) ,Jo Kennedy (Paradise), Phillip Green (Cellist), SheilaFlorance (Lady with clock).

Australian distributor: Premium: 35mm. 90 mins. 1990.

GEORGE (GÉRARD DEPARDIEU) AND BRONTE (ANDIE M acDOWELL) IN PETER WEIR'S GREEN CARD.

G R EEN CA R D

for narrative coherence and the dramatic trajec­ tory centred on climax and resolution. However, Green Card, together with his three earlier Holly­ wood productions, reaffirms the ability of this he genesis of Green Card began in 1983 when aesthetic system to assimilate distinctive talents director ( and producer and writer ) Peter Weir heard of some of the curious stories involv­ and backgrounds. This does not mean that there ing ‘green card’ marriages, marriages for money are not recognizable Peter Weir ‘touches’in Green Card; it means that these ‘touches’, involving the which provide resident status for one of the pareffective use of images, atmosphere and milieu, dcipants. It took another seven years to get this are not isolated, as they tend to be in his Australian idea before the cameras, primarily because Weir films, but are an integrated part of an overall felt that only Gérard Depardieu was suitable for formal system that privileges narrative, temporal the central role of the alien who wants to remain and spatial coherence, causality and motivation, in the U.S. climax and resolution.

Herein lies the strength and weakness of the The story, an old staple involving opposites film. Basically the film is a romantic comedy, who discover that love transcends all geographi­ although the “curious stories” have obviously in­ cal, social and ideological obstacles, is based on spired Weir to include elements of the screwball twin desires. Frenchman George1 Faure (De­ comedy that charmed audiences in the second pardieu) wants to stay in the United States and half of the 1930s. This generic hybrid, which Bronte Parrish (Andie MacDowell) wants a New extends from It Happened One Night in 1934 to the York apartment with a spectacular Victorian-style touching CrossingDelancey and the overrated Pretty greenhouse, including fifteen-foot tree ferns. As Woman in the past couple of years, depends heav­ the apartment is only available to a married ily on a continuously sharp, witty script and places couple, her ‘green card’ marriage to George great pressure on the two principal actors to provides both the money and the necessary marital involve an audience in their basically predictable status. Bronte, who finds George boorish, plans girl-meets-boy, girl-hates-boy, girl-falls-in-love-withnever to see him again after the marriage. boy-against-her-will storyline. Depardieu, at least A government investigation a few months for this reviewer, does not entirely succeed in later, however, forces Bronte to reluctantly ac­ fulfilling this generic requirements. cept George into her apartment for a weekend Green Card also continues the curious rela­ while they fabricate a convincing history of their tionship between the classical Hollywood cinema romance and subsequent marriage. Their relaand an Australian director who has maintained a distinctive perspective, in his Australian films, 1 Editor’s note: This is not a typo. The end credits and the with regard to the traditional requirements of production notes spell this French character’s name with the unFrench “George”, the “s” missing. this kind of cinema, a perspective that cares little GEOFF

f

MAYER

tionship during this period forms the basis of the film and generates the “curious situations” ema­ nating from such opposites. Bronte is a horticulturalist and a member of the “Green Guerillas”, a volunteer organization committed to transform­ ing the rubble-filled lots and ugly urban face of New York City in to community gardensand parks.

Her boyfriend, Phil (Gregg Edelman), the man­ datory third partner, is a vegetarian and fellow member of the “Green Guerillas”, and appears to be a ‘perfect’ partner. However, there are cues provided for the audience quite early in the film that Gregg does not generate sufficient heat in Bronte and this opens up a romantic space for George. George, on the other hand, would not know a fuchsia from a fig and has no commitment to any causes beyond himself, is able to provoke anger and indignation in Brontë, and he provides a counterpoint to Brontë’s ordered, caring world.

Bronte’s social concerns, however, do not extend to the morality of her action in marrying George for an apartment, and the film feels little need to explore the expediency of this action beyond utilizing it as a motivation for bringing two different personalities together. In other words, like many films directed by Peter Weir, there is no strong political or social subtext.

When Brontë’s lawyer (Robert Prosky, who is wasted and appears in only one main scene) tells her it is against the law, the issue is subsequently reduced to love (Brontë-George) versus the threat to love from intrusive government investigators.

Without this subtext, the film either succeeds or fails according to the individual pleasure, or irritation, derived from the ‘screwball’ ramifica­ tions of their basic situation (such as constructing a fictional folio of photographs on the roof of Brontë’s apartment: skiing in the ‘alps’, holiday­ ing in ‘Hawaii’ or memorizing the colour of his toothbrush, noting the brand of her cold cream, etc.). Because there is little surprise or pace to divert attention away from the two leads, so much of the film is dependent on the ‘chemistry’ be­ tween Depardieu and MacDowell. His lumbering presence and hesitant English, a quality that Weir apparently emphasized as he wanted Depardieu to keep his “tongue on its toes”, certainly requires a major reorientation with anyone familiar with the genre as it does not lend itself to the sparkling repartee associated with Cary Grant (or more recently Ted Danson) and other practitioners of this craft. MacDowell fulfils the requisite style and tone of a committed “Green Guerilla”, and pro­ vides a real sense of romantic vulnerability, al­ though this is not balanced by the incisive wit and crackle of a Rosalind Russell, Carole Lombard or even Shelley Long and her Cheers replacement, Kirstie Alley.

To continue the comparison with Cheers, a reasonable analogy considering a similar generic context involving a bitter/sweet romance of op­ posites and its dependence upon cutting dia­ logue exchanges, the inability of Depardieu and MacDowell to effectively combine the romance with an oddball persona is exposed when Bron të ’s best friend, Lauren (Bebe Neuwirth), appears.

Neuwirth, the repressed Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane in Cheers, effortlessly exudes both qualities and her distinctive voice and phrasing hints at a truly ‘screwball’ character. Unfortunately, she quickly disappears and the potential for a major sub-plot involving Lauren and George is not realized.

Similarly, the romantic triangle involving Phil, Brontë and George is allowed to lapse except for an effective point-of-viewshotas George is forced to walk past Brontë and Phil on the street. UltiCINEMA

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mately the expected confrontation between the two men is dismissed in a rather perfunctory, and not very funny, manner.

There are, however, a number of compensa­ tions. The dinner party sequence, where Weir has cleverly created a false impression with regard to George’s musical ability, expertly fulfils its ge­ neric requirements of gently taking the mickey out of the rich. Similarly, the scene where George, having just moved into Brontë’s apartment, has to show a suspicious immigration investigator to the family toilet is effectively executed by intercutting point-of-view shots of three possible doors with George’s confused face. Other se­ quences, notably Brontë’s entry into the magnifi­ cent greenhouse in her newly acquired apart­ ment, confirm Weir’s visual mastery.

Yet in the context of the overall drama there is a reluctance to draw upon the excesses of melodrama and push the film towards the outer edges of the genre. Too often Weir, as in the past, occupies the middle ground. This is apparent in his regular use of the unhappy ending that is also happy. For example, as John Book (Harrison Ford) leaves Rachel (Kelly McGillis) at the end of Witness, he is replaced by the Amish suitor Daniel Hochleitner (Alexander Godunov); when Neil Perry suicides near the end of DeadPoets Society, and John Keating (Robin Williams) is sacrificed by the school administration, the film concludes on a note of ultimate victory; and when George is torn away from Brontë at the end of Green Card, love finally triumphs.

Overall, the romantic improbabilities in Green Card provide a number of humorous and touch­ ing moments but it does not maintain the neces­ sary wit and sparkle to make it a memorable contribution to the genre.

GREEN CARD Directed by Peter Weir. Producers: Peter Weir, Jean Gontier. Executive producer: Edward S. Feldman. Co-producer: Duncan Henderson. Associate producer: Ira Halberstadt. Screenplay: Peter Weir. Di­ rector of photography: Geoffrey Simpson. Production designer: Wendy Stites. Editor: William Anderson. Com­ poser: Hans Zimmer. Production sound mixer: Pierre Garnet. Cast: Gérard Depardieu (George), Andie MacDowell (Bronté), Bebe Neuwirth (Lauren), Gregg Edelman (Phil), Robert Prosky (Brontë’s lawyer) .Jessie Keosian (Mrs Bird), Ethan Phillips (Gorsky), Marie Louise Wilson (Mrs Sheehan), Lois Smith (Brontë’s m other), Conrad McLaren (Brontë’s father). Greencard Productions and the Australian Film Finance Corpora­ tion. Australian distributor: Roadshow. 35mm. 108 mins.

U.S. [officiallyaFrench-Australianco-production], 1990.

H EA V EN TO N IG H T GREG

KERR

990 was not exactly a boom year for Australian 1 i films, considering that only a handful of titles were released for mainstream cinema.

Heaven Tonight will not be remembered as the best of

them, but it is nonetheless a credible movie about a rock ’n’ roll has-been attempting a come-back.

Produced by the Melbourne-based Boule­ vard Films, the movie tries hard to weave authen­ ticity of character, location and dialogue into a plot with lots of potential. In trying so hard to tell its story, however, Heaven Tonight labours under the weight of a staid orthodoxy that might other­ wise be interpreted as unadventurous, unoriginal filmmaking.

Co-writers Frank Howson and Alister Webb have gone to considerable lengths to develop a scenario yet to be chronicled in movies exploring mainstream music. According to its promoters, the film is the first of its kind to explore the fatherand-son generation gap and the seemingly in­ compatible strains of rock music they represent.

Enterjohn Waters asjohnny Dysart, ageing rocker on the verge of mid-life catharsis, and his budding rockstar son Paul, played with subdued convic­ tion by Guy Pearce, formerly of Neighbours. The character of Johnny Dysart comes to life in the film’s opening as black-and-white snippets of the fictional Australian rock band, the Chosen Ones, are interwoven into a collage of images from the 1960s. This is done well to the tune of the film’s title song, and in the space of a few minutes one learns that the band once had fame, got into drugs and then, surprise surprise, experienced an irreparable split.

The next frame fast-forwards 18 years with the now semi-grey-haired Dysart living in subur­ ban somewhere with his wife Annie (Rebecca Gilling) and young Pearce. One soon gets an idea of what’s to come when Dysart snr is asked by his loving, albeit doubting, wife if he is sure he is going to get that record deal, and he answers with blind self-assuredness: “It’s that close I can smell it.” Fearing her husband’s inability to make a comeback, Annie suggests that they buy into a Japanese restaurant together, a proposal to which Dysart does not take kindly. And there is a conflict building on a wider front with his son, who one is led to believe is an unassuming but talented musician. The main problem is that Dysartjnr in­ corporates computer rhythms into the format of his band Video Rodney, and the old man, being

the rock ’n ’ roll purist that he is, can’t stand it.

By this stage one senses the arrogant, selfpossessed Johnny is unconsciously priming him­ self for a major emotional blow-out, and a reun­ ion with former band crony Baz Schultz (Kim Gyngell) does litde to keep the boatstable. Schultz materializes like some apparition a third of the way through the film and breathes a comic pathos onto the screen. This tragic but likeable card turns out to be more than just an appropriate foil for the intense Johnny Dysart. He arrives on the scene somewhat mysteriously and to the chagrin of both Dysart and his wife; a reminder of trouble in the past and perhaps a signal of more to come.

With his pock-marked skin, drug-wasted eyes and dyed-orange hair, Schultz is a symbol of wasted rockers, hopelessly displaced and disillu­ sioned now that his brief period of glory has faded. Both Schultz and Dysart share memories of the same dream, only Schultz has given up trying to reassemble its fragments. And while Schultz is bent on self-destruction, the viewer is left to wonder whether he is indeed the more tragic of the two characters.

In drawing the aforementioned players into conflicts, the film raises a number of universal themes, including personal decline, isolation, marital strain, parent-child disharmony, illusion and, above all, man’s reluctance to face himself beyond his prime.

The film, for all its underlying themes and potential, has a few flaws. For one, it could have done more to develop some of its emotional content, particularly with its main actor, John Waters. To his credit, Waters is strong enough to take the viewers on his character’s difficult jour­ ney, but too much is assumed rather than ex­ plained about what he is going through and what has possessed him to make a comeback at 40.

And while Guy Pearce holds his own in Heaven Tonight, his character Paul Dysart is somewhat wooden and self-conscious, having being unable to find sufficient space to develop from the mould of a pretty-boy, gelled-haired musician who broods over his old man and writes songs in dimly lit rooms.

The same can be said of the wall of silence between father and son. It would be a risky over­ simplification to suppose the two are at loggerheads because of Dad’s unyielding envy over his son’s developing musical ability. But that is all the viewer can assume because the script merely skims the surface of their emotional deadlock. Attempts are made to create some bonding between the pair, particularly during a tender scene when the younger one strolls in unseen to find his parents watching a home movie of him as a child, gazing at the figure of a loving father strumming a guitar.

But when young Dysart meekly turns and walks away still unseen, one wonders if the scriptwriters missed an opportunity for some important char­ acter development. „ The film takes the father-and-son relation­ ship forward a massive bound in what viewers may perceive as either a satisfying, heart-warming con­ clusion or a sadly predictable, corny climax.

Heaven Tonight had an inglorious season of two weeks in Melbourne and Sydney last Novem­ ber. It was withdrawn after failing to withstand the avalanche of big-budget American films released to cash in on pre-Christmas film audiences.

Boulevard Films was disappointed with both the timing of the film’s release by Hoyts, as well as its poor to lukewarm reception by most reviewers.

The film is, at times, predictable and cliched.

JO H N N Y DYSART (JO HN W ATERsf AND BAZ SCHULTZ (KIM GYNGELL) IN PINO AMENTA'S HEAVEN TONIGHT.

Unlike other lighter films about rock music, such asjulien Temple’s The Great Rock V Roll Swindle and Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap, Heaven To­ night does not make much of an effort to identify the ludicrous aspects of the industry. While Kim Gyngell’s portrayal of Baz Schultz goes part of the way to adding a much needed humorous ele­ ment, the film takes itself a litde too seriously overall. And just when one is getting used to the idea of a serious emotional drama, it suffers from an identity crisis three-quarters of the way through when a cops-and-robbers element creeps into the script complete with a toy gun and a chase through dark alleys. Full points to the scriptwriters for attempting to heighten its dramatic impact, but the action element may cause a few to forget what it is all about.

One of the best things that can be said of Heaven Tonightis the mileage it has achieved from a budget of less than $2 million. The cast is more than competent, from the rock solid performance of Rebecca Gilling as Dysart’s patient, ever-loving wife down to Sean Scully’s role of a slick record company shark.Director Pino Amenta and direc­ tor of photography David Connell have com­ bined to give the film a good look and a strong sense of place; the pubs, the old rock venues and city skylines are unmistakeably Melbourne. They have also made good use of lighting and brood­ ing shadows to accentuate the moods in the Dysart household.

Another strength is its soundtrack. Most of the songs in the film were written and performed

by John Waters and Guy Pearce, both of whom confess to wanting to marry their musical inter­ ests with acting. Experience has shown that good actors don’t necessarily make good musicians and vice versa, yet in Heaven Tonight the music has been incorporated with an undeniable degree of competence that has been accomplished by few actors of recent times, namely Richard Gere in The Cotton Club and Robert Duvall in Tender Mer­ cies. Whether or not you go for the type of music in Heaven Tonight, the lyrics are used to help tell a story and are far preferable to the contrived deception of lip-synching songs in movies.

At the very least, the film is an authentic document about the evolution of Australian rock ’n ’ roll and the people who have come and gone in it. Much of its contentis conjured via first-hand experiences of the writer, Frank Howson, who in an earlier day wrote and recorded rock songs for a quid. In an interview with Cinema Papers, Howson said the story was based on an amalgam of parts from the lives of performers such as John Paul Young, The Easybeats and Mike Rudd set in a period, presumably the early 1980s, when rec­ ord companies did not want to know about come­ backs.

While Heaven Tonight has not lived up to the expectations of its creators locally, Boulevard Films is optimistic about its forthcoming release in the U.S. and Europe (and possibly Russia) where perhaps audiences and critics have a more embracing attitude towards Australian films. It is due for release on video locally around April.

Heaven Tonight Directed by Pino Amenta. Producer: Frank Howson. Scriptwriters: Frank Howson, Alister Webb. Director of photography: David Connell. Pro­ duction designer: Bernadette Wynack. Editor: Philip Reid. Composer:John Capek. Sound: Andrew Rammage, Craig Carter, Livia Ruzic, Jim Currie. Cast: John Waters (Johnny Dysart), Rebecca Gilling (Annie Dysart), Guy Pearce (Paul Dysart), Kim Gyngell (Baz Schultz), Sean Scully (Tim Robbins), Sarah De Teliga (Robbins’ sec­ retary), Lisa Colonna (Robbins’ receptionist), Gary Adams (Roadie), Matthew Q uarterm aine (Stevo), Takahito Masuda (Toshio). Australian distributor: Hoyts.

35mm. 97 mins. Australia. 1990.

"PLAYING STRIP POKER WITH AN EXHIBITIONIST

M ETR O P O LITA N

SOMEHOW TAKES THE CHALLENGE OUT OF IT." WHIT STILLMAN'S METROPOLITAN.

BRIAN

MCFARLANE

or all I know, Metropolitanmightpass as a semi­ documentary on the lives of Manhattan ’s van­ ishing debutante set. These are not normally the kinds of people for whom one expects to feel great interest, let alone sympathy, but it is the triumph of writer-director Whit Stillman to take them, for 98 minutes at least, as seriously as they take themselves, if not for the same reasons. That he has contrived to do so is a measure of the film’s literacy (it is also literary but that is another matter) in getting the look and sound right in virtually every shot.

To unpack that somewhat crowded opening paragraph. First, having little idea about the au­ thenticity or otherwise of the scene depicted, in terms of its relation to real life, I find that Metro­ politan creates an extraordinary sense of an insu­ lated place and a possibly vanished time. If the people were a working-class group, we would praise such a film for documentary realism. Here, the film’s truth as an ambience study is felt in the rituals it examines - dances, dinings-out, bridge as they impinge on the lives of eight people. Seven of these have been meeting in a group for some time as members of the “Sally Fowler Rat Pack”.

The eighth, Tom (Edward Clements), is an out­ sider with a rented tuxedo and some sub-Marxist philosophy, which he gradually sheds as he ad­ justs to the SFRP which accepts him because of the serious “escort shortage”.

The meetings, mostly held in Sally’s (Dylan Hundley) plushy apartment, involve a great deal of talk, some of it pretentious, some of it snobbish and - from our point of view - a great deal of it witty. This is a film in which people are character­ ized by what they say and the audience is required to listen very carefully to pick up the differentiat­ ing touches. Nick Smith (Christopher Eigeman), forinstance, the SFRP’sapparentlyarrogantleader emerges both as absurd (in his hatred of tided aristocrats, because they look down on other aristocrats) and oddly kind (in his concern for these “girls at the most vulnerable stage of their lives. Preppie girls mature slower than others”).

The gende Audrey (Carolyn Farina), whose firm­ ness and decency provide the film’s moral posi­ tive with the most unobtrusive exactness, talks with quiet enthusiasm of Mansfield Park. Tom advances Lionel Trilling’s dismissal of the novel and its foolish premise, then lets slip that he hasn’t read the novel, and solemnly tries to re­

F

cover his ground with, “You don’t have to have read a book to have an opinion on it”. (There is a touching echo of this discussion later when Audrey, knowing Tom has been reclaimed by an earlier girlfriend, weeps quiedy when she sees a set of the Oxford Jane Austen in Scribner’s win­ dow.)

The talk covers a lot of ground - God, public transport, downward social mobility, whether “se­ rious guys tend to be better-looking” - most of it conducted with grave concern for major issues.

But if there is a marvellously controlled consis­ tency about the sound of the film, it also looks great in the sense of the mise-en-scene's performing major narrational functions. The girl’s evening dresses are all variations on a single theme of white frothiness, but the small variations in dress signify importandy in the same way that those in speech do. The girls wear pearls as a mute sign of status and belonging; the boys, when not in din­ ner jackets or tails, are in button-down shirts and preppie-neck pullovers. The film’s observation, on aural and visual levels, is meticulous. It con­ tributes to our sense of a tiny sub-culture and to the ways in which individuality still struggles to make itself felt in such daunting conformism.

As an ambience study, the film not merely impresses with its textural richness but with the quiet, precise irony of its stance. This irony is often comic as it records, apparently straightfaced, the higher idiocies of preppie conversa­ tion; it is also generous enough to allow the characters moments of genuine wit (“Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge o utofit”). Most important, though, in accounting for the film’s tonal complexity is the underlying note of pathos. Stillman under­ stands very well the vulnerability of the seemingly self-possessed. The group seems to be held to­ gether by its common pursuits and attitudes, but the fragility of the ties that bind is hinted at from the earliest scenes. It will take only an access of real feeling (like serious Charlie’s for Audrey and his consequent dislike of Tom for letting her down) to expose the brittleness of the rituals.

Rick Von Sloneker (Will Kempe), the handsome, arrogant outsider, who briefly invades the group and assists at its disintegration, is really no more than a catalyst. Anything else might have done. “It was all getting too claustrophobic”, says Audrey as she, ex-Marxist Tom, and loyal Charlie walk back CINEMA

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KATE (CATHERINE McCLEMENTS) AND RICHARD (COLIN FRIELS) IN ARCH NICHOLSON'S WEEKEND WITH KATE.

to Manhattan in the dawn from the decadence of Von Sloneker’s coastal retreat. “Too claustropho­ bic” and too repetitive: “We can’t just keep get­ ting together with the same people for the rest of our lives”, says Sally as she goes offwith a roughneck friend of Rick’s. With the Pack’s eponym gone, and its “leader” Nick banished up-state to “a stepmother of untrammelled malevolence”, with Cynthia losing her bra and her virtue at Rick’s place, the group has fallen apart. Charlie won­ ders poignantly if we “were ever really friends with the girls”. The members of the group seem just to vanish from each other’s lives, and we’re left to ponder Nick’s wisdom when he said, “You’re gonna have to accept that people from our back­ ground are not doomedto failure.”There has been a lot of talk about doom and failure running through the film, but Nick, in one of those differ­ entiating moments of insight, suggests that if they fail they can’t count on socially-determined rea­ sons for it. This sounds more solemn than the film is and, though it ends on a sober note of friend­ ship between Tom, Audrey and Charlie, it is not solemn. It is - like the best comedy - serious. The film is, as I have suggested, both ironic and gen­ erous about the lives of its characters.

It is a long time since a film required so much listening, perhaps not since that other New York film, My Dinner with André. The intellectual level of the talk is, of course, higher in My Dinner with André where our interest is sustained in the con­ versation for its own sake as much as for what it reveals of the speakers. In Metropolitan, the film’s literacy is in making its characters sound true to their class and place and temperaments. It is also literary in its insistence on the verbal as a key conveyer of information, contrasting not merely with, say, a Schwarzenegger movie, but with clas­ sical Hollywood cinema in which the mute elo­ quence of mise-en-scèneoften “tells” as much as the dialogue. In its particular kind of literariness, Metropolitan evokes such forebears as Scott Fitz­ gerald and Evelyn Waugh,.in their chronicling of the decline of bright young things, and, in films, Woody Allen, of course, and James Ivory’s Jane 56

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Austen in Manhattan. It shares with the latter a way of making New York look sensationally beautiful, here the result ofjohn Thomas’ lighting of streets and buildings by night and day. Metropolitan is in classy company; it is a film for grown-up people and you can’t say that about too many films in these G/ios¿-ridden days.

Metropolitan Directed by Whit Stillman. Producer: Whit Stillman. Co-producer: Peter Wentworth. Line producer: Brian Greenbaum. Scriptwriter: Whit Stillman. Director of photography:John Thomas. Costume designer: Mary Jane Fort. Editor: Christopher Tellefsen. Composers: Mark Suozzo, Tom Judson. Sound recordist: Antonio Arroyo. Cast: Carolyn Farina (Audrey Rouget), Edward Clements (TomTownsend), ChristopherEigeman (Nick Smith), Taylor Nichols (Charlie Black), Allison Rutledge-Parisi (Jane Clarke), Dylan Hundley (Sally Fowler), Isabel Gillies (Cynthia McLean), Bryan Leder (Fred Neff), Will Kempe (Rick von Sloneker), Elisabeth Thompson (Serena Slocum). Westerly Films-Video Inc., in association with Allagash Films. Australian distribu­ tor: Premium. 35mm. 98 mins. U.S. 1989.

W E E K E N D W ITH KA TE PHILIPPA

BURNE

ome weekendsjust seem to slip by and before you know it they are over, leaving a feeling that something happened but who knows what or why. Weekend with Kate is that type of weekend.

Husband and wife, Richard (Colin Friels) and Kate (Catherine McClements), organize a weekend at their ‘shack’ by the beach. He intends to tell her he is leaving her for another woman; she intends to tell him that she wants to have a baby. But Richard’s job as a public-relations ex­ ecutive with a rock-music promoter interferes, and Richard and Kate end up spending the week­ end at the shack with world famous rock star, Jon Thorne (Jerome Ehlers).

Thus, a love triangle is set up. Set in seclusion by the beach, there is little to interrupt the dy­ namics unfolding between the three characters.

However, a poor script leaves McClements and Ehlers adrift in the northern reaches of Sydney H arbour and drives Friels to somewhat absurd slapstick which rescues the film front drowning completely.

S

When I saw the film, a predominantly late twenties-early thirties audience laughed uproari­ ously at the antics of Friels as he brought Ameri­ can style sit-com to the Australian screen. Friels is very funny and has all the best lines in the film; however, he is let down by the weakness of the other characters and the unevenness of the film as it veers between being a comic-farce and a serious look at a love triangle with comic relief.

Stereotypes and clichés abound. Kate is the good wife. She dabbles in painting and classical music, putting them aside when Richard tells her to. They live an affluent lifestyle of yuppie white: white houses, white clothes, white cars. Kate happily plays second fiddle to Richard and his career. However, she also realizes that her life is not totally fulfilling and decides that a baby is the solution.

During the course of the weekend, Kate dis­ covers that Richard is having an affaire with Carla (Helen Mutkins), the stereotyped career woman: tough, bossy, demanding, manipulative, bitchy, sexual. Kate, too, is unfaithful, sleeping with Jon. So arises the biggest crisis ever to occur in Kate’s sheltered life. Disappointingly, she does not face up to it, running instead from one man to the other, finally settling for the security of what she already knows.

The character of Kate had the potential to develop into a strong person. She has the creative talent and does not seem to be the passive type.

Yet she allows the men in her life to walk all over her. Richard is embarrassed by her painting and her music, which he sees as being too serious in a wife. He only begins to value them when he sees thatjon does. At one point Kate says to Richard, “You only want me now because someone else does.” Kate is perceptive enough to realize that, yets stays with Richard in the end. It is disappoint­ ing to see yet another film in which the female lead settles for a flawed and abused relationship rather than standing on her own and valuing herself.

Catherine McClements won the AFI Best Ac­ tress Award for her portrayal of Kate. While her performance is good, the role is hardly demand­ ing or extending. Compared to previous winners in this category, McClements in Weekend with Kate is not really of the same standard.

Jon Thorne is the stereotype of the rock star: self-centred and arrogant, demanding and petu­ lant. Ehlers is unfortunate enough to have been landed with lines such as, “Once I thought my music could change the world. Now I know it’s just music.”

Jon is the outsider who comes into the estab­ lished life of Richard and Kate, and threatens its stability. He represents everything that Richard and Kate are not: the worldly traveller, the single person, the public figure. It is interesting that Richard does not mind that his secure and com­ fortable life is under threat through his own affaire with Carla, but when it is threatened by Kate’s choosing to leave with Jon it is another matter. The apparent message is that Richard can choose to leave Kate, but Kate cannot choose to leave Richard.

The most interesting and perplexing charac­ ter is Friel’s Richard. He is introduced as an ambitious, but slightly nervous and bumbling, career person. The nervousness and bumbling soon descend into slapstick. This happens sud­ denly and jolts the flow of the film. From being mild comedy, Weekend with Kate becomes farce.

Friels is very amusing but tends to go overboard in hamming it up, especially considering that all the humour emanates from him. In the middle of the film, he seems to be the idiot of the piece rather than a cohesive part of the plot.

Structural problems within the script also undermine Weekend with Kate. At one point an important plot line follows immediately after a gag line and laughter from the audience com­ pletely obscured the dialogue, leaving confusion as to how the turn in the plot came about.

The ending of the film is also problematic.

There seems to be about four different endings and the actual ending is disappointingly stock.

Interestingly, the production notes mention that a new ending was shot later and this is obvious when watching the film.

Many Australian films have recently been criticized for a lack of quality; concept and con­ tent being two key problem areas identified.

Weekend -with Kate exemplifies these criticisms, being undermined by both its use of well-worn concept and weak content. That the concept of a love triangle has been used many times is not necessarily problematic. However, Weekend with Kate offers nothing new or surprising. This is not to say that every film has to offer something new, deep or intellectual. The Big Steal was a very suc­ cessful recent Australian film which never pre­ tended to be other than a comic teen-love story.

Inevitably, Weekend with Kate has been com­ pared to The Crossing. Both films deal with the theme of a love triangle. Both suffer from a lack of character development and a flagging pace.

However, the tragic ending in The Crossing gives that film a degree of bite missing from Weekend with Kate, which ends where it began, making you wonderwhyyou bothered. Any change in Richard at the end is minimal and not surprising given the ease with which Kate returned to him. Nothing in their characters or relationship changed substan­ tially and the feeling is that the whole scenario could occur again in the near future.

The best aspect of the film is the photogra­ phy. Dan Burstall manages to capture the beauty and presence of Sydney and its northern beaches area, including the on-show affluence which sig­

nifies the lifestyle of which Kate and Richard are part. What they refer to as a ‘shack’ is actually a relatively large and comfortable beachfront house.

Another strength is the soundtrack. In line with a common trend in recent Australian films, itfeatures contemporary Australian music. In this instance, this also ties in well with the rock music connection in the story.

Perhaps Weekend with Kateis a film for yuppies facing crises who want to laugh and feel reassured that their lifestyles are not seriously under threat.

Like that scenario, Weekend with Kate as a film is safe and unthreatening, and similarly disap­ points by not achieving its full potential.

Weekend with Kate Directed by Arch Nicholson. Pro­ ducer: Phillip Emanuel. Co-producer: David C. Douglas.

Scriptwriters: Henry Tefay, Kee Young. Director of pho­ tography: Dan Burstall. Production designer: Larry Eastwood. Costume designer: Michele Leonard. Editor: Rose Evans. Composer: Bruce Rowland. Sound record­ ist: Tim Lloyd. Cast: Colin Friels (Richard), Catherine McClements (Kate) Jerom e Ehlers (Jon Thorne), Helen Mutkins (Carla), Kate Sheil (Phoebe) Jack Mayers (Gus), Rick Adams (Ted), Zoe Emanuel (Girl at airport), Bruce Venables (Bugman) Jo h n Fielder (Fishmonger). Phillip Emanuel Productions. Australian distributor: Greater Union. 35mm. 92 mins. Australia. 1990.

W H A T TH E M OON S A W ADRIAN

JACKSON

hat TheMoon Saw tells of ayoung boy, Steven (Andrew Shephard), who leaves the farm for a week in the city (Melbourne) with his grand­ mother. Gran (Pat Evison) is a one-time Tivoli showgirl who works in the ticket office at a theatre where a pantomime, Sinbad’s Last Adventure, is showing.

Steven has never seen a live show before, and is greatly impressed by it. He is even more thrilled to meet the lead characters in the play, especially the lovely Emma (Danielle S p en cer), for whom he quickly develops a crush. Over the course of the week, he sees the show daily, making friends with several people at the theatre, but not with Mr Zachary (Max Phipps), the bad-tempered and greedy owner. He is upset that Mr Zachary refuses to give Emma the Friday afternoon off so that she can attend a re­ hearsal, which could give her a break into ‘the big time’.

On the Friday, his last day in town, Steven attends the show yet again; but this time his imagination takes over, and he becomes Sinbad, overcoming his evil adversary, Mr Zachary, before living happily ever after with Emma.

Gran wakes Steven to take him to the bus station; but before he leaves, he realizes how he can thwart Mr Zachary and enable Emma to make that audition.

What the Moon Saw has obvious merits. It is an una­ shamedly and unselfconsc­ iously Australian film. There

W

STEVEN WILSON (ANDREW SHEPHARD) IN PINO AMENTA'S W HAT THE M O O N SAW.

are no kangaroos or Harbour Bridge backdrops, no jarring attempts to appeal to the American market. The central character, as played by Andrew Shephard, is immediately likeable; he brings a natural ease to the role, which is quiet and well-mannered, rather than obnoxious and precocious, as seems to be the common prescrip­ tion for ‘cuteness’ in child roles. Pat Evison does a fine job as the loving grandmother, and Max Phipps relishes his over-the-top role as the nasty Mr Zachary.

And the pantomime around which the film revolves is no flimsy facade, as one might expect.

It is actually a show (also written by Frank Howson) which enjoyed two successful runs in Mel­ bourne, in 1981 and ’83. (A line from one of the songs in the show provides the film’s title.)

The essential ingredients for a successful children’s movie - fantasy, adventure, humour, warmth - are all there. Whether those qualities are there in sufficient quantity to make consideration of the film’s flaws irrelevant in the minds of the target audience, I cannot say for sure. (I suspect that the absence of the impressive special effects that today’s kids take for granted could prove to be an obstacle.)

But anyone who finds the story less than captivating would quickly notice a number of gaping holes in the plot and script. Just a couple of examples: we have already seen Emma sing “I Only Have Eyes For You” before the producers of the big show she is aiming at; so why is it so crucial for her to attend the Friday audition, only to sing the same song for the same people?

If Mr Zachary demands inappropriate changes to the script of Sinbad’s Last Adventure, such as cutting out the evil sorcerer Bong, why does the show go on to be such a success? And why is Bong still on board? I could go on; it appears that those making the film either did not consider such anomalies, or thought them unimportant.

Similarly, the definition of several characters appears to have been given too little thought. The character ofjim Shilling (Kim Gyngell), the writer of Sinbad’s Last Adventure, is a confused and con­ fusing one, apparently there as a self-indulgence on Howson’s part. G ran’s neighbour, Miss Melrose, is first shown as a sinister character, then as a silly old wowser; but she is the one who Steven turns to for help when Gran has an apparent heart attack (another part of the plot that is unconvincingly written).

And much is made, at the start of the film, of the fact that Steven’s father is confined to a wheelchair; if anyone ever works out the signifi­ cance of this, please let me know.

Despite these flaws, I hope that What The Moon Saw does achieve the sort of success in Australia that its distributors claim for it internationally. If parents are going to take their children to the movies, why not an Australian one?

I expect that most young children would find this enjoyable entertainment, if not the greatest thrill of their school holidays; and that accompa­ nying parents could sit through it without getting too grouchy or bored. Ijust wish that a little more thought had gone into getting the details right.

What the Moon SawDirected by Pino Amenta. Producer: Frank Howson. Executive producer: Peter Boyle. Co­ producer: James Michael Vernon. Screenplay: Frank Howson. Director of Photography: David Connell. Pro­ duction designer: Otello Stolfo. Costume designer: Rose Chong. Editor: Marc Van Buuren. Composer: John Capek. Cast: Andrew Shephard (Steven Wilson), Pat Evison (Gran), Max Phipps (Mr Zachary), Danielle Spencer (Emma) Jim Shilling (Kim Gyngell) J a n Friedl (Miss Melrose). A Boulevard Films presentation. Aus­ tralian distributor: Hoyts. 35mm. 82 mins. Australia.

1990.

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M ARK C H IP P E R F IE LD

Filming Artists: Don Bennetts Few Australian documentaries have won such an immediate and fulsome response from the critics as D onald Friend : T he P rodigal A ustralian , a warm and celebratory p o rtra it of the late “artist, author and w it” by Melbourne film m aker Don Bennetts.

D

ENNIS PRYOR in The Age wrote, “We

should be standing up, beating drums and singing Te Deums for Donald Friend and this incom parable film.” Phillip Adams w ent even further in The Weekend Aus­ tralian, describing the B ennetts’ docum entary as “the best of its genre that Australia has p ro d uced”.

The docum entary was first screened by the ABC last year. A full-length version of the film is currently on theatrical release (distribution by the AFI) around Australia.

Bennetts is a veteran producer-director of arts program m es for British and Australian television. During the early 1960s, he worked with Michael Parkinson at G ranada Television and later m ade “arts specials” for BBC TV.

Donald Friend: The Prodigal Australian (the title is inspired by one of the artist’s illustrated manuscripts) is the first of a six-part series on the great M odern Australian painters planned

by Bennetts. The second film, a study of the landscape artist Lloyd Rees, is due for release later this year.

Bennetts began filming Friend at the art­ ist’s studio in Sydney in 1986 and the docu­ mentary combines these sequences with foot­ age of his funeral (Friend died in 1989) and preparations for the retrospective exhibition which toured Australia in 1990.

The film, which was edited by Tim Lewis ( Cactus, Man of Flowers) and funded by the Film Finance Corporation, traces F riend’s rem ark­ able life of work and travel by com bining

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CAMERAMAN TO N Y WILSON FILMS DONALD FRIEND AT THE ARTIST'S STUDIO FOR DON BENNETTS' DONALD FRIEND: THE PRODIGAL AUSTRALIAN. ARTISTS JOHN OLSEN AND DONALD FRIEND. JO H N OLSEN AND LLOYD REES DURING THE FILMING OF THE UPCOMING LLOYD REES: REFLECTIONS OF AUSTRALIA. DON BENNETTS,

¡¡¡fili

ART DEALER STUART PURVES, AND JOHN OLSEN OUTSIDE OLSEN'S STUDIO NEAR BATHURST.

recent interviews with archival footage and early stills.

From Friend’s last years in Australia, the director follows the artist back to his famous Bali sojourn (where he became known as Tuan Rakshasa or “Lord Devil”); and from there to his earlier adventures in Italy, East Africa and Sri Lanka.

Donald Friend: The Prodigal Australian also quotes extensively from the artist’s volumi­ nous illustrated diaries in an attem pt to cast some light on his shadowy interior life.

There is an amusing interview with media baron Jam es Fairfax who describes the story behind the huge m ural which he commis­ sioned Friend to paint at his country property at Bowral. The vibrant m ural depicts the vari­ ous generations of Fairfaxes, with young War­ wick appearing as Little Lord Fauntleroy and his m other, Lady Fairfax, dressed in a long white dress chasing butterflies with a net.

Interviews with the expatriate Australian artistjeffrey Smart, the artist’s long-time com­ panion Attilio Guarracino, Justin O ’Brien and others provide some lively anecdotes about the young Donald Friend.

D irector and producer Don Bennetts is the first to adm it that the film portrays Friend in a mostly flattering light and purposely avoids the rather sterile biographical technique of oth er documentaries: The film is a portrait rather than a documentary.

It is biased. It is unashamedly dedicated to him.

I didn’t see any point in trying to make a [socalled] balanced film.

Bennetts sees the film as both a “celebra­ tion” of the artist’s extraordinary life and an attem pt to encourage the critical reassessment of his work as an artist, diarist and author: I felt it was time that Friend took his place next to Don Bradman as a great Australian hero.

According to Bennetts, the film also at­ tempts to steer attention away from the myth of Donald Friend and concentrate on his legacy of exotic and sensuous paintings: Iwanted to suggest that an artist [such as Friend] doesn’t die and that theworks become the life.

Friend has become his~admirers.

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LEFT: ROXANNE (ANNE BROCHET), CHRISTIAN DE NEUVILIETTE (VINCENT PEREZ) AND CYRANO (GÉRARD DEPARDIEU) IN JEAN-PAUL RAPPANEAU'S CYRANO DE BERGERAC.

S e m a in e d u C in é m a F r a n ç a is e n A u s t r a l ie To Australian art-house audiences, French cinema still represents the

HELEN BARLOW REPORTS FROM SYDNEY •

cutting edge of commercial film . For many years the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals have regularly pro­ grammed “special” French nights to packed houses, and there have been a number of successful commercial releases (most notably J ean de Florette, Manon des Sources and M y N ew Partner). Obviously, French

cinema works at the box-office.

Recent French Film Weeks in Sydney and Melbourne capitalized on this popularity and were a big success. UTA French Airlines, Unifrance Film International, Club Med and the Alliance Française made it possible fo r a number of filmmakers and actors to attend screenings of their film s, and to provide an insight into the state of the French industry.

The biggest drawcard in Sydneywas Gérard Depardieu, whose presence at the premiere of Cyrano de Bergerac caused the screening to be booked out weeks in advance. And when Depardieu entered his Sydney recep­ tion at the French Consulate, a hush swept over the crowd. Even Gough Whitlam was lost for words.

Depardieu’s visit was only fleeting: he was heading off to India to see the final cut of Satyajit Ray’s film, Branches of the Tree, which he produced. (Depardieu considers Ray to be one of few living auteurs. A few years ago he also organized French distri­ bution for Ray’s previous film, an adapta­ tion of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.) It seems that highly paid actors are among a rare breed with money to invest in films these days, like Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kin­ dergarten Cop. Director Etienne Chatiliez and screen­ writer Florence Quentin have had great success at the French box office with their first two films, La Vie est un long fleuve

tranquille (Life is a LongQuietRiver) and Tatie Danielle- it seems that you can still be lucky in the heavily established French film in­ dustry. They make a formidable team, with Chatiliez’s compressed filmmaking knowl­ edge as a former television ad man and Quentin’s experience as first assistant to venerated director Maurice Pialat. They also found an extremely supportive and non-obtrusive producer who was prepared to take them on without the experience of making a short film.

The films have not had an extensive U.S. release. “French films usually won’t have a chance in the U.S. because nobody pushes them”, says Chatiliez. Life is a Long QuietRiverhas been remade for Hollywood and Tatie Danielle is destined for the same fate, but Chatiliez and Quentin have no desire to work there. In the European tradi­ tion, they concentrate on writing, direction and mise-en-scène; they refuse to compro­ mise their craft. “We’re not technicians,” says Chatiliez; “Florence is notjust a writer, I am not just a director. If they buy us, they must buy the whole European way of work­ ing.”

Chatiliez adds that it oftendoesn’twork to run away from your country: The only people who have succeeded in Hollywood are Jewish people and people from Eastern Europe because they couldn’t express themselves in their own country. Jean Renoir had to run away from France during World War II. Le Fleuve, which he made in India, was okay, but all the rest were dead films. Fellini has been asked about 100 times to go to the U.S. to make a film and he is always saying, ‘Yes, yes’, but the limousines are turning up empty in New York.

The satirical wit of Tatie Danielle has been a big hit with Australian audiences.

Chatiliez gives us a glimpse of the new French middle class through a malicious 80-year-old aunt. “They won’t have any­ thing new,” says Chatiliez; “they want the same life they’ve read in the newspapers.”

Their lives are full of pastel colours like the muted orange and green of the film’s beauty parlour.

As well as sending up stereotyped no­ tions of old age, the film takes a swipe at the media. In a typically exaggerated French style, Auntie Danielle gains media sympa­ thy when she neglects herself, lives in squalor and eats dog food.

Of the fifteen features in the Film Week, Cyrano de Bergeracwas the only epic.

Smaller budget films with an ensemble of actors are now more common in France. In

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Sydney for the screening of his Him, Man­ ika, Une Vie Plus Tard, was 70-year-old vet­ eran of French Him and television, François Villiers. He says the French film industry is feeling the economic pinch because Holly­ wood is squeezing France out of its own market. At least France’s 33 per cent of the national box-office still seems healthywhen compared to Australia’s paltry two per cent.

“The distribution deals for French films are badly made”, says Villiers. “They are accustomed to putting big films like The Terminator into thirty or forty cinemas in Paris. So when the small film comes, natu­ rally the system doesn’t work.” Villiers says that filmmakers must have television pre­ sales to fund their films, as distributors no longer give any money.

It has been five years since Villiers worked in television, where newly intro­ duced private stations have replaced drama with variety shows in prime-time viewing.

Now even the government stations are

changing their format-imagine Steve Vizard and Clive Robertson in the 8.30 time-slot!

Villiers’ liking for simple, realistic filmmaking comes from his early experi­ ence as a documentary cameraman. “In my opinion, you mustn’t feel the style of the director”, he says, “as with Lelouch and Resnais. Renoir and Truffaut are my fa­ vourites.”

The story for Manika, Une ViePlus Tard is based on fact: a Catholic girl experiences flashbacks of her past life as a Hinduwoman

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and travels through India to meether former husband. It is a metaphoricjourney for the young Catholic priest, whose beliefs begin to embrace Hinduism.

Villiers’ Indian wife of forty years worked with him on the film. The story attracted him because his pet themes came into play: religious, racial and cultural intol­ erance. Films made in India usually depict a poverty-stricken existence, “which is not so typical these days. I haven’t seen a film about simple people, and that’s important to me.”

Villiers works closely with his producer and long-time friend, Raoul Katz, co-pro­ ducer of The Gods Must Be Crazy. Like that film, Manika examines another culture from a European perspective, though it is some­ what romanticized in the telling. The film wonthePrixduPubliqueatthe 1989 Cannes Film Festival, voted the best of eighty films shown at special public screenings for the people of Cannes.

Eric Rohmer’s Contes de Printemps (Stories of Spring) is the first in his new series, “Sto­ ries of Four Seasons”, and con­ tinues his preoccupations with philosophy and young women.

Rohmer also produces the films of former academic Jean Claude Brisseau, who has had recent success with his contro­ versial film, NoceBlanche (White Wedding). His earlier brutal film, DeBruitetdeFureur (Sound and Fury), stunned audiences at the 1989 Sydney and Mel­ bourne Festivals. While a com­ parison is sometimes made be­ tween he and Rohmer, Bris­ seau says there is a big differ­ ence between them. “In Rohmer’s films you don’t see death, you don’t see suffering, because he’s afraid of that.

There’s death, suffering and sometimesviolence inmy films.

I take risks.”

A mix of three stories from Brisseau’s teaching career, Noce Blanche tells of a 50-year-old philosophy teacher (Bruno Cremer) who fa lls in love with his 17-year-old student (Vanessa Paradis).

He feels trapped. In the classroom he ques­ tions life; at home he is surrounded by books. (Brisseau suggests this by framing his shots through doorways and shooting from outside.) The girl seduces him, ma­ nipulates him and is determined to free him (even if her sexual overtures are legiti­ mized by a clichéd history of drugs and prostitution).

In the philosophy class, we see the hope of a happy ending through original

footage of the final frames of Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray). A similar sunset occurs at the end of NoceBlanche. Brisseau says the film is about the violence of love, the violence of society, and how we are prisoners of our habits and the voyeuristic gaze.

Noce Blanche was a box-office hit in France and did well in numerous other countries. Brisseau says it was a big risk dealing with such a sensitive topic and he has no explanation for its success. He ex­ pected the heavy text of the philosophy class to alienate his audience, The money for the film came from the three usual means of funding French films: from television pre-sales; from banks, which invest money in films instead of paying tax; and from La Commission d’Avances Sur Recettes, a government body which ad­ vances money you must pay back if your

SCOTT MURRAY REPORTS FROM MELBOURNE •

film is a success. The Commission’s funds are generated from a small box-office levy.

Apart from another smaller film, Brisseau will soon make a big-budget war epic. It would cost the same amount as Cyrano de Bergerac if it were shot in France ($17 million), but prices are halved by shooting in North Vietnam. It will be simi­ lar to the world of Sound and Fury, and he insists “it will be completely different to an American war film.”

The French Film Industry is still healthy.

In a worsening economic climate the gov­ ernment strives to support filmmakers; in return, filmmakers promote indigenous culture. French films promote a sense of national style in their intellectualism, dia­ logue and detailed mise-en-scène. And the filmmakers are happy to maintain that tra­ dition. They are not about to be bought out

by Hollywood... yet.

The undoubted highlight of the French Film Week, and in this viewer’s opinion the finest French film seen since Robert Bresson’s L ’Argent (1984), was Eric Rochant’s Un Monde Sans Pitié (World Without Pity). The filni was touted in 1989

by French critics as the French film of the year (more recently it was Christian Vin­ cent’s La Discrète), and they were right. Un Monde is a debut feature of astonishing mastery: it is as if Rochant were bom to cinema the way, in centuries past, writers like the Brontës were bom to the novel.

Hippo (Hippolyte Girardot) is a uni­ versity graduate unsure about almost every­ thing in life except the need to pursue love.

He is someone trying not to connect with life - except in the sense of sharing with Robert Bresson’s dreamer the search for what Hardy termed the platonic ideal, a love soul that passes from body to body. Individuals are treasured only momen­ tarily, and, once the scent of love’s having moved on (which may but be seconds later), the dreamer is off again in calm pursuit. (There is even a direct reference to Bresson’s Quatre Nuits d ’unRêveur [FourNights of a Dreamer] when Hippo is taken away by the po­ lice and a boat on the Seine, lit up with ‘fairy’ lights, glides by.)

Hippo lives with and off his brother, a highschool student and dope pusher. The flat is as crowded as the Gare du Nord and Hippo can pass time without noticing its passing.

Except, he has seen a new girl (Mireille Perrier) and a new chase begins, his former girlfriend abandoned without conscience (which is perhaps why a sympathetic Rochant allows for the possibility of her going off with Hippo’s friend).

As a portrait of modem youth dislo­ cated from conventional notions of social responsibility, of seeing love as outside the Church-sanctioned concept of couples-tostart-families, it ranks near Quatre Nuits. It is a little rougher than Bresson’s perfec­ tionist work, but that it bears comparison at all indicates a new director of astonishing talent.

Almost as fine isJean-Paul Rappaneau’s Cyrano de Bergerac. This has already been reviewed from Cannes, but let be men­ tioned again direction that is precise and

witty, a play which approaches greatness in its sensitivity and an actor demonstrating a new level of his extraordinary talent.

What should also be noted is that, after the first waves of worldwide enthusiasm, there is now a backlash against what is seen as the film’s conservativeness. Cinematically it is almost pre-nouvelle vague, but that is not the point. What Rappaneau has done is find a style appropriate to the material at hand, something stylistically attuned to Rostand’s play which imbues the classical reading with a resonance more meaningful to today’s sensibilities than the ‘modernist’ Hollywood concoction of Roxane.

Equally important, Cyrano de Bergerac gives Australian audiences a rare chance to see the work of one of cinema’s finest directors of photography, Pierre Lhomme.

Shot in epic scale, and with a staggering mastery of light and shadow (who else would be so confident in so exposing those muted

faces?), it is worth remembering that Lhomme was also responsible for the radi­ cally different 16mm black and white of Jean Eustace’s La Maman et la Putain ( The Mother and the Whore) and Bresson’s moondappled Quatre Nuits.

Laurent Heynemann’s Faux et Usage de Faux(Forgery and the Use ofForgery)was much anticipated after some fine crits in France.

However, despite its careful treatment of an involving subject (in part, author Romain Gary’s deadly game-playing with the Goncourt literary committee), it is a surprisinglyunadventurous film. Nonetheless, CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: HIPPOLYTE GIRARDOT AND MEREILLE PERRIER IN ERIC ROCHANT'S UN MONDE SANS PITIE. IGOR (HUGES QUESTER) AND EVE (ELOISE BENNET) IN ERIC ROHMER'S CONTES DE PRINTEMPS. PHILIPPE NOIRET AS A WRITER VERY MUCH LIKE ROMAIN GARY IN LAURENT HEYNEMANN'S FAUX ET USAGE DE FAUX. AND, SERGE REGIANNI AND FRANÇOIS NEGRET IN JOSEE DAYAN'S PLEIN FER.

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creates riveting cin­ ema, especially as ^ B formames are par­ ticularly self-conscious and awkward.

Equally disturbing has been Roh­ mer’s insistence of 16mm, which, with the varying abilities tors of photography, has resulted in some very p o o r image ABOVE. PHILIPPE FAUCON S L AMOUR WITH LAURENCE KERTEKIAN AND JULIE JAPHET BELOW RIGHT: ft CONFORMISTA MEETS STALKSR: ENKI BILAL S BUNKER PALACE HOTEL

it is very craftsman-like, demonstrating yet again that French directors have a seem­ ingly innate ability to intelligendy match lenses and shots together, and to under­ stand a pacing that is crisp but never forced. _ _As.we.ll, the performances by Philippe Noiret (looking much like Gary) and Robin Renucci (who is viewed by many as one of the best, arid most versatile younger actors in France) are precise. The' relationship of author and nephew, of master and servant, of the doer and the accorded, is finely detailed, the ebbs and flows oiten surpris­ ing and rarelyfeeling scripted. EvenHirsch’s motives remain clouded to the end. Is he perpetrating this farce out of an aged listlessness, a bizarre expression of pent-up cruelty, or is itjust another example in a life of meaningless manipulation? Bravely, Heynemaim does not opt for the romantic or sentimental, and it is much to lus and his lead actor’s credit that they can overcome the lovableness usually associated with Noiret s scieen persona What does hang disturbingly over the film is Jean Seberg’s absent presence.

Seventy-)eai-old p ro fe sso r Eric Rohmer is back with a new film, Contes de Printemps. It is" h is.flattest in some .time, near defeated by a cinematic matter-offactness that has been encroaching on his' work for some time and threatens to de­ prive it of life and light. %m Here, for example, Rohmer sets his camera at a couch and two participants walk into frame and sit down. They then talk for some lime, the strains of impro\ isdlion often showing. Rohmer does not cut or change position to highlight anything, he just lets it drone on When he does cut, it has the feel of a cut-away so that he can trim out a section of what was an even longet take. (This impression was later confirmed by his editor, who visited Australia during the Film Week.) This lazy minimalism hardly

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Rayon Vert setting an unchallenged low).

The erratic way his films are lit, plus the limits of 16mm stock, result often in grainy and murky images, the very textures of which clearly having nothing to do with the film’s thematics (as they do in, say, La \laman 1 1la Putain).

Several Frerich.Tcrities. were recently asked why Rohmer stuck to 16mm and the answer was that he financed his films him self and, though they would still make a :handsome profit if shot on the slightly more expensive 35mm, Rohmer preferred to pocket the difference. Whether this is so or not, his dc cision is a strain on the ey e and an affront to one’s aesthetics.

Ml Etienne Chatiliez’s Tatie Danielle is al­ ready in extended release and enjoying commercial success, if not critical. Having like many critics found it almost unbear­ able to sit through, one can’t help but understand the attacks on Chatiliez’s pedes¡jftan direction, the lum­ bering obviousness of the screenplay (surely stepping on the plants once would have made the point) and the amateur theatrics of much of the acting (a few less mannerisms and a lot m ore subtlety wouldn’t have gone astray).

Thatsaid, TatieDanielle is of interest in its attempt (and attempt it is only) to examine why a nasty char­ acter should be met so re­ lentlessly with kindness.

What is it in the humanpsy-, che that makes one want to meet cruelty that way, as if parental teaching and Sunda\ school hasc imbued us with an unreal sense of the pow er ol good-1 What Chatiliez does quite bravely suggest is that lihemindedness is perhaps the best way of containing it. Certainly the only person to get

through to this most unpleasant auntie is the au pair of one’s nightmares.

Jacques W. Benoit’s Comment Faire L Amour avec un Negre sans se Fatigeur (How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired) is a Canadian-French co-production with a wittily commercial title, a lively first third and an exasperating tailing off into a very tedious sub-plot about drug dealers (shades of “Crocodile”Dundee 2).

Josée Dayan’s Plein Fer (Plain Fire) is an example of middle-of-the-road French cin­ ema, derived in this case from very American sources. A virtual homage to, if not remake of, The Hustler and Karate Kid, this story of a boy’s entry into the corrupt world of professional boules is a very conven­ tional work. But the fine cast (Serge Reggiani, François Négret, and especially a delightfully mannered Jean-Pien e Bisson, all stoop and sweat )helps pai balls override the predictable plotting. And even whilé bemoaning its rather tele-feature feel, one has to admit it exhibits a level of cinematic competence rarely seen in similar Austral­ ian work. * 'l l Claude Lelouch’s IIy a desjours... et des Lunés has been reviewed from Paris, and Bertrand von Effenterre’s Tumultes and Philippe Fauçon’s L ’Amour from Cannes, ; Enki Bilal’s Bunker Palace Hotelis a tedious exercise insetdecoration, showing the clear but unformed influences o f Bernardo Bertolucci’s RConformista ( The Confortnisf) and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. As for F. J. Ossang’s Le Trésor des Res Chiennes and François Villiers’Manika, Une Vie Plus Tard, they were unfortunately missed •

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DAVID S T R A T S Q i THE A VO CADO PLANTATION: BOOM AND B UST IN THE AUSTR ALIAN FILM IND USTRY David Stratton, Macmillan, Sydney, 1990, 465pp., Kb, illus., rrp $59.95 BRIAN MC F A R L A NE

ven those of us who like to think that we keep up with new Australian movies are forced to acknowledge, when confronted by The Avocado Plantation, that we do not. And, on the basis of what David Stratton tells us, we may have a good deal to be grateful for in what we have missed.

The book’s nearly 70-page Appendix lists 270 films made and (sometimes) released in Australia during the 1980s and a provisional list of those completed in 1990. Since I finished writing my own book on new AustralianJ cinema in mid-1985, I felt that I had maintained acquaintance with the new films made locally, and felt also that this was not hard to do as the output seemed to be slowing down. Not so. There were numerous films which had either skimpy theatrical release or went straight to video, and sometimes turned up on television (in non-ratings periods usually), which had quite passed me by.

What do they know of the last few years who know only, say, Sweetie or Ghosts... of the Civil Dead or Evil Angels? They know, in fact, only what has acquired release, whether mainstream (e.g., Dead Calm) or arthouse {e.g., Return Home). Thatis, they know those films which, for one reason or an­ other, were deemed able to attract an audience, of one kind or another - not, of course, that this is necessarily what happened. But David Stratton appears to have seen them all and herein lies the chief value of The Avocado Plantation: as a record of the 10BA decade, whether or not one sees the decade as, in Stratton’s term, prodigieuse.

Taken together with his previous book, The Last New Wave, which performed similar func­

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tions for what may now be seen as the heady days of the 1970s, Stratton has provided a valuable research tool for anyone interested in new Aus­ tralian cinema. Every film, successful or unsuc­ cessful, good or bad, is discussed, largely in terms of its production history. One finds not just the vicissitudes attending the making of such major films as Gallipoli or The Year of Living Dangerously (though it is good to have these so succinctly set down), but also of such lesser-known pieces as BenLewin’s Georgia or Ned Lander’s WrongSideof the Road, or Geoffrey Bennett’s Boys in the Island.

Some of these deserved wider screening; others perhaps did not: juxtaposed as they are in Stratton’s accounts, though, they provide a picture of an industry struggling with problems of fi­ nancing, of production (not enough competent personnel to go round, Stratton suggests, following the “bunching” that came in the wake of the 10BA tax concession), of distribution and exhibition (not enough audience interest for cinema films generally, or - particularly - for so many Austra­ lian films, or - even more particularly - so many uninviting Australian films).

Stratton’sopeningchapter, “LaDecade Prod­ igieuse”, takes a rather lofty view of the effects of the “extraordinarily generous” concessions of­ fered by 10BA, as introduced in 1980. For in­ stance, it attracted the wrong sort of people to the industry - people looking for a tax shelter but with no real interest in the cinema; it led to “attempts to Americanise Australian films”, as though that were necessarily a bad thing; it placed a premium on pre-sales, which led to “distribu­ tion companies demand [ing] some control and creative input over films they were, in effect, financing”. Even with the advent of the Film Finance Corporation in 1988, litde seems to have changed and Stratton laments that “commercial viability is apparently the watchword”. For Strat­ ton, “commercial viability” sounds very much like the enemy of creative quality.

About this latter, he may or may not be right, but it has a curiously old-fashioned ring to it, as though the author’s spiritual home were the old Savoy Theatre, Melbourne’s former home of ‘ar­ tistic’ foreign films as opposed to Hollywood commercialism. Which brings me to the weak­ ness of this useful and often interesting book: that is, the level and nature of its critical judgments.

These are underlaid by a vague elitism and a very romantic view of the creative artist and the crea­ tive process. Film, as Stratton must be more aware than most, is an industry as well as an artform, and as an art form it is at the mercy of a collaborative input unknown to, say, literature or painting. It seems pointless to recommend building a film industry on “the high quality art house film”, which appears to be Stratton’s favoured approach - and his favourite sort of film.

In fact, the book is not valuable at all as a critical record.

Unlike the detailed excellence of the produc­ tion history material (much of it culled from interviews with those involved), the critical ap­ proach is limited to a series of snap judgments, unsupported by careful examination of the films.

What, for instance, do critical gestures such as the following mean?

O f The Place at the Coast, “It is the sort of film that, with less self-conscious treatment and a firmer grip on the actors, might have worked extremely well.” O f Mull, “ ... it desperately needs a touch of poetry in the cinematography”. Of Frenchman’s Farm, ‘T he problem is the flat televi­ sion-style direction of Ron Way and the uncon­ vincing screenplay.” These comments are admit­ tedly taken out of context, but, in a key sense, there is no context to put them in; they are tacked on to accounts of production an d /o r plot sum­ maries, and do not encapsulate or illuminate any sustained critical approach.

No method of organizing a book which is essentially a survey of the films of a given country or period is likely to please anyone except the author. Stratton has chosen to divide his survey into chapters with headings from well-known films (e.g., “Kid Stakes”, “And Justice for All”, “Gun Crazy”). However, there is very litde con­ necting link except for the gesture towards the generic indicated in the heading. The chapter labelled “And Justice for All” begins: “It is gener­ ally accepted that films made for the cinema should stay away from social issues and politics ...”: generally accepted by whom? This vague introductory sentence merely ushers in a series of discrete accounts of such films as The Fringe Dwellers, Short Changedand A Street toDie, but throws no light on the alleged difficulties faced by films of this kind.

As one reads of “fatuous performances” and “superb cameos”, one reflects that perhaps Strat­ ton has been a reviewer for too long - too ready with opinions, too little inclined to argue. He does, however, have a reviewer’s easy style, and the book deserves to be valued for organizing so much sheer information.

BEYON D TH E STA R S : STUD IES IN AM ERICAN POPULAR FILM V O L U M E 1: S T O C K C H A R A C TE R S IN A M E R IC A N P O P U LA R FILM

Edited by Paul Loukides and Linda K Fuller, Bowling State University Popular Press, Ohio, 1990, 245pp., pb.

RAFFAELE C A P UT O

his first volume of a proposed series on AmeriI can popular film devotes itself to the study of the stock character, which falls into four tradi­ tional categories: (1) the conventional environ­ mental figure, or “extra”; (2) the bit role; (3) the minor secondary an d /o r supporting role; and (4) the major secondary an d /o r supporting role.

As they stand here, the distinction between them should be called industrial: each category is determined by the prescribed function of the stock character in the moviemaking process. The “extra”, for instance, is a highly conventionalized figure kept in store by central casting an d the wardrobe department, and as part of the physical setting of the film serves, according to the Intro­ duction, “to establish the base reality of the films” (p. 4). A good example is the familiar sight of a

band of warring Indians in many a Western, But thè central concern of this volume is not with the stock figure in this industrial sense.

Bather, because the stock figure is such a signifi­ cant aspect of formulaic moviemaking, this af­ fords the opportunity to examine American film as a reflection of popular attitudes toward various groups. The -traditional categories of the stock character then are situated within this broader concern. This means specifically re-categorizing the traditional categories, and dividing the vol­ ume into four sections. The new categories an d / or sections are now: (1) ethnic and racial stere­ otyping; (2) social classes; (3) professions; and (4) the idiosyncratic “type”. Thus, as the title of the series, Beyond the Stars, seems to imply, the concerns of the essays collected for this volume are to extend further than the specific concerns of the cinema.

But as the reader sallies through the Fore­ word and Introduction, things tend to smack of a certain fallacy in its approach. The introduction claims, “Beyond the Stars aims at focusing attention on the stock elements which form the woof and waip of American movies” (p. 7). This gives fur­ ther credence to the title’ssuggestingadeparture from the usual subject areas addressed regarding popular film, and acknowledging that there is a complex range of textures that go to make up popular film. This is certainly a commendable attitudè to take. But it also makes evident that the volume does not wish to engage with what it sees as the usual critical perspectives that pertain to the study of popular film, and which seemingly limit access (academic and otherwise) to the “woof and warp”.

One need only recall a baffling claim made in the Foreword, for it concerns what this volume is not as a means of telling us what it is. As the editors assert, ‘This is not a study of genre, n o ta study of film celebrities, not a study of film auteurs, not a study of film mise-en-scène styles, not a study of political, feminist an d /o r sociocultural issues in film,” (p.l) It is at this point that one gets a better idea of the direction the volume is leaning toward, and, if the reader could take this comprehensive si­ phoning off at face value, then the volume could get away with a great deal. One feels, however, that the avenue finally chosen is actually the only avenue left open. This is emphatically stated in the following paragraph, and it is worth quoting in full: Stock Characters in A merican PopularFilmaddresses the conventions which have been determinants and reflections of American attitudes toward various groups and types. Going beyond the personal, the essays in the volume define and delineate a variety of social phenomena as they are reflected in popu­ lar film. The essays contained here examine popular film as reflections of American attitudes toward various racial an d /o r social groups, occupational types, socio-economic classes, religious groups, and “people not like us”, (p.l)

It is odd and surprising that each sentence basically says the same thing. Pèrhaps it’s labour­ ing the point here, but ‘reflection’ is obviously the linchpin in the collection’s relationship be­ tween the traditional, industrial categories of the stock character and the newly invented ones.

The overall problem with the volume’s ap­ proach is that it fails to see that reflection is not a pure experience; rather it is tempered by many of the issues that were initially siphoned off in the Foreword. The volume need not be overly con­ cerned with the genre conventions of, say, the Western, or of film comedy, or of the thriller as such, yet without taking account of particular aesthetic traditions, conventions or styles one can­

not hope to properly illuminate the way in which meanings and attitudes are shaped and re-shaped.

Thus, the issue this review takes to task overall is that attitudes and meanings are not so much reflected as they are refracted and mediated.

Two things seem to occur in this kind of study: first, the emphasis is largely on plot in which to draw out the popular attitude taken; and second, a ‘reality principle’ operates with which to test, but usually damn, the fictional representa­ tion. Surprisingly and unfortunately, almost every essay falls into either one of these perspectives or both.

Having said this, it is impossible to lose sight of the volume’s few astute contributions. Passing mention should be made of the slightly more engaging section titled ‘T he Idiosyncratic ‘Type’”; yet, apart from this, the essay “Stepin Fetchitand the Politics of Performance” by Thomas Cripps is probably the one and only contribution that stands out from among the others.

Unlike most, which tend to rehash known arguments, Cripps goes beyond noting stereotypes and introduces the idea of ‘performance’ as inte­ gral to having cultural artifacts and attitudes open to a number of interpretations. He straddles well the lines between film as a process and the broader cultural milieu, which, for Cripps, raise questions about the complexity of character identification, questions concerning the differences between representations in relation to comic and dra­ matic modes, and that, at least in regard to Stepin Fetchit, the relationship between the minor role and the lead role is a dialectical one, one which, of course, takes account of the stock figure as a specific concern of the industrial process of mov­ ies and, as such, not a given.

In some inexplicable manner, what appears to have occurred overall is that in its eagerness to announce a new field of study - the stock charac­ ter - the volume suffers from a form of critical myopia, a form of myopia which Thomas Cripps, ironically enough, was not blind to.

LUCHINO VISCO NTI: TH E FLAM ES OF PASSION Laurence Schifano, translatedfrom the French by William S. Byron, Collins, London, 1990, 450pp., hb, illus., rrp $40.

S C O T T MUR R A Y

his new biography of Luchino Visconti is a major disappointment. While author Laurence Schifano is to be applauded for bringing to print much new material, the overall work lacks the good biographer’s skill of cogent assembly and luminous insight into the subject’s life work (cf Brian Boyd’s VladimirNabokov: The Russian Years).

The title of the first part of this book should be “A Social History of Northern Italy”, for in the opening 90 pages there are infuriatingly few ref­ erences to Luchino Visconti and far too many to Arturo Toscanini, Giuseppi Verdi and the opera­ going aristocracy, et al While detailing a social milieu may be rele­ vant to a fuller understanding of the biographical subject, there is necessarily a question of balance.

Here, thejudgement is uncritically askew. Schifano gives a hotchpotch social summary, which she fails to make interesting or to meaningfully link with Visconti’s life and aesthetics. Her magpie approach of precis-ing material from other sources reminds one of Alan Watts, who popularized Eastern theology for American counter-culturalistsin the late 1960s and early ’70s. The popularity of Watts’ books always begged the question: Why read a third-hand (and -rate) homogenization when the original texts are freely available?

T

Here one is confronted with the same choice, for there are many excellent accounts of the Risorgimento, the operatic tradition at La Scala, the demise of the Savoyard plutocracy, etc. Why spend a major portion of a biography regurgitat­ ing them? What is needed is a concise approach (with a “Suggested Reading” list if necessary), plus a percipient analysis of why such cultural backgrounding is necessary to understanding the book’s subject, something Schifano fails consis­ tently to provide.

An example of Schifano’s approach to analy­ sis can be seen on p. 75: In 1971 Visconti declared that because he was ‘born in 1906,1belonged to a period of Mann, Proust and Mahler’. A glaring anachronism that dismissed the time span covering his formative years and adoles­ cence. ... Visconti was born thirty-one years later than the youngest of the artists (Thomas Mann) with whom he asserted his affinity ...

Surely what Visconti meant is obvious: not that he was born the same time as those men (which Visconti would hardly have confused), but that he spent his early years in an era where the works of Mann, Proust and Mahler were exerting a great cultural influence. Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg ( The Magic Mountain), for example, was published in 1924 when Visconti was 18, at a time he was discovering literature.

Perhaps this is in part why he held that book in such esteem and tried so hard to film it in his later years.

One has to wonder why Schifano was so confused here, especially as the above passage comes after some seventy-odd pages of plodding social and cultural backgrounding. (To her credit, though, Schifano does in this section reveal a far greater empathy for the city of Milano than that shown by the acclaimed Barbara Grizzuti Harri­ son in the strangely off-key opening chapter of Italian Days.)

Note also in the quoted passage Schifano’s use of the term “formative years”. Maybe this is just an unthinking nod to the Viennese delega­ tion, but its use reinforces her uncritical ap­ proach, for nothing she writes convinces one that Visconti’s early years were formative in, say, his developing a Marxist stance.

When Schifano discusses Visconti’s films, she shows herself to be equally unhelpful. Some of what she has to say is of factual interest, such as on filming the grand ball for II Gattopardo {The

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Leopard), but it is undermined by Schifano’s “gee whiz” style of writing (“Oh yes, the stories about the ball sequence ... are true”!). Worse is when such breathless journalese is punctuated by as­ sumptions about Visconti’s thoughts: In The Leopard, Visconti knew he had reached his peak. A private demon nevertheless drove him to seek new challenges ... Whatever he won had to be staked again immediately, at the heart-thrumming risk of losing everything, (p. 344)

Nowhere is evidence provided that Visconti knew TheLeopardv/ould be untoppable, and many would argue, even if he did, that he was wrong.

There is, as well, a lack of critical insightwhen examining the films’ content. Again on The Leopard, Schifano writes: And what characters they are! There is Prince Fabrizio (Burt Lancaster), who sees his world col­ lapsing, but who prefers irony and wit to lamenta­ tion even when courting death ... (p. 331)

Gruppo diFamiglia in un Interno (Group Portrait of a Family in Conflictor Conversation Piece) are no more enlightening. She begins early in the book by wrongly describing Konrad (Helmut Berger) as “the protagonist” and seems confused about sev­ eral aspects of the film. Of the relationship be­ tween Konrad and the Professor (Burt Lancas­ ter), she writes: ... never had Visconti dealt with a homosexual relationship more gently, never was it more relig­ iously purified of any desire for possession ... (p.

404)

First, there is nothing in the film to suggest a “homosexual” relationship; rather, it is the story a lone old man’s ‘adopting’ Konrad anda family of staggering crassness (shades of The Leopard). At one point the Professor says, “I would need a son already grown to be able to tell him all I know”, but the delicate irony is that it is the Professor who is taught by his ‘children’.

Second, the term “religiously purified” is sig­ nificantly off-track. This is a film which renounces cerebral sexual repression (as favoured by the Church) in favour of a life force more in tune with the afterglow of paganism (cf Longus and Vidal) than anything Judaeo-Christian. Visconti even has Lietta (Claudia Marsani) recite this late poem of Auden: When you see a fair form chase it And if possible embrace it Be it a girl or a boy Don’t be bashful, be brash, be fresh.

Life is short, so enjoy Whatever contact your flesh May at that moment crave There is no sex-life in the grave.

LUCHINO VISCONTI DIRECTING A SEQUENCE OF THE LEOPARD (IL GATTOPARDO).

True in a partial sense/but the Prince is far more active than Schifano implies, for he is sagely overseeing a marriage (literally and metaphori­ cally) between the old aristocracy and a nouveau riche of philistine vulgarity. He knows the only hope for his dying class is a merger and, instead of merely brooding on it, he acts.

Schifano approaches such a reading some pages later: Filmgoers saw more clearly than the book’s readers what the emotional and sensual reasons for the marriage were, but the match is also recognized for what it is: a contract based on a coincidence of class interests that is opening the nobility to an alien caste.

But Fabrizio’s active role is much more than a case of mere recognition. Schifano even quotes, with no apparent frisson, Visconti’s remark that “our pessimism vitalizes our determination, and instead of longing for a feudal, Bourbonian or­ der, it aims at establishing a new order.”

Taking another example, Schifano’s views on 66

.

CINEMA

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This is said to the Professor after the smiling Lietta has just had group sex with Konrad and Stefano (Stefano Patrizi). It helps make the.Professor realize the deficiencies of a life of cultured intellect and excluded sexuality. It is his journey to a new resolution that provides this sublime masterwork its great power and psychological depth.

Schifano’s comments on Visconti’s films also suggest a lack of film knowledge. When discuss­ ing Visconti’s Le Notti Bianche (White Nights), for example, she does not mention Robert Bresson’s QuatreNuits d ’un Reveur (FourNights ofaDreamer), based on the same Dostoyevsky short story. Yet surely the rare fact that two great directors had adapted the same work of a major writer merits some comment, let alone analysis.

As to the efforts of the book’s publisher, there is much sadly to be said. Inexcusably, the index contains no references to Luchino Visconti or to his films and operas, rendering the book near useless as a reference source. As well, all the film titles in the text are rendered immediately into English (sometimes without the original title pa­ renthesized), even if the Italian title is the one used around the world (as with La Terra Trema, which the book annoyingly refers to throughout as The Earth trembles).

The translation itself feels jerky and many of the translator’s footnotes are unnecessary. Why, for instance, is there a felt need to explain “Belle Epoque” in a footnote on p. 116, especially given the term has been used before, the first time on p.

18. As for the stills, they are poorly chosen, cap­ tioned and reproduced. The proofreading is un­ acceptable.

There are at least two other biographies in English on Visconti (Monica Stirling’s; Gaia Servadio’s), plus several critical studies, While nei­ ther of these earlier biographies can in any way claim to be definitive, they make for less trying reading than Schifano’s. ;•

ACADEMY AWARD WINNING FILMS 1940-1947 John Howard Reid, Rastar Press Sydney, 1990, 224 pp., hb, illus., rrp $40 Books for people who love nostalgia seem to have become an industry unto themselves.

AcademyAward WinningFilmsis no exception and, although the formula is slightly different, it fits perfectly into the nostalgia industry.

This is the fourth publication in an on-going series that appears to cover everything made in Hollywood during the sound era. Previous edi­ tions have looked at what were the most popular and what were the most memorable films of the period. This edition covers all the films which won an academy award in any category between the years 1940 and 1947, and the information provided is exhaustive. Beside an almost com­ plete credit listing for each film, a synopsis and brief review are included.

It is an interesting book for those who want to keep up with Bill Collins. Unlike the third edition of the series, AcademyAward WinmngFilms of die Thirties, the one confusing aspect of this edition is why it does not complete the decade.

AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE: THE SCREENPLAY LauraJones, Pandora London, 1990, 93 pp., pb, illus., rrp $19.95 Of self-evident value given the theatrical inter­ est and critical success of what was originally a televisionproduction. The scripts publishedhere are the ones that were accepted for production, although a few scenes have been included which do not appear in the filmed version. It is a worthwhile purchase for enthusiasts of Janet Frame and of Campion’s Angel at My Table.

CANNES: THE NOVEL IainJohnstone, Chatto & Windus London, 1990, 396pp, hb, rrp $29.95 An intriguing fictional account of goings-on at the Cannes Rim Festival, set in the not-toodistant future of May 1997, where the film world is converging for the 50th Cannes Festival. To different people in the film community, Cannes represents different opportunities. ButMay 1997 is also the date when Hong Kong is to be handed back to Communist China by Britain. The festi­ val suddenly becomes a part of the drama that sweeps thé characters up in a deadly embrace.

DON’T SHOOT, IT’S ONLY ME Bob Hope, with Melville Shavelson, Macmillan, London, 1990, 315pp., hb, illus., rrp $35.

This tenth volume by Bob Hope is essentially a collection of verbal gags told byHope duringhis many visits to soldiers’ camps in battle zones.

Muchis surprisinglyamusing, even funny, though reading too many pages in one sitting can dull the increasingly predictable routines. Still, one can imagine manyAmericans chuckling over the odd page or two before risking more sand in thé binding by beaching it before the next swim.

The linking material between gags is often interesting, as in Hope’s account of his radio days. But don’t expect great insights, for the joke is the thing. Asthe quote on the dustjacket

B O O K S COMPILED

BY R A F F A E L E

has it, “People ask me why I don’t retire and go Ashing. I have one answer that sums it all up.

Fish don’t applaud.”

FILM AND COPYRIGHT Australian Copyright Council, Sydney, 1990, p. 44, pb.

An invaluable booklet on film and copyright in Australia. After a general introduction, the text covers “Acquiring and Clearing Rights” and Film-makers’ Copyright”, followed by a list of contact organizations.

Contact the Australian Copyright Council at Suite 3, 245 Chalmers St., Redfem NSW 2016.

FOCUS ON REEL AUSTRALIA Australian Council of Government Film Libraries, in association with the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, 1990, 64 pp., pb, illus.

A complimentary publication to an historical package of Australian films titled the Reel Aus­ tralia Collection, a representative reference col­ lection of early Australian film.

The Council pursued over a number of years the concept of an Australian film study collection, one that would bring together some scattered and hard-to-find materials and de­ velop them as a structured resource. With de­ tailed background notes and notes to further reading, and suggested related viewings, this publication makes for an essential resource companion for the study of Australian cinema.

THE JOKER’S WILD: THE BIOGRAPHY OF JACK NICHOLSON John Parker, Pan MacMillan, Sydney, 1991, 287pp., hb, index, illus., rrp $29.95 Many promises appear to be made by this book but very few appear to be kept. One often senses the best is merely glossed over. It is the first, indepth biography of Jack Nicholson that appar­ ently lifts the lid on Nicholson’s unorthodox childhood and explores the elite circle of friends that help make up the real story of this highly enigmatic actor. The book is thorough and con­ scientious in its account but surprising in how unassuming and engaging it all sounds. The biography could have done well with less system­ atic detailing and more emotional input.

R E C E I V E D CAPUTO

AND

SCOTT

MURRAY

MELBOURNE FILM MAKERS RESOURCE BOOK Nigel Buesst, printed with assistance of Film Victoria, 1991, 72 pp., pb, rrp $6 An invaluable collection of names and addresses, equipment suppliers, prices, laboratories, ad­ vice and eveiything else you need to get your production finished. The emphasis is on 16mm production facilities but the book also attempts to cover the significant details needed by those involved in Super 8, 35mm and video produc­ tion.

THE OTHER SIDE OF LENNON Sandra Shevey, Sidgwick &Jackson London, 1990, 244 pp., hb, illus., rrp $35 This is another book centred on debunking the myths that surround this controversial icon of 1960s pop and 1970s peace. This and more is crammed into Sandra Shevey’s offering on the Beatle who got away. Her book is notable for its infinite research, painstakingly talking to any­ one who had known, worked with, or had any contact whatsoever with Lennon.

Shevey’s account zooms in on the major events in the Beatles’ time line: the role of Brian Epstein, the rise of their business empire, the women in Lennon’s life, etc. Her interview ma­ terial skilfully creates an analysis of the man, and the chapter detailing the Beatles’ film work is of particular fascination and interest for the read­ ers of Cinema Papers. Here the interview method recreates the enormous strain and toil the lads were exposed to in the pressure to keep the rollercoaster moving. It also offers insights into filmmaking from a range of ‘insiders’ which make indirect associations of the perpetuation of the Beatles legend via the cinematic mode.

Little is made, however, of films such as Rape, Apotheosis, Bottoms, et al - largely avant-garde films made in the post-Beatles period with Yoko Ono, and which had often made the campuscum-film society circuit. Unfortunately, onlyvery brief comments on these films are to be found dotted throughout the book.

BELOW: DIRECTOR CAROL REED, RIGHT, WITH THE BRILLIANT AUSTRALIAN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY, ROBERT KRASKER.

PAUL NEWMAN AND JOANNE WOODWARD: AN UNAUTHOR­ ISED BIOGRAPHY Susan Netter, Sphere Books London, 1989, 169pp, pb, illus., rrp $9.99 This book could be described as standard fare as far as biographies of stars go, neither exciting nor dull. Predictably, it plots the stars’ respect­ ive childhoods, draws parallels, dwells on coin­ cidences - both actors were winter babies! - and creates a somewhat fascinating profile.

The subjects are given a little flesh as the author looks at their marriage, the development of their respective careers, how they handle stardom, how they cope with personal tragedy, and the rewards and awards each have received.

For the keen observer of the couple the book offers little that hasn’t already been seen in the pages of popular local and overseas maga­ zines, or discussed on the American television talk shows (the ones they replay here). Neverthe­ less, for those who are truly interested in “the cinema’s best-known celebrity couple”, this is probably an essential read.

WILD WEST MOVIES: H O W TH E W E S T W A S FO UN D , W O N , LO S T, LIED A B O U T, FILM ED A N D FO R G O TTEN

Kim Newman, Bloomsbury London, 1990, 237pp., pb, illus., rrp $29.95 Wild West Movies is a rewarding excursion into a study of the Western genre which is neither dogmatic nor overly indiscriminate in its ap­ proach. Rather, Newman’s eclectic approach brings new meanings and interpretations to an already much-charted territory.

For Newman, the journey westward has en­ tailed a myriad set of journeys, not homogenous but contradictory. Unlike other historical ac­ counts of the Western genre, Wild West Movies encompasses the whole of the Western genre, including borderline Westerns, cross-genre Westerns and some very, very distant kinfolk.

By tracing the retelling of Western myths through various phases and forms, and by mak­ ing fairly courageous and intriguing links between them, Newman succeeds in breaking down some rather rigid and time-honoured categories of the genre; and indeed takes to task the common attitude that “every Western is the same”.

THE MAN BETWEEN: A BIOGRAPHY OF CAROL REED Nicholas Wapshott, Chatto & Windus, London, 1990, 376pp., hb, index, illus.

Wapshott’s book is the first biography of Sir Carol Reed, director of Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol said The Third Man,, among others. As such, there is much to be grateful for. However, this is a disappointing book in that its author, the political editor of The Observer, seems to have little understanding or knowledge of the cin­ ema. He is, at times, quite at a loss with the filmmaking process, which turns out to be something of a problem on several occasions.

All the same, the book is well worth a read for all those interested in an occassionally bril­ liant director who vowed to make totally imper­ sonal films, and failed quite spectactually.

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• 67

Scriptwriting on the with Microsoft Word ave \ou wuttt n Him su ipts and laboi'loush formatted cat h paiagiaph b\ going through the same old formatting commands o\ei and o \c i' J lu it is a m iuh simplt i was Imagine being able u> hold down the 38 ke\ (talk d '>;tbe;C6minahd key), and; &eri?-nierely .

■i piessmg l. 2, 3 oi t-to paiagiaph as a set nt heading (98 - 1 > a ! comment describing the action (98 - 2), the name of a character (96- 3) or

H

19

* Glick tihe Set Default and then- the OK

Is ll

10' Under the Format menu choose Define ";,S^!es..,.^|.pr*do, 98 - T) 11 Click' ortce on the wnfd Normal in th e ' list of styles near the, top of the window.

12 Under the Font menu choose Times for, 8 body-text. . (Any font will do here, but it „ is’best to have a serif font such as r ^ Bookman, Palatino, Courier or Times for a LaserWriter and Times or Courier for an Inlaii^Witef?)

Foi matting am him sc i ipi m this wa\ is \er\ simple ont t it is set up I he ste p b\ * step insti lie tions for set'tmg it up aic below V>u will tml\ lit ed to do this once and U will bt available to i \ t r \ docunu nt \ou woik on \o u can t li.mgt the dt t ills (o suit \oui own tastes and \ou might also learn a bit about the p io t <ss anel diseovti new «end unaginatiu ustsloi sr\le slietts eustoini/ed nu mis and ktvhoaiil shori-t uts To ensuii the same initial settings foi Microsoft Word as assumed in ibis aiticle ope n the System Folder on \om h ard disk (or startup disk) and drag the

17 Under the Format menu choose ■■ 'Paragraph (or do 98 - M).

IS I\p< ‘ 11 ’ to it pi.« e ‘ \iito’ in the Line Spacing box.’ Press' tab tihreh times and 'type “2" in the Left: Indent box. Press lab again and type “1” in the Right: :.v. }. Indent box.

file t allt d Word Settings (4) to the Trash. If \o u w'isli to retain \oui settings, instead o f trashing the file, just move ii toam w heie outside the System Folder; In the remainder oi this process you will be setting new default values and Microsoft Word will lutomatic illy save these in a new Word Settings (4) file in ( the Ssstem Folder Locate Microsoft Word and double click

20 ( liek tlie Set Default button and then (.lit k iht Yes button 21 ( lit k o i k t mi New Style ^

22 T\pe ‘C haraitei in the iht box in liked I B 2 * P iesstab a n d i\pe Dialogut f m the.

Next Stvle* box 24 U nd er the Fomiat meriu choose ' Paragraph (oi do € - \1) 25 l\p t ‘11 to it plate

®g W sB l

l ndei the Edit- m enu choose Tull

hh

waSUm

l ride i Edit m enu choose Preferences...

Nt xt to Default Measure: drag down on Cm to <h mgt the se tting to Inch t ndei the Formatm en u choose Document... and set the top:, bottom: rnd right: margins to I and the left: in ungin to 1 25 ( h mgt the Delault Tab Stops: to 0 > C lick the Set Default button and the n l nde i the Format me nu t boost Section md in ike sure th it in Page number lilt checkbox next to Auto has a eioss C INEMA. PAPERS

82

¡P|i»|Ms*®»»

,13 While holding down the and'shift keys press j ' (98 - shiftV j). This changes the * Normal style from Flush left to Justified.

14 Click the Set Default button and then click the Yes button.,, 15 Clickfpnce on New Style.

16 Type “Dialogue” in the box marked

\u io in iht Line

Spacing box and press tab and type “12” in tin B c f o i e : box Pi ess tab twit e and i\pt i in ilic Left Indent box 26 Ci oss the checkbox Keep with next *| 27 Click OK 28 ( lit k iht Set Default button and ihen rV^^<Si'mk-6rme ojn l^e^S^tes? ':"L\ 30 Type “Action” in the box marked Style:.

31 Under the Format menu <boose Paragraph (or do 98-M). • ¿.¿v ■■ ;J 12 f\p t 11 to replace \uu> in the Line Spacing box and pi ess tab and type “12” in tlit Before box Press tab twice and type 1 m the Left Indent box

*I ( lit k ill* Set Delault button and the n

click the”Yes button. n hXt* 35 Glick oftte^pn New Style. ‘ ■ 36 Type “Scerie Heading” in th e '.th l^ ^ ^ n marked Style:.;' 37 Press thharid' type ‘Action” in thd’NextStyle: box.

- ■)...........

38 While holding down» the and shift keys; press K (98 - 'shift - R). This automati.-, cally changes all information in Scene;;: Headings’to uppercase. ■ 39 Under the Format’mCriu c h o b ^ ■'#1 Paragraph’ (6r do §8 - M)\ ' 40 Type “f4 ” to replace “Ajuto” in the Line Spacing box. Press tab and type “36” in the spacing Before box. , J. * 41 Cross the checkbox Keep with next f.:*« 42 Click the Tabs..., button Jon the screen*not the keyboard).

43' Type “L” in th e Position: box and‘n |^ ^ S the Set-button. * | - _ w 44 Remove the and type “4;5|-|r |- ^ ^ ^ S Position: box and click the Sgtlfof la M l 45 In the Type section of this window click the Right radio button, remove-tjrie “4.5? and type “6” ih the Position: box aaaa"^ click the Set button ' 46 Click Cancel. 1 1 <5's%VU'?i 47 Click the Borders... button, i « £ 48 Click once between the “ _l * and the i l “ l_ ” symbols at the top of the large i m n . ^ A thin hne should appear joining the two symbols. \ ^ 49 Click O K Click OK again * 1 -^ 50 Click the Set Default button arid then <lick the Yes button 51 Click the Cancel button. ’ | v; So far you have defined the basic “styles”^ necessary for formatting your scri pi and \ou \ ^ j ( an act ess these In positioning ypwft tuisoi Vi: I in die iclevant paragraph, ih o b sih |& i|^ 9 H ■m from the Format menu and double clicking^*» the desiretfstyle. 'Flu* next stage nukes it | easier still by adding the styles you have juSli|§f| defined to a customized menu, as well as assigning keyboard shortcuts. Here is hq^j M 52

Choose Commands... from the Edit

m m

In the list on the left tluk once on Style Name: \ pull down list will appeal 8 in the Commands: section at top cenme-i • i pan oi this dialogue box labelled Apply Style Name:

SCENE 13

FOREST

EXT

RAINY DAY

In a forest in southern New South Wales five demonstrators are lying in the mud some twenty metres from some ominously advancing heavy machinery.

JENNIFER (shouts) Don’t be frightened. They wouldn’t dare run over us. It would be murder.

ROBERT (looking frightened) I hope you are right. It seems to me they aren’t exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness.

The bulldozers grind to a halt some two metres from their victims. An angry driver gets off his machine with malicious intent just as the police arrive.

J

on this list and,select th e style Tjy 'Scene H eading Note that diagging off * the bottom or top of the list brings other lll p y le s into view; they are listed alphabeti| - cally.

H|ra]lu& the A ppend'radio-button and then 5* | the Add button in the'Commands: v section. This will add the Scene H eading f style to a new m enu called W ork (be 'f-‘‘careful to click on A d d an d n o t A dd...). >S jw The Add button will change to a Remove i '. . button and a “# ” will b e placed n ex t to J p ^lSCtene Heading to show it has been added to a m enu. the Add», button in the Keys: g||?/£ec-tipn of this dialogue box. You are about to assign a keyboard short-cut to uiis style. You will see the message Type ^ th e .K e y s tr o k e for the “Scene Heading^ gj command ||^ Y o u ,c a n now type-in a com mand K keystroke of your choice bdt 38— 1 (hold- the Com m and key down and press I in the main sec bon of tlit ke\boaid ¿not the num eric keypad) is recom■^ ’m ended as no other com mands have ■fcjbeen assigned to the num eric keys.

P ? Rt pc at steps 7 1 to 77 but substitute Action” fm Set ne I b ading and for “38 - 1”.

59 ’Repeat steps 71 to 77 hut substitute “Character” foi “Scene H eading” and -—.■3” for “3 1”.

60 Repeat steps.54 to 57 b u t substitute “Dialogue” for “Scene H eading” and “38-. 4” for “ 38 - 1”.

61 Click Cancel. T here is no n eed to save the blank docum ent as W ord has already saved the new default settings in a file called Word Settings (4) in the System Folder, i Notice that a new m enu called1Wo'rk has been added. This m enu now conuuns \ qui four new-formatting commands as well as rem inding you what the keyboard short-cuts are. At any stage while typing a paragraph you can reform at it’by selecting.one of!the. four options u n d er1the Work m enu o r ju st by -doing 38 38 - 2, 38 - 3 or 38 - 4.

An example at this stage, will cl* inonsirate how these new foi m atting commands m ay best be put into effect. Typically you would type something like iht following [38-r i] scene 13 [tab] forest [tab] t Me i ini (tab] i.um da\ [ictuiii| InafoicM m schhIk i h \*>v South Wal* **five dem on­ strators art King in ilu mud soim iwt im metres from ominoush achanc mg lieavv machin* n [ u r m n ] |38 - 4| J1 W II-hR (•slicmLs) [u*lurvnj Don the Inghiencd-lhc*\ uoiildn i dait m n o u i us It would be murder, [return] [38 - 3] ROBERT ilooking bight* n* cli rJituiii! [hope \ou are light. It seems to me they a ren 't exactly overflowing with th e milk of human ____

kindness, [return] [38 - 2] The bulldozers grind to a halt some two metres from their Victims. An angry driver gets off his machine with malicious; intent ju st as the police ’ arrive, [return] ; The form atted result would look something like the above [see box.]

You may have noticed that there is no need to do a 36, - 2 in the first Action com m ent as it is assumed that an Action paragraph wall always follow a Scene Heading. Similarly doing a return at the end of a paragraph designated as Character will automatically assume the following ; paragraph will be of type Dialogue and no 38- 4? is necessary.

Notice also that the 38 - 1, 2, 3 o r 4 keystrokes may be done at any stage, while typing the line.

Having done the hard work you are now free to copy the new W ord Settings (4 > docum ent from your System Folder to a floppy disk and distribute it to your fellow script writers. All they have to do is put it in their System Folder and they too will have a Works m enu with everything installed.

Happy script writing!

HWW 5 Acknowledgement: Thanks to Scott Murray foi*his carefully considered thoughts on the aesthetics and practicalities of script formatting.

David C onnell D.O.P. & Assocs Mickey Camilleri (Sally), Lynne Murphy Gary Wilkins Sound recordist (B eth’s m other), Claire Haywood (Janet), Set in M otion H enry Dangar Editor L eanne Bundy (Susie), Wilson Alcorn Grace Walker Prod, designer (Cafe D ero), T om Weaver (T hief), Bill Martin Turner Terry Ryan Costume designer Brady (Mayor), Eva di Cesare (Washing Adrien Seffrin Planning and D evelopm ent up g irl), T ony Poli (Waiter with T attoos), Graham Litchfield Casting LizM ullina Olga Sanderson (Singing w om an),Joyce Mark Ramsey Extras casting Judith Cruden H op w ood (C linic N u rse), Steve C ox Reg Garside Production Crew (Stranger), Harry Griffiths (O ld man FEATUR ES Alan Dunstan Prod, m anager SallyAyre-Sm desert tourist) Gary Hill P R E-PRO DUCTIO N Prod, coordinator Fiona King Synopsis: How m uch disturbance can a Stephen Gray Producer’s assts Sandra Harriso Frenchm an take? Philippe is about to find On-set Crew A ngela Bevan out w hen his novelist wife, Beth, invites 1st asst director MarkTurnbull FRIDAY O N MY MIND Prod, secretary Juliette Van Heyst her fiesty, red-headed sister, Vicki, to join 2nd asst director Peter V oeten Prod, com pany Boulevard Films Location m anager Murray Boyd their household. Could these be the last 3rd asst director John Martin Production Starting in March U nit manager H ugh Johnston days o f chez nous?

Continuity LizBarton D irector Frank Howson Asst unit manager Justin Plum m er B oom operator Gerry Nucifora Producer Frank Howson Production asst T odd Fellm an O N MY OWN Make-up Lesley Vanderwalt Exec, producer Peter Boyle Prod, runner Mary-JaneCaswell Hairdresser CherylWilliams (Australian-Italian-Canadian co­ Scriptwriter Frank Howson Prod, accountant Jill Steele production) Still photography Robert MacFarlane Synopsis: Friday on my M in d is the story o f Accounts asst Rose Keeping Production co.

C olosim o Film Prods U nit Publicist Fiona Searson Chris, a handsom e, unem ployed 18 year Production Starting 1 6 /2 /9 1 Camera Crew Giles Lovel-Wilson old w ho is plucked from obscurity to front Camera operator David W illiamson (DDA) Principal Credits a new advertising campaign. Things turn Clapper-loader Richard Bradsha Director A ntonio Tibaldi Catering Kerry Fetzer, Kollage sour w hen Chris realizes h e ’s being taken Key grip G eoff Full Producer Leo Pescarolo Steve M argo’s Catering advantage o f and his old friends are no Asstogrips David Shaw Producers (Aust.)

Rosa Colosim (Broken Hill) longer around to fall back on.

Gary Shearsmith Will Spencer Art D epartm ent Ian Freeman Robert Lantos Art director Catherine Slim Producers (Canada) THE LAST DAYS OF CHEZ N O U S Gaffer Dick T um m e Laell McCall Asst art director Charlotte Watts Prod, com pany Jan Chapm an Prods Best boy Peter M oloney Leo Pescarolo Art Tracey HydeProducers (Italy) Production Starting 1 1 /2 /9 1 dept, coord.

Genni operator Jerem y H utchinson Elisa Resogotti Art dept, runner Andrew Short Principal Credits On-set Crew Line producer Stavros C. Stavrides Set dresser Kerrie Brown D irector Gillian Armstrong 1st asst director Chris Webb D.O.P. Vic Saran Standby props Colin Gibson Producer Jan Chapman 2nd asst director MariaPhillips Prod, designer Bill Flem ing W ardrobe Assoc, producer MarkTurnbull 3rd asst director Geoffrey Giuffre O ther credit W ardrobe super.

Louise Wakefield Scriptwriter H elen Garner Continuity Jo Weeks Suzanne Colvin Wardrobe buyer Jenny MilesProd’n manager D.O .P. Geoffrey Sim pson B oom operator Mark Wasiutak Standby wardrobe Andrea H oodC astjudy Davis, Matthew Ferguson, Collin Sound recordist Ben Osm o Make-up Viv M epham Brezicki, M ichele M elega, Lanna Mackay.

Post-production Editor Nick Beauman Make-up artist A ngela Conte Synopsis: T he story o f a fifteen-year-old Asst editors Nick Breslin Prod, designer Janet Patterson Hairdresser Joan Petch boy, Sim on, and his reunion with his es­ Tony Campbell Planning and D evelopm ent Special £x Monty Fieguth tranged parents. His m other, a novelist, is Editing rooms O ff Shoot Films Casting LizMullinar Stunts coord.

G lenn Boswell hospitalized after a “breakdown”. T hrou­ Sound editor sup.

Karin W hittington Extras casting Shauna W olifson Action vehicle coord.

Tim Parry gh his father, Sim on discovers that his D ialogue editor Tim Jordan Production Crew Safety officer G eorge M annix m other is mentally ill. This leaves him D ubbing assts John Penders Prod, m anager Fiona M cConaghy N urse Sue Andrew with resentm ent and confusion.

Rick Lyle Prod, coordinator Rowena Talacko Still photography Georgie Stroud Laboratory Atlab Producer’s asst Lee-Anne Higgins U n it Publicist Fiona Searson R O U N D THE BEND Camera equipm ent Sam uelson D irector’s asst Lee-Anne H iggins Catering Johnny Faithful (form erly Over the Hill) Film Services Prod, secretary Christine Gordon Asst caterer Mary Ayre-Smith Prod, company Glasshouse Pictures Shooting stock Kodak Location m anager Peter Lawless Make-up bus driver Joe Jury Principal Credits Governm ent Agency Investm ent U nit m anager Will Matthews Wardrobe bus driver Terry Novak George Miller Director Production FFC Production asst Amanda Higgins R obert Caswell M otorhom e drivers Bob Burns Producers M arketing Production runner T om Read Bernard Terry Wil M ilne Inter, sales agent Beyond International Prod, accountant Jill Coverdale Ross Matthews Art Departm ent Group Line producer A ccounts asst Jenny Pawson Graham Burke Art director StewartWay Exec, producers Publicity D ennis Davidson & Assocs Insurer H am m ond Jewel Greg C oote Art dept, coord.

Amanda Selling Cast: Lisa Harrow (B eth), Bruno Ganz Film Insurance Underwriting Art dept asst Justine T hom pson John T arnoff (JP), Kerry Fox (Vicki), Miranda Otto Agencies Liz Stroud Assoc, producer Props buyers Blossom Flint (A nnie), Kiri Paramore (T im ), Bill Hunter C om pletion guarantor Film Finances L en ju d d Scriptwriter Robert Caswell (B eth’s father), L ex Marinos (A ngelo), Legal services Lyndon Sayer-Jones

NOTE: Production Survey form s now adhere to a revised form at. Cinema Papers regrets it cannot accept inform ation re­ ceived in a different form at, as it regret­ fully d oes not have the sta ff to re-process the inform ation. Inform ation is correct as o f 1 1 /2 /9 1 .

Travel coord.

Camera Crew Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Asst grip Gaffer Electricians

optical ¿^graphic IS

services ■ pty.ltd.

5 Chuter Street, McMahon’s Point NSW 2060 Phone: (0 2 ] 9 2 2 -3 1 4 4 ] Fax: [02] 957 5001] M odem : (0 2 )9 2 2 7642

\

Title Specialists

_

r

: i=¡1fi

35mm

D &

16mm NEGATIVE CUTTING

STOCK FOOTAGE LIBRARY

CHRIS ROWELL PRODUCTIONS ETON ROAD LINDFIELD N S \l2 0 7 0 TEL: (02) 416 2633 FAX: (02) 416 2554 70

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Standby props

Max Mantón

Wardrobe

Standby wardrobe Wardrobe asst Costume super.

Cutter

Suzy Carter Gabriel Dunn Lisa Meagher Susan Head

enee is shattered by the destruction and clearing of their home by loggers. But Blinky Bill rallies his friends and, in a series of exciting adventures, the bush animals win the struggle to preserve their existence.

Construction Departm ent

vxmsr n. manager Carpenters Set finisher

woiter Jöron Andrew Chauvel David Scott Nick Walker

FEATURES POST-PRODUCTION

Post-production

BACKSLIDING

Asst editors

Basia Ozerski Nicole Mitchell Editing rooms Spectrum Films Dialogue editor Jeannine Chialvo Laboratory Atlab Cast: Olympia Dukakis (Alma), Sigrid Thornton (Elizabeth), Derek Fowlds (Dutch), Bill Kerr (Maurie), Steve Bisley (Benedict), Andrea Moore (Jan), Pippa Grandison (M argaret), Adan Young (Nick) Synopsis: At 60, Alma Harris suddenly decides to leave her family in Iowa to visit her daughter in Sydney. When greeted with less than warmth she sets off on a journey to prove that she is not yet “over the hill”.

W HO LEFT THE ... VIDEON

Prod, company

Prod, company Cast Films Dist. co.

Film Four Internationa] Budget $2.3 million Pre-production 1/10/90 Production 5/11/90 Post-production 10/12/90 Principal Credits

Director Producer Co-producer Exec, producers Scriptwriters D.O.P. Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer Costume designers

Jarjoura Films

Simon Target Sue Wild Basil Appleby Charles Target Simon Target Simon Target Ross Wilson Tom Cowan Ross Linton Nick Holmes Ross Major Ross Major Andrea Hood Alan John

Principal Credits

Composer

Director Producer Scriptwriter Orig. screenplay

Planning and D evelopm ent

Gary Jarjoura Garyjaijoura Gary Jarjoura Garyjaijoura Mat Ford Dave Ingall D.O.P Jeff Malouf Composers Gep Bartlett Art Phillips: Prod, manager Vicki Watson Cast: Dave Ingall, Troy Nesmith.

Synopsis: Martin Tunning, a boring member of our video-watching society, is kidnapped by his cousins, Beef and Noo­ dles, taken away to the country and shown a fun time, while Martin’s wife tries to defend her video store.

-g® y jaa i » • < • |.

FEATURES PRODUCTION BLINKY BILL

Prod. co.

Yoram Gross Filmstudios Dist. cö.

Beyond International Group Director Yoram Gross Producer Yoram Gross Exec, producer Sandra Gross Scriptwriters Yoram Gross John Palmer Leonard Lee Based on The Adventures of Blinky Bill Written by Dorothy Wall Composer Guy Gross Synopsis: The film tells the story of Blinky Bill’s childhood with his friends in the bush. The peace and charm of their exist-

Casting consultant

Suzie Maizels

Stunts coord.

Safety officer Unit nurse Still photography Unit publicist Catering Runner Stand-in Art D epartm ent

Art director Art dept coord Art dept runner Props buyers Standby props

Standby wardrobe Andrea Hood Wardrobe assts Tracey Hyde-Moxham Blaize Major Animals

Animal trainer

Vanessa Brown Regina Lauricelli Regina Lauricelli David Lightfoot Charlie Kiroff Martin Williams John Brousek Neil McKewin (FIUA) Completion guarantor Film Finances Legal services Lloyd Hart Travel coord.

Katie Yeowart (Showtravel) Camera Crew

Camera operator Focus puller Clapper-loader Stunt pilot Camera type Key grip Asst grips Gaffer Best boy

Tom Cowan Mike Kelly Liddy van Guyen Chris Sperov Arri BL4 John Goldney Trevor Grantham Tom Moody David Smith

On-set Crew

1st asst director 2nd asst director Continuity Boom operator Make-up Make-up asst Special fx supers Special fx coords Special fx assts

Michael Buurchier Emma Schofield Larraine Quinnell Cathy Gross Lesley Rouvray Sue Taylor Chris Murray Steve Courtley Paul Gorrie Tom Davis Peter Jobson

Timea Dixon

Construction D epartm ent

Scenic artist Const’n. manager Carpenters

Drivers

Studios

Chris Wood Mike Thomas Jorgen Anderson Tim Stanley Paul Spencer Ian Henderson Warwick Jose John Lord Shane Munro Cyall Beckman Paul Lightfoot Hendon, SAFC

Post-production

Asst editor Laboratory Lab Liaison Gauge Screen ratio Shooting stock Length

Sue Milliken Robert Lantos Michael Spencer Brian Moore Brian Moore Peter James Gary Wilkins Tim Wellburn Herbert Pinter

Comp, guarantor

Film Finances

Camera Crew

Camera operator Focus puller Dolly grip

Danny Batterham John Platt David Nicholls

On-set Crew

1st asst director Boom operator

Pedron Gandol Mark Wasiutak

Post-production

Post-prod. sup.

Asst editor Sound editor Laboratories

Sylvia Walker-Wilson Patricia Mackle Penn Robinson Atlab (Australia) Bellevue Pathe (Canada)

G overnm ent Agency Investm ent

Prod’n Film Finance Corporation Cast:LothaireBluteau (FatherLaforgue), Adan Young (Daniel), August Schellenberg (Chomina), Annuka (Sandrine Holt); Billy Two Rivers, Lawrence Bayne, Harrison Liu, Tantoo Cardinal (Indians).

Synopsis: The story of the journey of Fa­ ther Laforgue in 17th-Century Canada to convert the Indians.

BREATHING U NDER WATER

Carryl Irik Atlab Denise Wolfson 35mm 1.85:1 Kodak 5248 98 mins

Government Agency Investm ent

Production

FFC

Marketing

Inter, dist.

Film Four International Publicity Bennetto Publicity Cast: Tim Roth (Tom Whitton),Jim Holt (Jack Tyson), Odile Le Clezio (Alison iyson), Koss McOregor (rastor).

Synopsis: The diabolical obsessions of a recidivist criminal and the erosion of his spiritual resolve (he and his wife are ‘bornagain’ Christians) culminate in a spec­ tacular conclusion: as a desert refinery is destroyed, love and God’s charity take second place as fear and a need to survive take over.

BLACK ROBE

(An Australia-Canada co-production) Prod, companies Samson Prods Alliance Communications Budget $11 million Production 1 7 /9 /9 0 -1 /1 2 /9 0 Principal Credits

Director Producers

Co-producer Exec, producer Film Finances rep.

Scriptwriter Based on novel by D.O.P. Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer Production Crew

Michael Thomas Deborah Wilde Stuart Polkinghorne Vicki Neihus Tony Cronin Robert Moxham

Wardrobe

Production Crew

Prod, manager Prod, coordinator Prod, secretary Location manager Unit manager Prod, runner Prod, accountant Insurer

Kylie Gaskin Glen Boswell Mike Read Barbara Willoughby Jim Townley Cas Bennetto ’Er Indoors Martin Williams Kent Green

Bruce Beresford Robert Lantos Stephane Reichel

Prod, company Post-production

Periscope Prods Started January 1991

Principal Credits

Director Producer Scriptwriter D.O.P. Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer Costume designer Composer Animation dir.

Susan Dermody Megan McMurchy Susan Dermody Erika Addis Browyn Murphy Diana Priest Stephen Curtis Amanda Lovejoy Elizabeth Drake Lee Whitmore

Planning and D evelopm ent

Researchers Script editor Casting

Jodi Brooks Christine Woodruff Jeni Thornley Alison Barrett

Production Crew

Prod, manager Patricia L’Huede Prod, coordinator Sam Thompson Prod, assistant Maureen Burns Unit manager Robert Graham Unit attachment Trudi Latour Prod, accountant Moneypenny Services Insurer Cinesure Compl’n guarantor Film Finances Legal services Michael Frankel & Co. Camera Crew

Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Asst, grip Gaffer

Sally Eccleston Duncan Taylor Mark Ramsey Jared Brown Paul Johnstone

Your complete Negative Matching Service including • Time Coding onto 8" Floppy Disc • Super 16mm • Syncing Neg or Pos Rushes • 16mm & 35mm Edge-Coding Service (“ Rubber Numbering” ) • Tight deadlines our speciality • 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if required.

Contact Greg Chapman

Tel (02) 439 3988 Fax (02) 437 5074 105/6-8 CLARKE ST., C R O W S NEST N S W 2065

CINEMA

PAPERS

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Best boy Richard SimshauSer On-set Grew 1st asst, director M ichael Faranda 2nd asst, director Judi McCrossin Continuity Lynn-Maree Danzey Make-up A ngela Bodini Hairdresser A ngela Bodini Safety officer Rocky M cDonald Still photography Sandy Edwards U nit publicist Jennifer Stott Caterer Jerry Billings Chaperone Stacy H um e Art Departm ent Art director M ichael Philips Standby props Dallas Wilson Art dept attachm ent Marcella Haywood Post-production Asst editors Dimity Gregson N igel MacKenzie T ony Vaccher Sound editors John D ennison Anim ation Astrid N ordheim Marinka Kordis Andy Spark Atlab Laboratory Lab liaison D enise W olfson Gauge 35m m Shooting stock Kodak Eastmancolor Length 70 m inutes Governm ent Agency Investm ent D evelopm ent AFC Production AFC Cast: A nne Louise Lambert (Beatrice), Kristoffer Greaves (H erm a n ), M aeve D erm ody (M aeve).

Synopsis: A woman journeys into an un­ derground city seeking an answer to the riddle o f why hum ankind has set the stage for its own extinction.

THE FATAL BO N D Prod, company Intertropic Films and Avalon Films Budget $3 m illion Principal Credits Paul Avalon Director V ince Martin Producer Peter Taylor Assoc, producer Phil Avalon Scriptwriter Ray H enm an D.O.P. Bob Clayton Sound recordist T ed Otten Editor Keith Holloway Prod, designer Art Phillips Com poser Production Crew U n it manager Peter Taylor M ichael B oon Prod, accountant Martin Cooper Legal services Camera Crew Mariana Marusic Camera assist Grahame Young Key grip Peter O ’Brien Gaffer On-set Crew Robin Newell 1st asst director Hilary Pearce Make-up asst Neville Maxwell Special fx super.

Rangi Nikcora Stunts coord.

Bob King Still photography Keith Byron Art Departm ent Keith Holloway Art director

Armourer Barry Cockings Action vehicle coord.

Rick B onnick C onstruction D ept C onstruction super.

Keith Holloway Post-production Post-prod, super.

T ed Otten Musical director Art Phillips Music perform ed by various artists Laboratory Colorfilm Film gauge 35 mm Marketing M arketing consultant Denis Davidson and Assoc.

Cast: Mark H em bro (Joe T. Martinez), Joe Bugner (Claw Miller).

Synopsis: Based on fact, Fatal Bond traces a series o f events that follows an everyday God-fearing accountant on the trail o f one o f the country’s worst “serial killers”.

FLYNN [T he film was partially reshot with new director Frank Howson. N o details sup­ plied.]

GARBO Prod, company Principal Credits Director Producer Line producer Associate prod’s

Eclectic

Ron Cobb H ugh Rule Margot M cDonald N eill Gladwin Stephen Kearney Patrick Cook Scriptwriters Stephen Kearney N eill Gladwin G eoff Burton D.O.P. John Phillips Sound recordist N eil T hum pston Editor Prod, designer Richard Bell Rose C hong C ostum e designer Allan Zavod C om poser Planning and D evelopm ent Casting director Richard Kent Camilla Gold Extras casting John Zurbo Storyboard artist Production Crew Yvonne Collins Prod, manager Ann Darrouzet Prod, coordinator Gina M endello Producer’s asst Prod, secretary Serena Gattuso Paul H ealey Location manager Marcus M cLeod Location scout Leigh Ammitzboll U nit manager Andrew Power Prod, runner Prod, accounting T hreadgold A ccounting Services Juanita Parker Prod, accountant Accounts asst Sharon Young Insurer Steeves Lumley C om pl’n guarantor H elen Watts, Film Finances Cowley H earne Legal Services M ichael McMichael Leah Kennedy Camera Crew Kathryn Milliss Focus puller Leilani Hannah Clapper-loader Vladimir O sherov 2nd unit D.O.P Sonia Leber 2nd unit focus T ony Hall Key grip

Asst grips

Richard Allardice L ee Tait Ian Plum m er Robbie Burr Darryl Pearson Scott Ingles

Gaffer Best boy G enni operator Asst electrics On-set Crew P h iljo n es 1st asst director Brendan Campbell 2nd asst director Karen M ahood 3rd asst director Kristin Voumard Continuity Harry Panagiotidis Steadicam op.

Camera equipm ent Cameraquip Stephen Vaughan B oom operator Kirsten Veysey Make-up Zeljka Stanin Make-up asst Zeljika Stanin Hairdresser Peter Stubbs Special fx JefiF Little Kevin Turner Chris Anderson Stunts coord.

G eorge Novak Stunts Spike Cherrie Lana Darby Mike Nikol Mitch Deam s Darko Tuska Roy Edm unds Arthur H oadley Reg Roordink Eddy McShortall Wally Dakrib Johnny Raaen T om Coltraine A nthea Roordink Phil Reilly Eddy McShortall Safety officer Mick Stevens Security coord.

R obert Bodley M echanics J e ff Bell John Suhr, V ehicles supplied by Hertz Alan Markfield Still photography Jim Townley Fiona Searson, DDA U nit publicist Two Can D o Catering Catering M ichael Batchelor, Make-up bus M obile Production Services Art D epartm ent Stuart M enzies Art director David O ’Gradey Asst art director David Bell Art dept runner David Bell Set dresser Richie D ehne Set decorators Daryl Mills Allison Pye Draftsperson G eoffey Pitt M echanical drafts.

Ian McLay Mega prop facilitator Daryl Mills Props buyer Richie D ehne Jessica Grouder Props maker Daryl Porter Standby props Bill Leimbach Asst standby props Guy Cottrell Art d ep t asst Scott Adcock Guy Cottrell Art dep t labourer Wardrobe Efthem ia Standby wardrobe Konstantinidis R euben Thom as Wardrobe asst

Aninîftjfl D og & cat wrangler H orse wrangler C onstruction D ept Scenic artist Construct, manager Carpenters

Set Finisher Labourers

Post-production Asst editors Sound supervisor D ialogue editor Music coord Mixers Re-recording

Luke Hura Jo h n Baird Graeme Galloway B ob H earn Phillip Hyde A nthony Downie D udley Cole Godric Cole Martin Frisbee Frank Jacobs Nick D onahu e Andrew Scott M ichael Hill N icholas C ole Julian M acDonald Edward M cQ ueenMason Livia Ruzic Bruno Charlesworth Peter Fenton R on Purvis Producers Sound Service FA Cinevex Ian A nderson

Laboratory Lab liaison M arketing Inter, sales agent Beyond International Group Publicity D ennis D avidson Associates.

Cast: Step h en Kearney (S teve), N eill Gladwin (N eill), Max Cullen (Wal), Sim on Chilvers (D etective), Gerard K ennedy (T r ev o r ), M oya O ’Su llivan (F red a), Im ogen A nnesley (Jane) J o h n Brum pton (T roy), R obin C um ing (C o u n cillo r), M ichael Veitch (Town clerk).

Synopsis: Garbo is the story o f Steve and N eill, two very unlikely garbage m en working in a mythical inner-city suburb o f M elbourne. T hese bum bling philosophi­ cal garbos want what we all w ant- love and justice-and their quest leads them through trial and tribu lation , physical abuse, madness and mayhem , until finallyjustice is don e.

THE GIRL W HO HAD EVERYTHING Prod, com pany View Films Pre-production 2 7 /8 /9 0 - 1 9 /1 0 /9 0 2 2 /1 0 /9 0 -1 4 /1 2 /9 0 Production Post-production 1 7 /1 2 /9 0 -5 /5 /9 1 Principal Credits Kathy M ueller Director B en Gannon Producer Saturday Rosenberg Scriptwriter Andrew Lesnie D.O.P. Guntis Sics Sound recordist Editor Robert Gibson Prod, designer Roger Ford T odd H unter Composers Johanna Pigott Planning and D evelopm ent Script editor M ichael Jenkins Casting Liz M ullinar Casting Extras casting Sandra McKenzie Production Crew Prod, manager A nne Bruning

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72

• CINEMA

PAPERS

82

Shirley Reynolds on (03)..266 2087 or i£ AH (034— 687 3435

Prod, coord Producer’s asst

Maggie Lake Christine van der Heyden Debbie Atkins Phillip Roope Justin Plummer Paul Naylor Will Milne John May FIUA Film Finances

Prod, secretary Location manager Unit manager Asst unit man.

Prod, runner Sup. accountant Insurer Completion guaran.

Camera Crew

Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Asst grips

Colin Deane Katrina Crook Pat Nash Ian McAlpine David Hansen Simon Lee Peter Bushby Greg Allen Shaun Conway

Gaffer Best boy Electrician Asst electrics On-set Crew

1st asst director Bob Donaldson 2nd asst director Nikki Long 3rd asst director James McTeige Continuity Daphne Paris Boom operator Gerry Nucifora Make-up Judy Lovell Make-up asst Rosalina da Silva Choreographer Robyn Moase Stunts coord.

Glenn Boswell Safety officer Claude Lambert Unit nurse Jacquie Ramsay Still photography Vivian Zink Unit publicist Patti Mostyn Publicity Catering Kerry Fetzer Art D epartm ent

Art director Asst art director Art dept runner Set dressers Standy props Action vehicle coord

Laurie Faen Sarah Tooth Andrew Short Sandy Wingrove Jock McLachlan Colin Gibson Tim Parry

Prod, accounatnt

Mandy Carter, Moneypenny Services Insurer Tony Leonard Steeves Lumley Compì’n guarantor Film Finances Legal services Roth Warren & Menzies Camera Crew

Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Asst grip Gaffer

Calum McFarlane Warik Lawrence Brett McDowell John Tate Mark Gilfedder

On-Set Crew

1st asst director 2nd asst director Continuity Boom operator Make-up Still photography Catering

Tony Mahood Julie Burton Anne West Chris Goldsmith Amanda Rowbottom Jennifer Mitchell Kristina Frolich

Art Departm ent

Art dept runner Set dresser Standby props

Rebecca O’Brien Dimity Huntington Chris James

Post-production

Asst editor Edge numberer Sound transfers by Sound editor Laboratory Lab liaison Gauge Shooting stock

Maria Kaltenthaler Oliver Streeton Eugene Wilson Glenn Newham Cinevex Ian Anderson 35 mm Kodak

Fiona McConaghy Sharon Miller Rowena Talacko Prod, secretary Rebecca Coote Daniella Kolundzija Producer’s sec.

Location manager Phillip Roope Richard Montgomery Unit manager Melissa Warburton Prod runners John Riley Jill Steele Prod, accountant Base accounts Carolyn Jones Accounts asst Kerri n Begaud Christine Gordon Base-office liaison

Art Departm ent

Camera Crew

Art director Art dept coord Art dept runner Set dresser 2nd dresser Props buyer

Camera operator Focus pullers

Hugh Bateup Victoria Hobday Paul Macak Georgina Campbell Anton Sepitka Georgina Campbell Anton Sepitka Standby props Dean Sullivan Action vehicle coord Laurie “Truck” Humphries Vehicle wranglerj Rory Timoney Wardrobe

Wardrobe supenfisor Standby wardrotje Wardrobe asst

G overnm ent Agency Investm ent

Horse wrangler Construction D epartm ent

AFC Film Victoria Cast: Hugo Weaving (Martin), Russell Crowe (Andy), Genevieve Picot (Celia), Heather Mitchell (Mother) Jeffrey Walker (young Martin).

Synopsis: The story of Martin, a blind photographer obsessed with honesty but hiding from the truth.

Const, manager!

Carpenters Scenic artist Brush hands

SPOTSW OOD

Louise Wakefield Jenny Miles Devina Maxwell

Prod, company Meridian Films Dist. co.

Beyond International Group Production 3 0 /7 /9 0 -1 4 /9 /9 0

Animals

Principal Credits

Horse wranglers

Evanne and Murray Chesson

Director Producers

Mark Joffe Timothy White Richard Brennan Max Dann Andrew Knight Ellery Ryan Lloyd Carrick Nicholas Beauman Chris Kennedy Tess Schofield Ricky Fataar

Post-production

Laboratory Lab liaison Gauge Shooting stock

Atlab Denise Wolfson 35mm Kodak

Governm ent Agency Investm ent

Production

Film Finance Corporation Cast: Miranda Otto (Nell), Martín Kemp (Digby), Anne Looby (Margo), Alister Smart (Ron), Gia Carides (Wendy), Bruce Venables (Stu).

Synopsis: A story about a loving, stable relationship and how to get one.

PR O O F

House 8c Moorhouse Films Pre-production 13/8/90 - 23/9/90 Production 24/9/90 -2 /11/90 Post-production 5/11/90 - March 1991 Prod, company

Principal Credits

Scriptwriters D.O.P Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer Costume designer Composer

Planning and D evelopm ent

Casting Extras casting

Alison Barrett Casting Jo Warren

Production Crew

Prod, manager Prod, coordinator Producer’s asst Location manager Unit manager Prod, runner Prod, accountant Accounts asst

Director Jocelyn Moorhouse Producer Lynda House Insurer Scriptwriter Jocelyn Moorhouse Comp, guarantor D.O.P. Martin McGrath Legal services Sound recordist Lloyd Carrick Editor Ken Sallows Camera Crew Prod, designer Patrick Reardon Camera operator Costume designer CeriBarnet Focus puller Planning and D evelopm ent Casting consultants GregApps,Clapper-loader Key grip Liz Mullinar Casting Asst grip Production Crew 3rd grip Prod: manager Catherine Bishop Prod, coordinator JakkiMannGaffer Best boy Location asst Mimika Tsantis Generator operator Unit manager Robert Graham & 3rd electric Prod, runners Angie Limoncelli Russell Boyd On-Set Crew

Bernadette O ’Mahony Sue Edwards Judith Hughes John Suhr Leigh Ammitzboll Unit asst & Russell Boyd Mandy Carter Dawn McNeil Janine Martorejo Steeves Lumley Film Finances Roth, Warren & Menzies Clive Duncan Kattina Bowell Kimjonsson Barry Hansen Darren Hansen Noel Mudie Ted Nordsvan John Brennan Adam Williams

Production Crew

Prod, manager Prod, coordinator

Clapper-loader Special fx sup.

Key grip Asst grips

Gaffer Best boy Electrician Asst electrics Addt electrics

Animals

Funded by

Wardrobe

Wardrobe sup.

Wardrobe buyer Standby wardrobe

Cheyne Phillips Julie Barton Sandra Cichello

Script editor Casting

Sue Smith Alison Barrett

1st asst director Euan Keddie 2nd asst director Julie Burton 3rd asst director Tony Gilbert Continuity Kristin Voumard Boom operator Chris Goldsmith Make-up Wendy Sainsbury Hairdresser Paul Pattison Stunts coord.

Chris Anderson Stunts New Generation Stunts Safety officer Brian Holmes Still photography Jennifer Mitchell Unit publicist Fiona Searson, DDA Catering Kristina Fröhlich Wardrobe & Greenroom buses Mobile Production Facilities

John Baird Walter Sperl Michael Hill Pat Carr Howard Clark Peter Swain Peter Jones Phillip Hyde Julian Faull Chris Waters Philippe Christeller

Post-productiojn

Asst editor Editing assts Sound transfers by Mixer Mixed at Laboratory Gauge Screen ratio Shooting stocjk

Nicholas Breslin David Grusovin Eugene Wilson Roger Savage Soundfirm Cinevex & Atlab 35 mm 1: 1.85 Kodak

Governm ent Agency Investm ent

Production

FFC Trust Fund

On-set Crew

1st asst director 2nd asst director 3rd asst director Continuity Boom operator 2nd Boom op.

Make-up Hair stylist Safety officer Safety assts Unit nurse Fight coordinator Still photography Unit publicist Catering

TURTLE BEACH

Prod. co.

Roadshow, Coote & Carroll

Principal Credits

Director Producer Line producer Exec, producers Scriptwriter Based on |novel by D.O.P. Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer Costume designer

Stephen Wallace Matt Carroll Irene Dobson Arnon Milchan Greg Coote Ann Turner Blanche D’Alpuget Russell Boyd Ben Osmo John Scott Brian Thomson Roger Kirk

Planning and D evelopm ent

Colin Fletcher Nicola Long Guy Campbell Linda Ray Gerry Nucifora Simon Hewitt Lesley Rouvray Cheryl Williams Richard Boue Johnny Hallyday Zev Eleftheriou Maggie Mackay Glen Boswell Jim Sheldon Annie Wright Studio & Locations

Art D epartm ent

Art director Asst art directors Art dept coord Art dept runner Set dressers

Marketing

International dist. Beyond Internadonal Group Publicity Dennis Davidson Associates Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Wallace), Ben M endelsohp (Carey), Toni Collette (Wendy), Alwyn Kurts (Mr Ball), Daniel Wyllie (Flejtcher), Bruno Lawrence (Robert), Rebecca Rigg (Cheryl), Russell Crowe (Kim) Jo h n Walton (Finn), Angela Punch-McGregor (Caroline).

Synopsis: Aj majestic saga sweeping two suburbs. It is the late 1960s. A time-andmotion expjert is called in to modernize Ball’s moccasin factory. Amid this up­ heaval, an jl8-year-old youth attempts a major romantic takeover.

David Williamson John Platt Colin Dean Richard Bradshaw Brian Cox David Hardie Ray Brown Warren Greiff Ian Bird Aaron Walker Brian Bansgrove Paul Gantner Colin Chase Grant Atkinson, Sydney Grant Padget Sean Conway

Draftsman Standby props Art dept assts

Robert Dein Michael Phillips Michelle McGahey Tracey Hyde Leslie Mills Kerrie Brown Glen Johnson David McKay Kathy Moyes Ken Wilby John Osmond Angus Tattle Andrew Short

Wardrobe

Wardrobe super.

Standby wardrobe Wardrobe asst

Kerry Thompson Julie Middleton Julie Frankham

Construction D ept

Scenic artist Const, manager Workshop m’ger

Eric Todd Alan Fleming Alan Fleming

Post-production

Laboratory Atlab Lab liaison Simon Wicks Cast: Greta Scacchi Judith), Joan Chen (Minou), Art Malik (Kanan).

Synopsis: An ambitious Australian jour­ nalist returns to Malaysia to report on an international refugee crisis. Through her encounters with the people there, she is thrown into personal and professional conflicts that reach a climax on the East Coast of Malaysia.

U N TIL THE END OF THE WORLD

Prod, companies

Road Movies Argos Films Village Roadshow Pictures (Aust) Dist. company Trans Pacific CINEMA

PAPERS

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Production

15/6/90...

Principal Credits

Director Producers

Wim Wenders Jonathan Taplin Anatole Dauman Village Roadshow Pictures (Aust) Su Armstrong Julia Overton Peter Carey Robby Muller Sally Campbell

Co-producers Line producer Asoc. producer Scriptwriter D.O.P. Prod, designer

Production Crew

Prod, coordinator Prod, secretary Locations m’ger Unit manager Production runner Prod, accountant

Maggie Lake Melissa Wiltshire Robin Clifton Richard Carroll Scott Gray Jim Hajicosta

Base-office liaison

Sam Thompson

Camera Crew

Camera attach.

Joel Peterson Camera maintenance Mike Kelly Key Grip Graham Litchfield Asst grips Mark Ramsey David Hanson Gaffer (Aust) Mike Morris Electrician Paul Moyes John Lee On-set Crew

1st asst director 2nd asst director 3rd asst director Boom operator Make-up Hairdresser Stunt coordinator Stunt pilots Safety officer Unit nurse Caterer

Tony Mahood Emma Schofield John Martin Jack Friedman Nikki Gooley Paul Williams Mike Read Chris Sperou Tony Shwert Johnny Halliday Susan Andrews John Faithful

Art Departm ent

Art director Asst designer Art dept, admin.

Dressers Draftsmen Props buyer Props maker Standby props Asst standby props Model maker Model asst

Ian Gracie Mike Worrall Amanda Selling Tim Ferrier Blossom Flint Diaan Wajon Michelle McGahey Tim Ferrier Blossom Flint Kim Hilder Colin Gibson Dougal Thompson Tim Ferrier Ilonka Craig

Publicity

Fiona Searson Dennis Davidson Associates Cast: Solveig Dommartin (Claire), William Hurt (Sam), Sam Neill (Eugene) .Rudiger Volger, Chick Ortega, Ernie Dingo, Max Von Sydow, Jeanne M oreau, David Gulpillil, Charlie McMahon,Jimmy Little, Justine Saunders, Kylie Belling, John Lurie, Noah Taylor.

Synopsis: Set in the year 2000, Until theEnd ofthe World is a love triangle set across four continents involving Sam, on the run from the authorities, Claire, who acts out of her love for Sam, and Eugene, obsessed by his love for Claire. Sam’s journey takes him from Europe, via America andjapan, and climaxes in the mythological and majestic landscape of central Australia.

Kerri Barnett Devina Maxwell Sandra Cichello

Prod, company Illumination Films Dist. co.

Beyond International Group Principal Credits

Director Producers

Paul Cox Paul Cox Santhana Naidu Line producer Paul Ammitzboll Exec, producer William Marshall Original screenplay by Paul Cox Barry Dickins Original concept Paul Cox D.O.P Nino Martinetti Sound recordist Russell Hurley Editor Russell Hurley Prod, designer Neil Angwin Composer Paul Grabowsky Production Crew

Prod, manager Paul Ammitzboll Prod, coordinator Frances O’Donoghue Prod, assistant Margot Wiburd Prod, runner Andrew Marshall Prod, accountant Antony Shepherd Insurer Brian Holland & Assocs Completion guarantor Motion Picture Guarantors Legal services Marshall & Dent Camera Crew

Camera operator Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Continuity Boom operator Unit doctor Still photography Catering

Set Dressers W ardrobe

Wardrobe supervisor

Asst editor Edge numberer Editing rooms Laboratory

Phillippa Harvey Paul Healy Spectrum Films Atlab Australia

Marketing 74

.

CINEMA

PAPERS

82

Joanne McLennan Steven Haggerty Dr. James Khong Roberto Rodriguez Anne Weiler Ann Bowden Iris Steider

Art Departm ent

Construct, m’ger Construct, manager

Post-production

Nino Martinetti Leigh Parker Roberto Rodriguez Peter Kershaw

On-set Crew

C onstruction D ept

Dennis Smith John Rann (location) Peter Collias (studio) Scenic artist Gus Lobb Scenic artist Mark Oliver Leading hand Larry Sandy Foreman Carpenters Cameron Craig Ronald Martin Errol Glassenbury James Kibble Jon Stiles Gordon McIntyre Gordon Finney Marcus Smith Carpenter-welder Mark Gatt Welder Adam Bromhead Set painter (location andstudio) Mark Connors (studio) Alan Brown Set painter Greg Thomas Greensman Peter Scott Construct, runner Labourer-runner Kieran Weir

AYA DEAD T O THE WORLD DEADLY DIN G O HOLIDAYS O N THE RIVER YARRA HURRICANE SMITH ISABELLE EBERHARDT STAN & GEORGE’S NEW LIFE WAITING

DOCUMENTARIES D O G SQUAD: WHAT A D O G ’S LIFE!

Prod, company

Wardrobe

Wardrobe super Standby wardrobe Cutter-machinist

RECENTLY COMPLETED See previous issue for details on:

Harry Zettel Declan Halliman Aphrodite Dowding

Post-production

Asst, editor Sound transfers by Sound editor Asst sound editor Sound mixer Mixed at Titles Laboratory Neg matching Shooting stock

Rochelle Oshlack Eugene Wilson Craig Carter Rochelle Oshlack James Curry Hendon Studios Oliver Streeton Cinevex Meg Koernig Kodak

G overnm ent Agency Investm ent

Production FFC Cast: Sheila Florance (Martha), Gosia Dobrowolska (Anna), Norman Kaye (Billy), Chris Haywood (Jonathan), Myr­ tle Woods (Miss Inchley), Ernest Gray (Peter), Bruce Myles (Con 1), Alex Menglet (Con 2), Francois Bernard (French neighbour 1), Manuel Bachet (French neighbour 2).

Synopsis: An eighty-year-old woman, still full of imagination and spirit, faces a crisis when it is decided it’s time for her to be committed to a home for the aged.

Agrifilm Prods

4th Brighton East Sea Scout Cub Pack 1st Tullamarine Cub Pack 6th Keilor Cub Pack Synopsis: This film shows that cubbing is a great life for a growing boy and his family; even sisters get a guernsey.

For details o f the follow ing see previous issue: THE BIRTH OF SALLY’S BABY I SEE TREES DIFFERENTLY N O W ...

IF IT HU R TS, TELL US IN THE SHADOW OF A GAOL KAPI PALYA - G O O D WATER MANAGEMENT OF VIOLENT PATIENTS IN A HOSPITAL RAINFOREST - THE AMAZING WORLD W ITHIN

Exec, producer Robert Rothols ■ Doirector Not given ■ SHORTS I Scriptwriter Ron Williams Sound recordist Donald Calder A DATE W ITH DESTINY Cameraman Reg Boulter Prod, company Swinburne Film & Lighting Reg Boulter Television Technical adviser Dr. Peter Ellis BV Sc, Dist. company Australian Film Veterinary Research Institute $15,000 Laboratories Budget Camera type Arriflex Principal Credits Gauge 16mm Director Mark Hartley Stock Eastmancolor Exec, producer Chris McGill Neg matching Victorian Film Scriptwriter Mark Hartley Laboratories D.O.P. Terry Howells Dog trainer Sen Sgt Paul Demos Sound recordists Katie Wright Titles Bill Owen Luke Elliot Police dog ‘Angus’ Narration by Bradley A. Taylor alias Harold Baigent Editor Mark Hardey Special thanks to Victorian Police Dog Costume designer Rebecca Jobson Squad and their dogs Composer Bradley A. Taylor Inspector Walker O.I.C., O ther Credits Police Dog Squad Danial Offenberg Shooting schedule Synopsisi An in-depth view of the Victoria Mark Hardey Police Dog Squad, showing the care and Prod, managers Samantha Dams Danial Offenberg training methods used to keep it operational in the field.

Camera operator Terry Howells Camera assts Joanne Donahue FIRST AID FOR CAMPERS Liam O’Hara The Scouts Camera type Prod, company Arri Sr Association of Australia, Key grip Mark Bakaitis Victorian Branch Asst grips David McKell Director Jeffrey A. Burns Peter Bowman Ron Williams Scriptwriter Gaffers Kiernan Doolan Jay Mahlo Luis Da Silva Sound recordist Gavin Dixon Editors Jeffrey A. Burns Martin McKenna Ron Williams Technical adviser Robert S. Murphy J. H. Wilcox Naomi Best Make-up Dominique Yvette Williams Best boys Best boy Marcella Russnak Roger David Gauge Martin McKenna 16mm 1st asst director Stock Eastmancolor Make-up Samantha Dams Synopsis: To show campers how to cope Hairdresser Samantha Dams with the various sorts of accidents most Safety officer John Fox common to those enjoying the outdoors.

Still photography Bradley A. Taylor Catering Margo Hardey IT ’S A GREAT LIFE Ivy Hartley The Scouts Runners Prod, company Coryjimmieson Association of Australia, Amber Connolly Victorian Branch Props maker David Ludovici Jeffrey A. Burns Co-art directors Director Grace Italiano Scriptwriter Ron Williams Ian Farnbach Anne Gordon Editor David Ludovici John Fox Sound recordists Peter Aarons Armourer Ron B. Williams Sound editor Mark Hartley Camera operators Peter Aarons Asst sound editors Katie Wright Keith Head Angie Black John Smith Narrator Tony Martin Jeffrey A. Burns Musical director Bradley A. Taylor Marc Fookes Bradley A Taylor Storyliners Songs written by Margaret Davis Mark Hartley Nathan Maller Vocals by Rob Craw Jeffrey A. Burns Technical adviser Sherry Valier Make-up Yvette Williams Russell Bertha Ron Williams John Fleming Prod, assistants Brian Williams David Bowers Yvette Williams Des Mullen Arriflex Camera Harmonica Chris O’Connor 16mm Gauge Recording studio The Hit Factory Fujicolor Stock Mixer __ Peter Frost Narration Mike O’Loughlin Music mixer __ Bradley A. Taylor Statewide, 4th Special thanks to Mixer Film Soundtrack Australia Brighton East Cub Pack Titles Jeremy Parker

Laboratory Gauge Screen ratio Shooting stock

Cinevex 16mm 1:85 Kodak 7297, 7292, . 7245 Cast: Adam May (Joe), June Newbury (Destiny), Jo h n Flaus (G reenback), Randall Berger (Dr Bloato), Tania Lacey (the Queen ofMars), Tony Martin (Keith), Reg Gorman (Grooper), Marc Nicholls, Andrew Morrish, Leigh Banks (the Menin-Black), Paul Harris (the President of the United States), Ivan Hutchinson (Himself).

Synopsis: Visiting Martian coffee-anddonut girl, Destiny Starr, discovers that things can get wild when you’re an out-ofthis-world gal caught up in a down-toearth adventure.

Sound editor RayBoseley Wardrobe super MilviaHarder Hairdresser Tina Gordon Music performed by Iain Mott Wardrobe buyer Joanne Murphy Special fx super.

James Lynne Laboratory Cinevex Standby wardrobe Joanne Murphy Still photography EliseLockwood Government Agency Investment Animals Catering J err7 Billings, Development Film Victoria Horse master Graham Ware The Shooting Party Production Film Victoria Horse wrangler Graham WareArt Department Marketing Film Victoria Construction Department Art director TaniaCreighton Cast: Emily Mortimore (Mott), Jacek Construct, supervisor Kieran Art dept runner Emma Rigney Roman (Raoul), Doris Younane (Trace), Usher Standby props Julie Peel Lynda Gibson (Jane), David Swann Carpenter Ken Manning Wardrobe (Bruce) Set finisher SashaHaddan Wardrobe supers Tania Creighton Synopsis: [No details supplied] Post-production Tina Gordon Asst editor WilliamMorely Standby wardrobe Jacqui Dewarte WRITERS - THE REAL STORY Sound transfers by Andrew MacNeil Construction Department Prod, company TVU Sound editors CarmenGalanConstruct, super Keiran Usher Director LisaHorler Jane Stewart Carpenters Brendan Boys Producers SherrylClarkPost-sync supers Carmen Galan Sasha Hadden Lisa Horler Jane Stewart Bart Groen Scriptwriter Sherryl Clark Music performed by Anthony Partos Post-Production Gauges 16mm, Super 8, Video Edge numberer Sam Petty Foley J aneStewart THE DAY I REALISED ...

Funding Australia Council Sound transfers by Sam Petty Mixer J ane Stewart Prod, company SirenFilmsSynopsis: Writers in the western suburbs Fx mixer Jane Stewart Laboratory Atlab Budget $27,96S of Melbourne are documented and tell us Music mixer AnthonyPartos Lab liaison Mike McKeown Principal Credits what they think a real writer is.

Mixed at AFTRS Neg matching Chris Rowell Director AliciaWalsh Opticals Graham SharpGauge 35mm Producer Joan Peters For details of the following Titles MattMawson Screen ratio 1:1:85 Scriptwriter AliciaWalsh see previous issue: Laboratory Atlab Shooting stock Kodak D.O.P LaszloBaranyai A SUBURBAN TRAGEDY Lab liaison Mike McKeown Marketing Sound recordist Janos Kerekes Neg matching ChrisRowell Marketing consultant Ruth Saunders Editor CindyClarkson Gauge 16mm Inter, sales agent AFTRS Prod, designer Julieanne Mills AUSTRALIAN FILM, ' Screen ratio Academy Inter, distributor AFTRS Costume designer DeniseNapier TELEVISION AND RADIO Shooting stock Kodak Publicity Ian Phipps Other Credits SCHOOL \ Marketing Cast: Gabrielle Atkins (Mariel), Ian Pearce Script editor GlendaHambly Marketing consultant Ruth Saunders (Ian).

Budgeted by LouiseGrant Inter, sales agent Ruth Saunders Synopsis: In order to save their failing Prod, manager LouiseGrant A HORSE WITH STRIPES Inter, distributor AFTRS careers and personal relationship, two Producer’s asst Berenice Heagney Prod, company AFTRS Publicity Ian Phipps young cabaret performers set out to cre­ Camera asst Sion Michel Dist. company AFTRS Cast: John Gregg (Martin), Mary-Lou ate the act to end all acts.

Camera type Arri SR II Principal Credits Stewart (Anne), Louise Howitt (Julie), Gaffer Guy Bessell-Browne Director Andrew O ’Sullivan Michael Lake (Robert), Jasmine Pease For details of the following 1st asst director GregDuffyProducer Andrew Ross (Rachel), Clayton Wilson (Nathan). see previous issue: Continuity Jan Piantoni Exec, producer Elisabeth Knight Synopsis: A comedy of social isolation set YELLOW Make-up LizWardAssoc, producer Ian MacArthur in the suburbs.

Nicole Spiro Scriptwriter Andrew O’Sullivan Still photography Fernanda D.O.P. Emil Novak THE PLUNGE FILM AUSTRALIA Giannecchini Jane Stewart Sound recordist Prod, company AFTRS Asst art director Fiona di Lanza Editor Andrew MacNeil Dist. company AFTRS Laboratory Movielab Milvia Harder Prod, designer Pre-production Sept - Oct 1990 BARUYA MUKA Neg matching WarwickDriscoll Milvia Harder Production Costume designer November 1990 Production company FA Gauge 16mm Anthony Partos Composer Post-production Dec 1990-Feb 1991 Director Ian Munro Shooting stock Kodak 7248 Planning and Development Principal Credits Executive producer Chris Oliver Government Agency Investment Script editor Marion Ord Director Josephine Keys Synopsis: Follow-up film to Towards Baruya Prod’n WA Film Corporation Casting Joy Sargant Producer Andrew Ross Manhood which focuses on the first stage Cast: Daina Reid (Rose), John Miller Storyboard artist Andrew MacNeil Exec, producer Elisabeth Knight of male initiation among the Baruya Felicity Nove (Trevor), Sybil Wishart (Redhead), Phillip Shooting schedule Assoc, producer Ian MacArthur people of Papua New Guinea.

Andrew Ross Budgeted by Boston (David), Glen Hayden (Hair­ Scriptwriter Josephine Keys Production Crew dresser), Molly W orsnop (Elderly D.O.P. Josephine Keys For details of the following woman).

Prod, supervisor Andrew Ross Sound recordist Paul Neeson see previous issue: Prod, manager Synopsis: The story of Rose and her diary Andrew Ross Editor Sam Petty AFTER THE WARMING on one of those lazy summer days where Prod, coordinator Glenn Harrison Prod, designer Tania Creighton THE ARTIST, THE PEASANT Unit manager John Fenton-Smith everything is still except the imagination.

Costume designer Tania Creighton BABY BOOMERS Prod, runner John Fenton-Smith Planning and Development COTTON RHINOCEROS CHRISTMAS Assembly editor Andrew MacNeil Script editor Marion Ord FILM AUSTRALIA’S AUSTRALIA Prod, company John Armstrong & Prod, accountant Allison Baillache Casting Joy Sargant BLACK AUSTRALIA Fiona Cochrane Camera Crew Shooting schedule Andrew Ross KOALAS $106,000 Budget Camera operator Emil Novak Budgeted by Andrew Ross MINI-DRAGONS Dec 1990 Focus puller Pre-production Simeon Bryan Production Crew PROFESSORS NEW CLOTHES Clapper-loader Production Jan 1991 - Feb 1991 Josey Keys Prod, manager Anthony Wade A REAL MAN’S PORSCHE - THE Post-production Feb 1991-Mar 1991 Camera asst Josey Keys Prod, coordinator John Fenton-Smith STORY OF A WARSHIP Camera type Principal Credits Arri flex Unit manager Jane Schneider SELLING NOTES TO ABSENT Director John Armstrong Key grip Tony Bosch Prod, runner Sophie Wheeler FRIENDS Asst grips Fiona Cochrane Peter Borosh Assembly editor Producer Sam Petty Scriptwriter John Armstrong David Richards Prod, accountant Allison Baillache Gaffer Ian Bosman Camera Crew D.O.P. Zbigniew Friedrich FILM VICTORIA MarkTarpey Best boy Lara Hopkins Sound recordist Camera operator Simeon Biyan Electrician Ian Bosman Editor Clayton Jacobsen Focus puller Dubravko Makarik On-set Crew Margaret Eastgate Clapper-loader Co-art directors Paul Yoo For details of the following see issue 80: 1st asst director Felicity Nove Adele Flere Camera assistant Paul Yoo SHOWING A LITTLE RESTRAINT Iain Mott 2nd asst director Kisane Marks Composer Special fx photog.

Simeon Bryan A DOCTOR’S RESPONSE 3rd asst director Geraldine Bigalow Other Credits Key grip Tony Bosch GUNS AND ROSES Continuity Mojgan Khadem Prod, manager Wendy Clarke Asst grip Anthony Wade Boom operator Anthony Partos Gaffer Unit manager Tania Paternostro Steven Gray Make-up Tina Gordon Best boy Runner Tania Paternostro Bridgid Costello TELEVISION Hairdresser Camera operator Tina Gordon On-set Crew Zbigniew Friedrich PRE-PRODUCTION *i Kathy Chambers Still photography Peter Barrett 1st asst director Focus puller Andrew Ross Catering Buchanan’s Catering Services Ken Connor 2nd asst director Kisane Marks Key grip CLOWNING SIM (serial) Art Department Rory Timoney Continuity Gaffer Don Aflak Prod. co.

Barron Films (Television) Milvia Harder Art director Boom operator 1st asst director Steve Westh Paul Edwards Production Starting 18/2/91 Brent Taylor Make-up Robyn Crawford Propsperson Continuity Tina Gordon Director George Whaley Brent Taylor Make-up assts Still photography Judith Hall Props buyer Tracey Garner Producers Paul Barron Max Worrel Helen Clarke Standby props Morgan McLauchlan Catering Antonia Barnard Garry Richards Wardrobe Helen Penney Syncing up Executive producer Paul Barron CINEMA

PAPERS

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Scriptwriters

Tony Cavanaugh Shane Brennan DOP Laszio Barnayai Synopsis: Sim is a 13-year-old boy deter­ mined to become a famous clown.

Synopsis: Bobby Rivers is a 40-year-old rock singer whose best years and one big hit are well behind him. How will he cope with the discovery that he has two 15-yearold children that he never knew existed.

BEYOND 2000 (series) THE CROCODILE ON TRIAL (tele-feature) [See issue 77 for details] Prod, company AustralianPacific BRIDES OF CHRIST (series) Films (Cairns) Dist. co.

Beyond International Group Prod. co.

Roadshow, Coote & Carroll ABC Pre-production Aug. - Sept. 1990 Pre-production 9 /7/90 - 17/9/90 Production Oct. 1990-Jan . 1991 Production 17/9/90 -2 1 /1 2 /9 0 Post-production Feb. - April 1991 7 /1 /9 1 -2 5 /1 /9 1 Principal Credits 2 5 /1 /9 1 -2 7 /7 /9 1 Director Mark Eliot Post-production Principal Credits Producer Mark Eliot Ken Cameron Director Planning and Development Sue Masters Producer Researcher RickRogers Penny Chapman Exec, producer Script editor Mark Eliot Adrienne Read Assoc, producers Shooting schedule MonicaMesch Ray Brown Budgeted by MonicaMesch John Alsop Scriptwriters Cast: [No Details Supplied] Sue Smith Synopsis: This two-hour tele-feature puts James Bartle D.O.P the crocodile on trial and investigates Nicholas Wood Sound recordist attacks from all over the world. The Tony Kavanagh crocodile, the world’s oldest creature has Editor Marcus North Prod, designer survived the Dinosaurs, and, although John Prycejones Art director savagely hunted by man for the past mil­ Annie Marshall Costume designer lion years, of the 21 original species not Bill Motzing Composer one has yet been made extinct. But how Planning and Development much longer can the crocodile hang out?

Maura Fay Casting Irene Gaskell Extras casting WHEN THE WAR CAME TO Production Crew AUSTRALIA (series) Prod, manager Joanne Rooney Prod. co.

Look Television Prods Prod, coordinator Sandy Stevens $1,142,500 Budget Prod, secretary Jane Symonds Principal Credits Patricia Rothkrans Location manager Tony Wheeler Director John Downie Unit manager Will Davies Producer Polly Job Production runner Co-producer Bee Reynolds Michelle D’Arcey Prod, accountant Tony Wheeler Scriptwriter Kim Vecera Business affairs Gordon Dein D.O.P. Hammond Jewell Insurer Allan Scott Sound recordist Film Finances Comp, guarantor Brad Christensen Editor Camera Crew Other Credits Russell Bacon Camera operator June Henman Researchers Sean McClory Focus puller Joanna Penglase Clapper-loader Lisa Lloyd Dianne Brown Prod, accountant Gary Burdett Performance Key grip Comp, guarantor Aron Walker Guarantee Asst grips Benn Hyde Heidtman & Co Legal Services Tim Murrayjones Gaffer Videopak Laboratory Pierre Drion SP Betacam Best boy Gauge Bruce Young Electrician Synopsis: A four-part series that tells the Bob Woods Gennie operator social history ofAustralia during the World On-set Crew War II, as told by those men, women and Adrian Pickersgill 1st asst director children who kept the home fires burning.

Karin Kreicers 2nd asst director A time of chang e, sacrifice and Vicki Hastrich 3rd asst director profiteering, but also a celebration of Rhonda McAvoy Continuity courage, humour and the true Australian Jack Friedman Boom operator spirit.

Gary Suitz Make-up Jenny Boehm PRODUCTION Chiara Tripodi John Neal Special fx coord ALL TOGETHER NOW (series) Gary Johnston Still photography Telltale Films Prod, companies Virginia Sargent Unit publicist Nine Network John Faithfull Catering Principal Credits Art Department Pino Amenta Director John Prycejones Art director Kris Noble Exec, producer Helen Baumann Asst art directors John Powditch Line producer Kerrie Reay Philip Dalkin Head writer Jon Rohde Shane Brennan Scriptwriters Lee Bulgin Art dept coord Steve J. Spears Robert Hutchinson Set dressers Elizabeth Coleman Brent Bonheur Mike Smith Sound recordists Lou Pittorino Mike Slater Don Page Propsperson Owen Williams Prod, designer Mervyn Asher Props buyers Michael Bridges Art directors Susan Glavich Julie Skate Tal Oswin Standby props Jon English Composer Rebecca Mackay Other Credits Wardrobe Kate Halliday Prod, coordinator Wendy Falconer Wardrobe coord Peter Fisher Technical producer Colleen Woulfe Rohan Thornton Lighting director Terry Lamera Standby wardrobe Make-up Amanda Rowbottom Meredith Brown Wardrobe asst Pam Murphy Construction Department Jeannie Cameron Wardrobe Paul Brocklebank Scenic artist Cast: Ton English, Rebecca Gibney, Gary Laurie Construct, manager Who, Bruno Lucia, Steve Jacobs, Jane Dorn Hall.

I

76

CINEMA

PAPERS

82

Post-production Asst editor Nicole La Macchia Laboratory Atlab Cast: Brenda Flicker (Agnes), Sandy Gore (Mother Ambrose), Josephine Brynes (Sister Catherine), Lisa Hensley (Sister Paul), Melissa Jaffer (Sister Attracta), Naomi Watts (Frances), Kym Wilson (Rosemary), Melissa Thomas (Brigid).

Synopsis: The women who pledge their lives and their virtue to God are called brides of Christ by their Church. To the world they are known as nuns. This is the story of Catherine, Paul and Ambrose.

The tales of Brides of Christ provide an af­ fecting encounter with a group of unfor­ gettable women.

CHANCES (serial) Prod, company Beyond Prods Dist. co.

Beyond International Group Principal Credits Mark Callan Directors Richard Sarrell Mike Smith Peter Andridikis Mark Defreist Peter Dodds Gary Conway Lynn Bayonas Producer Brendon Lunney Exec, producer Stephen Amezdroz Assoc, producer Keith Aberdein Scriptwriters Leon Saunders Katherine Thomson David Phillips Alan Hopgood Patricia Johnson Margaret Kelly David Allen Bill Garner Shane Brennan Ysabella Dean Terry Stapleton Annie Beach Sheila Sibley Paul Leadon Judith Colquhoun Tony Cavanaugh Peter Hepworth Andrew Kennedy Linden Wilkinson Helen Steel Barry Wilson D.O.P Philip Reid Editor Prod, designer Robbie Perkins Costume designer Michael Chisholm Peter Sullivan Composer Planning and Development Keith Aberdein Script editor Prue’s Zoo Casting Suzie Maizels & Assoc.

Production Crew Stottie Prod, coord.

Annie Parsons Producer’s asst Joanne Neil Prod, secretary Louise Cullinan Unit manager Mihita Production runner Reweti Prod, accountant Simone Semen Janine Martoreno Accounts asst Insurer Willis Färber Johnson & Higgins Camera Crew Phil Lambert Camera operators Andrew Oliver Tony Bennett Michael Bowker Camera assistant On-set Crew Ian Kenny 1st asst directors Paul Healey Breandan Campbell Ribbie Visser 2nd asst director Victoria Osborne Script assistant Christine Lipari Continuity Marcus Georgiades Carmel Torcasio Leeanne White Make-up Leeanne White Hairdresser Make-up/Hair assts Fiona Rees-Jones Anna Karpinski Zvelka Stanno

The Individual Wig Wigmaker Chris Anderson Stunts coord New Generation Stunts Stunts Stuart Davidson Runner Art Department Brunetta Stocco Art dept coord.

Sheridan Wilson Art dept runner Brian Dusting Set dressers Colin Robertson Hamish AldersonProps buyers Hicks Martin Perkins Brian Alexander Standby props Graham Blackmore Wardrobe Wardrobe super Francis Hogan Standby wardrobe Suzy Thomson Animals Dog trainer Luke Hura Post-production Post-prod, supervisor Sue Marian Cast: John Sheerin (Dan Taylor), Tim Robertson (Jack Taylor), Brenda Addie (Barbara Taylor), Anne Grigg (Sarah Taylor), Michael Caton (Bill Anderson), Jeremy Sims (Alex Taylor), Deborah Kennedy (Connie Reynolds), Yvonne Lawley (Heather McGlashan), Natalie McCurry (RebeccaTaylor), MerciaDeaneJohns (Sharon Taylor).

Synopsis: Some win, some lose ... What would you do if you won $3 million?

Chances are your life would change for­ ever! Find out what happens to an ordinary Australian family, when they score a huge lottery win.

A COUNTRY PRACTICE (series) [See previous issue for details.]

EMBASSY H (series) ABC-Grundy TV Prod, company Grundy TV Dist. companmy 21/1/91 -10/2/91 Pre-production 1 1 /2 /91-17/6/91 Production 18/3/91 - 7/7/91 Post-production Principal Credits Paul Mojoney Directors Mark Callan Richard Sarell Geoffrey Nottage Exec, producers Jill Robb Ian Bradley John Reeves Scriptwriters John Coulter Shane Brennan Jan Sardi John Cundhill Ian Bradley Based on story by Anne Lucas Snr cameraman Roger McAlpine Sound recordist John Beanland Editor Gary Watson Chris Branagan Prod, designer Max Nicolson Costume designer Claire Griffin Composer Peter Sullivan Planning and Development Script editors John Coulter Anne Lucas Extras casting Jane Hamilton Production Crew Prod, supervisor Vince Smits Prod, manager Margaret Greenwell Gail Meillon Prod, coordinator Kay Hennessy Producer’s assts Aideen Stephenson Frances McLean-Grant Prod, secretary Angela Chenhalls Location manager Ann Bartlett Camera Crew Roger McAlpine Camera operators Peter Holmes Andrew Schmidt Key grip Dave Washbourne Electrician Leo Carroll On-set Crew 1st asst directors Ali Ali Ross Allsop Neil Proud 2nd asst directors Ann Maver Charles Morse

Boom operators

Neville Kelly Graham Cornish Paddy Opwald Steven Clode Sweet Seduction

Make-up Make-up asst Catering

Casting asst Extras casting Production Crew

Michael Kene Mark Reynolds George Raniti Sue Vaughan Kris Kozlovic

Draftsman Props buyers

Location manager Unit manager Aircraft co-ord Prod, accountant Prod, runner

W ardrobe

Wardrobe super Standby wardrobe

Rhonda Shallcross Concetta Raffa Joyce Imlach Anne Brown

Camera operator Focus puller Clapper loader 2nd unit D.O.P. Key grip Grip Gaffer Electricians

Tony Stanyer Ian Battersby Steve Withrew Peter Sullivan Sully Music

M arketing

Publicity Liz Harvey Cast: Bryan Marshall (Duncan Stewart), Janet Andrewartha (Marion Stewart), Frankie J. Holden (Terry Blake), Alan Fletcher (Michael Clayton), Nina Landis (Susan Derek), Joseph Spano (Colonel Mahmoud), Nicki Wendt (Belinda Avery), Shapoor Batliwalla (Rufus).

Synopsis: The life of the staff of an Aus­ tralian embassy based in a South-EastAsian country.

Colour grade op 1st asst, director 2nd asst, director 3rd asst, director Continuity Boom operator Make-up-hair Special fx design Asst special fx Still photography Catering

(series) (Series VI) [See issue 77 for details]

Bob Donaldson Paul Brooke Martin Green Emma Peach Tony Dickenson Ian Loughnan Jacquie Bhavnani Terry Barrow John McCulloch Lindsay Hogan Tibor Gonczol Backdoor Catering

Post-production

Post prod super VT editor Musical director Mixer Mixed at

Tony Stanyer Ken Tyler Peter Sullivan Ralph Ortner Soundfirm

Governm ent Agency Investm ent

Production

Film Victoria ABC ABC

Marketing

Inter, distributor Publicity

Consolidated Marian Page (ABC) Front Page

Governm ent A gency Investm ent

Film Victoria Development Production FFC Cast: Tim Hughes (Charles Scott), Robert Reynolds (Tom Cam pbell-B lack), Josephine Byrnes (Florence Desmond), Jonathan Hyde (James Mollison), Gary Day (Ray Parer), Anthony Hawkins (Thomas Perrin), Gosia Dobrowolska (Thea Tasche), Jeff Trum an (Geoff Hemsworth), Jim Holt (Harold Brook), Henk Johannes (Keone Parmentier), Helen Slater (Jackie Cochran), Barry Bostwick (Roscoe Turner).

Synopsis: Mini-series about the 1934 MacRobertson London to Melbourne air race.

Dale Mark Penny Southgate Nick Hilligoss Mem Alexander Paddy Reardon Mark Reynolds David Norman Judy Leech John Cuskelly Sue Vaughan Marita Mussett Peter Turley Rod Beaumont

Design asst Art dept co-ord.

Set dressers Graphics designer Props buyers

Dimsey Grigsby Consolidated 30/4/90 - 1/8/90

Principal Credits

Props maker Standby props

Director Marcus Cole Producer Ross Dimsey Co-producer Howard Grigsby Exec, producer Penny Chapman Exec. prod, (tv drama) Jill Robb Scriptwriter Michael Brindley Chris Davis D.O.P. Ian Cregan Sound recordist Colin Gersch Prod, designer

W ardrobe

Costume designer Wardrobe co-ords

Costume maker

Alexandra Tynan Anne PenningtonBrown Joyce Imlach Julie Kruger James Watson

Construction D ept

Planning and D evelopm ent

Geoff Brodie Jack Moran

Construct, m’ger Construct, costing

Bill Garner Dina Mann

Producer Line producer Based on novel Written by D.O.P. Sound recordist Editor Prod, designer

HOM E AND AWAY (serial)

[See issue 80 for details.]

TJAPUKAI - THE WORLD AT O UR

FEET (tele-feature) Prod, company Australian Pacific Films (Cairns) Tjapukai Dance Theatre (Austheatre Film Productions jointly) Principal Credits

Director Producer Sound recordist Editor

Mark Eliot Mark Eliot Alan Andrewartha Bruce Redman

O ther Credits

Eve Lewiston Budgeted by Monica Mesch Producer’s asst Prod, accountant David Goodman Insurer Far North Insurance Brokers Cinesure Australian Tourist Travel coord.

Commission Dietmar Kuhn Camera Operator Bruce Redman Post-prod, super.

Tjapukai Music performed by Dance Theatre 8c David Hudson (Dwura) Shooting stock BVU U-matic 3/4 inch Off-line facilities Mark Eliot Production

Planning and D evelopm ent

Casting Casting consultant Cast manager Prod, supervisor Prod, coordinator Producer’s asst Prod, secretary Location manager Unit manager Unit asst Location coord.

Financial director Prod, accountant Accounts asst Travel coordinator

Murray Francis Naomi Joseph Bronwen Stokes Anna Rasmussen Paul Grinder Martin Walsh Les Doar Tami Sinclair Rob Fisher Christine Robson Michelle D’Arcey Hady Alt (ASPAC Vacations) Mondiale Freight coordinator Camera Crew

Camera operator Focus puller Clapper-loader Key grip Asst grip Gaffer Best boy Electrician Generator op.

1st asst director 2nd asst director 3rd asst director Continuity Boom operator Make-up Hairdresser Special fx Stunts coordinator Safety officer Unit nurse Still photography Unit publicist Catering Runners

THE

AUSTRALIAN AND

PAPERS

ACKNOWLEDGES

CONTINUING

SUPPORT

FILM

FILM

OF

THE

COMMISSION

VICTORIA

Allen Guilford Allan Annand Phillip Prendeville Terry Fraser Allistair Anderson Don Jowsey Bindy Crayford Neil Taylor Brendan Shadholt

Art director Asst art director Art dept coord Set dresser Props buyer Standby props Armourer

W HICH WAY HOM E (tele-feature)

Prod, company Dist. company

McElroy and McElroy Southern Star Group Principal Credits

Director

Carl Schultz

Dave Cooke Janette Goode Merran Bacon Kirsty Griffin Kirsty Griffin A1 Ford Kevin Chisnall

Wardrobe

Wardrobe designer Standby wardrobe

David Rowe Gavin McLean

Construction D ept

Construct, m’ger Carpenters

Queensland Film Development Office

Marketing consultant Beyond International Group Cast: Dancers of the Tjapukai Dance Theatre.

Synopsis: Twelve Aboriginal dancers from a rainforest village near Cairns - a city now besieged by international tourists - depart on a world tour of some 14 countries. In the form of traditional and contemporary dance, they give graphic expression to a living culture that has existed for some 40,000 years.

Chris Short Victoria Hardy Michelle Coventry Jenny Quigley Steven Buckland Viv Mepham Francia Smeets Kevin Chisnall Ken Drury Peter Bell Peter Bell Rohan Hoddinott Ken George Victoria Buchan Bonifante Oliver Sasha Haskell Michele Diedrich

Art Departm ent

Marketing

GRATEFULLY

Faith Martin Joselyn Morton Susan Jowsey

Production Crew

G overnm ent A gency Investm ent

Production

CINEMA

Hal McElroy Tim Sanders Which Way Home Michael Laurence Ellery Ryan Mike Westgate Henry Dangar George Liddle

On-set Crew

Art director Asst designers

HALF A WORLD AWAY (mini-series) (formerly T he Great Air Race)

Script editor Casting

Ned Visic John Trebilco Peter Andrews Errol Bazely Bill Whiteside Paul Stevens

Art Departm ent

GP (series) [See previous issue for details.]

Prod, company Dist. company Production

Russell Bacon Campbell Miller Trevor Moore David Eggby Max Gaffney Tony Woolveridge Andrew Holmes Darryn Fox Graham Crawford Peter Henshaw

On-set Crew

TH E FLYING D O CTORS

Standby carpenter Scenic artist Staging assts.

Development

Camera Crew

Post-production

Post-prod, super Sound editor Asst sound editor Musical director Recording studio

Marion Pearce Kiki Dimsey Jenny Barty Lyndel Osborne Harriet Westmore Neil McCart Neil Proud Bill Waterton Debra Cole Helen Francis

Prod, manager Producer’s asst Prod, co-ordinator Prod, secretary

Art D epartm ent

Set dressers

Jane Hamilton Cameron Harris

John Williams Mike Sudholter Mike Poole Peter Dorian Brown George V. Stumpf Robert Barton Trevor Tutte

Post-production

Post-prod, super.

Editing asst Laboratory

John Hollands Basia Ozerski Colorfilm

Marketing

Publicity

Victoria Buchan

Cast: Cybill Shepherd (Karen Parsons),

Jo h n Waters (Steve H annah), Peta Toppano (Annie), Marc Gray (Billy) John Ewart (Ferguson), Kiet Lam (Haing), Mark Ngo (Narun), Anna Ngo (Bopha), Alina Kwan (Suthy), Adrian Kwab (Khai).

Synopsis: Karen Parsons, a dedicated and courageous American nurse, sets out with five young orphans on an epic journey from a Thai refugee camp to freedom in Australia. She is rescued by an Australian charter boat captain Steve Hannah and love blossoms against impossible odds.

CINEMA

PAPERS

82

• 77

Editor’s Note: The most recent month’s cen­ sorship listing published in the previous is­ sue of C ine m a P ape rs was for June. Though these two lists are for dated October and November, they include all the films for the July-September period.

O C TO B ER 1990

G (GENERAL EXHIBITION) Cyrano d e Bergerac R. Cleitman, France, 127 mins, Newvision Film Distributors PG (PARENTAL GUIDANCE) Aya D Patience-S. Hoaas, Australia, 9B

mins, Ronin Films, Adult concepts, O(adult concepts) Black Rain (main title not shown in Eng­ lish), H. lino, Japan, 122 mins, Richley C om m unications, A dult concepts, O(adult concepts) Freshman, T he M. Lobell, U.S., 99 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occa­ sional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-g) F rontP age (main title not shown in Eng­ lish), Hui’s Film Production, Hong Kong, 94 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-g) H appy G host IV C. Ko, Hong Kong, 85 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional lowlevel violence and coarse language, L(i-1g) V(i-l-g) Mr & Mrs Bridge I. Merchant, U.S., 128 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Adult concepts and sexual allusions, O (adult concepts, sexual allusions) Mr & Mrs Bridge (edited version), I. M erchant, U.S., 122 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Adult concepts and sexual allusions, O (adult concepts, sexual allusions) PhobiaJ. Mandelberg, Australia, 87 mins, J D Productions, Adult concepts O(adult concepts) Spring Swallow H. Kuo-Liang-T. Ting-O U-C. Yao-Chi, Taiwan, 101 mins, Chinese Cultural Centre, Adult concepts, O (adult concepts) Waiting for the Light C. Chubb-R.Bozman, U.S., 94 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Adult concepts and low-level coarse language, L(i-lj) O(adult concepts) ■ M (MATURE AUDIENCES) Adventures o f Ford Fairlane, T he J. Sil-

ver-S. Perry, U.S., 89 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Frequent coarse language, occasional violence and sexual allusions, L(f-m-g) V(i-m-g) O(sexual al­ lusions) Air Am erica D. Melnick, U.S., 109 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Frequen t coarse language, L(f-m-g) Akira R. Suzuki-S. Kato, Japan, 123 mins, Ronin Films, Frequent violence, V(f-m-g) All for the W inner (main title not shown in English), Seasonal Film Corporation, Hong Kong, 98 mins, Yu Enterprises, Oc­ casional violence and coarse language, L(i-m-g) V(i-m-g)

Bite o f Love, A (main title not shown in

English), S. Shin, Hong Kong, 92 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Horror, O (horror) Class A ction T. Friels-S. Kroot-R. Cort, U.S., 108 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-j) C om e See the Paradise R. Colesberry, U.S., 132 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional coarse language, L(im-g) Crossing, T he S. Seeary, Australia, 90 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occa­ sional coarse language, Sexual scenes, L(i-m-j) S(i-m-j) Days o f Thunder D. Simpson-J. Bruck­ heimer, U.S., 104 mins, United Interna­ tional Pictures, Occasional coarse lan­ guage, L(i-m-g) O(adult concepts) D ie Hard 2 L. Gordon J. Silver-C. Gordon, U.S., 119 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Frequent violence and coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) Elephant K eeper, T he (main title not shown in English), Not Shown, Thailand, 137 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional vio­ lence, V(i-m-g) Exorcist m , T he C. De Haven, U.S., 106 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Horror, O (horror) Flatliners M. Douglas-R. Bieber, U.S., 110 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional coarse language, Sexual scenes, H o rro r, L(i-m-j) S(i-m-j) O (horror) FunnyAboutLoveJ. Avnet/J. Kerner, U.S., 98 mins, United International Pictures, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Ghostly V ixen Golden Flare Film, Hong Kong, 97 mins, Yu Enterprises, Sexual allusions, O (sexual allusions) Grifters, T he M. Scorsese-R. Harris- J. Painten, U.S.,. 109 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasiona, violence, coarse language and sexual allusions, V (i-m-j) L(i-m-g) O(sexual allusions) Guard, T he Lenfilm Productions, USSR, 98 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional coarse language and adult concepts, L(i-m-g) O(adult concepts) H eaven T onight F. Howson, Australia, 97 mins, Boulevard Films, Occasional vio­ lence and coarse language V(i-m-g) L(im-g) H ot Spot, T he P. Lewis, U.S., 126 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occa­ sional coarse language, sexual scenes and violence, L(i-m-g) S(i-m-g) V(i-m-g) Im prom ptu S. Oken-D. Sherkow, UKFrance, 106 mins, Village Roadshow Cor­ poration, Occasional coarse language, L(im-g) L ongtim e C om panion S. Wlodkowski, U.S., 96 mins, Village Roadshow Corpora­ tion, Occasional coarse language and adult concepts L(i-m-g) ) O (Adult con­ cepts) Lord o f the Flies R. Milloy, U.S., 87 mins,

Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occa­ sional coarse language and violence, L(im-g) V(i-m-j) Narrow Margin J. Zimbert, U.S.-Canada, 97 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional violence and coarse language, V(i-m-g) L(i-m-g) N ew Wave O z Anim ation Part 1 (untitled said to be), Various, Australia, 44 mins, Ronin Films, Adult concepts and drug use, O (adult concepts, drug use) N ewW ave Oz Anim ation Part 2 (untitled said to be), Various, Australia, 48 mins, Ronin Films, Adult concepts and drug use, O(adult concepts, drug use) News Attack H. Chan, Hong Kong, 95 mins, Chinese Cultural Centre, Adult concepts, O (adult concepts) O udaw Brothers, T he (main title not shown in English) (Edited version (a), E. Tsang-F. Chan, Hong Kong, 97 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Frequent violence and drug use, V(f-m-g) 0(d ru g use) Postcards from the Edge M. Nichols-J. Calley, U.S., 98 mins, Hoyts Fox Colum­ bia Tri Star Films, Occasional coarse lan­ guage, L(i-m-g) Pum p up the V olum e R. Harvey-S. Sterm, U.S., 101 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Frequent coarse language and adult concepts, L(f-m-g) O(adult con­ cepts) Q ue H e H echo Yo Para M erecer Esto?

TesauroS.A.-KaktusS. A.,Spain, 101 mins, Potenual Films, Sexual scenes, Occasional coarse language, Drug use, Adult con­ cepts, S (i-m-j) L(i-m-j) O(adult concepts, drug use) R epossessed S. Wizan, U.S., 84 mins, Vil­ lage Roadshow Corporation, Sexual allu­ sions, O (sexual allusions) R obocop 2 (edited version), J. Davison, U.S., 114 mins, Village Roadshow Corpo­ ration, Frequent violence and coarse lan­ guage, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) Secret W edding Allarts-Cugurccio-Cinephile Production, Argentina, 85 mins, Newvision Film Distributors, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-j) Show o f Force, AJ. Strong, U.S., 90 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occa­ sional violence and coarse language, V(im-g) L(i-m-g) Struck by Lightning T. Charatsis-T. Farrant, Aust., 105 mins, Capricorn Pictures, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) T ale From the East, A That’s Entertain­ ment Films, Hong Kong, 87 mins, Yu Enterprises, Horror, O (horror) T otalR ecall (edited version) B. FeitshansR. Shusett, U.S., 109 mins, Hoyts Fox ColumbiaTri Star, Frequent violence and coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) T otal R ecall (edited version), B. Feitshans-R. Shusett, U.S., 112 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Frequent vio­ lence and coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(fm-g)

Frequent f f f f

Infrequent 1 S(Sex) 1 V (Violence) L(Language) 1 1 O (Other) Tide 78

• CINEMA

PAPERS

Producer 82

PURPOSE

EXPUCITNESS/INTENSITY Low 1 1 1 1 Country

Medium m m m m Submitted length

High h h h h Applicant

Justified j j j j Reason for decision

mins, S.A. Council for Children’s Films and TV, Frequent coarse language, occa­ sional violence and drug use, L(f-mJ) V(im-j) O(drug use) W here the H eart IsJ. Boorman, U.S., 104 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Wilt B. Eastman, UK, 92 mins, Village Roadshow C orporation, Occasional coarse language and sexual allusions, L(im-g) O (sexual allusions) W rong B et (edited version), A. Shah-E. Karson, U.S., 107 mins, Palace Entertain­ ment Corporation, Frequent violence and coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) Young GunsIIP.SchifF-LSmith,U.S., 101 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional violence, V(i-m-g) (a) See also Films R efu sed Registration.

R (RESTRICTED EXHIBITION) A.W.O.L. A bsent W ithout Leave A. Shah-

E. Karson, U.S., 107 mins; Palace Enter­ tainment Corporation, Very frequent vio­ lence, V(f-m-g) Atame! - T ie Me Up! T ie M e Down! A. Almodovar, Spain, 98 mins, Village Road­ show Corporation, Occasional sexual ac­ tivity and adult concepts, S(i-m-g) O (adult concepts) Chicken ALa Q ueen (main title notshown in English), C. Fok, Hong Kong, 95 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Very frequent vio­ lence, V(f-m-g) Eye for an Eye, An (main title not shown in English), Not shown, Hong Kong, 87 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Very frequent violence, V(f-m-g) Killer’s R om ance (main title notshown in English), D & B Films, Hong Kong, 89 mins, Yu Enterprises, Occasional graphic violence, V(i-m-g) Krays, T he D. Anciano-R. Burdis, UK, 116 mins, Palace Entertainment Corporation, Occasional graphic violence, V(i-m-g) Pantyhose H ero Not shown, Hong Kong, 100 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional graphic violence, V(i-m-g) R obocop 2 J. Davison, U.S., 116 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Assaul­ tive coarse language and very frequent violence, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) State o f Grace N. Dowd-R. Ostrow-R. Rotholz, U.S., 130 mins, Village Road­ show Corporation, Occasional graphic violence and frequent coarse language, V(i-m-g) L (f-m-g) Tiger Cage 2 (main title not shown in English), S. Shin, Hong Kong, 93 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Very frequent vio­ lence, V(f-m-g) U nderground E xpress (main title not shown in English), Johnny Mak Produc­ tions, Hong Kong, 98 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Very frequent violence, V (f-m-g) FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATION O udaw Brothers, T he (main title not

shown in English) (Edited version) (b), E. Tsang-F. Chan, Hong Kong, 98 mins, Chinatown Cinema, O (gratuitous cruelty to animals)

Films examined in terms of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations as States’ film censorship regulation are listed below.

An explanatory key to reasons for classifying non “G” films appears hereunder.

FREQUENCY

Train o f D ream s S. Grana, Canada, 88

Gratuitous g g g g

SPECIAL CONDITIONS Benvenuta (c) (d) (e) (f) (g), A. Delaux,

Belguim, 105 mins, Belgian ConsulateGeneral Fish, T he (c) (h), Farabi Cinema Founda­ tion, Iran, 70-mins, S.A. Council for Chil­ dren’s Films and TV L es N oces Barbares (c) (d) (e) (f) (g),

Not shown, Belgium, 100 mins, Belgian Consulate-General N oces En G alilee (c) (d) (e) (f) (g), M. Kheifi, Belgium, 111 mins, Belgian Con­ sulate-general Wait U ntil Spring Bandini (c) (d) (e) (f) (g), D. Deruddere, Belgium, 100 mins, Belgian Consulate-General (c) That this film/tape will not be exhib­ ited in any State in contravention of that State’s law reladng to the exhibition of films (d) That this film will be exhibited only at the Academy Twin Cinema, Paddington, New South Wales, as part of the Belgian Consulate-General’s 1990 Belgian Film Festival between 24 October 1990 and 30 October 1990 (both dates inclusive) and not otherwise (e) That this film will be exhibited not more than twice during the course of the 1990 Belgian Film Festival (f) That this film will be exhibited only to persons 18 years and over (g) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the 1990 Belgian Film Festival (h) That this film/tape shall be exhibited only in Adelaide at the Ninth Interna­ tional Film Festival for Young Australians during the period commencing on 3 Au­ gust 1990 and expiring on 19 August 1990 (both dates inclusive) NOVEM BER 1990

G (GENERAL EXHIBITION) A nou Banou: T he Daughters o f U topia

(main title not shown in English), E. Politi, Germany-France, 86 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) B ru xelles-T ran sit (Brussels Transit), Paradise Films, Belgium, 89 mins, Austra­ lian Film Institute (Sydney) C o n te [s] d e P rin tem p s Not shown, France, 106 mins, Premium Films, Daddy N ostalgie A. Viezzi, France, 103 mins, Newvision Film Distributors Dybbuk, T he Not shown, Poland, 125 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) Eureka Stockade M. Balcón, UK-Australia, 102 mins, Star Films Fantasia Walt Disney, U.S., 113 mins, Vil­ lage Roadshow Corporation H a lf th e K in gdom F. Zuckerman-R. Goldstein, Canada, 57 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) Jewish Fortune (main title not shown in English), Not shown, USSR, 64 mins, Aus­ tralian Film Institute (Sydney) Manika, Manika the Girl W ho Lived Twice

Labrador Films, France, 97 mins, Ronin Films N everending Story II - T he N ex t Chapter, T he D. Geissler, U.S., 86 mins, Village

Roadshow Corporation N everending Story II - T he N ex t Chapter, The D. Geissler, U.S., 87 mins, Village

Roadshow Corporation Nutcracker Prince, T he K. Gillis, Canada,

71 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films O m oon - T he City o f the N am e o f God

Luqman Lateef Keele, Macao-Hong KongJapan, 95 mins, Luqman Lateef Keele Partisans o f Vilna A. Kempner, U.S., 126 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) Sunless Days M. Ogahara, Japan-Hong Kong, 86 mins, Ronin Films

sexual scenes, L(i-lJ) S(i-l-j) Avalon M.Johnson-B. Levinson, U.S., 123

mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional low-level violence, V(i-lJ) Bethune - T he Making o f a H ero N. Clermont-P. Kroonenburg, Canada-ChinaFrance, 116 mins, Village Roadshow Cor­ poration, Adult concepts and occasional low-level violence, V(i-l-j) O(adult con­ cepts) B ig Steal, T he D. Parker-N. Tass, Austra­ lia, 99 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occasional low-level coarse lan­ guage and sexual allusions, L(i-l-g) O (sexual allusions) D octor’s H eart (main title not shown in English), Bo Ho Films, Hong Kong, 88 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional lowlevel coarse language, L(i-l-g) O (adult concepts) Dream Machine, T he L. Dayton, U.S., 83 mins, Reid and Puskar, Occasional lowlevel violence, V (i-l-g) Faux etU sage de Faux A. Terzian, France, 97 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional coarse language and sexual allusions, L(i-m-g) O(sexual allusions) G raffiti Bridge R. Phillips-A. Steifel, U.S., 88 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i1-g) H om e A lone J. Hughes, U.S., 99 mins, Hoyts Fox Columbia Tri Star Films, Occa­ sional low-level violence, V(i-l-g) L(i-l-g) Korczak R. Ziegler-J. Morgenstern-D. Toscan Du Plantier, Poland, 114 mins, Petunia Nominees, Adult concepts, O(adult concepts) Le Vie et R ien D ’Autre F. Bourbouion-A. Prevost, France, 136 mins, Newvision Film Distributors, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-j) Mermaids L. Lloyd-W. Nicita-P. Palmer, U.S., 106 mins, Village Roadshow Corpo­ ration, Sexual allusions and occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-g) O (sexual allusions) M etropolitan W. Stillman, U.S., 97 mins, Premium Films, Adult concepts and occa­ sional low-level coarse language, L(i-lq) O(adult concepts) Mr D estiny J. Orr-J. Cruickshank, U.S., 107 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Frequent low-level, coarse language, L(f1-g) Plein Fer Chrysalide Films, France, 91 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional low-level violence and coarse language, V(i-l-j) L(i1-j) Shlem iel, T he Shlemazl and the D oppess ..., T he J. Gold, U.S., 60 mins, Australian

Film Institute (Sydney), Adult concepts, O(adult concepts) Sibling Rivalry D. Lester-D. Miller-L. Glotzer, U.S., 85 mins, Hoyts Fox Colum­ bia Tri Star Films, Sexual allusions, O (sexual allusions) Sunshine Friends (main title notshown in English), Anthony Chow-Cheung Yiu Wing, Hong Kong, 92 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional low-level coarse lan­ guage, L( i-l-g) Three M en and a Little Lady T. Field-R. Cort, U.S., 100 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional low-level coarse language, L(i-l-g) W hen the O cean is Blue H. Kuo-Liang, Taiwan, 108 mins, Chinese Cultrual Cen­ tre, Adult Concepts, O (adult concepts)

PG (PARENTAL GUIDANCE)

M (MATURE AUDIENCES)

A lmost an A ngel (untitled, said to be),

A vasaraPolice 100 (main title notshown

ParamountPictures, U.S., 93 mins, United International Pictures, Occasional lowlevel violence and coarse language, V(i-1g) L(i-l-g) Auschwitz and the Allies R. Bloomstein, UK, 109 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney), War footage, 0(war footage) Australia M. Osterrieth, Belgium, 114 mins, Consulate General of Belgium, Oc­ casional low-level coarse language and

in English), S. Duraisamy, India, 155 mins, Vyshnavi Entertainment, Occasional vio­ lence, V(i-m-g) Basket Case 2 E. Levins, U.S., 86 mins, CBS-Fox Video, Horror and occasional coarse language, O(horror), L(i-m-g) Bastille (G. Sluizer-A. Lordon, The Neth­ erlands, 101 mins, Australian Film Insti­ tute (Sydney), Sexual scene, S(i-m-j) Bienvenue aB ord H. Vart, France, 77 mins,

Ronin Films, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Brave Young Girls (main title not shown in English) Kam Bo Motion Picture, Hong Kong, 90 mins, Yu Enterprises, Frequent violence and coarse language, V(f-m-g) L(f-m-g) Bunker Palace H otel M. Bernart, Yugoslavia-France, 92 mins, Ronin Films, Oc­ casional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Child’s Play 2 D. Kirschner, U.S., 83 mins, United International Pictures, Occasional violence, horror and coarse language, V(im-g) O(horror), L(i-m-g) C om fort o f Strangers, T he A. Rizzoli, It­ aly, 102 mins, Village Roadshow Corpora­ tion, Occasional coarse language and sexual scenes, S(i-m-j) L(i-m-j) D eath in Brunswick T. White, Australia, 106 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional coarse language and violence, L(i-m-g) V(i-m-j) D em oness from T housand Years Not shown, Hong Kong, 83 mins, Yu Enter­ prises, Horror and occasional violence, O (horror), V(i-m-g) Frankenhooker E. Levins, U.S., 81 mins, CBS-Fox Video, Horror, occasional coarse language and nudity, O (horror, drug use, nudity), L(i-m-g) S(i-m-j) Frontline-Memory o f the Camps S. Tepper-Fanning, U.S.-UK, 58 mins, Austra­ lian Film Institute (Sydney), War atroci­ ties, 0(war atrocities) G olden Braid S. Naidu-P. Ammitzboll-P. Cox, Australia, 90 mins, Beyond Interna­ tional Group, Sexual allusions, O (sexual allusions) D y a des Jours et des Lunes C. le Louch, France, 131 mins, Petunia Nominees, Occasional coarse language, L( i-m-g) Jacob’sLadder A. Marshall, U.S., 110 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Frequent coarse language and occasional violence, L(f-m-g) V(i-m-g) L’Amour H. Balsan, France, 78 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional coarse language and nudity, L(i-m-j) O (nudity) Le Tresor des files Chiennes Not shown, France, 108 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Listen U p C. Sale Ross, U.S., 117 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occa­ sional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Mortuary Blues (main title not shown in English) Y. Kwai, Hong Kong, 88 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Occasional coarse language, L(i-m-g) N oce Blanche M. Menegoz, France, 89 mins, Petunia Nominees, Adult theme, O(adult theme) Pacific H eights Si Rudin-W. Sackheim, U.S., 102 mins, Village Roadshow Corpo­ ration, Occasional coarse language and violence, L(i-m-g) V(i-m-g) Paper Mask C. Mora’nan, UK, 104 mins, Capricorn Pictures, Occasional coarse language and sexual scenes, L(i-m-g) S(im-g) Point o f N o Return (main title notshown in English) Guy Y.C. Lai, Hong Kong, 91 mins, Yu Enterprises, Frequent violence, V(f-m-g) P oore M arioposa (Poor Butterfly), B. Sibelstein, Argentina, 118 mins, Austra­ lian Film Institute (Sydney), Occasional coarse language, L (i-m-g) Raid on Royal Casino Marine Samico, Hong Kong, 96 mins, Yu Enterprises, Oc­ casional violence, V(i-m-g) R ipoux Contre RipouxFilm s 7-Orly FilmsSedie-TFI Films Prods, France, 103 mins, Palace Entertainment Corporation, Oc­ casional coarse language, L(i-m-g) Rocky 5 United Artists, U.S., 103 mins, United International Pictures, Frequent violence, V (f-m-g) Sher M ountain Killings Mystery P. Avalon, Australia, 84 mins, Intertropic Films, Oc­ casional violence, V(i-m-g) Silen cers Artview Investments, Hong Kong, 91 mins, Yu Enterprises, Frequent

violence, V(f-m-g) T atie D anielle C. Gassot, France, 98 mins, Newvision Film Distributors, Sexual scene, S( i-m-g) True Love R. Guay-S. Houis, U.S., 97 mins, Broadstone Pty Ltd, Frequent coarse lan­ guage, L (f-m-g) U n M onde Sans Pitié A. Rocca, France, 85 mins, Ronin Films, Occasional coarse lan­ guage, L(i-m-j) W eekend With Kate P. Emanuel, Austra­ lia, 92 mins, Phillip Emanuel Production, Sexual scenes, S(i-m-g) O(nudity) W hen Fortune Sm iles (main title not shown in English), C 1990 Paragon Films, Hong Kong, 93 mins, Chinatown Cin­ ema, Occasional violence, V(i-m-g) White Dawn, T he M. Ransohoff, U.S., 110 mins, Village Roadshow Corporation, Occasional violence, V(i-m-j) White Palace G. Dunne-M. Rosenberg, U.S., 100 mins, United International Pic­ tures, Occasional coarse language and sexual scenes, L(i-m-g) S(i-m-g) R (RESTRICTED EXHIBITION) Bullet In the H eadJ. Woo, Hong Kong,

121 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Frequent graphic violence, V(f-m-g) Hardware P. Trybits-J. Sellar, UK, 91 mins, Newvision Film Distributors, Occasional Graphic Violence, V(i-m-g) Marked for D eath M. Grais-M. Victor-S. Seagal, U.S., 93 mins, Hoyts Fox Colum­ bia Tri Star Films, Occasional graphic violence, V(f-m-g) SPECIAL CONDITIONS Army Nurse (h) (i), Xi’an Studio, China,

90 mins, Australian Film Institute (Syd­ ney) Berlin - D ie Sinfonie Einer Grossstadt (c) (d) , W. Ruttmann, West Germany, 65 mins, Goethe-Institut Blueberry H ill (a) (e), R. de Hert, Bel­ gium, 92 mins, Belgian Consulate-Gen­ eral Brothers Lionheart, The (b), Swedish Film Institute, Sweden, 108 mins, SA. Council for Children’s Films and TV Bruges, T he V enice o f the N orth (a) (e), A. Halot, Belgium, 9 mins, Belgian Con­ sulate-General Dancing Bull (h) (i), A. Fong-W. Tsao, Hong Kong, 120 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) DM - The Wall (j) (k), Author-Coopera­ tive, West Germany, 60 mins, GoetheInstitut Dragon’s Food (Drachenfutter) (1), Eric Nellesson, West Germany, 73 mins, Aus­ tralian Film Institute (Sydney) D rehort Berlin (j) (k), K. Volkenborn, West Germany, 113 mins, Goethe-Institut Final Cadence (b), Aron Margolis, U.S., 29 mins, S.A. Council for Children’s Films and TV KubiMattuiyala (h) (i), Suvarnagiri Films, India, 135 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) M élodie de Welt (c) (d), W. Ruttmann, West Germany, 55 mins, Goethe-lnstitut O bsession (h) (i), Xi’an Studio, China, 90 mins, Australian Film Institute (Syd­ ney) Pessi and Illusia (b), H. Partanen, Fin­ land, 77 mins, Australian Film Institute (Sydney) R onia the Robbers Daughter (b), Swed­ ish Film Institute, Sweden, 126 mins, S.A. Council for Children’s Films and TV Second C hildhood (b), J. Ballantyne-M. Andreacchio, Australia, 49 mins, S.A. Council for Children’s Films and TV Treasures from the Palaces o f Liege (a) (e) , A. Halot, Belgium, Belgian Consu­ late-General Zischke (1), Backhaus-Krieger Film Pro­ duction, West Germany, 93 mins, Austra­ lian Film Institute (Sydney) Christmas Present (1988) (Regalo di Na­

tale) (0 (g), A. Avati, Italy, 101 mins, Italian Institute of Culture CINEMA

PAPERS

82

• 79

For T onight (P er Q uesta N otte) (f) (g),

L. Perugia, Italy, 93 mins, Italian Institute of Culture Friends, T he (L eA m iche) (f) (g),Triontalcine, Italy, 106 mins, Italian Institute of Culture Girl with theSuitcase,T he (LaRagazzacon laV alig ia ), (f) (g), Titanus S.G.C., Italy,

114 mins, Italian Institute of Culture Interview (Intervista) (f) (g), I. Moussa,

Italy, 105 mins, Italian Institute of Culture P essia n d lllu sia (1), H. Partanen, Finland,

77 mins, S.A. Council for Children’s Films and TV Seasons o f our Love, T he (Le Stagioni del N o stro A m o re), (f) (g), M. Gallo-F.

Vancini, Italy, 93 mins, Italian Institute of Culture Sk in,T h e (L a P elle), (f) (g),R.Rossellini, Italy, 131 mins, Italian Institute of Culture T raged y o f a F unny M an, T h e (La Tragedia di un U o m o R id ico lo ) , (f) (g),

G. Bertolucci, Italy, 120 mins, Italian Insti­ tute of Culture Special conditions: (a) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the Belgian Film Festival (b) That this film shall be exhibited only in Adelaide at the Ninth International Film Festival for Young Australians dur­ ing the period commencing on 3 August 1990 and expiring on 19 August 1990 (both dates inclusive) (c) That this film will be exhibited only by the Goethe-Institutgerman Cultural Cen­ tre as part of its 1990 “German AvantGarde film of the 1920s” season in Mel­ bourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth be­ tween 8 September 1990 and 27 Septem­ ber 1990 (both dates inclusive) (d) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the “German Avant-Garde Film of the 1920s” season (e) That this film will be exhibited only at the Academy Twin Cinema, Paddington, New South Wales, as part of the Belgian Consulate-General’s 1990 Belgian Film Fesuval between 24 October 1990 and 30 October 1990 (both dates inclusive) and not otherwise

(f) That the films will be exhibited not more than three times each in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Fremantle as part of the Italian Film Week season and not otherwise (g) That the films will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the Italian Film Week season in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Fremantle. (h) That the film will be exhibited only as part of the Australian Film Institute’s 1990 “Asian Alternatives” film season at each of the undermentioned venues and not oth­ erwise: - Not more than twice at the State Film Theatre, Melbourne, between 9July 1990 and 19 July 1990 (both dates inclusive) - Not more than twice at the AFI Cinema, Paddington, NSW, between 18July 1990 and 25 July 1990 (both dates inclusive) (i) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the “Asian Alternatives” season (j) That this film will be exhibited only by the Goethe-Institut German Cultural Centre as part of its 1990 “Living with the Wall: August 1961 -November 1989”film season at the undermentioned venues on the dates specified and not otherwise: -T h e National Library of Australia, Can­ berra, on 2 August 1990, 9 August 1990, 16 August 1990 and 23 August 1990 -T h e AFI Cinema, Paddington, NSW, on 13 September 1990 and 20 September 1990 (k) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the “Living with the Wall: August 1961 - No­ vember 1989” season (l) That this film will be exported within six (6) weeks of the conclusion of the 1990 “German Cinema Old and New” season FILMS BOARD OF REVIEW Outlaw Brothers, T he (main title not

shown in English), Eric Tsang-Frankie Chan, Hong Kong, 100 mins, Chinatown Cinema, Decision Reviewed: Classify “RR 13(1) (a)” by the Film Censorship Board.

Decision of the Board: Direct the Film C ensorship Board to Classify “RR 13(1) (a)”

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