Cinema Papers No.126 August 1998 by UOW Library

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C I N E M A PAPERS

co te ts

AUGUST 1998

NUMBER

I N S I G H T S mbits

F O C U S 2

in anger

It’s yo u r A B C , and that’s why you w on’t be seeing the M ieville-G odard episode of the Centenary o f Cinema. SC O T T M U RRA Y

with m oral rights. W EN D Y N Y E

festivals

Istanbul Film Festival. C A T H E R IN E SIM P SO N

READING THE INTERVIEW Guilt and truth-telling are at the heart o f C raig M onahan’s provocative and affecting feature début, The Interview. F lN C IN A H O P G O O D

51eme Festival du Film, Cannes. 1998

investigates.

JAN EPSTEIN reveals the highs and lows of the world’s leading film festival

FILM S: The Interview, Kundun, Shooting Fish, Came Tremula (Live Flesh), Crackers. VIDEO: Dog Bogs. BO OKS: Reflections: A Personal Journey by Paul Cox

technicalities

The Cinema According to Olivier Assayas

C G I titles and graphics; Sydney's Fontana Studios; the M useum o f the M oving Image.

An Indispensible Guide to Essential Film Sites

BA R R IE SM ITH

inproduction

dirty dozen

Olivier A ssayas w as one o f Fran ce’s leading film critics before he turned his hand to directing. With a handful of critically-acclaimed films under his belt, he hasn't stopped thinking about the shape of world cinema. H e talks to

From promotional sites to ones that ask for your opinions: JA C IN T A T h O M L E R investigates

H e l e n B a n d is and A d ria n M a r t in 32

an ana kokkinos film ireat scoti

"production

fu ll tu t a ¡1n ig h t c o m e alex dimitriades *

High Level Sex Scenes^ Drug Use, Adult Themes

official selection (director's fortnight) 1998

Je a n n e s international film festival, soundtrack available on murmur through Sony Music Entertainment

116 Argyle St, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia 3065 PO Box 2221, Fitzroy MDC, VIC 3065 Tel: (61.3) 9416 2644 Fax: (61.3) 9416 4088

NEWS,

VIEWS,

AND

NEWS,

BYRNES BIDS BYE-BYE

shot on 1 5 /70 film and are predomi

aul Byrnes, director of the Syd

nantly spectacle-type,

ney Film Festival for almost ten

education-based entertainment. As a

years, announced that this year’s Fes

actually do move your head to take 0

he has seen audiences increase by 40

the whole vista on the screen; but as

percent, ticket sales almost treble, and

tool for the development of the art of

has established major retrospectives

cinema, it’s got a long way to go yet.

on Censorship committee, and is a vig

co ver

Detective Prior (Aaron Jeffery) in

of filmmakers such as Ernst Lubitsch also been instrum ental in the Watch

Editor: Scott Murray Deputy Editor: Paul Kalina Editorial Assistance: Tim Hunter Advertising: Terry Haebich Subscriptions: Mina Carattoli Accounts: Lindsay Zamudio Proofreading: Arthur Salton Office Cat: Oddspot

experience, it’s quite unique; you

tival, its 45th, was his last. In his time,

and Roberto Rossellini. Byrnes has

email: s_murray@eis.net.au

ETC.

ROADSHOW DEVELOPING IN THE APPLE ISLE illage Roadshow has announced

Craig Monahan’s The Interview.

Z-GRADE FILM WINNERS

ilant opponent of censorship. Cinema

Papers w ishes him well in whatever he

opment, and this time it’s Tasm ania’s

turns his hand to next.

turn. A six-screen state-of-the-art com

announced, and a crappy bunch of

plex is being built at the Glenorchy

films they are too. The Graveyard

its latest cinema complex devel

he winners of Arena’s Shifty Film Competition were recently

Central Shopping Centre, and should

Shifty Film Competition invites short

be completed in time for Christmas

films of dubious quality and content to

Signed articles represent the views of the authors and not neces sarily those of the editor and publisher. While every care is taken with manuscripts and materials supplied to the magazine, neither

enter, and this year’s winner is a film

seating, love seats, large screens - are

titled Mutators 2000, by Mark Reid

included. Roadshow is also refurbish

and Brent Houghton, where a lone

in whole or part without the express permission of the copyright

ing the Cinema City 7 in H obart, which

Mad Max-type in a lamé G-string bat

116 Argyle St, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia 3065, and is indexed by RAF.

also promises to be completed by the

tles bloodsucking chickens to save the

year’s end.

world (we think that’s what it’s about).

QUEENSLAND CONVENTION

Animation was David Harris, with La

he Motion Pictures Exhibitors’ Association of Queensland will

Maison des Couchons, a film about a Winners and losers were screened on

he latest IMAX screen for Australia

tion at the Royal Pines Resort on the

Arena’s Graveyard Shift on 15 May.

opened in May at Melbourne’s

Gold Coast from 18-22 August. It

new museum site, next to the Exhibition

promises to be a big shindig, with

SYDNEY’S SHORT VIDEOS he In d ie 2 0 0 0 Vidi-Digi Festival,

Buildings. It is, apparently, the largest

many international executives attend

3D screen in the world at 23 metres by

ing, the launch of new distribution

31 metres, and is built especially for

company Buena Vista Australia, plenty

event, will be held in October this year,

IMAX films. IMAX films are specially

of films, chatting and partying.

Sydney’s first short video-only

and is looking for entries. To be eligi ble, entries must have been shot on tember 1997 and 25 September 1998, and run to less than eight min utes. Entry forms are available at Dendy Cinemas in Sydney, or the Coffee Roaster in Glebe, Surry Hills or Pyrmont. For more info, call Gep Bartlett or Whitney on (61.2) 9552 1740. Entries close 25 September.

FAST FILMS IN BRISBANE...

ay TV station Arena can’t help but get its fingers into as many

pies as possible. For the Brisbane International Film Festival, running from 29 July to 9 August, it’s holding a Fast Film Competition. Filmmakers can enter their films, as long as three criteria are met: the film must be less

ANIMAL LOGICAL FOX s the Fox Studios at Sydney’s Showgrounds continues to develop, post

■

production company Animal Logic has announced that it will be relocating

to the new site. Animal Logic’s credits are becoming increasingly more im pres

sive, with both international and local film titles under its belt. It will be housed in the erstwhile Arts and Crafts Pavilion of the Sydney Showground.

the editor nor the publisher can accept liability for any loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not be reproduced owners. Cinema Papers is published by MTV Publishing Limited,

C ij^ m e d p a AUSTRALIAN FILM COMM ISSION

CINEMA PAPERS IS PUBLISHED WITH FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM THE AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION AND CINEMEDIA

restaurant with an alternative menu.

be presenting the 1998 Movie Conven

video (any format) between 25 Sep

1998. All the usual trappings - stadium

Winning the Urban Cinefile Award for

BIGGER THAN EVEREST? NOT QUITE

Legal: Dan Pearce (Holding Redlich) MTV Board o f Directors: Ross Dimsey (Chairman), Natalie Miller, Matthew Learmonth, Penny Attiwill, Michael Dolphin Founding Publishers: Peter Beilby, Scott Murray, Philippe Mora Design & Production: Parkhouse Publishing Pty Ltd

than five minutes long; it must include the visual of a star (i.e., sher iff’s badge, starfish, etc.); and it must have been made between 18 May and 6 July, 1998. Award presentations will be held on 29 July, with a $2,000 first prize, and $1,000 for second.

contributors Helen Bandis is a Melbourne SCRIPTWRITER. John Conomos teaches at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney. Jan Epstein is a Melbourne writer and FILM REVIEWER. Michael Helms is the editor of Fatal Visions . FlNCINA HOPGOOD IS A RESIDENT TUTOR IN English and Cinema Studies at Ormond College. Karl Quinn is a film reviewer for and editor of The City Weekly. Adrian Martin is the film reviewer for The Age and the author of Fantasms and the ji) st-published BFI Film Classic edition Once Upon A Time in America. Brian McFarlane is an Associate Pro fessor in the English Department at Monash University. Lorraine Mortimer teaches in the Department of Sociology and Anthro pology at La Trobe University. Wendy Nye wrote, produced and directed Pussy Got Your Tongue? a 1997 Tropfest Finalist, and has has just completed She, a 20-minute drama. Catherine Simpson was co-director of the first Australian Film Festival in Istanbul in 1994 and is doing a PhD in Australian Cinema. Barrie Smith is a Sydney writer, direc tor AND PHOTOGRAPHER. Lesley Speed teaches at Monash Uni versity. Jacinta Thomler is a freelance writer in Sydney.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

RU D G E

bits ... AND SCREEN CREATURES IN ADELAIDE

he second annual Adelaide Screen Creatures Film Festival

is set to go in October of this year. With a programme that explores the “ peculiar, profound and exceptional” through the sci-fi/fan tasy/thriller/ horror/noir genres, it will combine ret rospective and contemporary feature programmes with guest speakers, short films, and what it calls creative entertainment. This year, the festival will also include the “ Little Creatures” national short film festival, and films 15 minutes or under are now being sought. For further information, call the festival office: (61.8) 8272 2332, or email: creature@ adelaide.on.net.

GATEWAY TO THE WEBSITE

creen Network Australia was launched in May, and will prove to

be an indispensable website for all film and television enthusiasts and profes sionals. Developed and managed by the AFC, AFTRS, the National Film and Sound Archive and the ABC, it’s envis aged that the site will improve access to information about the Australian film and television industry available on the Internet. As well as a directory, the site has access to other Internet resources, industry news, a calendar of screen events, and a special feature, Great Moments of the Australian Screen, which showcases memorable film and television scenes. The address is: www.sna.net.au

10 COOD REASONS FOR NOT CASTING THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT After starring in some 30 films, A

Ronald Reagan became the pres

ident of the US in 1981 and served as president for eight years.

The moment when Bill Clinton appears as him self the other

wise intriguing Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997) comes to a grinding halt. Clinton, wooden and awkward as ever, is the unwelcomed guest at this party. The film delivers what much speculative fiction promises; thought-provoking m usings over intelligent life-forms that, mostly for the better, have found alternative methods to deal with the essential dilemmas of the human condition. And here’s Bill, playing the king, and spouting forth m eaningless official babble about matters that nobody engrossed in this film is likely to give a hoot about. Bill Pullman in Independence

mone-raging teenagers, “and party on

Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996)

dude!” . It’s a message that must have

Apart from 1996 being the year Bill struck a meaningful chord for the

Pullman really should have asked

actual president of the day.

whether or not his agent was doing

his career a disservice (consider:

curated by the Ministry of French For eign Affairs and presented by Cinema Nova and The Alliance Française. Including films from filmmakers such

Emmerich, 1996) with Glenn Close as

alleged indiscretions, maybe this

the First Lady, but to no great avail. They all get zapped by the nastyminded computer-generated

what was going through the minds of

American President (1995). Were the

Martians anyway.

the filmmakers when they cast Pull

President’s only m isdeameanour to

man to play the President of the US.

have been his romancing of a woman

Pullman’s President is initially

of a slightly different political persua

seen clearly, but is once again

depicted as a weak-willed, indecisive

sion. Michael Douglas makes a cheesy

involved in scandal, this time involv

man, but who when summonsed to

stab at portraying what is clearly an

ing a Girl Scout in the Oval Office.

action can take it like any real man.

idealised, liberal-Democrat president

Spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De

His character’s trajectory is not

with his finger on the pulse of most

Niro) and film producer Stanley

unlike that of a put-upon, mild-man

feel-good, politically correct causes. As

Motss (Dustin Hoffman) manufacture

nered accountant who one day picks

a President he’s totally lacking in cred

a war with Albania to divert attention,

up a sub-m achine gun and realizes

ibility and plausibility; as a romantic

and even though this film was written

that he no longer needs queue at the

lead, Douglas is on automatic pilot for

and shot well before Clinton’s Desert

In Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson, 1997), the president is never

most of the film. The shadowy aides

Thunder campaign earlier this year,

Insignificance (Nicolas Roeg,

circulating around him fare much bet

which conveniently diverted attention

1985) from a screenplay by

ter, especially Michael J. Fox’s Lewis

from the Lewinsky case, the parallels

Terry Johnson, had the good sense to

Rothschild, who inspired a pretty good

are frighteningly close.

not cast the President, but his like

sitcom from this.

Gene Hackman plays ‘the big one’ in Absolute Power (Clint East-

Harrison Ford plays President James M arshall in Air

Force One (Wolfgang Petersen, 1997), and is hijacked in his own plane by

ruthless, soulless, am bitious but m is

wood, 1997), and again, he’s up to his

erable politician with designs for

eyeballs in sexual scandal. After going

Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), a d is

power and control of others.

home with a beautiful and well-con

affected Russian neo-socialist turned

Faced with expulsion for failing

nected femme fatale, who ends up

terrorist. It’s alm ost ludicrous the

their end-of-year history assign

femme morte, President Alan Rich

way the president is elevated to near

ments, Bill and Ted time-travel

mond’s well and truly implicated.

immortality in this action flick: not

through history, round up the usual

While the Prez isn’t responsible for her

only does he run the country, but he’s

suspects and bring them back for a

death, it’s tricky enough for his min

the perfect husband and father, and

live presentation at San Dimas High

ders and spin doctors to keep his

can fight his way through a plane teeming with armed terrorists. With

last year comes a season of clas

With the furore over Clinton’s

Reiner’s featherweight romance, The

named The Senator (Tony Curtis), a

in Independence Day (Roland

is not the best time to reflect upon Rob

ness in the form of the enigmatically

sic French films touring the country,

(Tim Burton, 1996) gets to send

up Bill Pullman’s presidential efforts

Independence Day and Mr Wrong in

ollowing Cannes’ 50th anniversary

Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks!

the one year), one has to wonder

sandwich bar like everyone else.

50 YEARS OF FRENCH FILMS

School. Abraham Lincoln, Albert Ein

name out of the whole mess. Hackman

stein, Aristotle, Genghis Khan, Joan

delivers his usual Hackman perfor

Glenn Close playing second fiddle to

of Arc and Napoleon strutt their stuff

mance, sim ilar to his role as the

the prez again, this time as Vice Pres

on stage, but it’s the President who

conservative senator Kevin Keeley in

ident Kathryn Bennett on the ground,

gets the best lines of the entire film

The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1995), but

god-like status for any man who rules

in Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure

without the comic trappings. Judy

the United States is a given. The

(Stephen Herek, 1989); “ Be kind to

Davis as Hackman’s right-hand woman

same cannot be said for the actors

each other” , he im plores the hor

Gloria Russell is wonderful though.

who play the president.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

Frameworks, first in non-linear in Australia, has once again taken the initiative in film editing. We are the first facility providing a dedicated non-linear assistant’s room for syncing rushes which allows for true 24FPS cutting, providing frame accurate edl’s, cut lists and change lists for feature films. This method of post for 24FPS film provides a one to one relationship with picture time code, film key code numbers and sound time code.

This method provides simple and frame accurate output of cut lists, change lists, picture and sound edl’s directly from the Avid. This avoids the need for trace back edl’s for sound post production and conversion between 24FPS and 25FPS for cut lists.

(

For fu rth e r details, and a m ore com plete explanation o f the d iffe re n t

)

post p ro d u ctio n m ethods, please contact Stephen F. Smith at Fram eworks.

“ Knowledge, Experience, Service” Frameworks Edit Pty. Ltd.

Suite 4,239 Pacific Hwy, North Sydney, NSW 2060

Tel : 02 9955-7300 Fax : 02 9954-0175 Email : framewks@ozemail.com.au

Some of the films screening are:

■ nbits

already beginning to take shape. In its

awards, especially in short films and

first year in Sydney since 1993, the

docum entaries. This may be due to the

Awards will be held at the Convention

recent changes in AFI Awards rules that

and Exhibition Centre and will be pro

now make films shot on video eligible.

as Jacques Tati, François Truffaut,

Les 400 Coups (François Truffaut, 1959)» Un Homme et une Femme (Claude Lelouch, 1966), Thérèse (Alain Cavalier, 1986), Cyrano de Bergerac

Bertrand Tavernier and André Téchiné,

(jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990) and

National Executive in Charge of Pro

FINE AND DENDY SHORT FILMS

and show casing actors from Catherine

Ridicule (Patrice Leconte, 1996).

duction for ABC Television Arts and

Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil to Fanny

duced by John Bayliss (former

Entertainment) and telecast live on

Ardant and Vincent Perez, the season

EARLY AFI AWARDS NEWS

is a mix of old favourites and films

ven though they’re still some time

never theatrically released in Australia.

away, the 1998 AFI Awards are

he 1998 Dendy Awards for Short Films were awarded opening

night of the 45th Sydney Film Festival.

SBS Television on 7 November.

More than 170 entires were recived

The AFI is also reporting a 30 per

this y e a r-so m e th in g of a record. And

cent increase in entries for this year’s

b t jT ÏM

u n t e r

These rather Unusual responses from distributors

TIM HUNTER looks an unexpected development in

received another letter of protest, this time from

the distributors-press relationship:

.playwright ja c k Hibberd. whose partner Evelyn Krape

àfé m osttelling about the current state o f Australia's

appears in The Sound o f One Hand Clapping. Hib-

film industry. We have proved our cinerrati skill and

berchbelieves'Martin has “ an undivided ze a lfo r

box-office success with films likè Strie1Iv Both00m

j;n the past couple of months, two letters of com

plaint from two different distributors have;been 1

circulated regarding recent review s of A ustralia^

p ir n s .

)

| -

III • It started in April with Adrian Martin’s review o f The Sound o f One Hand Clapping (Richard Flanagan, i998) for the Melbourne newspaper, TheiAge. The *revie wtwas not positive, and Martin expressed .quite

American and linear cinem a” - o f all A ustralia’s film

(BazìLuhrmann, 1992), Muriel’s Wedding (P J Hogan,

critics, Martin is surely the least open to this charge!

(1994IfShhe (Scott Hicks, 1996) and

- and that Martin “ watched the The Sound of One

(RdbJsitch, 1997), but, as is evident even from

Hand Clapping with one eye napping” . Arid then Columbia-TriStar Films jumped/on the

examples, is that it’s mostly comedies w itffbfoad appeal-that are most successful. The

Hand Clapping is definitely n o ta

^bandwagon with ajetter from Managing Director

Stephen Basil-Jones the following week,- complaining,

comedy rand Palace Films was understandably

Antonio Zeccola, Managing Director of Palace Films,

about the way A Little Bit of Soul (Peter Duntan, 1998),

unsure5, even nérvous, about the ree eption it would

the film’s distributor, sent a letter to A rts Editor fo r

the first Australian film it has distributed; was repre

rècéive from the general public. It wasipfògrammed

' The Age, Robin Usher, protesting-that Martin’s

sen ted # newspapers’ review pages. “ Matters

cautiously and appropriately - a limited release on

r review was “surprisingly vicious and vitriolic” , a per

concerning the amount of promotion a film receives or

arthquse screens - but it seems that even Palace

sonal attack oh the filmmaker, and that he used an

personal traits of an actor unrelated to his or her per

wasn’t ready for negative reviews, and hence its

¡'“ offensive, condescending tone” , which “ renders Mr

formance are not factors that should determine a film’s

response. {The Sound of One Hand Clappingwes

( Martin blind to the film’s many virtues”. Zeccola then

worth” , he wrote. Reviews from Vicky Roach (The H

still screening five weeks later, as Cinema Papers

Telegraph, Sydney), Michael Bodey (The Ai

went to press.)

.fiilly why he found the film lacking. The next day,

asked Usher to “re-read the review in the light of our

A Little Bit o f Soul is closer to satire than comedy really, and there was a very ‘aggressive’ marketing Sign leading up to the film’s release which played up both Geoffrey Rush’s newfound kudos, and the comedic nature of the film. It also had a very wide release (around 100 screens nationally), and all for a film that may have been better served with a limited release playing at independent and arthouse cinemas. Perhaps the film’s lack of success had more to do with Columbia-TriStar’s over-exuberant marketing strategy than with anything film reviewers wrote about it. This whole issue raises a num ber of questions. Is it now expected of Australian films to be critical and box-office trium phs? What is the role of film reviewers and critics? Are they there to act as free lance promoters of Australian product, or are they there to present a range of opinions and evalua tions for the general public to assist in the practice of informed cinema-going? Do film reviews have a bourne) and Leigh Paatsch (HeralcbSun, Melbourne)

large bearing on a film’s box-office performance in

responsible, ethical writing? Do you believe that this

and their headlines (Daily TelegraphistSimple Soul” ;

this age of saturated marketing and promotion?

HS-fair criticism?;.Do you really believe that your read

The Age: “A little overreaching ends u p a big mess” ; Herald Sun: “ Devil of a Rush job”) were Angled out as

Who actually reads the reviews; why and when?

’ cqrffmehts, airo ask yourself if you feel that this is

ers would not be puzzled;by the tone o f this review?”

Dp film distributors have a right to complain about

sfeccola then circulated the full letter to other distrib

examples. Basil-Jones also included with the letter a

reviews, or even dabble in getting film reviewers

u to rs, the Melbourne Film.Critics Forum, and-fhe

copy of Time Magazine's review Of the same film, hold

on side to skew their reviews their way? And why

ing it up as unfavourable, but with an “informed,

isTt mostly centred around local product?

Sydney Rim Critics Circle. I^ U J/h e 'r replied, show ihghiS full support for Mar

intelligent style” and a.“ quality of. journalism sa d ly ’

tín» and m aintaining thafM aftin’s review “w as

lacking# m anyof theform er articles” .

within the bounds of acceptable' criticism ” . He also" explained that the-policy of The Age in having,a

BasiWones^feelieves that these reviews in some way contributed to the poor performance oTALfttlef

Are we so insecure about the m aturing and [diversifying o f the Australian film industry that there w ill Soon be no room for d ifferen ce# either tohfent or opinion, and we w ill start churning out ?

B iidfSoul at th e b o x office. This letter was addressed

safe, middle-path film s in the hop« that every Aus

“ ensured the public, had a c. hoice of opinions to

to Adrienne McKibbons of rne Sydney Film Critics Cir

¡galian film will be relatively successful at the box

choose from” (Jim Schembri was very positive

cle, and forwarded on by Basil Jones to Usher at The

|sfecond reviewer writing for its EG supplem ent

office7 Surely this is the intithesis of our recent

^ reasonable in the circum stances”

| | | | i | p i Ì K ahd that “ reviews generally remain unbi ased in their judgements” .

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

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oboken’s dark prince of exis

sang with his heart, night and day,

album of the crooner’s tough-guy

tential cool has hit that long,

sculpting the lyrics of his 1,400 odd

romantic musicianship) - Sinatra’s voice

nondescript; though I am still a sucker

songs with the assurance of a Brancusi,

seemed to encapsulate America itself.

for Tony Rome (1967), which he made

long road. It seemed to most of us that Frank Sinatra, the voice of our

phrasing his songs unlike no one else,

With Sinatra, there is the great

inner lives, would never age; an

and breathing his captivating poetry of

temptation to confuse his art with his

American original, whose peerless

joyful carnality, hurt and loneliness with

public image: the Rat Pack leader, with

tra’s magnetic, Oscar-winning role

songs, crafted with knowing d isci

such unprecedented subtlety. He was,

his alleged Mafia affiliations; his drink

(Best Supporting Actor) in From Here

pline, respect and passion defined

eulogies aside, one of the voices of

ing, gambling, love affaires and

to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)

our times in protean mythic terms.

20th century popular song.

“ ring-a-ding-ding” partying. This is just

relaunched his ailing career in 1954.

one Sinatra amongst many others.

And, I guess, we may have a favourite

I, like many of my “ baby-boomer”

Once Sinatra took a hold of a song

with director Gordon Douglas. We are all familiar with how Sina

generation, regarded Sinatra as one

- inside a recording studio, in front of

of the cardinal points of the American

an orchestra, swinging it like a musical

with is Sinatra the accomplished

the under-rated Young at Heart

com pass of popular culture and song.

instrument - he stamped it with his

screen performer. We tend to overlook

“ He sang like it was his last song and

impeccable articulation and story

this aspect of Sinatra’s art and life. I

(Gordon Douglas, 1954); The Man with The Golden Arm (Otto Preminger,

The Sinatra I would like to end up

Sinatra movie amongst the following:

only to you.” That was a key part of

telling sense. He animated songs with

can’t quite place whether I heard Sina

1955), with Elmer Bernstein’s superla

the Sinatra magic. He gave American

nonpareil ease and a definitive sense

tra sing or perform in a film when first

tive soundtrack; the m usicals Guys

pop music a new existential direction

of interpretation. Contra Craig McGre

living in a milk-bar in a Sydney work

and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz

after Bing Crosby’s earlier influential

gor’s recent, uncharitable “ either-or”

ing-class suburb in the 1950s. It seems

1955) . High Society (Charles Walters,

contribution. Sinatra epitomized

Puritanism, Sinatra’s magisterial art

that since a very early stage in my life I

1956) and Pal Joey (George Sidney,

style: the cocked hat on his head; a

and voice will endure because it rightly

became familiar with Sinatra through

19 57) ; The Joker is Wild (Charles Vidor, 1957); as the optimistic loser

trench coat hanging over his shoul

belongs alongside the voices of other

reading the newspapers and listening

der, and his winning Italian

singers who m a tte r-su ch as Bessie

to our brown bakelite radio. I do,

in Capra’s A Hole in the Head (1959);

streetwise smile looking backwards

Smith, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles,

though, have a vivid movie memory,

the Las Vegas heist romp, Ocean’s

over his shoulder at the camera.

Jimmy Rushing, Dinah Washington, to

one of my earliest ones, of seeing

Eleven (Lewis Milestone, i9 6 0); and

name a few - who arrest you in your

Sinatra in Lewis Allen’s minor film noir

the paranoiac classic, The Manchurian

was reported that Sinatra’s last

tracks whenever you encounter their

Suddenly (1954) at Marrickville’s Kings

Candidate (John Frankenheimer,

words were, “ I’m losing it.” Three

voices.

Theatre. I can recall a skinny Sinatra

1962).

Sinatra had, in a word, gravitas. It

w ords summed up Sinatra’s stylish

When Sinatra’s singing was at its

phenom enological negotiation of the

peak - the Capitol years of the 1950s

world: how he gave us so much, but also how he took what he wanted. Sinatra had it all - attitude, swag

screen performances became fairly

dressed in a pearly white shirt, sw eat

You can’t sum up Sinatra’s legacy

ing profusely, full of dark and

to popular music in a neat phrase or

with the release of such masterpieces

ambivalent moods, getting ready to

two. To do so would be such a grave

as the albums “Songs for Swingin’

shoot the American President.

disservice to him and to us. Just listen

Lovers” (featuring the sunny, swinging

Sinatra was a very gifted film per

to his everlasting music and count

ger, hubris, genius and kitsch - but

arrangements of Nelson Riddle), “ In the

former. Acting, for Sinatra, was a cinch

ourselves lucky that, to echo Blaise

he gave us, to quote Gary Giddins,

Wee Small Hours” and, in 1958, “ Only

once you faultlessy learnt your words.

Cendars, there is another “ new rea

“America’s vernacular art songs” . He

the Lonely (said by some to be the

True, in the ’60s and ’70 s Sinatra’s

son for living” .

® JOHNCONOMOS

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

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bits the winners, who all receive $2,500 in

forum, Selling Ourselves Short?, in

APPOINTMENTS ilm Australia has recently

Sponsorship Manager for the Out of

broadcasters and distributors d is

appointed Sharon Connolly as

the Box Festival, initiated by the

cussed the here-and-now of short films

its new Managing Director and Chief

in Australia.

Executive Officer, a position she has

prize money each, are:

been acting in for some time.

Documentary Fiction Under 15 M inutes

ST KILDA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS Best S hort Film

Two/Out (Kriv Stenders)

Tears (Ivan Sen)

Fiction Over 15 M inutes

A Breath (Christopher Tuckfield)

was previously the Marketing and

which filmmakers, funding bodies,

Queensland Performing Arts Trust. he Australian Screen Directors’

Association (ASDA) has also

nnouncements about the staffing

announced the appointment of

of Buena Vista International’s

Richard Harris as its new Executive

new distribution venture in Australia

Director. Harris recently served as Pol

Film V ictoria C raft Award

and New Zealand have been made.

icy Manager for the Screen Producers’

My Bed, Your Bed (Erica Glynn)

His Mother’s Voice (Dennis Tupicoff)

Vice President and Managing Director

Association of Australia (SPAA), and

G eneral Category

Best Documentary

of BVI Australia/N ew Zealand has

has also worked at AFTRS.

I, Eugenia (Gabrielle Finnane)

Generation (Ruth Carr)

announced that Andrew Taylor will be

T he 1998 Yoram G ross A nimation Award

Best Achievement Cinematography

Sales Manager in Australia, and

Feline (May Trubuhovich)

Allan Collins {Tears, Journey)

ager in New Zealand. Taylor was

Best Performance

T he Ethnic A ffairs Com m ission NSW Award

A Breath (Christopher Tuckfield) T he Rouben Mamoulian Award

Denial (Phillip Crawford) DOCO DISTRIBUTOR NOW PRODUCING

Robert Crockett will be Country Man

Leading Role

laire Jager has joined Artist Ser vices as the head of a new

factual programming division. Jager

previously Programming and Advertis

has served as the Commissioning Edi

Kim Gyngell {Sunday Hungry)

ing Manager for Q ueensland’s Birch,

tor-Documentaries at SBS Television

Best Achievem ent in S ound Post -production

Carroll and Coyle, and Crockett has

prior to her new appointment, and will

previously held the position of General

be involved in producing natural his

Urszula Zareba-ldzikowska {Crouching at the Door, The Two-Wheeled Time Machine, The Birthday Present)

Manager with Roadshow Distributors

tory, archaeology, travel and

in New Zealand.

adventure, and science and technol

Best Achievement

nternational documentary distribu

Ivan Sen {Tears)

tor Jennifer Cornish Media Pty Ltd

Best Achievement

in a

Direction Editing

ogy documentaries. Infotainment

oadshow has had some management changes as well.

Fran Morris moves from National

ideas and personality-based pro grammes are also going to be developed.

QCM) is now moving into producing

Denial (Phillip Crawford)

Promotions Manager to Marketing

docos with the formation of Jennifer

Manager-Warner Bros. Inge Burke will

Cornish Productions (JCP). With David

B est Achievement S creenplay

Noakes (ex-FFC) as general manager of

Sunday Hungry (Lawson Bayly)

Manager-Warner Bros. Erin Jameson

Michael Ward as its new Policy Man

JCP, the company has development

Best Achievement

has been appointed Publicity Man-

ager. Ward has been Policy Advisor for the AFC since 1994, and was the head

Original

work alongside Ms Morris as Publicity in

S pecial Effects

he Australian Film Finance Corpo ration (FFC) has appointed

and production funds available, and

Slipped (Dir: Louise Curham)

ager-Australian Motion Picture Unit,

will involve itself in projects both as

Best New Director

and Suzie MacLeod has been pro

of the Film and Television Institute of

producers and executive producers. In

Lawson Bayly {Sunday Hungry)

moted to Publicity Manager-Greece/

Western Australia before that. Ward

pre-production already is Ocean Planet, a three-part series with Ron

Best Achievement V ideo Production

New Zealand/Singapore.

replaces Sue McCreadie, who is taking up the position of Executive Director of

and Val Taylor, and JCP will be looking

Bougainville - Our Island, Our Fight

rawford Productions has

for both Australian and international

(Wayne Coles-Janess)

announced that Tom Parkinson

programmes.

Director ’s Encouragement Award

has been appointed Head of Co-Pro

CORRIGENDUM

Marzena Domaradzka

duction Development. Parkinson

the Australian Writers’ Guild.

n Margaret Smith’s review of Walka

bout {Cinema Papers, no. 125, June

nnounced recently were the w in

Highly Commended Award C inematography

ners of the screen composition

Justine Kerrigan {Flying Over Mother)

the production company Isambard to

states that “there have been claims

supply TV3 with its local content.

that this new print also contains a

Score, Shine, by David Hirschfelder;

T h r e e “Palm Door ” Encouragement Awards

Best Television Theme, Wildside, by

Anna Kannava for The Butler, Rachel

Peter Best.

Bailey for Operation Dostoyevsky;

(actress) Margaret Harvey for Passing

Kathryn Rose as its new Marketing

false. The film’s distributor did claim

Through.

and Communications Manager. Rose

that the surveyors scene was new,

WINNING SCORES

APRA Awards. They were: Best Film

FROM 1950s MELBOURNE TO FRANCE, VIA ST KILDA

for

established TV3, New Zealand’s first private network channel, and set up

1998, p. 46), Editor’s footnote note 4

scene not included in the original he Pacific Film and Television Commission (PFTC) has appointed

release print (that of the surveyors), but this is not true” . This is true and

which it is not. However, there is a

he 1998 St Kilda Film Festival

‘new’ scene (where Black Boy goes to

was held from 27-31 May at the

the farmhouse), in that it had only been

George Cinemas in Fitzroy Street. As

previously seen in the laserdisc version.

well as the usual National Short Film Competition, the Festival screened a

cott Murray’s article on Radiance

special programme of award-winning

short films from Le Festival du Court-

claims that it is the first feature to be

Métrage, Clermont-Ferrand in France.

directed by an Aborigine since BeDevil.

{Cinema Papers, no. 125, p. 25)

Roger Gonin, Co-Director of this presti

This is correct in the intended sense of

gious short film festival, was in

theatrical features. However, mention

Melbourne to introduce the pro

ought to have been made of Brian

gramme. Other special programmes

Syron’s non-theatrical Jindalee Lady.

included: Melbourne in the ’50s, a look at the city through newsreel

he photograph used in recent

footage, advertisem ents, drama and

documentary short films from the

was taken by Solrun Hoaas and is from

time; Confessions of a Filmmaker, in which Richard Lowenstein selected

her documentary Pyongyang Diaries. Cinema Papers apologizes to Hoaas

and introduced a programme of short

for the lack of any credit and thanks

films that influenced his work; and a

her for the kind use of the still.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

issues on the subscription card

Istanbul Film Festival by Catherine Simpson

ne thing which

munity under control. They are, how

immediately strikes

ever, hindered by the popularity of

you roaming the

“ Raporiental” , a local Rap band who

streets of Istanbul is

are the most active representatives of

the sea of young

the community. Dialogue is inter-

faces cramming cafés, bars and w alk

weaved with superb Rap-Arabesque

ways in the central cultural district.

fusion music from the famous Algerian

With forty percent of the population

artist Khaled, who is also very popular

(63 million) under 25, the Istanbul Film

in Turkey. The spontaneous atmos

Festival was packed to capacity with

phere of this diverse ethnic community

eager youth awaiting screenings. A

living in a dilapidated district on the

selection of 150 films from 40 coun

outskirts of Paris is stylistically em pha

tries showcased the best of

sized by the gritty visual texture of

contemporary and classic art cinema

100% Arabica. This is a part of Paris

to a record 125,000 filmgoers.

not often represented on screen.

In budgetary terms, the Festival is

Eleven films competed in the Inter

one of the largest in the world, with

national Competition for the Golden

this year’s event costing $1.2 million.

Tulip Award, with this year’s theme

At 900,000 Turkish Lira a ticket

being “Art and the Artist” . The extraor

(roughly 6 Aussie dollars), filmgoing is

dinary diversity of films in this section

predominantly a m iddle-class, urban

ranged from Renos Haralam bidis’

preoccupation. The Festival’s focus on

directorial debut, No Budget Story

European cinema follows the Western-

(Greece), which Haralambidis

bound gaze of many m iddle-class

describes as “a love-letter to under

Turks. Although European cinema

ground cinem a” , to Hong Sang-Soo’s

made up the bulk of the programme, there was a sprinkling of films from

laboriously pedantic production The Day a Pig Fell Down the Well (South

crew continues to ‘secretly’ follow

film takes place in a Romany shanty

Japan, South Korea, China, India, Flong

Korea), Harry Sinclair’s riotously

Mina home, who is conveniently still

village not far from Bucharest. Gadjo

Kong, Iran, North America and A us

funny Topless Women Talk about

wearing her portable microphone!

Dilo is an all-consum ing film which

tralasia. Turkey’s unrequited love

Whilst the film compels the audience

instils the desire to dance, laugh, sing

to conclude it has unintentionally

and share the anguish the characters

recent failure to enter the European

Their Lives (New Zealand) and Rajan Khosa’s lyrical Dance of the Wind (India). Jafar Panahi’s The Mirror (Iran),

become a documentary, Panahi, in his

face. As with Latcho Drom and Mondo,

Union, has been further exacerbated

which doesn’t live up to his remark

press conference, stated he had actu

the mesmerizing music in this film

by a parallel rise in Islamic fundam en

able début feature, The White Balloon

ally proposed the idea of Mina’s

functions as an integral part of the nar

talism.

(1995), unexpectedly took out the

dissatisfaction with acting in the origi

rative, providing insight into the

Golden Tulip Award.

nal script. Mina, incidentally, is the

difficulties gypsies have encountered

affaire with Europe, reflected in its

The selection of two European films, Udayan Prasad’s My Son the Fanatic and Mehmoud Zemmouri’s 100% Arabica, both thematically con

Following the trend of recent

pseudo-docum entary as the camera

tape years before. The majority of the

elder sister of the little girl with the

over the centuries clashing with other

films from Iran, especially Mohsen

gratingly shrill voice in The White Bal

cultures. Given that we see the Roma

cerning Islamic fundamentalism, albeit in somewhat divergent styles, cap tured some of the contrasts that are complicit in everyday life in Turkey. Written by Hanif Kureishi and set in England, My Son the Fanatic paints a tragicomic picture of the effect a radi cal born-again Muslim has on his secular-looking father, Parvez (Om Puri), who has spent his adult life

MakhmalbaPs Selam Cinema (1995)

loon, the winner of the Camera D’Or at

nies through the eyes of Stephane, the

attempting to establish him self in a

and Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes

Cannes as best début in 1995.

foreigner, Gadjo Dilo could have

country that he never entirely feels a

On (1992), The Mirror (Ayneh) ques

Although Mina’s voice in The Mirror is

resorted to presenting either a roman

part of. Parvez, a taxi driver, becomes

tions the status of fiction and its

an octave lower than her sister’s, the

tic tale of exotic gypsy life or a political

whining trait must run in the family.

treatise on discrimination. Even

increasingly isolated and m isunder

relation to reality. This film follows the

stood and ends up in the welcome

story of a little girl, Mina, who is d es

arms of one of his clients; the prosti

perately waiting for her mother to pick

petition to which audiences responded

tute Bettina, brilliantly portrayed by

her up after school. When she realizes

enthusiastically was Tony G atlifs

realities of gypsy life are not glossed

Rachel Griffiths.

her mum isn’t going to come she

captivating Gadjo Dilo (The Crazy

over.

decides to make her own way home

Stranger). This accom plished work,

and subsequently finds herself lost in

which completes his trilogy of Gypsy

Taking a less conventional approach, 100% Arabica is a gritty

One film in the International Com

though we are led to feel com passion for the central characters, the harsh

Paul Cox is probably better known in Turkey than in Australia and Istan

m usical-com edy about a group of

bustling Tehran. After boarding a bus,

films (Latcho Drom [1995] and Mondo

bul festival-goers flock to screenings

pseudo-M uslim fundam entalists trying

Mina looks straight into the camera

[1996D, follows the tale of a young

of his films like they would a French film. Even his less-than-highly

to get a footing in a particular district

and in a woeful plea cries, “ I don’t

Parisian on an obsessional quest to

aided by the local mayor, who in turn

want to act in this movie anymore!”

find the real person behind a Romany

regarded Exile, which featured in the

wants their help in bringing the com-

From here on, the film becomes a

voice which his father recorded on a

Australian Rim Festival in Istanbul in C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

festivals

1994, had domestic audiences cram

industry existed in Turkey known as

perhaps, given that Ozpertek has lived

by a Hollywood major), Mixed Pizza is

ming its screenings. In past years,

“Yesilcam ” (the production houses

in Italy since the late ’70s. The central

a novelty in Turkish cinema. With the

Cox has been a special guest and jury

being on Yesilcam Street in Istanbul).

narrative revolves around an Italian

largest Turkish brewery - Efes Pilsen -

member of the Festival. This year, the

During the ’50s and ’60s, production

couple, Marta and Francesco, whose

and Pizza Hut as its main sponsors,

Belgium -produced documentary A Journey with Paul Cox featured as part

boomed, peaking at over 250 films per

marriage is rapidly disintegrating.

year by the 1970s, known as the

After being informed that his aunt left

Mixed Pizza pays homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) and

of the “ On Cineastes” category, along

golden decade of Turkish Cinema. By

him a Turkish Bath or Hamam in her

has been severely criticized by the

with profiles of Sergei Eisenstein

the end of the 1970s, however, televi

will, Francesco travels to Istanbul to

Turkish press for its gratuitous vio lence and for being “too American” !

(.Sergei Eisenstein, Mexican Fantasy),

sion and sociopolitical unrest were

oversee the disposition of the estate.

Ken Loach ( Citizen Ken Loach), Hou

severely affecting this entertainment

However, he soon becomes entangled

However, isolating screen violence as

Hsiao-Hsien (HHH: Portrait of Hou

industry; the streets were not safe

with the family who are the custodians

an American phenomenon would be a

Hsiao-Hsien), Ingmar Bergman (The Voice of Bergman) and Lars Von Trier (Tranceformer- A Portrait of Lars Von Trier).

and the audience preferred to stay at

of the Hamam. When Marta eventually

fallacy in this context given Turkish

home to watch television (first official

follows Francesco to Istanbul for the

television’s thirst for sensational and

Although Australia had no con tenders in the International

transm ission; 31 January 1968). Stars quickly withdrew from the scene and, in order to attract lumpen crowds to theatres, Yesilcam began producing

Competition, Stavros Andonis

porno movies. With the military coup

Efthymiou’s True Love and Chaos

in 1980 and the subsequent election

(1997), which featured in the “Youth is

of a free-market orientated govern

Different” category, played to packed

ment, Yesilcam lost its privileged

In budgetary terms, the Festival is one of the largest in the world, with this year’s event costing $1.2 million. At 900.000 Turkish Lira a ticket (roughly 6 Aussie dollars), filmgoing is predominantly a middle-class, urban preoccupation.

houses and received a special mid

place in Turkish public life to the tube

night screening.

and the video cassette. Cinemas

purpose of ending her marriage, she

explicitly graphic depictions of vio

Bill Bennett’s Kiss or Kill (1997),

closed down all over the country and

finds him deeply transformed by his

lence, from mafia shootings to police beatings and fatal bus accidents.

however, bears witness to the notion

the lack of any coherent government

experiences in exotic Istanbul and she

of how films can dramatically trans

policy towards screen culture led

too becomes spellbound.

form in different venues. Selected for

quickly to the cashed-up Hollywood

the “ From the World of Festivals” sec

majors (especially Warner Bros, and

the lure of exoticism is Nuri Ceylan’s

tion, Kiss or Kill received a surprisingly

UIP) gaining almost complete control

The Town. Presented in four parts

presented from the point of view of

lukewarm reception which primarily

of exhibition.

(Winter, Spring, Evening and Morning)

Murat, a pizza delivery boy. Murat’s

and shot in black-and-white, this styl

fantasy of meeting a beautiful woman

istically-striking film depicts the daily

on one of his pizza runs becomes a

can be attributed to the careless trans

As a reaction to these changes, the

One film which doesn’t fall prey to

Mixed Pizza is a satirical comedy about betrayal and revenge in the Istanbul underworld, predominantly

lation and mis-timing of the Turkish

emergence of the film director as indi

subtitling which in turn resulted in

vidual artist, akin to the European art

life of a three-generation extended

nightmare when one day he delivers a

much of the subtle humour and cul

cinema tradition, began. Of the eight

family living in a typical Turkish town.

pizza to the gorgeous but ruthless

tural nuances being lost on the

Turkish films in the National Competi

Told through the eyes of the eleven-

Emel. In true film noir style, Emel

audience.

tion this year, the three notable ones -

year-old daughter and her younger

exploits Murat’s lustful devotion of her and deviously uses him as part of an

classroom in Winter to the countryside

elaborate plan to take revenge on her

A major aim of the Istanbul Film Festi

The Turkish Bath (Hamam, 1997), Mixed Pizza (Karisik Pizza, 1997) and The Town (Kasaba , 1997) - are all,

brother, we follow them from the

End o f th e Lo ng D rought...

in the Spring as they encounter the

underworld partners and deceive them

val is to acquaint foreign festival

encouragingly, directorial débuts.

mysteries of nature. In the Evening

out of a fortune. What’s interesting

directors and international film critics

Ferzan Ozpertek’s Hamam, a Turkish-

sequence the children w itness the

about Mixed Pizza is that, contrary to

with contem porary Turkish cinema.

Italian-Spanish co-production, has

dark and tender side of the adult world

the strong female leads of film noir,

After more than a decade-long

been screening at festivals worldwide.

and we are privy to the complex family

Emel ends up both alive and with all

drought, a num ber of releases in the

Although nowhere near as popular as

interactions that unfold around a

the money! Shot on a budget of just

The Bandit with Turkish audiences, it

campfire. Presented in an extraordi

$US270,ooo, Mixed Pizza’s slick pro

is currently playing to sell-out crowds

narily minimalistic style, akin to the

duction values betray Umur Turgay’s

in Europe. Its success in Italy has curi

recent work of Abbas Kiarostami and

background in television commercials

ously resulted in the number of Italian

Jafar Panahi, Ceylan has managed to

and music video clips.

tourists to Turkey doubling in the

achieve remarkable depth of charac

past few years, such as Istanbul Under My Wings (Istanbul Kanatlarimin Altinda, Mustafa Altioklar, 1995) and The Bandit (Eskiya , Yavuz Turgul, 1996), suddenly saw the return of dom estic audiences to Turkish cin

space of 6 months.

terization in The Town.

ema. With a budget of $ U S i million

Hamam is an overt essay in exoti

Finally, Um urTurgay’s Mixed Pizza

If the recent trends in Turkish cinema continue, Istanbul may once again become the focus of a large and diverse

(more than double the average for a

cism and captures Istanbul through

resembles nothing ever witnessed in

film production centre. By the year 2020

Turkish film), The Bandit played for

foreign eyes, bathing the city in golden

Turkish cinema before. Financed com

Turkey’s population will be approaching

alm ost 10 months in Turkey to 2.5 m il

hues and creating a nostalgic atmos

pletely privately and picked up for

100 million, a major market straddling

lion view ers. Before its dem ise in the

phere harking back to a lost Istanbul,

distribution in Turkey by Warner Bros,

Europe and the Middle East which

1980s, a thriving com m ercial cinema

an Istanbul of the director’s childhood

(the first Turkish film ever distributed

should not be overlooked. ©

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

in anger

Deux Fois Cinquante Ans du Cinéma Français by Scott M urray

he title sequence of

1895: the date of the first projection

the recent BFI series

of a film in public where the audience

is a naif in a world whose exploitantist,

Godard: The fact is, if cinema had

anti-human drive leaves Godard in

become what it should have, there

near permanent despair. Not that anything can stop Godard’s

on cinem a’s supposed

paid to watch a film.

love of words and wordplay: “ bobine”

In the midst of his despair, Godard is

centenary opens with

Godard: So that’s what it celebrates.

(reel) drops the “ine” and becomes

not immune to putting in the odd bit of

“ bob” , which is supered over a still

self-justification. One lengthy, but

from Jean-Pierre M elville’s magisterial

irrefutable, sound-bite goes:

a crane up a pile of

That is, the commercial exploitation film cans identified with texta’d gaffer not its production. of cinema, tape. Near the bottom is George Always the Marxist-Leninist! Miller’s film on Australian cinema,

Godard then goes on to question

Bob le Flambeur. Godard then has

Intelligence is understanding before

great fun, and makes a key point, by

asserting something. It means push

which the ABC showed late last year.

the need for a celebratory festival.

deconstructing the difference between

ing things to their limit. Seeking out

Third from the top (under Scorsese

Why isn’t cinema a part of everyday

“old film” (from a forgotten past) and

the opposite view, thereby under

and Frears) is the French episode by

life, television, whatever?

Anne-Marie Mieville and Jean-Luc

Godard: Don’t get me wrong - I know

“ old book” (one that needs repair).

standing others. Gradually, finding

And he has Piccoli read from Charles

your own path between yourselves

Godard. This the ABC has not shown -

you all mean well, and so do I - but,

Baudelaire, in a passage that predicts

and others. I realize this intellectual

the only one tossed into the “ unus

by celebrating something, does that

poetically the invention of cinema:

ethos is unpopular, particularly

able” bin.

not imply that, in a certain sense,

We want to travel without steam or

nowadays. Things must be clear-cut,

you’re putting an inflated value on

rails. To escape the boredom of our

and looking for nuances between

(Michael Campi, thanks again), the

something, which has probably been

prisons, project onto our minds your

black and white seems rather dull.

ABC’s decision is both incom prehensi

treated rather badly and finally for

memories held up by a canvas

Dogmatic fanatics are bores, they are

ble and reprehensible. It is clearly the

gotten? Today these celebrations are

framed by the horizon ...

always so predictable, whereas peo

most important segment of the series.

just ways of redeeming oneself.

After pointing out to Piccoli that the

In com parison, the rest are fairly trivial

Don’t you think there’s this element

young know almost nothing about the

Paradox is looking for the opposite of

stuff (with the brilliant exception of the

of trying to make up for something,

early and mid years of French cinema

what appears obvious. People dislike

Russian). Certainly, Mieville-Godard

of making amends, for something

(only Jean Gabin gets a slight flicker of

the notion of compromise but it’s the

make one have to think, and the

that we’ve discarded? [...]

recognition), Piccoli is challenged to

most courageous intellectual stance.

ask every staff member he encounters

The idea of compromise has a nega

Flaving finally secured a tape

uncaptioned clips and stills will infuri

Lewis Carroll said: “ Happy un-birth

ple who enjoy paradox are amusing.

ate those unfam iliar with French

day.” Where we differ is that you’re

in the hotel where he is staying

tive connotation. In spite of

cinema, but since when was the ABC

saying “ Happy Birthday” once a year

whether they recall Robert Le Vigan,

everything, I will carry on thinking

chartered with only screening the

that one should seek a sensible

predigested, homogenized and banal?

synthesis. And I will keep saying

After all, it showed Nagisa Oshima’s

that the world is neither simple

disgraceful episode on Japanese cin

nor totally absurd. Intelligence

ema (or, rather, his cinema) without a

consists of trying to find a way of

blink. If M-G’s work is too challenging

putting some rationality into the

for prime-time, put it on late at night

absurd.

instead of an umpteenth repeat of

The film ends with a man sewing up

Open Learning and let the VCRs run

his own corpse-sack. This image is

free.

then supered onto a cinema screen

The M-G opens with a burst of on

where the sole audience member is

screen writing (in classic Godard

looking in the reverse direction,

capitals), the subtitlers vainly trying to

towards a girl. The screen image

catch both the epigrams and the brisk

changes to the sack now fully sewn

conversation between Godard and

up and the word FIN.

Michel Piccoli, President of France’s

M ieville: The god groaned and

First Century of Cinema Association.

said sadly, “ I w ill always weep for

It is obvious early on that Godard is

you. You will weep for others and

in a bad mood and that he thinks cin

would be no need for any of this [celebration].

share their sorrow s.”

ema is dead. He finds nothing to

Despite M-G’s best efforts, how

celebrate and keeps Piccoli from

ever, the programme does invite

answering the questions that he poses

hope (one can’t experience that

him. Godard is rude, if not downright

many references to Bresson with

objectionable. But the questions he

out thinking the world a better

poses are the only interesting ones to

place), and the final montage of

have been heard during all the hoopla

great French writers on spectator-

over the supposed centenary. An

[or century!], whereas I’d rather say

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne,

ship (Denis Diderot via Sadoul and

example:

“ Happy un-birthday” every day.

Nadia Sibiskaia, Jules Berry, et al. (This

Rivette, et al, to Serge Daney) has a most stirring build.

Godard: Would you tell me why we

Throughout all this, the rarely-given-a-

is all staged, Godard already having

should celebrate cinema? Isn’t it

chance-to-respond Piccoli retains a

signalled that “ our little story [...] is

famous enough already? Or maybe

most charming and tolerant stance. In

only fiction, it’s m ake-believe” .) The

Many will find this programme obscure, infuriating, difficult and unen

not any more?

fact, despite the misery of the m essen

result is the same as asking anyone at

lightening (“ But it told me nothing

Piccoli: The cinema has gone com

ger, he remains open to new

Circular Quay who was Charles Chau-

about French cinema!”); others will

pletely off course, so to speak.

possibilities, to new hopes. Piccoli has

vel: tragic silence. But Godard doesn’t

rejoice that that rarest of events has

Godard: What are you celebrating?

been greatly loved by French cinema

find it tragic. Cinema, he argues, is a

occurred: someone has actually taken

Piccoli: W e’re celebrating the first

fans for decades; this programme will

mortal enterprise and we should be

cinema seriously and discussed it with

[...] century of cinema, going back to

only strengthen that regard, even if he

accepting its death.

the philosophical w eightit deserves. © C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

issu e s

On the right trail by Wendy Nye ACD stands for Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. By law, the Paris-based organization collects and distributes royalties on behalf of all authors of fictional works on its

name, the authorship and the integrity of the work of creative artists. This is the so-called ‘moral right’. Besides being protected as individu als, authors also enjoy an economic right giving them the power to authorize or prohibit in return for payment their work from being performed or reproduced by any existing methods or processes.

books — all 28,000 of them, working in the perform

“So we are happy that you are having this ‘fight’ in

ing arts such as mime, opera and choreography,

Australia,” says Lorente.

through to the audiovisual areas such as features, television movies, 2D & 3D new images, interactive multimedia, digital television and television networks. According to the SACD, in France, by law, there is clear definition ofw ho are the co-authors of audiovisual works. They are the Director, Scriptwriter, Adaptor of text (if any), the Writer of the dialogue, the Composer. According to N

Under French law, [which has been] copied by Spain, for audiovisual work the final version - or cut - shall be shared by the producer and direc tor. Nothing can be done to the work without the consent of the director and writer. It is a system that is working quite well. And any time we have to fight, we fight. When a colourized version of a not-well-known John

the Australian

Huston movie was to be shown in France, against the

Screen Directors’

wishes of the estate of John Huston, SACD went to

Association

court to prohibit such a screening, and won.

when a producer sells a movie to France’s largest television broadcaster, TF1, the TF1 price fetched by the producer for that film doesn’t include the cost of royalties to the film’s writer and director. Members of SACD and TF1 know there is a gen eral agreement in place, where they pay, say, one-and-a-half percent of receipts to SACD, which SACD distributes accordingly. She adds:

When the movie is sold and broadcast, we know we have to pay the writer and director. A movie made for television of 90 minutes, for this the writer and director will get - if it broadcasts at primetime - 3,000 French francs [$750] per minute. If you multiply by 90, the writer and director share 270,000 French francs [$67,500]. This is apart from what the writer was paid when he/she was commissioned by the producer for the telemovie, say about 200,000 French francs [$50,000]. They get what SACD pays, and then royalties each time the movie is screened in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec, which have agreements with SACD. The SACD thinks authors make more money over time this way than they would taking a one-off fee. As a writer and/or director on a feature with a French producer, I could use the SACD system of royalty collection, as long as the contract I sign with the producer enables the SACD to represent my interests for collection of royalties on the work I ‘authored’. Lorente says it would cost me 350 French francs ($85) to become a SACD member. To cover its administration and service costs, SACD would take 11 percent from receipts from broadcast ers who screened an individual audiovisual piece of work of mine. For playwrights in Paris, the SACD fee is 9 percent, and 14 percent for playwrights living in the French provinces, to cover the cost of delegates, while 7 percent is collected from other countries. According to the SACD pamphlet, the SACD is a non-profit organization, and “ pays back to its mem

newsletter, ASDA and the Australian Writers’ Guild

bers all fees deducted from authors’ royalties and not

are lobbying for “the removal of any waiver provision

Canal Plus to court when it tried to oppose the SACD

in the moral rights section of the Copyright Amend

system of royalty collection on its cable network.

ment Bill and favour the use of an industry consent

According to Lorente, Canal Plus eventually paid up

France, the SACD sought the right to collect from the

used for operations during the course of the year.” In 1985, when copyright law was under review in

clause to deal with any changes or alterations to the

after losing the first round and appealing. It is

atrical receipts, but were prevented by a powerful

film once it is released.” SPAA, the Screen Producers’

Lorente’s job to tell writers and directors in countries

lobby by French producers. French producers are enti

Association of Australia, and FACTS, the Federation of

other than France about the SACD system, a system

tled to cinema income - but they know there are SACD

Australian Commercial Television Stations, want the

which includes extracting royalties due to directors,

fees owing if that same film is broadcast on television

waiver kept: a blanket waiver generally appears in

com posers and other authors.

(either free-to-air or pay).

most directors’ contracts. ASDA reckons moral rights should, at least, require the producer, or authorized third party, to consult with a director before any changes or alterations are made to a film. The Bill is still before the Senate. SACD’s Director of International Affairs, Janine Lorente, says that in France a film’s producer is pre sumed to have the right to exploit a work, except if

Second, and most important, and it only exists in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, any author should get remuneration in proportion to incomes gener ated by the exploitation of the work. Any contract that provides for a one-time payment - a buy out is forbidden. It is null-and-void. You have to pro vide for a percentage that will show that the authors will be paid throughout the life of the movie.

From 1985, the SACD has also been distributing royalties from sales of blank video tapes. According to Lorente, when people copy works (French or foreign) broadcast on television, they are in effect avoiding the normal cost of hiring the film or buying a cinema ticket for the audiovisual work. Therefore, by law, one-third of the sale price of every blank video tape (about 2 francs, or 50 cents) is collected and distributed

otherwise stipulated in a contract with that producer.

Membership with SACD, according to Lorente, doesn’t

Authors reserve certain rights, such as the right to

replace the role of the producer. If a producer has a

approach the SACD. Defending moral rights has

contract with the SACD, whenever a film is sold to a

French francs ($750,000) has so far been repaid to

always been a priority for SACD says Lorente. An SACD

broadcaster which has a general agreement with the

Australian authors through ASDA and AWG. The SACD

pamphlet, collected while at the impressive SACD

SACD, the producer doesn’t have to pay the writer or

website is http://w w w .sacd.fr. janine Lorente’s email

headquarters building just down the road from the

director. Instead, the SACD will substitute as the pro

is infosacd@sacd.fr. ASDA’s email address is:

shabby Moulin Rouge, reads:

ducer to pay the writer or director according to the

asda@ ozemail.com.au. AWG’s email address is

receipts of all broadcasters. “ For exam ple,” she says,

awgsyd@ ozemail.com.au. ®

By recognizing authors’ rights the law protects the

SACD also took French cable television company

(evenly) amongst authors, producers and performers. From this fund, Lorente says, almost three million

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

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Eddie Fleming (Hugo Weaving). Craig Monahan's The Interview.

he Interview is Craig Mona han’s first feature film, following a lengthy apprenticeship in the advertising, television and documentary industries. In developing the script, Monahan expressly set out to challenge the conventions of cinematic narrative: to expose audiences to the disorienting effects of what he terms “a continuous reveal” , rather than empower them with an omniscient view of the action. He achieves this by giving the audience only the same (limited) degree of knowledge as one of his main characters, Eddie Fleming (Hugo Weaving). Eddie unexpectedly finds himself in police custody, ‘interviewed’ by Detectives Steele (Tony Martin) and Prior (Aaron Jeffery), for a crime he claims to know noth ing about. Steele and Prior are convinced otherwise, and their persistent questioning wears Eddie down, threaten ing to break him. Then he begins answering these questions with a degree of detail not even Steele had anticipated. Thus, Eddie begins to construct for Steele (and the audience) a narrative built upon questions and answers, telling Steele what he wants to hear and sending out confusing signals about his ‘real’ character. What, then, is the film’s agenda? Did Eddie really do it? Does it matter? In this way, Monahan further undermines orthodox cinematic narration by blurring the distinction between good and bad characters, the fundamental dichotomy of police drama. In Monahan’s view, It is both a simple tale, and not, because it has so many lay ers. Some will see Eddie as a completely innocent man caught in a nightmare situation. Others will look deeper at the layers and the conflict between the characters, [thus] tak ing a different journey.

Fincina Hopgood.

Monahan sees “obvious real life parallels” with Eddie’s behaviour and cases like O. J. Simpson’s, where the accused stubbornly denies everything in the face of over whelming evidence to the contrary. The issue of guilt and

truth-telling is something he considers extremely relevant to current legal disputes in Australia. How important is the co-writer-director’s own view of Eddie’s guilt or innocence? Originally, the script was conceived with a particular view. But Hugo Weaving’s performance proved the key to developing the ambiguity inherent in Eddie’s character. Monahan believes, There is a strong element of the film that will tell you more about yourself than the director will. How you view this ques tion [of Eddie’s guilt] will depend on your upbringing and influences, your own life experience.

Monahan concedes that, with most films, a viewer’s reading is influenced by personal history. “But ultimately this film is about life and death, so it demands that these questions be explicitly confronted.” The final shot of the film embodies all the contradic tions developed and explored in the preceding 100 minutes. While this was the original ending in the script, Monahan developed the narrative further in response to requests for more detail, greater resolution. These addi tional scenes were shot, and Monahan is still happy with them, but in his opinion they signalled the beginning of another film. As Eddie’s character develops and takes on new, unex pected traits, the audience may find itself ‘switching sides’ and following Steele’s journey through the interview. Steele goes through his own ordeal in the film, both inside and outside the interrogation room. His methods are the subject of scrutiny by the Ethics Committee; his superior is leaking information to the press for his own publicity; and his maverick sidekick is too self-interested to be considered loyal. These factors combine with the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the interview itself to produce a momen tary loss of control, when Steele breaks down in the bathroom. As Monahan describes it, it is a moment of aggressive filmmaking [...] because I wanted the audience to be confronted with a completely different point of view

on columns staring down at the action below to reinforce the sense of surveillance which is a key theme throughout the film. Monahan con siders the film’s look “part and parcel of the story.” Whether you call this stylizing, surreal ism, good production design or the fourth character [...] It is all of these things, and none of them exclusively. It adds to Eddie’s sense of alienation and encourages you to take his side. It works to distance you from the police as an organization ... and it plays upon the perception of that organization as something to be wary of, because you read the papers.1

that they had no inkling of: that this is a fuckin’ awful job, listening to this guy say how easy it is to kill people. For the audience, this is a privileged moment, a turning point. [At the end of the film], they are left with the sense that this is simply another day at the office, and that he will survive.

The moral ambiguity at the heart of the film, comes down to a combination of script

duction with his three main actors, simply talking with police and read ing the script, with no plotting as such. The actors returned for the last two weeks of pre-production, for storyboarding and shot listing, and the shoot was five weeks. The inter rogation scenes were shot in the final week; by this time, the actors had been living with the characters for about 10 weeks. The end result is the

low the dictates of realist drama with regard to production design: “To have a completely naturalistic set would just have been radio with pic tures. It may as well have been a stage play.” Instead, he developed a distinctive visual style that acts like the ‘fourth character’ in this psycho logical drama. The film’s “Gothic industrial look” was, according to Monahan, inspired by the buildings

The role of Detective Inspector Jackson (Paul Sonkkila), Steele’s superior, is “to remind the audience that the police force is an institution, where people’s agendas are not necessarily based in law and order” . Jackson is a career policeman, who will use what ever he can for self-promotion. A sub-plot of the film is this exploration of the effects of institutionalization. The Interview's highly visual style is clearly influenced by Monahan’s background in art direction, but he is adamant that it not be seen as “some sort of commercial. If people say that, where does that put Deli catessen? Taxi Driver?” He does concede that art direction has been an advantage,

Hugo is a tour-de-force; Tony is equal in his realization. You cannot have one without the other. and performance. Hugo is a tour-deforce; Tony is equal in his realization. You cannot have one without the other.

The rehearsal process was another convention of filmmaking revised by Monahan. He refused to limit rehearsal to two weeks; instead, he scheduled two weeks before pre-pro

integration of the relationship between Eddie and Steele with the pressures outside the interrogation room; the development of the char acters’ personal histories so that the audience knows exactly what’s at stake with every question and answer. Finally, Monahan refused to fol-

and laneways of Melbourne’s CBD. Conversations in stairwells and on rooftops were shot at the old Post Office, and police headquarters was a set built at Channel 10’s old studios in Nunawading. The set’s cold, harsh feeling is created through flat sur faces and monochromatic blue lighting, with Victorian headpieces

because it has made me think of a particular visual style [...] it encourages familiarity with trying to find a visual style or develop a visual sense. [This was] very relevant to the evolution of

The Interview. Monahan feels that there are not enough filmmakers who think in pic tures, while others neglect the story: “It is the marriage of content and form that makes film an experience.” Monahan’s next project involves the adaptation of the John Frederick Hayes book The Last o f the SquareHeads by David Hickie, about a relationship between a man and a woman, set in Sydney in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. He says it shares some of the moral questions underpinning The Interview, that these are themes he will continue to explore. Mona han’s explorations result in challenging journeys for his actors and audiences. The Interview will take different viewers on different journeys, and therein lies its impres sive achievement. m 1 This is a reference to the media focus on accidental deaths from police shootings. C I N E M A P A P E R S ' • A UGU S T 1 998

QUANT The tape

one of the

BACK b;

SEE TEAR-OUT Number 1 {January 1974) David Williamson, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Weir, Antony Ginnane, Gillian Armstrong, Ken G. Hall, The Cars that Ate Paris Number 2 {April 1974) Censorship, Frank Moorhouse, Nicolas Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under Allende, Between the Wars, Alvin Purple Number 3 (July 1974) Richard Brennan, John Papadopolous, Willis O'Brien, William Friedkin, The True Story of Eskimo N ell Number 4 (December 1974) Bill Shepherd, Cliff Green, Werner Herzog, Between Wars, Petersen, A Salute to the Great MacArthy Number 5 (March-April 1975) Albie Thoms on surf movies, Charles Chauvel film o g ra phy, Ross Wood, Byron Haskin, Brian Probyn, Inn of the Damned Number 6 SOLD OUT Number 7 SOLD OUT Number 8 (March-April 1976) Pat Lovell, R ichard Zanuck, Sydney Pollack, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Phillip Adam s, Don M cA lp in e , Don's Party . Number 9 (June-July 1976) M ilos Forman, M ax Lemon, M iklo s Ja ncso, Luchino V isco nti, Caddie, The Devil's Playground Number 10 (Sept-Oct 1976) Nagisa Oshima, Philippe M ora, Krzysztof Zanussi, M a rco Ferreri, M a rco B ellocchio, gay cinema Number 11 (January 1977) Emile De Antonio, Jill Robb, Sam uel Z. A rkoff, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The Picture Show M an Number 12 (April | 1977) Ken Loach, Tom Haydon, Donald Sutherland, B e rt Deling, Piero Tosi, John Dankworth, John Scot, Days of Hope, The Getting of Wisdom

Number, 13 (July 1977) Louis Malle, Paul Cox, John Pow er, Jeanine Seawell, Peter Sykes, Bernardo Bertolucci, In Search of Anna Number 14 (October 1977) Phil Noyce, M att Carroll, Eric Rohmer, Terry I Jackman, John Huston, Luke's Kingdom, The Last Wave, Blue Fire Lady Number 15 (January 1978) wTom Cowan, Truffaut, John Faulkner, Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri Lankan film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith Number 16 (AprilJune 1978) Gunnel Lindblom, John Duigan, Steven Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa Project, Swedish cinema, Dawn!, Patrick Number 17 (AugSept 1978) Bill Bain, Isabelle H uppert, Brian M ay, Polish cinema, Newsfront, The Night the Prowler Number 18 (Oct-Nov 1978) John Lamond, Sonia Borg, Alain Tanner, Indian cinem a, Dimboola, Cathy's Child Number 19 (Jan-Feb 1979) A ntony Ginnane, Stanley H aw es, Je rem y Thom as, A n d re w ’Sams, sponsored do cum en taries, Blue Fin Number 20 (March-April 1979) Ken Cameron, Claude Lelouch, Jim Sharm an, French film , M y Brilliant Career Number 21 (May-June 1979) Vietnam on Film, the C antrills, French cinem a, M ad Max, Snapshot, The Odd A ngry Shot, Franklin on Hitchcock Number 22 (July-Aug 1979) B ruce Petty, Luciana A rrig h i, Albie Thom s, Stax, Alison's Birthday Number 23 SOLD OUT Number 24 (DecJan 1980) Brian Trenchard-S m ith, Ian Holmes, Arthur Hiller, Je rzy Toeplitz, Brazilian cinem a, Harlequin Number 25 (Feb-March 1980) David "Puttnam, Janet S trickla nd, Everett de Roche, Peter Faiman, Chain Reaction, S tir Number 26 (AprilMay 1980) Charles Hi Jo ffe, Jerom e Heilman, Malcolm Smith, Australian nationalism , Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, W ater Under the Bridge Number 27 (June-July 1980) Randal Kieiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald Richie, obituary of Hitchcock, NZ film industry, Grendel Grendel Grendel Number 28 (Aug-Sept 1980) Bob Godfrey, Diane Kurys, Tim Burns, John O'Shea, Bruce Beresford, Bad Timing, Roadgames Number 29 (Oct-Nov 1980) Bob Ellis, Uri W in dt, Edward Woodward, Lino Brocka, Stephen W a lla ce , Philippine cinema. Cruising, The Last Outlaw Number 30 (Dec 1980-Jan 1981) Sam Fuller, 'Breaker' M orant re th o u g h t Richard Lester, Canada supplem ent, The Chain Reaction, Blood M oney Number 31 (March-April 1981) Bryan B row n, looking in on Dressed to Kill, The Last Outlaw, Fatty Finn, Windows: lesbian as villa in , the ne w generatio n Number 32 (May-June 1981) Judy David, David W illia m son, Richard Rush, S w inburne, Cuban cinem a, Public Enemy Number One, The A lternative Number 33 (June-July 1976) John Duigan, the ne w ta x co ncessions, R obert A ltm an, Tom as G utierrez Alea, Edw ard Fox, Gallipoli,

Roadgames Numbers 34 and 35 SOLD OUT Number 36 (February 1982) Kevin D obson, Brian Kearney, Sonia Hofm ann, M ic h a e l Rubbo, B low Out, 'B reaker'M orant, Body Heat, The M an from Snowy River Number 37 (April 1982) Stephen M acL ean , Ja c k i W eaver, Carlos Saura, Peter Ustinov, w om en in dram a. M onkey 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) Helen Morse, Richard Mason, Anja Breien, David Millilkan, Derek Granger, Norwegian cine ma, National Film Archive, We o f the N ever Never Number 40 (October 1982) Henri Safran, Michael Ritchie, Pauline Kael, Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, M y D inner w ith Andre, The Return o f Captain Invincible Number 41 (December 1982) Igor Auzins, Paul Schrader, P eter Tam m er, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins, The Year o f Living Dangerously Number 42 (March 1983) M el Gibson, John W aters, Ian Pringle, Agnes Varda, copyright,

Strikebound, The M an from Snowy River Number 43 (May-June 1983) Sydney Pollack, Denny Law rence, G raeme C lifford, The Dismissal, Sumner Locke Elliott's Careful He M ig h t Hear You Number 44-45 (April 1984) David Stevens, Simon W in ce r, Susan Lam bert, a personal h istory of Cinema Papers, Street Kids Number 46 (July 1984) Paul £ o x , R ussell-M ulcahy, Alan J. Pakula, Robert

Duvall, Jeremy Irons, Eureka Stockade, Waterfront, The Boy in the Bush, A Woman Suffers, Street Hero Number 47 (August 1984) Richard Lowenstein, Wim Wenders, David Bradbury, Sophia furkieWicz, Hugh Hudson, Robbery Under Arms Number 48 (Oct-Nov 1984) Ken Cameron, Michael Pattinson, Jan Sardi, Yoram Gross, Bodyline, The Slim Dusty Movie Number 49 (December 1984) Alain Resnais, Brian McKenzie, Angela Punch M cG regor, Ennio M o rrico n e , Jane: Cam pion, ho rro r film s, N iel Lynne Number 50 (FebMarch 1985) Stephen W a lla ce , Ian Pringle, W a lerian Borow czyk, P eter S chreck, Bill Conti, Brian M ay, The Last Bastion, Bliss Number 51 (May 1985) Lino Brocka, H arrison Ford, Noni Hazlehurst, Dusan M akavejev, Emoh Ruo, Winners,

M orris West's The Naked Country, M ad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Robbery Under Arms Number 52 (July 1985) John Schlesinger, Gillian Arm strong, A lan Parker, soap operas, TV news, film advertising, Don't Call M e Girlie, For Love

Alone, Double Sculls Number 53 (September 1985) Brian B row n, N icolas Roeg, V in ce n t W ard, H ector C raw ford, Emir Kusturica, NZ film and TV, Return to Eden Number 54 (November 1985) Graeme Clifford, Bob W eis, John Boorm an, M enahem Golan, rock videos, Wills and Burke, The Great Bookie

Robbery, The Lancaster M ille r A ffa ir Number 55 (January 1986) Jam es S tew art, Debbie Byrne, Brian Thom pson, Paul Verhoeven, Derek M eddings, tie -in m arketing, The Right Hand Man, Birdsville Number 56 (March 1986) Fred Schepisi, Dennis O’ Rourke, Brian Trenchard-S m ith, John H argreaves, Dead-end Drive-in, The More Things

Change ..., Kangaroo, Tracy Number 57 SOLD OUT Number 58 (July 1986) W o o d y Allen, Reinhard Hauff, Orson W elle s, the C iném athèque Française,

The Fringe Dwellers, Great Expectations: The Untold Story, The Last Frontier Number 59 (September 1986) R obert A ltm an, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka, Agnes Varda, the AFI A w ards, The M overs Number 60 (November 1986) A u stralia n television, Franco Zeffirelli, Nadia Tass, Bill Bennett, Dutch cinema, movies by microchip, Otello Number 61 (January 1987) Alex Cox, Roman Polanski, Philippe Môrà, Martin Arminger, film in South A ustralia, Dogs in Space, Howling III Number 62 (March 1987) Screen violence, David Lynch, Cary Grant, ASSA conference, production barom eter, film finance. The Story o f the Kelly Gang Number 63 . (May 1987) G illian A rm strong, A ntony G in n a n e g ® Chris H ayw ood, Elmore Leonard, Troy Kennedy ■ M artin, The Sacrifice, Landslides, Pee Wee's Big I Adventure, Jilted Number 64 (July 1987) Nostalgia, Dennis Hopper, M el Gibson, V ladim ir O sherov ■ j Brian Trenchard Sm ith, chartbusters. Insatiable

Number 65 (September 1987) Angela Carter, With W ende rs, Je an-P ie rre Gorin, Derek Jarman, Gerald L'Ecuyer, Gustav Hasford, AFI Awards, Poor

M an's Orange Number 66 (November 1987) A ustralia n sc re e n w rite re } Cinema and China, Jam es Bond: pa rt 1, James Glaydèn, Video, De Laurentiis, N ew World, The Navigator, Who'sThat

A Guide to Wliat s in Stock

Ghosts Of The Civil Dead, Feathers, Ocean, Ocean Number 69 (M ay 1988) Sex, death and family films, Cannes '88, film composers, Vincent Ward, David Parker, Ian Bradley, Pleasure Domes Number 70 (November 1988) Film Australia, Gillian Armstrong, Fred Schepisi, W es Craven, John Waters, Al Clark, Shame screenplay part 1 Number 7t (January 1989) Yahoo Serious, David Cronenberg, 1988 in retrospect, film sound, Last Temptation of Christ, Philip Brophy Number 72 (March 1989) Little Dorrit, A u stra lia n s c i-fi movies, 1988 mini-series, A rom aram a, Celia, La doles Vita, women and W esterns Number 73 (May 1989) Cannes ’89, Dead Calm, Franco N ero, Jane Cam pion, The Prisoner of St. Petersburg, Frank Pierson, Pay TV Number 74 (July 1989) The Delinquents, A u stra lia n s in H ollyw ood, Chinese cinem a, Philippe M ora, Yuri Sokol, Tw ins, G hosts... o f the Civil Dead, Shame scre e n p la y Number 75 (September 1989) Sally Bongers, the teen m ovie, anim ated, Edens Lost, Pet Sematary, M a rtin S corsese and Paul Schrader, Ed Pressman Number 76 (November 1989) Simon W in ce r, Quigley Down Under, Kennedy M iller, T erry Hayes, Bangkok Hilton, Jo hn Duigan, Flirting, Romero, Dennis Hopper, Frank H owson, Ron Cobb Number 77 (January 1990) John Farrow m ono graph, Blood Oath, Dennis W hitb urn , Brian W illia m s, Don M cLennan, Breakaway, " C rocodile" Dundee overseas Number 78 (March 1990) The Crossing, Ray A rgali, Return Home, Peter Greenaway and The C ook.... M ic h e l Ciment,

Bangkok Hilton, Barlow and Chambers Number 79 SOLD OUT Number 80 (August 1990) Cannes report, Fred Schepisi c a re e r intervie w , Peter W e ir and Greencard, Pauline Chan, Gus Van Sant and Drugstore Cowboy, German storie s Number 81 (December 1990) Ian Pringle Isabelle Eberhardt, Jane Campion, An Angel A t M y Table, Martin Scorsese and Goodfellas, Presumed Innocent Number 82 (March 1991) The Godfather Part III, Barbet Schroeder, Reversal of Fortune, Black Robe, Raymond Hollis Longford, Backsliding Number 83 (May 1991) Australia at Cannes, Gillian Armstrong, The Last Days at Chez Nous, The Silence of the Lambs, Flynn, Dead to the World, Anthony Hopkins, Spotswood Number 84 (August 1991) James Cameron and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Dennis O'Rourke, Good Woman of Bangkok,Susan Dermody, Breathing Under Water, Cannes report, FFG Number 85 (November 1991) Jo celyn Moorhouse, Proof, Blake Edwards, Switch; Callie K h o p g : 'Thelma & Louise; in de pen de nt exhibition and distribution, FFC pa rt 2 Number 86 (January 1992) Romper Stamper, The Nostradamus Kid, Greenkeeping, Eightball, Kathryn Bigelow , HDTV and Super 16 Number 87 (March 1992) M u lti-c u ltu ra l cinem a, Steven S pielberg, Hook, George Negus and The Red Unknown, Richard Low enstein, Say a Little Prayer, Je w is h cinem a Number 88 (May-June 1992) S trictly Ballroom, Hammers Over the Anvil, Daydream Believer, W im W e n d e r's Until The End o f the World, S atya jit Ray Number 89 (August 1992) Cannes '92, David Lynch, Vitali Kanievski, Gianni A m elio, Fortress, film -lite ra tu re co nnection s, teen m ovies debate Number 90 (October 1992) The Last Days o f Chez Nous, Ridley Scott: 1492, Stephen Elliott: Frauds, Giorgio M angiam ele, Cultural Differences and Ethnicity in A u s tra lia n Cinema,

John Frankenheimer's Year of the Gun Number 91 (January1993) Clint Eastwood and Unforgiven; Raul Ruiz, George Miller and Gross Misconduct, David Elfick's Love in Limbo, On the Beach, T Australia's first films: p a rti Number 92 (April 1993) Reckless Kelly, George Miller and Lorenzo's Oil, Megan Simpson, Alex, t h e ‘Lover, womeriln film and television, A u s tra lia 's firs t film s: part 2 Number 93 (M ay 1993) J ane Cam pion and The Piano, Laurie M clnne s and Broken Highway, Tracey M o ffa tt and Bedevil, Lightw orks and Avid, A u s tra lia 's firs t film s: pa rt 3 Number 94 (August 1993) 'Cannes ’94, Steve Buscem i and Reservoir TjPogs, Paul Cox, M ichael Jenkin's The Heartbreak

S i l l i t 'Cominq of Age' film s, A ustralia 's firs t film s: part -.4. Number 95 (October 1993) Lynn-M arie M ilb u rn 's j j j Girl Number 67 (January 1988) John Duigan; . W jw p o rie s & Dreams, Franklin on the scie nce of Jam es Bond: p a rt 2, George Miller; Jim Jarmuschy: ( preview s, The Custodian, do cum en tary s u p p le ^ ® S oviet cinem a, women in film, 70mm, filmmaking in : me,n|iJom Zubricki, John Hughes, A ustralia'.sflp||§| Ghana, The Year M y Voice Broke, Send A Gorilla * films: part 5. Number 96 (December 1993) Number 68 (March 1988) Martha Ansara, Channel Queensland issue; o ve rvie w of film invQueens!and, •;. 4, Soviet cinem a; part2, Jim McBride, Glamour, early Queensland cinema, Jason.Donovan and ’ /•, -

Donald Crombie, Rough Diamonds, Australia's first films: part 6 Number 97-8 (April 1994) 20th Anniversary double issue with New Zealand sup plement, Simon Wincer and Lightning Jack, Richard Franklin on leaving America, Australia's first films: part 7 Number 99 (June 1994) Krzysztof Kieslowski, Ken G. Hall Tribute, cinematography supplement, Geoffrey Burton, Pauline Chan and Traps, Australia’s first films: Part 8 Number 100 (August 1994) Cannes '94, NSW supplement, Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddah, The Sum of Us, Spider & Rose, film and the digital world, Australia's first films: part 9 Number 101 (October 1994) Priscilla, Queen o f the Desert, Victorian sup plement, P. J. Hogan and Muriel's Wedding, Ben Lew in and Lucky Break, Australia's first films: Part 9 Number 102 (December 1994) Once Were Warriors, film s w e love, Back of Beyond;:Cecil Holm es, Lindsay Anderson, Body Melt, AFC supple m ent, Spider & Rose, Australia's First Films: Part 10 Number 103 (March 1995) Little Women, Gillian: A rm strong , Q ueensland su pplem ent, Geoffrey Sim pson, Heavenly Creatures, Eternity, Australia's First Films Number 104 (June 1995) Cannes Mania, B illy's Holiday, Angel Baby, Epsilon, Vacant Possession, R ichard Franklin, A u s tra lia 's First Films: Part 12 Number 105 (August 1995) M ark J o ffe 's Cosi, Ja cq u e lin e M cK enzie, S law om ir Idziak, Cannes Review, G aum ont R etrospective, M arie Craven, Dad & Dave Number 106 (October 1995) Gerard Lee and John M ayn ard on A ll M en Are Liars, Sam Neil, The Small Man, Under the Gun, AFC lo w budget se m ina r Number 107 (December 1995) G eorge M ille r and Chris Noonan ta lk about Babe, N e w tren ds in c riticism , The rise of boutique cinem a Number 108 (February 1996) Conjuring John Hughes' W hat I Have Written, Cthulu, The Top 100 A u s tra lia n Films, N icole Kidman in To Die For Number 109 (April 1996) Rachel G riffiths runs the gam ut, Toni C ollette and Cosi, Sundance Film Festival, M ic h a e l Tolkin, M orals and the M u to sco p e Number 110 (June 1996) Rolf de Heer tra v e ls to Cannes, Clara Law 's n e w home, S hirley B a rre tt's Love Serenade, Richard Franklin Number 111 (August 1996) S co tt Hicks and Shine, The Three Chinas, T rusting C hristo pher Doyle, Love and Other Catastrophes Number 112 (October 1996) La w ren ce Jo h n s to n 's Life, Return of the M a ve ricks , Q ueensland Supplem ent P art 1, Sighting the Unseen, R ichard Low enstein Number 113 (December 1996) P eter Ja ckson's The Frighteners, SPAA-AFI supplem ent, Lee Robinson, Sunday Too Far Away, H otel de

Love, Children o f the Revolution Number 114 (February 1997) Baz Lu hrm an n's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Dean Cundey, SPAA: The A fte rm a th , Idiot Box, Zone 39 Number 115 (April 1997) Jo hn Seale and The English Patient, Newsfront, The Castle, Ian Baker, R obert Krasker Number 116 (May 1997) Cannes '97 Preview , Sam antha Lang's The Well, Kiss or Kill, P hillip N oyce and The Saint, Heaven's Burning. Number 117 (June 1997) R obert A. H arris and Jam es C. Katz ta lk to Jam es S herlock, M o n ica Pellizzari, A leka d o se n 't live here anym ore, The Man from Kangaroo Number 118 (July 1997) Terry R aw lings, Frans V andenburg and Ken S allow s, L o w -b u d g e t ind e p e n d e n t film m aking, Stephen A m is’ Alive Tribe, SMPTE '97 Number 119 (August 1997) Ben M end elsoh n: Home Tow n Boy, Cannes 50th International du Film asks Is Cinem a Dead?,

Gregor Nicholas' Broken English Number 120 (October 1997) MirajjbaTOtto, Frank M oorhou se, Two Studios and a WorldjdL D ifference Inbe tw ee n, Hawks and Ford Retrospective Number 121 (November 1997) LA Confidents I's Dem on Dogs, Stephan-Elliot at Cannes, Exile in Sarajevo, Japanese independent film Number 122 {December 1997) Score! Cezafy Skubiszewski, Dav id Hushfelrier and Eric Surra Mandy Walker: All in a Days Work New Zealanc film Number 123 (March 1998) Matt Day A Six-Pack of Talent, Michael Winterbottom's E xile jn Sarajevo, Young 124 (May 1998) Alex Proyas' Dark City, PetePJa'ckson’s nightmare, Kerry Fox,jFestival ofjAu^ffalian Film Number 125 ? ^ i|^ ||l^ )|G M ^ § |p ® P V e v ie w , Head On, Rolf de Song, John Ruane's senti(®^fi[sGlimie:die^GBSI, Crakers

MargharetgMMMarini 'alertan Botowcftk’s Les Héi

For decades, cinéphiles have been telling them selves that the trouble with Australia is the absence of a cinémathèque; a single institution where one could view, regularly and repeatedly, the widest possible range of films made at any time anywhere across the globe. Not just the ‘treasures’, but obscure, unloved oddities, the pieces of the jigsaw that go toward our understanding of filmmakers’ work, the difficult experimental works, and so on. For many, the winding-up of the National Film Theatre signalled the “beginning of the end”, so to speak, and the end of a particular style of cinema programming that would usher in the era of multi ple-screen, wide releases of an increasingly narrow range of films. The fact remains, fewer films were theatrically released in 1997 than in previous years. With the demise of the NFT, many turned to television and the then-burgeoning VCR market for comfort. The midnight-to-dawn graveyard shift had long been a source of, in particular, American stu dio films of the 40s and 50s, and VCR timers opened the way for time-lifting these movies for C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

first-time or repeat viewings. As the video market expanded, so too did the range of titles available to rent and buy. Before the huge media shake-up of the mid-1980s, Australia supported a vast range of video distributors, each catering to niche markets of users and product suppliers. Own-your-own titles trickled into the market too, often grouped around niche-market genre films (action, horror, 50s sci-fi). For those with multi-system video players, the enormous range of videos available in the USA (on the inferior NTSC format) was another source for watching films that were not doing the rounds of the festival circuit, television, video libraries and, thankfully, SBS-TV whose foreign-language films and documentaries have long been a welcome respite from the parochialism of Australian television, not to mention a filler for the massive gaps that had begun to show. It can no longer be denied that viewers in Aus tralia are missing a wealth of films that are, and always have been, available in other English-lan guage countries. Just look at the programmes of

New York’s Lincoln Centre, Museum of Modern Art, Film Forum; it’s rare for a month to go by without at least one major specialist season or ret rospective. Non-availability of subtitled prints cannot be the reason we are missing such events. The list of films and filmmakers whose work is no longer on the menu of what we get to see amounts to a sad lament. The arrival of pay-TV and the burgeoning sites of the Internet, however, mark significant and highly encouraging changes. The articles in this and following issues of Cin ema Papers signal, hopefully, the re-emergence of a fresh, exciting and invigourated approach toward

Introduction by Paul Kalina film-watching and the discussion of those films, a discussion that took a different form prior to these developments. As one will see, long-forgotten films and filmmak ers re-emerge, obscure genres regain prominence, critical doctrines and canons are questioned.

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A lot of film purchasing is happening via the Internet, in either VHS, laserdisc or DVD format. The net is a trove of lost treasures, but trying to find them can be a time-consuming and frus trating process. Even when a gem is finally located, one must be extremely careful about whether it is actually the film you want. The version on sale may be censored, unletterboxed, dubbed or recut. It may also be only available in a non-Australian standard such as NTSC, Secam or Mesecam. Its censorship status, too, may be in doubt. There are many things to be careful of. Here are a few tips. By Scott Murray. Le n g t h The quoted running-time may be either that of the original film (before being transferred to tape) or of the videocassette. There is a differ ence. PAL VHS runs at 25 frames per second, as opposed to film’s 24 frames. That means a 100-minute film in a cinema will only last 96 minutes on video. (The faster run ning speed of video also slightly distorts the music track by altering the tone.) As for NTSC, it runs at a slightly different speed to PAL. In the main, though, quoted run ning times usually appear to be those of the film, not the video.

St u d io -c u t Many films are released in versions other than the director intended. Here are a few examples: i Toothless

Roman Polanski’s The Fearless

Vampire Killers or Pardon Me but Your Teeth are in the Back of My Neck (1967) was released ‘uncut’ in Australia, but in the 97-minute version prepared against Polan ski’s protests by the studio, MGM. This shortened version was later released in Australia on video, and was not letterboxed, destroying much of the film’s striking visual appeal. A longer version of 108 minutes can now be obtained in letterboxed format from the UK. But one will have to wait for Polanski to prepare a Director’s Cut at the original two hours plus - that is, if he is so inclined and the missing footage still exists. Often it is lost or destroyed (cf Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons), the key participants are dead or there is no desire on the part of the copyright holder to expend the considerable cash needed.

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Lewis Gilbert’s less-than-dazzling adaptation of Harold Robbins’ trashy The Adventurers was banned in Australia, then recon structed several times before finally getting through in a drasti cally shortened and somewhat garbled version. When finally released on video, the film was ‘uncut’ at 171 min utes. The cable copy now screening on the Encore channel is the same, as is the video on sale in the UK and through most com panies in the US. However, the 171-minute ver sion is the one cut by the studio to receive an American PG rating. The original film actually runs 191 minutes and was rated R in the States, the only place it appears to have been shown complete. The full version is advertised as being available through

www.videoflicks.com (see break out box) as a 2-VHS set. However, the tape itself states 177 minutes and that is the length it runs. The missing minutes remain a mystery (to the two or three people who care!), in Ho lm es

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One of the most brutally studiochopped films is The Private Life o f Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, 1970), which was originally filmed as four-separate-Holmesstories-in-one. However, the studio threw out the “Holmes at Eton” segment, and cut much else. What was left was all jum bled together and ran 125 minutes, instead of the intended 210. There have been rumours for decades about an uncut copy hid den away in London, but this may well be a myth. Fortunately, the laserdisc contains a brilliant 12minute sequence (“The Dreadful C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U G U S T 1998

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Business of the Naked Honeymooners”) cut from the film. Now to find the other missing 70-odd minutes!

Ce n s o r e d So many films have been cut and banned by the Australian censors that it is difficult to select key examples, i Once

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At one end of the critical scale is Nagisa Oshima’s masterpiece, Ai No Corrida (In the Realm of the Senses, 1976), which was cut for commercial release but would eas ily pass today as X, if someone were interested. At the other end is Roger Vadim’s unloved Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), with Rock Hud son as a ladies man on the loose at a university campus. Banned in Australia (presumably for nudity), several ‘reconstructions’ had to be done by the distributor before the film was finally passed in a brief and dazzlingly-incoherent version. The uncut film has never made it to Australian shores on either video or cable, even though a recent viewing reveals it would rate no more than M. u Once

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THREE ICONS: ONEPUNTERSURFS THE NET ALAIN ROBBE-CRILLET

he films of Alain Robbe-Grillet were greatly applauded in the early 1970s, but hardly seen since. (The demise of the Australian National Film Theatre, which once showcased such films, has not helped.) Could the net pro vide access to his films on video? A quick check revealed nothing of note, other than an excellent site devoted to his career as writer and filmmaker (www.halfeya.org/robbegrillet). Entering titles of Robbe-Grillet’s films did not help, either, other than toss up the poster for his most recent feature, Un Bruit Qui Rend Fou (co-directed by Dimitri de Clercq, 1995), and a negative review of it by Jonathan Rosen baum. SadlyAhere was no information on where to buy a copy, however. A lunch with producer Antony I. Ginnane was fer more helpful, Ginnane having tracked down dupes of Several Robbe-Grillet videos at European Trash Video in the USA. How ever, a check revealed European Trash Video had no Internet site and, worse, a bulletin. placed by a Robbe-Grillet fen

eral sex scenes between 14-yearold Michelle Latour (Anicee Alvina) and 15-year-old Paul Har rison (Sean Bury). According to the Censorship Office’s latest Annual Report, that would no longer be permissible. The Censor ruled (in the Aus tralian Hustler case) that 18 was the minimum acceptable age for the depiction of nudity. If the Censor is serious about this (and it did once unban Christiane F. only after the distributor removed a shot of a birthday cake which revealed the girl to be 15; image is everything), the unavoidable con clusion is that Friends would be banned today. Air Force One (Wolfgang Peter son, 1997), which has an extremely violent scene where a

banned decades back that were never resubmitted, such as The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweet heart (Leonard Horn, 1970; sex), Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972; extreme violence) and David Hamilton’s Tendres Cousines (1981; sexual exploita tion of a minor)? Would they pass today and, if not, what crime would importing them on video constitute? The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart appears to be no longer available. The Australian Censor will never pass Last House on the Left, but it is obtainable from the US, if you have the stomach for it. Tendres Cousines is not available, other than on the secondhand market where, like other Hamilton videos, it brings up to US$200. in Once

passed , but today at r isk

terrorist holds a gun to the head of a 12-year-old girl and threatens to blow her away, was passed with out hesitation and rated M. A serious retelling of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, with the girl swimming naked in a river for a second, would be banned. The Australian Censor has lost the plot.

Dubbed 1 Gobbledygook

Many foreign films are only available in dubbed versions. This can be worse than it sounds. When the Americans prepared their version of Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris (Con tempt, 1967), they had the problem of what to do with the mouth move ments of the assistant (Georgia Moll), who originally translated the spoken French into English for the producer (Jack Palance). The Ameri cans ‘solved’ this by giving her the

Of course, given the tightening of censorship in some areas, several films passed previously might be banned today. One is Lewis Gilbert’s Friends. The film was classified NRC in 1971 (after a few frames were deleted), and was a huge hit. It was also shown on television in the same version, despite there being nudity and sev(www.halfeya.org/robbegrillet/rgd/usvideo) stated that European Trash Video had last year stopped selling the Robbe-Grillets. This fen urged all concerned individuals to ring European Trash Video and try to get it to change its policy: (281) 251-0637. Weeks of intermittent checking finally revealed in late April a listing for Un Bruit Qui Rend Fou (bizarrely retitled as The Blue Villa) at http://movie.reel.com, but pleasure turned to disappointment when the small print revealed Reel could not yet make the video available. Even more disappointing was the news (on halfeya.org/robbegrillet) that all the Robbe-Grillet films had just been screened at Chapman University in Orange, California, with Robbe-Grillet in person. An email to the event co-ordinator arrived too late for RobbeGrillet to be asked where one might look for his videos (but produced a delighted and sur prised response that Robbe-Grillet had fens down-under).

At this stage, all one can do is place one’s faith m the rumour that Robbe-Grillet is preparing to (re)release all his films on video sometime this year (and maybe he can arrange for the translation and publication of the second and third instalments of his auto biography, as well). JOHN FARROW

he great Australian director is well sup ported by the web. Videoflicks alone has seven films on offer: Commandoes Strike at Dawn (1942; US$14.99 and $62.99; mmm, tough call), Wake Island (1942; US$14.99), China (1943; it has one of the most brilliant opening sequences in cinema; forget the rest; US$11.99), The Big Clock (1948; US$10.99), Copper Canyon (1950; US$11.99 and $17.99), Hondo (1953; US$17.99) and The Sea Chase (1955; US$11.99). As well, the Web’s great joy for booklovers, Bibliopnd (http://208.144.214. 69/cgi-bin/texis.exe/search.vor), which links 1,500 secondhand dealers around the world, has many Farrow books on offer, including his Damien the Leper (Paul Cox is about to film the same story), his obscure text on shorthand and the limited-edition Seven

Poems in Pattern (US$150). Another site (http://www.pardo.ch/1997/filmprg/ro42.ht ml) has the following interesting information: The International Locarno Film Festival invited twenty-eight directors each to choose a film he or she considered impor tant, but which was either unsuccessful or misunderstood. There was only one condi tion: they had to choose an American film from 1946 to 1996 - the fifty years the Locarno Festival has existed, which we are celebrating this year. We asked the direc tors to give us their thoughts on the films they had chosen. Their statements have been collected in a book called Serious Pleasure, published in French by Actes/Sud (Montpellier 1997) and in Italian by Olivari (Milan, 1997). They were asked to rewrite the history of American cinema in their own way. Their selections and statements form an oblique portrait of a generation of direc tors. Some directors picked films by directors they admired; their statements are classic expressions of “auteur theory”: Joe Dante or Oliver Stone demanding fair play

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

Equally, the American version of Mad Max 2 (Miller, 1982), retitled The Road Warrior, has Mike Preston dubbed but the rest of the cast get ting through unscathed. The one plus of this version is that it is uncut. In Australia, the distributor cut the film a few days before release to obtain an M certificate instead of an R.

Unmasked

most inane dialogue ever devised for film. 11 En glish , too ?

Not only the French face the insidious dubber ... Australians as well. When Mad Max (1979) was released in the USA, it was entirely redubbed into American. The tape on sale at mainstream outlets there is not the film made by George Miller. In fact, some alternative web sites pride themselves on selling the origi nal-language version.

Be careful of American tapes because they are rarely letterboxed, though this is changing (widescreen copies reputedly now outsell pan-and-scan ones; cf George Pan Cosmatos’ Tombstone). Directors such as Steven Spielberg are also insisting that their films be released on video and televi sion in the original screen ratio. In France, every non-Academy format film is letterboxed as a matter of course, but they use the Secam system which is unshowable (except in black and white) on most VCRs and televisions in Australia. Equally, English-language French tapes will have French subtitles. In the UK, tapes are usually “panand-scan”, but some letterboxed versions are available.

It pays to be careful. For example, Le Mépris was shot in super-wide Franscope and was released letterboxed on French video. The American tape is pan-and-scan and dubbed. But it is longer, having two brief montages that the French ver sion doesn’t. The version shown by SBS in 1997 was the fuller American cut, but letterboxed and in French with English subtitles. The Australian cable station Arena also showed in 1998 a film advertised as Le Mépris, but it was the dubbed version, though letterboxed. It should have been called Contempt. That is, four different versions already (or five counting the heavilycensored version shown in Australian cinemas until this year). Who knows how many more versions there might be floating around.

R e t it l e d Don’t expect knowledge of the original title to be necessarily helpful in locating a copy of a film on the web. When Alain Jessua’s Jeu de Mas sacre (1967) was commercially released in Australia it was as Comic

Strip Hero. But don’t try and find it under either title. The only version currently available is The Killing Game , from America. Retitling isn’t restricted to for eign-language films, either. Many Australian films have had name changes in the US, from Turkey Shoot (US: Escape 2000) to Evil Angels (US: A Cry in the Dark). This is why web sites which include director and actor fields in their search engines are a real plus.

Summary If getting an original version of a film is important, rather than a censored, studio-shortened, unletterboxed, dubbed and retitled version, check all your sources first and don’t hand over your credit card number until you are sure you are getting what you really want. That is, apart from ¡[legal copies of some films dubbed into Italian at the odd Italian video shops.

for john Farrow [The Big Clock) [...] And rightly so!

f not Robbe-Grillet, what then of the great Walerian Borowczyk, labelled by many, | including Australia's Phillip Adams, as the greatest director in cinema history? His last was Contes Immoraux [Immoral Tales, 1974) and the last video Le Case Etrange de Drjekyl et Miss Osbourne (retitled Drjekyl and His Women, 1981) in an incomprehensibly trun cated version (less than 70 minutes of the original two hours).1 The search for Borowczyk’s films took : many strange turns. First up is the excellent » site devoted to Borowczyk on MondoErotico J (www.vidmarc.demon.co.uk/mondo.erotico/), reproducing many video covers of Borow czyk’s films and giving a detailed filmography. However, it offers no help on where to buy copies today. Putting various titles into AltaVista’s search engine provided little joy, but putting in the name of lead actress Sirpa Lane did. It led to Uncut Videos, a business (Panaction Direct) operating out of a post-office box in Las Vegas (www.uncutvideos.com). A cheque in the mail and the odd prayer finally saw arrive a just okay copy of Héroïnes du Mal [Three Immoral Women, 1979), in Italian without subtitles, and a very poor La Bête [The Beast, 1975) in French with Greek subtitles. Luminous Film and Video Wurks - f jj § (www.lfvw.com) lists 13 Borowczyks and all are beautiful copies. (An extensive overview of Borowczyk’s films will appear shortly.)

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

Sixfonnerly-avajlabi&intemational versions of La Bete, which is now banned in most countries of die world. Luminous Him and Video Wurks (www.llvw:com) has available the complete film on cassette.

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It's still early days for electronic mailorder, but there already exists several purpose-built sites (mainly U.S.-based) that should be immediately bookmarked by fearless video thrillseekers everywhere. By Michael Helms. First up, you better read up: Steve Puchalski’s bi-annual Shock Cinema is an essential print item. Being hilar ious from go to whoa, Shock Cinema is not only a good read but an excel lent guide to the weirdest and wildest releases from across the planet. Puchalski steers his mag all over the shop as he effortlessly imparts the spirit of sleaze movie-going on 42nd street prior to it being cleaned up and rebuilt in the early ’80s. An insatiable appetite for crazed film of all stripes fuels commentary on made-for-television/video and backyard stuff, the arthouse, oddball movies made by all sorts of desper ates, porn, and foreign language cinema. No film type is bypassed in this entirely eclectic enterprise. Print reviews are also featured. The U.S. video company is also often noted, and a sources list always provided. At the no-frills Shock Cinema homepage, you’ll find back-issue list ings and links along with reviews a’plenty written in the inimitable Puchalski style. The site also provides ordering information for the equally essential Slimetime book, which was the title of the ’zine Puchalski pro duced from 1986 to 1989. http://members.aol.com/shockcin/ind ex.html

Like Shock Cinema's site, the web pages for Video Watchdog magazine are simply advertising space for the print mag it represents, with little recourse to more than basic design. However, you’ll pick up more point ers from one issue of Video Watchdog than you will from 10 years worth of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guides. It doesn’t matter what film you’re after, whether it be a lost episode from the Sleepy Eyes o f Death series, the ‘continental’ version of Beat Girl, Jess Franco’s Tender Flesh, the DVD release of Babe, Son ofFlubber or the deluxe laser disc edition of Cannibal Ferox, if it is somehow connected to fantastic cinema and commercially available somewhere in the world, then VW will track the most com plete version, provide a thorough critical assessment and continue with updates when and if new versions are released. Just peruse any single issue of Video Watchdog and you’ll be sure to come across film titles that you’ll need to discover. The comprehensive nature of Video Watchdog is only one facet of the mag that places it head and shoulders above its nearest competi tors. Besides company listings and

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prices, VW usually only advertises itself within its pages. Exceptions are side-projects that involve Video Watchdog publisher Tim Lucas. One such example is Mario Bava’s film Rabid Dogs. Rescued from a film lab by one of its stars, this crime thriller has been completely restored and ini tially released only on DVD. The Video Watchdog web-site contains current/back issue listings, news and future contents for upcom ing issues of Video Watchdog, and ordering information for the Video Watchdog book and other Video Watchdog products, http://www.cinemawebcom/videowd/ Video Search of Miami isn’t one of the original video dealers from the dawn of the video age, but it’s aggressively marketed itself through and to the cult film enthusiast and may very well be the best. Operating as a club which involves the payment of a one-off membership fee, VSOM caters directly for the USA market in dealing solely with titles unavailable elsewhere in America. This allows it to sidestep copyright considerations and gives it the ability to supply the most obscure titles. Most titles are $25 each (or $20 if you purchase 5 or more). Titles? What titles! Ail cor ners of Euro-sleaze are represented along with a lifelong supply of Asian material that’s spearheaded by many hardcore Japanese triple-X flicks. From Ultraman and rapeman to Keko Mask and Unleashed Perversion of Emanuelle, Video Search of Miami touches all the exploitation bases but also carries a line of

obscure (mainly European) music titles. VSOM always uses the best material available which isn’t always up to broadcast standards but will replace any title purchased with an upgraded version if and when it becomes available. The digital home of VSOM is user friendly all the way, made more so with a worldwide tollfree phone number: 1 888 279 9773. Like its print media counterpart, the VSOM website only lists its titles with little or no other information. Instead, it recommends the use of the best fanzines to fill in the details. Video Search of Miami’s Tom Weisser has already made major print contributions to obscure film culture with several books including Spaghetti Westerns, Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: Horror, Fantasy & Sci ence Fiction Films, Japanese Cinema: Essential Handbook, Asian Cult Cin ema: The Book and the ongoing publication of Asian Cult Cinema

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

F IL M M E B where else. Unlike most USA dealers, SWV presents its videos in full colour slicks that utilize the often brainsnap ping original ad art. http://www.somethingweird.com/

Magazine. The latter titles are all available through the website, http ://www.vsom.com/

Something Weird Video has been assaulting readers of ’zines for many years with its own ads featuring the lurid and eyepopping ad art for some for the most obscure American sex ploitation titles. Originally set up to release sexploitation films from the ’30s to the ’70s (loops and features), SWV soon expanded as it attracted several old-time distributors and pro ducers presiding over product in vaults that was until then thought worthless. The work of Dave Fried man, Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ed Wood Jr. is thrown in with more obscure films from Distribpix, Barry Mahon, Ivan “The Terror” Cardoso, Manuel S. Conde and Coffin Joe. Besides conventional features (as if any of the films listed could be described as such) like Flesbpots of 42nd Street, Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman, We are all Naked, Color Me

IpAlABASESa

m Blood Red, Psycho Lover, The Sinful Dwarf, Blonde on a Bum Trip, etc., SWV also stocks an endless series of trailers, loops and film excerpts. These collections include Bizarro Sex Loops, Bucky Beavers, Twisted Sex, 60s Go Go Chicks and many more. The SWV website lists over 2,000 titles, dozens of which even the most obscure movie enthusiast hasn’t heard of, much less seen. SWV also stocks tee-shirts and its print catalogue alone is worth own ing just for the assemblage of ad material that you won’t find any

CLICHES

http://www.filmfinder.com No more wondering whether you are going to like a film or not, this site interviews you, and, based on your replies, comes up with films you Will like and haven’t seen yet. For a film buff like me, this took quite a few min utes of searching, but what it suggested looked great. With a login, the site remem bers who you are and what you have rated. You can return, rate new things and get new recommendations. Finally, no more wander ing aimlessly around the video store. F ILM .CO M

http://www.film.com With an address like this, you would expect a brilliant site devoted to film. What you get is close, but doesn’t hit the mark. The site has reviews, interviews, sound files, and a release schedule (USA only). It also has a home the atre section, where amongst other things is a 30.000 movie database. Finally, there is the store where you can buy movie merchandise, books, and videos. Film.com is difficult to navigate, and its titles for sections are t; obscure. Whilst the information is there to be ; fojund, finding it is a difficult proposition. th e

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pictures, posters, ratings, trivia, links... more than I can say here. There are about 10 differ ent ways to find just what you want. The site is very well put together and easy to use. This has to be one of the best general film sites on the web. c in e m a

MICROSOFT

freenet

http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/cinfn/ Just in case you thought that the IMDb didn’t have enough search options, this site comes up with one more. Using the IMDb, the site can find connections between any two actors, movie names, directors, producers, or any category the IMDb has. It also has a spell check so if you don’t know how Leonardo spells his last name the spell check can help. Cinema FreeNet is a very simple and useful site with clear instructions and examples. THE NITPICKERS SITE

http://www.nitpickers.com The urge to nitpick about the way the site looks is almost overwhelming, but I’ll refrain. This site contains a database of mistakes, anomalies and small details in movies. These are searchable by movie title, category, or by type of nitpicks. You can of course submit a nitpick yourself about any of the films already listed, or start up a new film to nit pick. The only problem is that you have to be certain of the title. By the way, the winner of > -the largest-number-of-problems award is

Jfhttp://www.imdb.com/ The Internet Movie Databasehas an amazing 130.000 movies in its database, all cross-refprenced You ran find out about the plot, t h e jj Jurassic Park. actors, the director or any crew member who DREW 'S S C R IP T -O -R A M A " worked on the film (with this site you can fol http //www script 0 rama comi lo w the career of a make up artist it you This website started ud when another smpt want) There are rpviews. gnnfi, soundtracks

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

A more recently established USA video and disc distributor is Lumi nous Film & Video Wurks, which has a small but growing catalogue that’s composed of many Euro pean/Asian titles including: Women

site closed down due to copyright infringe ment. This site gets around that problem by using links - over 600 links-to other script sites. Drew’s Script-O-Rama has links to tele vision scripts, feature film scripts, anime film scripts, and full-length scriptsEy screenwrit ers yet to be in print. This site has both transcripts (where some person toiled for hours copying down every word to a movie) and actual scripts. Link pages are great at taking out all the hard work of finding stuff on the net, and Drew’s Script-O-Rama is a great one.

j i t seems that every film poster recently has a web address at the bottom. You go there, learn what the promoters want you to know and get the § opportunity to win something if you live in the USA. Yawn. Point your browser to these sites instead. Here are independent sites, databases of movies, scripts and clichés. By Jacinta Thornier. F IR E F L Y 'S FILMFINDER

Another USA site worth checking out is Sinister Cinema from Oregon which, of all specialist mail-order video companies, has been in busi ness for the longest. Like SWV, Sinister deals in U.S. prints (often from 16mm) and although it doesn’t put a figure on its stock it has a web site that lists thousands of titles including: Bad Girls Do Cry, Wild, Wild Women-, Ecco; Blood Thirst-, Nightmare Castle-, Spider Baby, Moonshine Mountain and Honey moon of Horror. http://www.cinemaweb. com/

CINEM ANIA

http://cinemania.msn.com/ Microsoft gets in everywhere, and when it does you Would expect a good showing... but this site lets the Microsoft side down. This is a news and general information data base site. The news updates daily and has a number of features and interviews. The site’s database is good, but it doesn’t offer the number of different search options that the IMDb does. Cinemania has an awards page (where you can find out about upcoming fes tivals). It also has gossip and the times movies are showing (but only in the USA). Altogether it’s an ordinary site. ALL-MOVIE GUIDE

http://205.i86.i89.2/amg/movie_root.html The All-Movie Guide is a general database of films ranging from the first films ever made up to the latest ones out. You can search through the normal title of the film, cast and crew, but also through the plot, genre, time that it was made, country that it was made in and the mood of the film. Once on the actual filnvyou can get an outline of the plot, lots of information on how the film was made, any sflags (nudity, etc.), links to cast and crew, what awards the film has received, and a rat; , ing form for you to fill out. Whilst it does have as many options as o th e r general databases,

in Fury, Women’s Camp 119-, Baba Yaga - Devil Witch-, Devil in the Flesh (from Joe D’Amato, described as the Master of Sexual Cinema); The Devil Came from Akasava; Dirty Ho and Mad Dog Murderer. http://www.lfvw.com/

Redemption Video is a UK-based company which already has a dozen or so of its mainly European titles released in Oz. However, much of its remaining catalogue hasn’t seen offi cial release and it’s unlikely that it will. Redemption recently established two subsidiary labels called Jezebel and Purgatory. The first label is designed for soft-core U.K. titles from the ’60s and ’70s, like Cool It Carol! and School for Sex. Purgatory is devoted to more modern material from the adult film industry, includ ing Black Orchid and Sex 2: Fate. Redemption has also begun a book reprint line that includes novelizations of Hammer films and many from the Skinhead series of the 70s. http://www.red.jez.demon.co.uk/

the specifics it has chosen to deal in are very wellcovéred. MOVIE CLICHES L IS T

http://www.like.it/vertigo/cliches.html T /; Movie clichés: where would Bond and other <heroes be without them? This site has a long list of movie clichés by subject. There are the ( obvious; “In situations like the Vietnam war, / and violent inner city neighbourhoods, the person with the most plans, prospects, an d . i | hopes will die.” Other clichés you might have just accepted; no one ever runs out of gas.. ,.G (even in long car chases). Corollary: every stolen car has a full gas tank and gets great - -gas mileage. Pick any 10 clichés and you . è■ f have yourself a new movie! PETE ' S MOVIE. PAGE

http://www.petesmoviepage.com/ Pete is a major movie buff. His site has every thing a movie admirer could want. From what’s : coming out, to trailers, reviews, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and a movie web ring. He ». updates his site weekly so it’s a bit slow in 1 Internet terms, but the amount updated each week makes it well worthwhile. For an Internet • site it’s remarkably free of pictures and gad- i gets so the site is fast to load into a browser. When I checked out the site the chat room had only two other people in it, but it was 2am (ESI) in the USA, so I wouldn’t expect more.. Pete’s Movie Page shows that professional sites are not always the way to go. JT URBANCINEFIL E

www.urbancinefile.com.au Andrew L. Urban, a Cinema Papers regular, _ has been doing an excellent job with partner . Louise on their film-news site. Like his televi- - sion persona on SBS’ Front Up, Urban has an open mind and doesn’t use his site to push one view of cinema over another. His gossip...' iffpositive, his news up-to-date and the-reviews hesh. Great site. 5 M

The 51st Cannes Film Festival began in perfect weather, with planes disgorging into brilliant sunshine at Nice all the usual suspects (roughly 9,000 movers and shakers of the global film industry and members of the international press), who each year make the pilgrimage to Cannes. Expectations were high, as there was good word of mouth about films in the main Compétition, and in the parallel sections: Un Certain Regard, Le Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Direc tors’ Fortnight) and La Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week). Unlike some years, the Official Selection, which includes films out of Compéti tion, wasn’t swamped with Hollywood movies, and the Festival got off to a good start. Proceedings opened with Mike Nichols’ Primary Colors, which gave Cannes (Hollywood on the Riviera) all its customary razzamatazz, with out selling its soul to the American majors. Pushing their personas as Bill and Hillary, John Travolta and Emma Thompson brought a touch of trans-Atlantic class to their press conference, with Travolta oozing

warmth and affability, while Thompson, as always, shined with wit and cleverness. The Cannes Jury, which decides the Palme d’Or for films in Compéti tion, also took a bow. With Martin Scorsese as President, the Jury seemed easily the most articulate and intelligent in years. Composed of actors Chiara Mastroanni, Lena Olin, Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver, directors Chen Kaige, Alain Corneau and Michael Winterbottom, writer Zoe Valides and singer MC Solaar, they delivered interesting responses to perennial questions such as: “How do you balance the busi ness of film with the art of cinema?” Scorsese replied that he was opti mistic about the future of cinema. “Cinema is a resilient art form”, he said. “Without art, there would be

no business.” He believed cinema was resurgent, and named Australia as a film-producing country that had emerged in the past 20 years, along with Germany, the two Chinas and Ireland. Comments by the Jury mem bers as to what each would be looking for in the films they were judging were thoughtful and revealed much about their personalities. But the business of the Cannes Festival is, of course, the films them selves, and by day five there was the sense that this year the Festival was pulling away from blockbusters and French costume dramas towards films that were strong, original and provocative. Passion (Szenvedely), a Hungarian ‘film noir’ by director Gyorgy Feher, is adapted from The Postman Always Pangs Twice by James M. Cain. Shot in black and white, it places the story in Hungary in the 1930s. Feher heightens the noir atmosphere by using a processing method which makes the film look as if it has been locked away in a vault for years. Pas sion moves slowly and obliquely, with narrative longueurs that erupt suddenly into explosive action and

sado-masochistic couplings. Poetic and tedious, it remained one of Un Certain Regard’s most interesting films. Quite different was the Colom bian film La Vendedora de Rosas ('The Rose Seller), written and directed by Victor Gaviria. A variation on Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Match Girl”, it focuses on the plight of the street children of Medellin, locked into a spiral of glue-sniffing and neglect. It was infinitely sad, cover ing similar concerns to Babenco’s Pixote (1985). Among the 170 Australians at Cannes, hopes were high for the suc cess of two Australian features that unspooled early in the Festival. Nei ther won prizes, but Rolf de Heer’s Dance Me to My Song, which screened in Compétition, was a tri umph in filmmaking for himself and Heather Rose, a cerebral palsy suf ferer who both co-wrote the script and stars in the film alongside Joey Kennedy, John Brumpton and Rena Owen. Brave, powerful and confronting in every way, Dance Me to My Song is cutting-edge cinema, and it sat well C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

PICS THIS SPREAD: JAN EPSTEIN.

alongside films from other directors, such as Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who push at the frontiers of filmmaking. Like Shine (Scott Hicks, 1997), Dance Me to My Song forces the audience to confront their prejudices, as well as applaud moral courage. Based partly on her own experi ences, Heather Rose’s performance as a grossly-handicapped woman competing with her abusive carer (Kennedy) for the love of a good man (Brumpton) is extraordinary and deeply moving. One suspects that only Rolf de Heer could make the film work. The first-rate cast shows that character is not deter mined by physical appearance, and the film richly deserves success at the box-office. Ana Kokkinos’ Head On (Quin zaine) is similarly brave and

confronting. The film follows 24 hours in the life of Ari (Alex Dimitriades, in a smouldering performance), a young, gay, drug-taking Greek man, rebelling against his sexuality and the constraints and homophobia of Melbourne’s Greek community. Acclaimed in the daily trades and generally received well, Head On, with its explicit gay sexuality, proved too bold for some, who complained as the Festival moved into its second week that ‘alternate’ sexuality this year at Cannes was becoming the norm. Whatever the reasons for this, it was certainly a trend. Gay love fea tured in many of the Festival’s most eye-catching films: Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art (USA), in which Australia’s Rahda Mitchell stars as an ambitious editor’s assistant whose sexual preferences are changed through a chance meeting with a once-celebrated photographer (Ally

minimalist The Hole, set in a raindrenched, disease-ridden Taiwan on the eve of the 21st century, and Don McKellar’s engaging Last Night (Canada) were both sophisticated takes on the ‘Millennium blues’. (In contrast, the 50 minutes of footage shown from Jerry Bruckheimer’s impending Armageddon was trite and populist.) Despite the thematic gloom and doom, Cannes ’98 was proving a solid if not spectacular Festival, although up to almost the last day there was speculation among the press about the lack of serious con-

Sheedy); Patrice Chereau’s Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le Train (Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train), about the ties that bind the friends, lovers and family members of a recently-deceased, tyrannical painter; Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine, the director’s much-anticipated homage to Glam Rock, which was largely dis appointing; and Benoit Jacquot’s L ’Ecole de la Chair (The School of Flesh), about the obsessive love of an older woman (Isabelle Huppert) for a younger bisexual man. Just as topical were films about social disintegration and family dys function. Todd Solondz’s brilliant black comedy, Happiness, Claude Miller’s La Classe De Neige (The Class Trip), and Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (The Celebration) all peel back the layers of family life to reveal the festering sore of paedophilia and incest. Tsai Ming-Liang’s lugubrious,

tenders for the Palme d’Or. N o Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1995), Underground (Emir Kustarica, 1994) or The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) had emerged from the pack, but there were enough good films to convince most critics that it was probably premature to lament the death of cinema, and pointless to mourn the lack of grand masters. Several films from established filmmakers won admiration. Ken Loach’s My Name is Joe is about a 37-year-old reformed alcoholic in Glasgow, who hopes to rebuild his life when he falls in love with a

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young social worker across the social divide. Joe covers familiar Loach ter ritory. It’s a strong attack on the polarization of British society and conservative right-wing politics, including New Labour. However, it’s also humorous and engaging as well as being tragic. The film’s greatest pleasure is Peter Mullan’s charismatic performance as Joe. An irrepressible Glaswegian and fiercely nationalistic Scot, Mullan won Best Actor award for his perfor-

real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi), mar ries, and has a young son, Joshua. Five years later, he finds himself deported with his family to a concen tration camp, where he persuades his young son that the nightmare situa tion is simply an elaborate game. The entire premise of La Vita e Bella is risky, but Benigni carries it off with poignancy and power, thanks to his comedic genius, some inspired writing, and the trust and utter believability of Giorgio Can-

ate cinema by the imposition of con straints. Both Von Trier’s Idioteme ('The Idiots) and Vinterberg’s Festen come certified that they are, amongst other specifications, in colour, made on location without external props, use only hand-held cameras, have no music that is external to the location, and no special lighting or technical effects. Despite these constraints or because of them, both films were innovative, and divided critics

mance, and wore a kilt to the closing ceremony, which both delighted the audience and bemused Scorsese. Mullan’s other triumph was his début as a director, with the pre mière screening in the marketplace of Orphans, a strong statement against guns provoked by the Dun blane Massacre. The General, a handsome blackand-white, widescreen portrait of Dublin master criminal Martin Cahill, marks a triumphant return to form for John Boorman. Fresh and inventive as well as assured and mas terly, The General begins with the assassination of Cahill (Brendan Gleeson), then rewinds to narrate episodes in the life of this fascinating man that led to his murder. Jon Voigt excels in the rôle of the Police Chief dogging Cahill’s career, but the true star of the film is Gleeson, who brings the ambiguous Cahill to life with ease. One of the Festival’s most extra ordinary films was Roberto Benigni’s La Vita e Bella {Life is Beautiful), which won the Festival’s Grand Prix. Benigni, who co-wrote, directed and acts in La Vita, has done the seem ingly impossible and made a ‘comedy’ out of Auschwitz. Outra geously funny in the first part, Benigni plays a Chaplinesque charac ter who in 1938 falls in love (with

tarini as his little boy. Other films which excited interest were: Erick Zonca’s La Vie Rêvée des Anges {The Dream Life o f Angels), starring Elodie Bouchez and Natacha Regnier, who together won the Best Actress award; Siegfried’s Louise {Take 2), also starring Elodie Bouchez; Marc Levin’s vérité style Slam, which won the Caméra d’Or (for first feature by a new director); and the films of the two Danes, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier, whose ‘Dogme 95’ was on everybody’s lips. Dogme 95’ is the manifesto of a collective of four Danish directors, who came together in 1995 to liber

between those who found them wildly arresting, or pretentious (even, in Von Trier’s case, offensive, given his film’s theme of a band of young people pretending to be men tally disabled). Other films which alienated or attracted critics were: Lodge Kerrig an’s interesting, coolly-beautiful Claire Dolan ; John Turturro’s ambitious, not entirely successful homage to theatre, Illuminata-, Robert Duvall’s portrait of a flawed man of God, The Apostle, and Alexei Guerman’s impenetrable satire, Khroustaliov, Ma Voiture! {Kroustaliov, My Car!). The most disappointing films were

Terry Gilliam’s execrable dud, Fear and Loathing in New York, based on Hunter S. Thompson’s classic 1971 novel, and Hector Babenco’s overblown Corazon Iluminado {Illuminated Heart). When Théo Angelopolous’ Mia Eoniotita Ke Mia Mera {Eternity and a Day) unspooled on the last day before the Awards, there was a col lective sigh of relief. Cannes at last had a winner worthy of its coveted Palme. Authoritative and poetic, Eter nity and a Day stars Bruno Ganz as Alexandre, the director’s alter ego, a famous writer who, the day before he goes into hospital to die, revisits the past with the help of a little Albanian boy whom he helps get past the bor der between the two countries. Angelopolous is widely seen as the last of the great European filmmak ers, but, although the Greek director has received many film awards, the Palme d’Or had always eluded him. In 1995, his magisterial epic, Ulysses’ Gaze, was defeated by Emir Kustarica’s sprawling Underground. There was a sense of rightness that this was Angelopolous’ year at last, and that he had won Europe’s top prize with such a moving film as Eternity. More than anything else, perhaps, the Cannes Film Festival reminds the world that not only Americans make films. The Palme d’Or has been won by the Americans 13 times, Italy 9 times, Britain 8, France 7, Japan 4, and Sweden twice. A handful of other countries, including Australia {The Piano), have won it once. This year, Australia was well rep resented in the Festival with two features and two short films (Greg Quayl’s I Want You and Lynn-Maree Danzy’s Fetch), and it was agreed that this year was a strong year for Australian films in the market. Films that reported sales and strong interest were: David Swann’s Crackers, an irreverent, appealing comedy about (you guessed it) a dys functional family; Craig Monahan’s impressive The Interview, starring Hugo Weaving and Tony Martin; Nadia Tass’ Amy, Rachel Perkin’s critically-acclaimed Radiance, about three aboriginal women reuniting to bury their mother; and John Ruane’s Dead Letter Office. Richard Flana gan’s The Sound o f One Hand Clapping reported sales to Canada, Spain, Poland, Brazil, and Russia, while Rowan Woods’ The Boys was praised highly by those who saw it. Other films that appealed strongly to aficionados were Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, which is his best film in years, and N anni Moretti’s Aprile, a whimsical tribute to the birth of Moretti’s son. ©

or many Aus tralian viewers, Irma Vep (1996) has functioned as an introduction to Olivier Assayas. His career as a feature director, however, began ten years pre viously, and his lively involvement in film culture dates back further. (His most recent work, HHH: Portrait ofH ou Hsiao-bsien, screened at this year’s Sydney Film Festival.) Assayas is a critic-turned-filmmaker, and as a devout cinephile he maintains a highly reflective, critical attitude towards the many films he sees. Assayas joined the team at

Cahiers du Cinéma in the late 1970s. For a period of five years, he wrote vigorously and prolifically on his favourite European auteurs (Bergman, Tarkovsky, Bresson), on American genre cinema, on the ‘spe cial effects revolution’, and much else. He was heavily involved in two special issues of Cahiers, “Made in USA” (1982) and “Made in Hong Kong” (1984). This was a fertile period in the history of Cahiers: under the inspired direction of Serge Daney, the maga zine endeavoured to move away from its political and theoretical excesses of the ’60s and ’70s by renewing its interests in aesthetics and popular cinema. Yet Cahiers held onto its radical spirit by opposing a burgeoning ‘middlebrow’ art cinema

on one hand, and a formulæic main stream ‘hipness’ on the other. Assayas’ opinions still evoke the polemics of this period - now as then, he champions what is passion ate, rigorous, risk-taking and truly innovative in cinema, whether this innovation emerges in a huge main stream blockbuster or a lowly avant garde short. Assayas’ feature work began in 1986 with Désordre (aka Confusion), a dark, lively film about a rock band in crisis that has screened on SBS. His career and critical reputation were cemented in Europe by his third feature, Paris s’eveille (Paris Awakes, 1991). Although UEau Froide {Cold Water, 1994) - Assayas’ vivid contribution to the “Boys and Girls of Their Time” series - raised C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

Désordre (Confusion) ~

1989

1991

1993

1994

1996

L’Enfant de l’Hiver

Paris s ’éveille

Une Nouvelle Vie

L’Eau Froide (Cold Water)

Irma Vep

---------------

HHH: Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien

IIIIM IM

som e attention on the international Film Festival circuit, none o f his

beginnings

’50s, such as Les Orgueilleux[The Proud Ones, 1953]. I got along very

primitive ancient knowledge about nar

well with him, and he liked me very

dialogue and move the story forward. It

rative pace, about howto eliminate

film s until Inna Vep has been distrib

Bandis : Did you

uted in English-speaking countries.

A SCREENWRITER BY GHOSTWRITING FOR

much, so I felt I could learn a few

felt really weird to come on the set -

YOUR FATHER?

things from him. I ended up writing

you would have all these boring TV

Yes, I did. I was 20, 21. My father was a

three of the Maigret episodes series

technicians who were shooting this

screenwriter, and he also directed

that Allegret directed.

This is a pity because - as Louis Skorecki recently suggested in Libération - A ssayas is “ the great M annerist o f

start your career as

All of a sudden, I was working for

completely absurd screenplay-and I too completely despised it, because it

m odern cinem a” , som eone w ho

films in the 1940s. When he was older

com bines tight, com pact narrative

he worked a lot for TV. In his later

someone from a previous generation

was so far from anything I wanted to do

structures with a freedom o f style

days, he was ill, and gradually it

and learning a few things from him,

as a filmmaker, so far from the idea I

and a lyrical expressivity that is truly

became more and more complicated

had of filmmaking. I was so

breathtaking.

for him to write. So he used me and my

angry with my father for

younger brother - who was 16 at the

putting me through all this

A t the tim e o f this interview Assayas w as in pre-production on a

time - as a kind of secretary.

crap. Sometimes they’ re shown again on French TV

new film called L ’An Dernier, about

It was interesting because he was

the death o f a m an in his 4 0 s and its

writing Maigret episodes. I was lucky

and people see them ...

effect on his friends. It features V ir

because he had an old friend of his,

[Assayas makes a cringing gesture.]

ginie Ledoyen, Fran çois C luzet and

Yves Allegret, hired to direct some of

N athalie R ichard, and is to be shot in

the segments. Allegret was a very

MARTIN: You COLLABORATED

C in em ascope by his regular cine

interesting filmmaker who made some

ON THE SCRIPTS OF TWO

m atographer, D enis Lenoir. AM

pretty good films from the 1930s to the

André Téchiné

C I N E M A P A P E i S • A U G U S T 1998

films ,

Re n d e z -v o u s

[ 1985] and L e L i e u

Cr im e [T h e S c e n e o f t h e Cr im e ,

1986],

JUST PRIOR TO BECOMING A DIRECTOR YOURSELF. One aspect of your films WHERE I SEE A CONNECTION OR CONTINU ITY BETWEEN YOUR WORK WITH TÉCHINÉ AND YOUR OWN WORK IS IN THE WAY YOU DRAW CHARACTERS. There ’ s OFTEN A ZONE OF MYSTERY OR AMBIGUITY ABOUT A PERSON’S CHARACTER, THEIR MOTIVATIONS, THEIR INNER CONFIGURA TIONS - AND ALSO AN ALMOST CRUEL, OR AT LEAST CLEAR AND HARD, VISION OF REALLY ROTTEN, EVIL THINGS THAT PEOPLE CAN DO UNEXPECTEDLY.

den he hears my voice saying those

tionally, how one scene leads to the

also people that you like, that you

words and when he says them he

next and what that next scene will be,

respect, people whom you think are

hears my voice again in his head, and

let’s just skip to that next scene

creative and can have an input into the

then he’s trying to imitate me! This is

quickly. Then the viewer has the time

character; people who understand

pathetic; it instantly makes everything

and opportunity to understand what is

what you’re doing, why you’re doing it,

completely fake. Sometimes you see

going on in the interval, in the moment

and how they can be part of the

films that are directed by somebody

process. It is very much about trusting

that you know and, when you watch

MARTIN: Jean-Pierre Leaud has

the actors.

the actor, you feel they’re imitating the

APPEARED IN TWO OF YOUR FILMS. THE first , P a r i s s ’ e v e i l l e , has been cred ited WITH RE-LAUNCHING HIS CAREER IN THE ‘90s. He’S a VERY STRANGE AND ECCENTRIC ACTOR IN MANY WAYS. HOW CLOSELY DO YOU DIRECT HIM? FOR INSTANCE, THERE’S A MOMENT IN IR M A V e p where he’s talking to Maggie [Maggie Cheung ] and walking up and down with a Coke bottle in his hand.

I just feel that when I am writing a character, and then choosing an actor or actress to do that particular charac ter, I’m essentially giving them the

mannerisms of the director!

style

of the cut.

is the part that you create. How you

impose on the actors the idea that you

create believable individuals, how you

have of the character. If you think that

MARTIN: One thing that’ s striking in ALL OF YOUR FILMS, IN TERMS BOTH OF NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION AND VISUAL CONSTRUCTION, IS THE WAY YOU USE A ZIG-ZAG FORM. YOU STAY VERY CLOSE TO PEOPLE VISUALLY, FOLLOWING THEM, AND THEN SUDDENLY THERE’S A DIVER SION AND YOU FOLLOW SOMEBODY ELSE. The space around the characters is ALWAYS A MYSTERY; YOU WONDER WHO IS GOING TO ENTER THE FRAME AND WHERE WE ARE GOING TO BE LED NEXT. And in the narrative, also : it seems LIKE, EVERY 10 MINUTES, THERE’S A NEW ZIG-ZAG IN THE STORY, SUCH AS THE ABRUPT INTRODUCTION OF A NEW, UNEXPECTED CHARACTER. WHAT IS YOUR ATTRACTION TO THIS /ESTHETIC?

dig into their feelings and emotions:

person is close enough to the charac

I like long shots which gradually dis

body to repeat the lines with him. He

that is much more what cinema is

ter, smart enough to understand the

cover space and what’s happening in

just repeats the lines like a mad man.

character. From that moment on, I assume that they know more than I do

Obviously the experience of working

about the character. What I’m not

with Téchiné was important for me -

interested in is having the actors

specifically in terms of working on

merely repeat what is written in the

characters, and also in connecting

screenplay. What I’m interested in is

characters and actors. When I was

what they’re going to give that is com

working with him, I realized what it

pletely different from what I wrote.

meant to work with actors. Before

At some point, just showing the face

working with him, I had the firm idea

of a person means so much more than

that the main thing was the story, and

whatever words I have written! You

how you tell it.

express so many more nuances, bring

But working with André, at some point I understood that the story is not the important thing. What is important

about, much more than storytelling.

so many more human, believable, tac tile things. You have to respect that, not try to

He performs a gesture where he

TAKES A SWIG AND HIS EYES ROLL UP TO THE CEILING. DOES AN ODD GESTURE LIKE THAT COME FROM YOU, OR FROM HIM, OR FROM BOTH OF YOU? That comes from him. Working with Jean-Pierre is very com plicated because he has very bad memory problems - real or imagined but he’s obsessed with them. So you give him the screenplay two months before shooting and he hires some

character, then you have to just follow

it. This a basic device of suspense in

Meanwhile, he’s trying to find the right

the actor and help him if he gets really

cinema, but it’s more than that, too.

pace, and imagining how it’s going to

is serious, and a part of them is com

off-track at any stage. If he’s in com

The concept that, at every moment,

be shot.

pletely enigmatic. They’re concerned

plete contradiction with what the

suddenly something can change inside

with good things and evil things, and

scene means, or if something escapes

the frame stimulates the viewer’s

imaginable for a director, especially

they have to deal with that in their

him, I would put him back on the right

attention.

when you want to improvise a little bit,

everyday life, with things that are mys

path. But I would never say to an actor,

terious even to themselves. But that is

“This is your motivation”, because I

on fixed shots of conventional dra

minute, which is my way of working. In

a good description of any individual —

feel that, if I come out and state it like

maturgy, basically it’s boring. It’s only

comes Jean-Pierre and he has this com

every single person has to deal every

that, it is an absurd limitation of what

about acting and writing, and it ren

pletely stiff idea of what he’s going to

day with unconscious aspects of their

the actual motivation of the character

ders the shots predictable.

do. He’s already decided that he has to

own life and personality. I don’t like

is. The character is driven by many

much the notion of evil, but I would

contradictions, many complex webs of

scene or inside the shot, is what’s

say everyone has some destructive

feelings. If you try to simplify motiva

changing: the process by which the

aspects. I think that simply belongs to

tions with words it just destroys the

world changes and transforms. I simply

completely poetic actor, somehow he

the whole idea of a character: they’ re

whole thing, it destroys the whole

like the idea that a scene starts some

manages to adapt to the situation.

believable if they possess some kind of

truth of it.

where and ends somewhere else.

Something clicks and then all of a sud

I believe that a part of my characters

mystery. If a character is completely

When you have a system based only

What I’m interested in, inside the

So he’s truly the worst kind of actor

and organize the scene at the last

sit down, but all of a sudden there are no chairs - so we have to find a chair! Ultimately, because he’s a great,

I think that actors should let them

It’s the same with the shots: you

clear and flatly readable, he’s not

selves be carried by the character, in

expect that they’re heading some

human - he’s a movie character!

the same way I let myself be carried by

where but then, all of a sudden,

ished. You can’t get anything else out

the meeting between the actor and the

something else happens. It creates an

of him. [Laughs.]

character. When I’m shooting a scene,

interaction with the viewer, a way of

I’m incredibly curious about what is

making the viewer involved in the way

love him - and when he’s right, he’s brilliant.

BANDIS: When you direct an actor , HOW DO YOU TRY TO PRESERVE THAT ZONE OF MYSTERY? It ’S A LEGEND THAT ACTORS WILL SAY TO A DIRECTOR, “SPELL OUT MY MOTIVATION FOR ME.” AND I’VE HEARD DIRECTORS WORRY ABOUT HOW TO PRESERVE THE ELEMENT OF MYSTERY IN THAT WORKING SITUATION. HOW, IN YOUR COLLABORATIONS WITH ACTORS, DO YOU PRESERVE THAT SENSE OF A SECRET, A MYSTERY OR AMBIGUITY INSIDE CHARACTERS?

along with who are not just actors, but

going to happen: how things are going

the film is happening, or the way it was

to come out of the mouth of the actors,

made - especially in a film like Irma

what it is going to sound like. Only

Vep, which plays so much on the

then do I know what the scene really

reflexes or habits of viewers.

means. I have a rough idea when I write it, but not until I have shot the

It is one of the great things for me as a viewer: there’s no condescension or

scene do I exactly know what’s

insult, you have to catch up, not every

involved in it.

thing is spelt out - it’s much more

It’s for the same reason that I would

stimulating.

I think the main issue is casting the

never say to an actor, “You should say

I have this theory of dramaturgy that,

right people - people that you get

the line this way”, because all of a sud

since every film-viewer knows, conven

den his lines come out completely spontaneously - once! Then it’s fin

So that is what I’m dealing with, but I

tastes and influences MARTIN: You wrote a piece for the

400 th

issue of P o

s it if

[translated

Andy Warhol’s L o n e s o m e C o w b o y s [1968]. In that article you say that, for you , P r o j e c t i o n s 4 a n d a H a l f ] about

there are three special directors who really invented something ,

INVENTED THEIR OWN FORM: ANDY C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1 998

Warhol, Robert Bresson and Guy Debord . W hat connects these three

They’ re really into the absolutely

completely despise Chinese culture.

abstract, poetic core of what interests

And why are they interested in Woo?

BANDIS: A nother branch of cinema

NAMES FOR YOU?

me in cinema. Since I wrote this piece,

Why are they interested in these films

THAT YOU WROTE A GREAT DEAL ABOUT IN THE ’80S WAS THE HORROR GENRE, C ronenberg , Carpenter - the whole “ cinema of the fantastic”. Would

I think that what truly connects these

I would have to add the films of Ken

now? Because they’re using Western

filmmakers is the strength of the

neth Anger, because, seeing them

codes. Hong Kong cinema, Chinese cin

sad, and a very, very bad movie.

impression they made on me - in terms

again recently, just blew me away.

ema, is completely fading for exactly

of the things that have been so incredi

He’s also one of the great film poets of

the same reason that national cinemas

bly important for me, the things helped

all time. His work is amazing.

are fading all over the world - because

YOU EVER MAKE A FILM IN THAT VEIN YOURSELF?

of the fire power of Hollywood movies.

Well, why not? I’m not sure I could

me make sense of what I wanted to do

BANDIS: There ’s a stand -out scene

in filmmaking, even in my way of think

I r m a V e p where a pushy journalist

ing about cinema.

[Antoine Basler ] makes a speech to Maggie Cheung about the superior ity OF WHAT HE CALLS “STRONG ACTION FILMMAKING” OVER THE “ bankrupt ” LEGACY OF THE NOUVELLE VAGUE GENER ATION. What does this speech REPRESENT FOR YOU?

I still consider Bresson the greatest filmmaker ever. I have complete admi ration for every single frame of his films, every single moment. The films of Bresson give one the confidence to

So the Hong Kong film industry is try ing to survive using Western codes, trying to sell to their audiences who are now only interested in Western

write it or make it, but maybe it would be interesting. What we’re really talking about is the early ’80s. At that time, horror films

films - exaggerated Western films in

were really the most innovative thing

disguise, which is basically the formula

that was happening in American film-

for Woo’s films. Then, all of a sudden,

making. All of a sudden, there were

people see these films in the States

original, independent new filmmakers

It is connected with the situation of the

and think they understand everything

who were working on zero budgets and

which something important can be

French mainstream cinema press. One

about Chinese cinema, and why it’s

making something that was very new.

achieved. I think Bresson is one of the

way of saying it would be that he rep

interesting!

most important artists of this century.

resents one contemporary way of

make great films - by allowing us to believe that cinema is a medium in

Debord has that importance for me in

seeing films that is very present, every

Well, I’m sorry, they have a deformed mirror of their own filmmaking, of the

stronger than whatever I was seeing at

worst aspects of their own films. They

the movies at the time. I was looking in

have no idea what the martial arts rep

cinema for something that would have

resent in China and Chinese culture;

the same energy, the same feeling,

they have no idea even of the impor

something as new, different and radi

tance of someone like Bruce Lee. For

cal. I felt that in new, abstract horror

them, it’s just people fighting, people

movies there was something similar to

with one gun in each hand, slow-

punk.

motion shots of people getting shot

where: the idea that films shouldn’t be

politics or philosophy. I’ve been an

intellectual, that you shouldn’t use

obsessive reader of Debord. And his

your brain to make film, you should

films made a very deep and strong

use your guts, whatever that means.

impression on me. They’re complete

Now, John Woo makes films with pro

collages, especially the last one, In

fessional choreographers. They’ re

drum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni

completely designed and story-

[1981], which is one of the most beauti

boarded, completely mental, much

I’ve always thought that John Carpen

down. The reason I wanted to pinpoint

ter was a very interesting filmmaker

that way of seeing film in Irma Vep -

and I think he has kept on being so.

that post-Quentin Tarantino way of

He’s very uneven, and has made really

seeing Asian cinema - is because it’s

horrible movies, but I like his early

really annoying and very powerful

films very much. Maybe if I saw them

today in French cinema.

again now, I wouldn’t like them as

MARTIN: It’s a perversion of what

terms of my vision of the world, my

In the late ’70s, punk music made an enormous impression on me - much

WAS INTERESTING TO CRITICS LIKE YOUR SELF in Hong Kong cinema when you WERE WRITING IN THE EARLY ’80S: THE RADICAL FORMAL ASPECTS OF TSUI Hark ’s and Woo ’s works , aspects THAT COULD BE CONNECTED WITH EXPER IMENTS IN ART CINEMA AND AVANT GARDE CINEMA. BUT THIS WAY OF SPEAK ING THAT THE JOURNALIST REPRESENTS BLANKLY OPPOSES THE TWO TRADITIONS OF POPULAR AND EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA.

ful, visual poems produced by cinema.

more mental than any ‘intellectual’

It is about time passing, youth disap

film. But there’s this idea that violence

That is why for me the whole point of

much. But at the time i remember that

The Fog [1980] made a very big impres sion on me, also Assault on Precinct 13 [1976] and, even more recently, They

Live [1988], Prince of Darkness [1987] and In The Mouth of Madness [1995] all very interesting films. Cronenberg is a great filmmaker by any standards. I don’t like his recent work much. Okay, I like Crash [1996], but not M. Butterfly [1993] or Naked

Lunch [1991]. I like his more abstract films, and I usually like the films that

pearing, ideals of youth fading, about

is more vital or lively than thought or

the scene is to use Maggie, who has

he writes himself, because I think he’s

the world changing. It’s very hard to

reflection. This is not my idea. I believe

worked with these people. She says

a very good writer, with a very strong

describe. It is a truly extraordinary film.

that thought or reflection are much

the same thing that Hark and Woo

vision.

more lively than the simple brutality or

would say: that there are different

violence of action filmmaking.

kinds of filmmaking. Action filmmaking

For different reasons, I would put the films of Andy Warhol on the same level. They’re also - at least his best

When you’re a filmmaker in France,

Or take somebody like Wes Craven. I think these are people who, in a small

is not the only genre. But whatever

scale way, invented a great deal in terms of aesthetics and form. They

films, like Chelsea Girls [1967], which I

this is a vision of filmmaking that

was innovative or experimental in mid-

think is his most brilliant w o rk - films

you’re confronted with a lot. It really

’80s Hong Kong cinema has now been

have never been completely swallowed

that deal with the present. They cap

drives me mad and makes me very

completely absorbed by American

by the Hollywood mainstream system.

ture the moment of the present;

angry, partly because I’m very familiar

films - because of the fast editing, the

Interestingly enough, they’re all writ

they’re like documentaries, capsules of

with Hong Kong filmmaking. I’ve writ

use of abstract shots that Chinese cin

ers - the only writer-directors allowed

time. You watch those films and say,

ten about it and, in 19 8 4 ,1did the first

ema has always used. It was really very

to work within the system of Holly

“Wow, these films look exactly how the

complete survey of Hong Kong cinema

new and exciting at the time, but now

wood filmmaking. Carpenter has

mid ’60s were.”

published in Europe. Now, all of a sud

it’s everywhere in American main

consistently been involved in the writ

den, there are all these B-film buffs

stream cinema. That’s why, when you

ing of his films - under his own name

three artists are all very much at the

who have absolutely no idea what Chi

see Hark’s Van Damme movie, Double

or not; Cronenberg most of the time;

core of what I love in filmmaking.

nese filmmaking is. In fact, they

Team [1997], it’s embarrassing, really

and Craven every single time. ©

Finally, I think that, for me, these

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

SH ORTLĂ&#x20AC;ND

14 ridge street, n orth Sydney nsw 2060 australia telephone / 61 2) 9955 3663 facsimile 7 612) 9955 3883 contact / michael murray web site / www.extro.com.au e-mail / info@extro.com.au

Cinematic un-cliché I

X-Rated Romantic Humanist

Bryan Brown and Ken Russell team up for a trip to video hell.

The Interview begins with a simple premise an innocent man wrongly accused - before challenging the audience with fundamental questions of storytelling and truth.

Lorraine Mortimer finds much to applaud in Pedro Almodovar’s latest outing, Live Flesh

FAMILY FEASTING

It’s A Dog. Boys

• YOUTHFUL CHAMELEONS

A QUI ET M A G N I F I C E N C E

he trouble with successful films is that they become bench

marks at least, and the source of much imitation, parody and refer encing at most. How often have

CRACKERS D ir e c t e d

Da v id S w a n n . P r o d u c e r : C h r is

W a r n e r . S c r e e n w r it e r : Da v id S w a n n . D ir e c t o r

o f p h o t o g r a p h y : La s z l o

B a r a n y a i . E d it o r : K en S a l l o w s . P r o d u c t io n

d e s ig n e r :

T r a c y W a t t . M u s ic :

R ic k y E d w a r d s . Ca s t : W a r r e n M it c h e l l (A l b e r t ), P e t e r R o w s t h o r n (B r u n o ), S u s a n Ly o n s (H il a r y ), Da n ie l K e l l ie (| o ey ) , T e r r y G il l (Ja c k ), M a g g ie K in g (V i), V a l e r ie Ba d e r (D o tty ). A u s t r a l ia n

d is t r ib u t o r :

S h a r m il l

F il m s . A u s t r a l ia . 19 9 8. 3 5 m m .

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

One of the by-products of this phenomenon is that new films are often robbed of autonomy and identity, simply because somebody

films been likened, attached or pla

immediately likens it to another film. Crackers is in danger of

giarized to Pulp Fiction (Quentin

becoming known as the next The

Tarantino, 1994)? And, more locally, how often have we heard that such-and-such a film is the next Strictly Ballroom (Baz

Castle (Rob Sitch, 1997), and that would be a shame, because they’re really not similar at all. Sure, they’re both stories about

Luhrmann, 1992) or Muriel’s Wed ding (P. J. Hogan, 1994) or The

families narrated by young boys,

Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stefan Elliott, 1994)?

very broad Australian humour, but

and certainly both films exhibit their themes and preoccupations

in review Films

Angus’ overprotective anger. At

function is Bruno and Angus, who have a loving and close relation ship as father and son, and we see Joey looking on in envy. Unfortu nately, we don’t get the same depth with the female characters.

least there’s Bomber, Jack’s griz

Fair enough, it’s a story about

zled dog, to keep him company.

fathers and sons, but at times the

And then Albert (Warren Mitchell), Jack’s father, arrives at

women just seem to be there to give the male characters some

are very different indeed. Joey Dredge (Daniel Kellie) is a 12 year-

Vi’s request, which sends Jack into

thing else to bounce off. Therein lies the film’s basic

old whose father died some time

Albert for deserting him and his

problem: everything seems to be

ago. His mother, Hilary (Susan

mother many years ago. Albert’s an ex-crim, so Joey isn’t real keen to

there just to set up a lot of jokes

share the back shed with him. But, somehow, Albert wins him over,

up a few notches (as it was in director David Swann’s short film

continued

Lyons), is currently seeing Bruno (Peter Rowsthorn), who has a son of his own, Angus (Christopher Chapman), and Joey doesn’t care

a rage. He has never forgiven

and visual gags. Reality is cranked

and offers to teach Joey how to

Bonza) to give the film a crazy,

for either of them. He’s still missing his real father, he’s not doing so

defend himself if he in turn will help him restore Jack’s forgotten

well in school, and Hilary’s about at her wit’s end. So she announces

sailing boat as a Christmas surprise

hilarious atmosphere from the word go, but that leaves it very little room to go anywhere else,

for him. That’s one of the threads run ning through the film. There’s

and, when it does, it smacks of contrived orchestration and

plenty else going on - mostly comic

Crackers is not funny or touching;

impress Joey at all. As soon as they arrive, it’s

moments as Joey keeps setting Bruno up for humiliation - but

clear that Christmas is going to be a disaster. Bruno, being the touchy-feely new-age lapsed hippy

there’s also a lot being said about fathers and sons. Some of it’s obvi ous, such as Joey’s refusal to accept Bruno as a stepfather figure,

it is both of those things, quite successfully. It’s just forced at times, stretched that little too far,

that the four of them are going to holiday with her parents over Christmas, and this does not

that he is, immediately rubs up Jack (Terry Gill), Hilary’s father, the wrong way. Jack’s a bloody Aus tralian all the way: an aggressive and intolerant redneck. His wife, Vi (Maggie King), manages to keep him in line-most of the time; and her sister, Dotty (Valerie Bader), is a man-hungry flirt. Joey can only look forward to a holiday of Vi and Dotty’s smothering lipstick kisses, baiting Bruno, and putting up with

and Jack’s inability to forgive Albert, but there are some well-observed moments as well. At one stage, Vi lines up Albert, Jack, Bruno and Joey for a photo - four generations together-and their collective dis comfort as Vi bullies them closer together says a lot very succinctly about men, fathers and the display of affection and closeness. In contrast to the Dredge dys

plotting. That’s not to say

so that it lets its structure show through the gaps. Crackers should not be com pared to The Castle too much. It is a film in its own right and deserves to be seen as such, but one other thing that they do share is a familiar and funny portrayal of Australian family life that we can watch with delighted but embar rassed recognition. And that alone is enough to recommend it. © T IM HUNTER

(Aaron Jeffery), who plays the men

THE INTERVIEW D ir e c t e d

C r a ig M o n a h a n . P r o d u c e r :

B il l H u g h e s . S c r e e n w r it e r s : C r a ig M o n a h a n , G o r d o n Da v ie . T e c h n ic a l A d v is e r : G o r d o n Da v ie . D ir e c t o r

PHOTOGRAPHY: SlMON DUGGAN. SOUND r e c o r d is t : J ohn

W il k in s o n . E d it o r : S u r e s h

A y y a r . C o m p o s e r : Da v id H ir s c h f e l d e r . Ca s t : H u g o W e a v in g (E d d ie R o d n e y

'W . laekiS!3l|tb®rii :

$):£rackeràj^j

Fl e m in g ), D et S g t John S t e e l e (T o n y M a r t in ), D et S n r C o n s t a b l e W a y n e P r io r (Aa r o n J e ff e r y ), M ic h a e l Ca to n (B a r r y W a ll s ), P e t e r M c Ca u l e y (D et I n s p H u d s o n ). A u s t r a l ia n

d is t r ib u t o r :

G l o b e . A u s t r a l ia .

1998. 3 5 m m . 99

m in s .

he premise is simple. A man is taken into custody for ques

tioning about a crime. The police are convinced they have their man; he protests both his innocence and ignorance. What are the issues that arise from this situation and how do they affect the parties involved?

The Interview begins with this

is there, and this remains the key to the film’s suspense, the writer’s ‘continuous reveal’: we learn the nature of the crime alleged as it is revealed to Eddie through the ques tions he is asked, questions he (initially) has no answers for. The Interview begins with the cinematic cliché of the innocent man wrongly accused, then turns this upside down as Eddie begins to learn the rules of the game and proceeds to alter the power rela tionship between suspect and interrogator. As these power dynamics shift,

basic premise and revels in the

so do our sympathies. Steele is not simply the ‘bad guy’ in the good-

complexities that unfold.

bad character dichotomy. We learn

Eddie Fleming (Hugo Weaving) is rudely awakened at 5am by a

of the power-play between Steele

team of cops banging down his

tor Jackson (Paul Sonkkila), who

door, throwing him onto the floor

wants results but fails to support

and ransacking his flat. Shell shocked, he is taken to police

Steele when he most needs it. We

headquarters, a cold, harsh interior bathed in blue light with Gothic

acing thug to the cool, calculating Steele. The audience knows no more than Eddie does about why he

and his superior, Detective Inspec

also learn of the cosy relationship between the media (Michael Caton as press reporter Barry Walls) and

headpieces staring down from

the police top-brass, which under

columns. His antagonists are Detec

mines the delicate work of men like

tives Steele (Tony Martin) and Prior

Steele, who are not interested in

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

Hugo Weaving excels in the

SHOOTING FISH

slippery character of Eddie: his chameleon-like personality swings from helpless victim with a speech impediment to the articulate, remorseless criminal and back again. His myriad of facial expressions and physical habits (Eddie’s legs bounce furiously with excitement while he tells his tale) combine to produce a wonderfully complex, ambiguous

who suddenly appears animated,

rience of two veterans of the police drama for his first feature film: pro ducer Bill Hughes (Phoenix and Janus) and co-writer Gordon Davie

telling Steele what he wants to hear. His confession is a re-cre ation and reinterpretation of the

dramatic personality change, so that, when he returns to the per

{Phoenix, Janus, Corelli, The Bite, Mercury, Secrets, Good Guys Bad Guys), former member of the Victo

facts as they have been presented to him. Eddie is media-literate, as demonstrated by his collection of

cocky and very much the criminal he is accused of being. Unlike Steele - who wants to believe - our foundations are shaken by Eddie’s

sona of the film’s opening scenes,

rian crime squad. The result is a

newspaper clippings, and he draws

we remain uncertain about what

privileged insight into the ethics

we have just witnessed: the frank disclosures of a criminal or the

and politics behind police interro gations, and a close examination of

upon his vast knowledge of crimes related in the press to construct his

desperate need for attention of a

the point at which the two become

lonely man? The script’s psychological

blurred. The search for truth bristles

game-play is intensified by the

against the issue of civil rights,

narrative. The interrogation is por trayed as an act of psychological seduction, with the role of seducer constantly switching sides. In the earlier stages, we witness Steele manipulating Eddie’s emotional

Gothic industrial design of police

and the tools of surveillance are

headquarters. Blue-grey tones and

turned against those who normally

harsh surfaces dominate, with light

use them. Steele’s interrogation

glimpsed only from the barred win

is being monitored by the Ethics

manipulation to his own advan

dow at the top of the interrogation

Committee, led by Detective

tage, teasing Steele with a hint of information and withholding fur

distress and confusion, thereby laying traps. Eddie then turns this

room, which in turn accentuates

Inspector Hudson (Peter

the shadows into which Eddie fre

McCauley), who is ready to pounce

quently disappears. States of by the use of slow-motion photog

on any indiscretion. Steele’s sense of frustration is acutely felt, just as palpably as Eddie’s humiliation

raphy and exaggerated sound,

and desperation. The film demon

techniques that are employed to

strates that any sense of objective

brought before him. Eddie con

great effect in the opening scene

truth is an impossibility in this situ

cludes his tale and smugly accepts

when the police raid Eddie’s flat,

ation: it comes down to what you

the ‘post-coital’ cigarette proffered

and again in a private moment

can get away with, on both sides of

where Steele’s calm exterior

the interrogation table. The Interview problematizes

by Steele. But Steele dampens Eddie’s moment of triumph by

•emotional distress are heightened

threatens to crack.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

ther detail until he is brought some food. He proceeds to enthral Steele with his candid ‘confession’, told with charisma and relish as he con sumes the smorgasbord of food

refusing to smoke himself.

of photography:

P r o d u c t io n

d e s ig n e r :

M a x G o t t l ie b . Ca s t :

S t u a r t T o w n s e n d (J ez ), Da n F u t t e r m a n (D y la n ), Ka t e B e c k in s a l e (G e o r g ie ), N ic h o l a s G r a c e (M r S t r a t t o n -L u ce ), Ra l p h I n e s o n (M r Ra y ), D o m in ic M a f h a m (R o g e r ). A u s t r a l ia n

d is t r ib u t o r :

199 8. 95

G l o b e . U.K. 3 5 m m .

m in s .

desire to live in a stately home is the motivation for a young

trio to pull off a series of financial

Shooting Fish. The title refers to

scams in the romantic comedy,

these questions are played out. The gradual erosion of what, for

their systematic targeting of afflu

Steele, seemed a certain conviction parallels the audience’s growing

titled medical student Georgie (Kate

ent “big fish”. Impoverished but Beckinsale) meets smooth-talking American Dylan (Dan Futterman) and the socially-awkward technical whiz, Jez (Stuart Townsend), when working as a typist, though she is

to justify unethical tactics if they produce a result. He relishes the challenge posed by Eddie, but

initially unaware of the unlawful

reveals his own human frailty when he accuses Prior of disloyalty and

between Georgie and Jez is one of a number of subplots and episodes

when he seems too eager to believe Eddie’s story. It is testi

which leave few dull moments in this likeable and energetically paced film. Eventually, Dylan and

exterior. ing that it is mere storytelling, crowd-pleasing: Eddie is simply

S c h w a r t z . D ir e c t o r

H e n r y B r a h a m . E d it o r : A lan S t r a c h a n .

mind or simply mad? Is he guilty

mony to Martin’s performance that the subtleties of Steele’s own humanity shine through his cool the notion of confession, suggest

S c r e e n w r it e r s : R ic h a r d H o l m e s , S t e fa n

or innocent? Steele is the foil against whom

ful interrogator, who sees no need

Director and original scriptwriter

Ste fa n S c h w a r t z . Pr o d u c e r s :

Martin’s portrayal of a man under pressure is impeccable: he is a skil

Craig Monahan employed the expe

R ic h a r d H o l m e s , G l y n is M u r r a y .

characterization: Is Eddie a master

uncertainty about Eddie. Tony

politics or fame. Finally, our empa thy is challenged by Eddie himself,

D ir e c t e d

The Interview is a highlystylized psychological drama, its

ness of their activities. The developing romance

Jez’s illegal dealings land them in gaol, thus finding themselves in the predicament of having to tell Georgie about their secretly stock

emotional undercurrents accentu

piled millions, and the fact that the orphans for whom they steal

ated by the hyper-reality of its sound, photography and produc

money are only two - themselves. The UK success of Stefan

tion design. But this would be a

Schwartz’s Shooting Fish has, perhaps inevitably, resulted in com

hollow shell without the riveting performances of the two leads and a script that revels in the slippery nature of its characters. The effect is to beg the question: “Just who is interviewing whom?” As with all thought-provoking films, The Interview asks more question than it answers. © FINCINA HOPGOOD

parisons between this film and The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997). But Schwartz’s film has a less spe cific locale and less of a social conscience than Cattaneo’s hit. Though purportedly about a pair of socially responsible contemporary Robin Hoods, Shooting Fish actu ally derives considerable humour

in review Films

continued

Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave

put there by Dylan and Jez to aid

(1994) and Trainspotting (1996).

their escape from incarceration.

Shooting Fish is intermittently suc

But, most of all, the disused gasometer in which Jez and Dylan

cessful in disengaging romantic

but the latter film’s combination of

reside is a shrine to their various

use of lightly self-conscious

humour and generosity of spirit is

enthusiasms: one interior wall is in

humour and comic situations that

on t h e n o v e l b y

echoed in Shooting Fish. Charac

the style of a stately home, another

PHOTOGRAPHY: AFFONSO BEATO. EDITOR: JOSÉ

teristic of this generosity is a

space is devoted to a jukebox that

are peripheral to the inevitable romantic union. For example, the

subplot concerning accommoda

plays only Burt Bacharach songs, and the rest of the place is strewn

subplots concerning Georgie’s

N e r i (E len a ), Ja v ie r B a r d e m (D a v id ), Jo s é

devious fiancé, her financial machi

S a n c h o (S a n c h o ), A n g e l a M o l in a (C lar a ),

with technical gadgets. The offbeat settings in Shooting Fish are cen

nations, and Jez and Dylan’s

from revealing the superficiality of

tion for Downs Syndrome children,

Dylan and Jez’s worthy intentions. They take glee in ripping off mem

which is dealt with only briefly but

bers of the affluent middle-class, but their acts of generosity are deceptive, such as giving theatre tickets to one of their victims, only to break into their vacated house during the performance. Despite its UK origins, Shooting

Fish is in many ways reminiscent of American independent youth films, such as the recent Bandwagon (John Schultz) and Amy Heckerling’s Clue

less (1995). The social dimension of Schwartz’s film takes the form of comic references to social rituals and attitudes, like the image of a dozen people pulling out personal electronic organizers to record a

in a funeral parlour, having been

D ir e c t e d

comedy from cliché, through the

tral to the film’s visual and comic

much in a physical locale as in a sphere of popular culture which

appeal, with Schwartz and produc tion designer Max Gottlieb

with elements of caper comedy. Indeed, Schwartz’s film is so

reaches across the Atlantic. Dylan’s

demonstrating a flair for using

nationality provides opportunities for jokes about cultural difference, which also end up drawing our attention to the film’s hybrid ele

spectacle to add interest to stock

brimful of quirky subplots that, were it not for the implication that

ments. Indicative of this diversity

than a distraction from the basic allegiance to romantic comedy.

of references is the soundtrack’s inclusion of Britpop bands such as Space and the Bluetones alongside Burt Bacharach, the latter echoing romantic comedy’s recent revivals of past hits (as in My Best Friend’s Wedding[P.\. Hogan, 1997]).

Shooting Fish’s enthusiasm for

we should not take the story too seriously, Shooting Fish would be

closely for technical implausibili-

times one might tire of the empha sis on funky camera angles over characterization.

dictable genre.

the signs and rituals of popular cul ture is also vividly apparent in

less incisive than that of Clueless a mobile phone ringing in a theatre

striking images, such as a small house surrounded by fortress-like

while audience members reach for their bags is not wildly original-

battlements, and three inflatable

with a youthful spirit which eschews the darker concerns of

sex dolls standing as “mourners”

recent British successes such as

The offbeat subplots and transAtlantic references inject the film

d ir e c t o r :

Yet Shooting Fish is undoubt edly of interest as a film which embraces the lighter side of con temporary UK youth culture, and presents an upbeat international perspective on romantic comedy and popular culture. © LESLEY SPEED

A n tx o n G ó m e z .

Lib e r t o Ra b a l (V ic t o r P laza ), P e n e l o p e d is t r ib u t o r :

G l o b e . 3 5 m m . S p a in -F r a n c e . 1 9 9 7 .1 0 0

m in s .

I’m interested in what it is to be human, in what it is to be alive, in what it is to be natural. And that’s my point of view humanity. The message is concretely a message of individual liberty, of passion. Pedro A x -r a t e d

the past decade, the quirky imagery of Shooting Fish has the positive effect of embellishing and

vehicle registration number. The satire in Shooting Fish is

Sa lc ed o . A rt

based

R u th R e n d e l l . D ir e c t o r

M u s ic : A l b e r t o I g l e s ia s . Ca s t : F r a n c e s c a

ness. It’s not worth looking too

comedies, particularly American, in

delaying the resolution of what is, for some, an overworked and pre

S c r e e n w r it e r : P e d r o A l m o d ó v a r , Ra y

weighed down by its own clever

ties here - can helium really make a racehorse run faster? - and at

Given the proliferation of romantic

Pe d r o A l m o d ó v a r .

C r u z (I s a b e l l e ). A u s t r a l ia n

unsuccessful attempts to escape from prison invest Shooting Fish

The film’s lightly comic stabs at social observation are little more

P r o d u c e r : A u g u s t in A l m o d ó v a r .

Lo r ig a , J u r g e G u e r r ic a e c h e v a r r ia ,

is nonetheless resolved. Schwartz’s film is set not so

romantic scenarios.

LIVE FLESH (CARNE TREMULA)

lm o dó var,

r o m a n t ic h u m a n is t

wenty-six year-old Victor (Liberto Rabal), released from

prison, goes home to the suburban ruin that he shared with his prosti tute mother, who died of cancer while he was incarcerated. It looks like Sarajevo, an older woman, Clara (Angela Molina), tells him. But their vitality defies the hope lessness. In the condemned neighbor hood, a Mediterranean-blue gate is still standing. When Clara comes to him again, this time to make love,

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

fully human woman. Clara is as alive and tragic as the flamenco music and Chavela Vargas’ raspy vibrato that infuses the film. She eventually saves Victor and she and Sancho die in a guns-andblood, Duel in the Sun scene that enables new life to go on. Death being at the kernel of life, Morin notes that a philosopher like Nietzsche was haunted by death but refused a philosophy of despair. The artists, more than the scholars, held onto the “scent of life”, loving the things of this world. The philosophy of knowl edge he envisaged was allied to the arts of movement. The return of the biological and the animal, the her coat is orange-red; she removes it to reveal a rich ocean-blue top. Cinematographer Affonso Beato, collaborator of the great Brazilian director Glauber Rocha, has worked with Almodovar to cre ate a look that’s arresting. Somehow the screen is flat, depth of field is minimal and the charac

bondage in Tie Me Up! Tie Me

Down! (Atame! 1989), and the ‘making light oP rape in Kika (1993), the filmmaker suggested that the confusion between desire and public policy was greater in the United States than back home in Spain: Nor that Spain is so wonderful,

ters have a primacy, an immediacy, that jettisons the baggage of his

but even the people on the right are closer to human

tory and surroundings. The fleshliness, the emotion, of Victor

weakness, temptation, error.

and Clara seem tangible. It’s like we’re in Nicholas Ray territory, but what gets called ‘bigger than life’ is realty life not diminished, not shrunken and resigned to be lived in pianissimo. In L’Homme et la Mort (Man

and Death), Edgar Morin talks about destructuring and restructur ing the categories of adolescence and age so that people might try to combine the secrets of adoles cence and maturity, instead of one stage chasing away the other, leav ing us with the model ‘techno-bourgeois’ adult. In Live Flesh, Almodovar has created a mature work which holds onto these secrets. For some, the adjective ‘mature’ might be the kiss of death, signalling the end of the kinky,

They understand that it’s part of life, it’s all mixed up together, and that’s the way people really are. Here you pretend people don’t have

realism and surrealism, and draw ing on the Hollywood melodramas

Down! Victor too becomes

of his adolescence, using their

(Francesca Neri) after ineptly losing his virginity to her in the toilet of an

intense emotions but not respect ing their boundaries. Sirk, Cukor, Minnelli, Ray and Kazan are all evi dent influences. In 1991, High Heels

obsessed with drug-addicted Elena

after-hours club. Blonde-wigged, scornful and needing a fix, Elena is a figure of nervous splendour.

death romp, reworked the

become a pale bourgeoise when

maternal melodrama. Live Flesh, like High Heels, The Flower of My

she crosses back over from the “savage side of life”. Almodovar

with the paraplegic team, on a rich green floor to vibrant music. It’s

Secret (La Florde mi Secreto, 1995) and the earlier Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo, 1986), is less comic

notes that she is probably the sad dest female character he has written. When a neighbour calls

than some of his films. Almodovar

patrolling policemen to Elena’s apartment after a gunshot, David (Javier Bardem) and Sancho Qose

called Being and Nothingness. Live Flesh starts with a breath

what moves you; you can’t

taking black sky back in 1970 in a deserted Madrid where a State of

and jealousy, knowing his wife is having an affaire with someone. That someone is David. When a

Emergency has been declared. A young woman in the pain of labour

scuffle ensues between Victor and the policemen, Sancho shoots part

on a bus that circles the city sees

ner David in the spine and young Victor goes to gaol for the crime.

films, takes its characters, with

winning a medal at the 1992 Para lympics, and is embraced by Elena, the team celebrating with wheel chair dancing. We later see David,

like you have no experience with yourselves. Passion is

Passion (Laberinto de Pasiones, 1982). Live Flesh, like his earlier

robbed of his youth, watches on television as David triumphs,

She’s a diplomat’s daughter taking time out from bourgeois life, but she’ll lose her splendour and

like you’ve never seen it before,

avoid it. Indeed, any one of Almodovar’s films could be called Labyrinth of

a truth which might also be brutal. Victor, imprisoned and feeling

(Jacones Lejanos, which actually means distant heels), marketed as something of a quirky, sex-and-

is a vitalist - and, like all vitalists, he has a keen sense of nothing ness. His films could also all be

desires or you talk about it with such violent curiosity,

resensualization of life, would cul minate in a kind of “dancing truth”,

an angel on one of the beautiful buildings. To her it looks perched

Sancho) enter the tangle. Middleaged Sancho is fired by suspicion

Out of prison, and visiting his

their (sometimes grave) imperfec tions-and loves them. Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and Luis

as if ready to kill itself. But the baby is born and there’s elation.

mother’s grave at the cemetery, by coincidence, so necessary to melo

“Look”, she says to baby Victor,

Buñuel are his trinity of directors, but his empathetic close-ups, his faces of flesh and soul, are closer

“Madrid!” The title Came Tremula comes onto the screen in bold red

drama, Victor sees a funeral is taking place. Elena, now married to

and, for the rest of the film, it’s as if we could drown in the warmth of

the paraplegic David, is burying her

“100% animal” on his T-shirt, play

time out, a poignant expression of activity for its own sake, like the dance in the prison yard in High

Heels, or the one in the café in Godard’s Bande a Part (1964). When David struggles to get to Vic tor’s shack to threaten him to stay out of their lives, he punches the young man in the groin, then they both get excited by a soccer goal scored on television. A moment of communion and then the threat is back. But, in the end, Victor’s advantage is crushing - he flaunts his youth and health, his function ing flesh, doing push-ups, provoking and humiliating the paralyzed David. Victor comes back into Elena’s life as Mr Wolf in a game at the chil dren’s shelter she has set up. The setting allows for naive design,

father. Victor lines up with the ele

loads of colour and all the little

gantly clad mourners to shake her hand. And by another coincidence,

artefacts Almodovar associates with kids and with the children in

while still surrounded by death, he

his adults. But the atmosphere’s subdued: there aren’t any clichés

tawdry-chic, over-the-top, outra geous and farcical Almodovar. But

to those of the great Russian direc

his work has always dealt with

has, however, taken Hitchcock’s

Almodovar’s colours. Twenty years later and Victor

what he regards as elemental

‘cheap psychology’ on board and,

will unintentionally set off a chain

things: love, passion and obses

from the elderly Billy Wilder, he got

of events that will fatally cross-cut

sion. And society is still preoccupied with controlling pas

some excellent advice: to stay away from Hollywood at all costs.

the other characters’ lives, because, as the director says, “he

him and teach him to become a great lover. He wants to seduce

birth, in a car in a Christmas traffic-

sion ‘because it’s a disequilibrium’,

Live Flesh, inspired by but not true to Ruth Rendell’s novel, was to have been filmed in English, but

and exact revenge on Elena but he will instead bring her back to life.

jam. But Victor tells the baby that

though for the individual ‘it is

is alive, healthy, free (and hot) like the sun”. Liberto Rabat is the grandson of veteran actor Fran

Clara, along with Victor, is the point

undeniably the only motor that

tors and, in America, to Capra. He

gives sense to life’. Even before the souring of his

this did not eventuate.

relationship with some American

Mediterranean filmmaker, freely

critics, over the ‘endorsement’ of

blending genres and styles, neo

Almodovar has continued as a

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

meets Sancho’s wife, Clara, who will fall in love with him, nurture

of happy, lively kids. Live Flesh ends with a scream and a new

it’s different this time. The streets are packed with drunken, cheerful

cisco Rabat, who played the

of radiance in the film. The mature

people. There’s freedom in Madrid.

wheel-chair bound director

Angela Molina, years ago Bunuel’s

Against the black sky there’s a

obsessed by his drug-addicted

‘Obscure Object of Desire’, is here

giant star full of lights.

leading lady in Tie Me Up! Tie Me

Almodovar’s strikingly beautiful,

blade

the

fairytale - a true story

the borrowers

mimic

lego, dragon

m ilo -

h i-s p e e d , p o rta b le , p re c is io n m otion co n tro l

featahd loathing

lost in space

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continued KUNDUN D ir e c t e d

M a r t in S c o r s e s e . P r o d u c e r :

B a r b a r a D e F in a . S c r e e n w r it e r : M e l is s a M a t h is o n . D ir e c t o r

of photography:

R o g e r D e a k in s . E d it o r : T h e l m a SCHOONMAKER. PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Da n t e F e r r e t t i . M u s ic : P h il ip G l a s s . Co s t u m e

d e s ig n e r :

Da n t e F e r r e t t i .

C a s t : T e n z in T h u t h o b T s a r o n g (D a l a i La m a [a d u l t ]), G y u r m e T e t h o n g (D a l a i La m a [a g e

12D, T e n c h o G y a l p o

( m o t h e r ), T e n z in

T o p ja r (L o b s a n d [a g e d 5 -1 0 ]), T s e w a n g M ig y u r K h a n g s a r ( f a t h e r ). A u s t r a l ia n DISTRIBUTOR: NEWVISION FILMS. USA. S u per 3 5 .1 9 9 7 .1 3 4

m in s .

f Martin Scorsese is still keeping to his famous schedule — one

for the studios and one for himself — his recent output must surely stand as an indication of just how much the shape of American cin ema has changed in the past decade. Kundun is a biopic of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. It’s a modestly-bud geted (US$28 million) but lavish-looking production, starring non-actors in most of the rôles and little that we would conventionally call action. One for him? You’d say so, except that the Tibetan cause is très fashionable in Hollywood (and has some weird permutations, such as Richard Gere praising India’s nuclear tests because they’re likely to get up the nose of the Chinese) and the film was made for a major studio. Scors ese’s last pic was Casino (1995), a gangster movie of the sort that he used to make for himself but which has now become so definably a Scorsese movie that it is readily marketable to an eager audience as precisely that: “A Martin Scorsese Picture”. So, one for the studios? Before that was

The Age of Innocence (1993), so radical a departure from the Scorsese standard that one might

cinema since the late 1980s - an

market(s). Scorsese, the godfather

pretend to be both David and Goliath. Scorsese made Kundun as

(China is not yet part of the Disney

been welcomed by the Chinese.

assume it was a journeyman assignment made out of obligation,

explosion which, not coinciden

of soul in American film, has

tally, owes much to the work of

become a kind of flagbearer for the

the first movie in a two-picture deal

family, but the adoption forms are

except that it was a film so redolent

Scorsese - has led to the belated

new mood, in which smaller, intelli

with Touchstone Pictures, part of

in. Mickey and Co. reportedly have

with commitment, grace and pas

realization on the part of Holly

gent films target those audiences

the Disney family. The film was to

plans for a theme park in Shang

sion (restrained on the part of the

wood that there is not one market

disenfranchized by the main game,

be distributed by Buena Vista, also

hai.) The conspiracy theorists

characters, amply evident on the

for films, but many markets. So the

the ‘event’ picture.

part of the Disney family. Depict

claimed Buena Vista deliberately

part of the filmmakers) that you’d

big studios have bought into

ing, as it does, the Chinese

botched the film’s release in the

have to call it a personal film. So

smaller production and distribution

dun has also inadvertently drawn

invasion of Tibet in 1950-and

USA, burying it in small cinemas

what’s going on here?

outfits, and shored up deals with

attention to the flaws in this hybrid

making it seem, strangely enough,

with little advertising. After a few

producers from afar, in a bid to

system of production and distribu

something other than an act of lib

weeks of poor business, the film

broaden their share of the

tion, in which the major studios

eration -th e film has not exactly

disappeared.

What’s going on, in short, is that the explosion o f‘independent’

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

There’s just one problem: Kun

review

Films

continued In Australia, the film attracted heat before it had even been picked up for distribution. According to

spiritual-and, increasingly, politi cal - leadership of his people. Unlike The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun plays it pretty straight. Where Willem Dafoe’s Jesus was a revolutionary national ist, and quite possibly a

many observers, Roadshow Distrib

schizophrenic, the Dalai Lama (played at two by Tenzin Yeshi

utors, which generally releases

Paichang; at five by Tulku Jamyang

Disney product in Australia, chose not to distribute Kundun because it didn’t want to jeopardize its cinema interests in Asia. The company claims that’s not true: as Buena Vista only had the rights for Europe and the USA, the film was offered on the open mar ket in Australia and, at $1 million, it was just too expensive. At any rate, it fell to independent distributor NewVision to release the film. Pre sumably, we should be thankful that NewVision has no plans to open a chain of cinemas in China. Like The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Kundun is a story of a man who is chosen by a religion. After a long and far-reaching search, a posse finds the boy who is believed to be the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, aka the Dalai Lama, in a remote Tibetan village near the

Kunga Tenzin; at 12 by Gyurme Tethong; and as an adult by Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong) is uncertain of his role and himself. As he asks at one crucial moment, “Do you ever wonder if you found the right boy?” It is impossible not to be impressed by the scale of Scors ese’s film, covering as it does such a span of time without ever losing its sense of intimacy. Its geo graphic and historical sweep is equally impressive, especially when one realizes that the Tibetan scenes were, in fact, shot in Morocco. Melissa Mathison’s script is remarkable in its ability to con vey a sense of the individual in a community which does not encour age egoism; a sense of time marching on in a community which has long been “timeless”; and a sense of spiritual minutiae in a landscape of harsh grandeur. But the scale does occasionally

Director Martin Scorsesewitháctórs Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong, G yurm ef||§ Tethonq and Kunqa J. T e nzin «s«a^*

work against Scorsese. The sense of ordinary experi ences forgone in becoming the Dalai Lama is touched on in a scene of such brevity that one could miss it entirely. The Philip Glass score, while entrancing and appealing in its way, inevitably puts one in mind of sound-and-image montage films such as Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey

K en R u s s e l l . P r o d u c e r :

B o b R u b in . S c r e e n w r it e r s : R o b e r t S t o r k , Da v id T a y l o r . Ca s t : B ry a n B ro w n (C a p t a in B r o w n ), D ean Ca in Qu lia n Ta y l o r ), T ia Ca r r e r e . A u s t r a l ia n

d is t r ib u t o r :

U.S. 1 9 9 8 .9 2

Ro c v a l e .

m in s .

espite the certain marquee value of its cast and creative

times his bombastic hand is rarely in evidence.

Dog Boys goes like this: Ex

(straight to video in Oz) feature is almost curious. Like an up-market John Cassavetes, he’s putting in

marine (Cain) finds himself doing time in the care of attitude correc tion sadist Brown. For a sideline and in cahoots with several others, Brown runs a lucrative human hunting service. Brown attempts to force Cain to participate. The body-

Bryan Brown’s impulse to take the bad-ass lead in this Showtime

time between Hollywood roles pro ducing his own films. Twisted Tales, his supernatural television series, has morphed into Twisted on its current U.S., three-episodesper-tape release. In Dog Boys,

And one can’t help but wish

less than good. A perfunctory and minor entry in every way, Dog Boys

official investigations begin. The double-cross goes down. Brown is thwarted. A dog joins the body-

sadist, smart-arse and trader in human lives. Imagine Cocktail

that Scorsese had tempered Kundun’s respectfulness with

lacks bite, wit and, worse, is almost entirely devoid of tension.

count. Tia and Dean walk away. Maybe Ken Russell found him

ambulances lining up to take away

just a touch of the doubt with which he approached his own religion in

Subtext is even in short supply, the naming of Bryan Brown’s char

self stranded in the U.S. one day

patrons he’s bottled, and you’re

and signed on to helm this non-epic

The Last Temptation of Christ. But

acter as Captain Brown being the

halfway to Brown here as Captain Brown.

(Godfrey Reggio, 1988) and Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992).

lar two-year-old kid - cute and

DOG BOYS D ir e c t e d

angles are supplied by Tia Carrere who gets to swan around all she can with swarthy Dean Cain in the overstuffed hero role.

count mounts. Carrere arrives,

Reggio, 1983), Powaqqatsi

border with China. He’s just a regu

On the S h elf

talent, this made-for-cable Most Dangerous Game-prison flick is

he’s barely effective as the resident

(Roger Donaldson, 1988) with

spiteful, egocentric and adorablebut his parents have little trouble

these are, in the end, minor quib

most (non-)creative example. Dog

in order to get back to England? On the other hand, he just might’ve

accepting he is who the wisemen

bles. While far from what one might

Boys only gets hilarious when

wanted to hang around and talk

say he is. He is taken away, immersed in the teachings of

expect from “A Martin Scorsese Picture”, Kundun is a film of quiet

Brown’s antagonists throw exple tives at him. A superficial attention

filmmaking with his old buddy, Bob Guccione. Whatever, he had to step

never comes back. Even diehard

Tibetan Buddhism and, over the

magnificence - despite the best

to political detail is also fast-

on to the Canadian set of Dog Boys

genre enthusiasts are advised to

course of the next 15 years, pre

efforts of the studios and the

tracked to nowhere. But hey, let’s

at some stage, in order to earn

avoid this electronic wallpaper

pared to take on the mantle of

Chinese.

face it, in Dog Boys the only good

directorial credit, although at most

sample.

©KARL QUINN

Don’t read any of that as any sort of recommendation for Dog Boys, a film that strays quickly and

C I N E M A P A P E R S • AUGUST 1998

with whom he was fascinated:

Bookà REFLECTIONS

their poetic treatment of social

sights and sounds - or from noting

His readiness to honour a human

The urge to smell her close by

realities, I’d have been grateful for

wryly that “Most things in India

commitment to a loved friend tells

became unbearable. Finally I

something more revealing on how

don’t function.”

forced my nose into her thigh

he saw his work, his creative

Predictably, perhaps, he hates

and had to be severely smacked

processes. There is not much help

America, where he’s “been

expect to see his films opening

to come back to my senses.

in such sub-aphorisms as:

tempted to ‘try Hollywood’ ...

simultaneously at a hundred multi plexes across the land.

The flashbacks in Man of Flow

The only thing that was clear to

[because] my adopted country,

ers (1983) are largely based

me was the fact that through

Australia, doesn’t always allow me

upon these encounters.

film I could explore the remote

to continue making films”. As an

ANAUTOBIOGRAPHICAL JOURNEY

It would be instructive to have this

horizons of my dreams. Dreams

archetypal arthouse filmmaker, he

Paul C o x . S y d n e y : C u r r e n c y P r e s s , 1998.

perception followed up; instead we

would become reality in the

is (of course) appalled by the com

are told, “Flashbacks are memo

absolute. That vast emptiness

mercial realities of Hollywood, and

ries, frozen in an eternal solid form,

that surrounded and threatened

this leads him into the simplistic

so concentrated that no distortion

me became habitable.

dismissiveness of

$ 2 9 .9 5 rrp .

M ^ ■ h e child is father of the I man”, as Wordsworth has famously told us, and as more sci entific types like Freud and Lacan

is possible.” This is my chief difficulty with

Whatever that means, it is in my

The studio needs to feel safe

view simply too personal, too

and would much rather spend

have borne out. Nevertheless, it is a fact that not many autobiogra

this book. It is often so intensely

inward-looking to communicate

big on something stupid than a

personal, so gnomic in its percep

much.

little on something worthwhile

phies (or biographies) really succeed in imbuing childhood rec

tions, that it sets up barriers to the relatively detached reader.

deal to admire in Reflections. The

ollections with a clear sense of

“Music,” he claims,

generosity of spirit, the willingness

There are some funny accounts

to take artistic risks, the reaching

of his dealings with Hollywood natives, but one comes to feel that

their formative status, and Paul

has much more to do with film

However, there is still a good

... Films that make money are good films.

Cox’s impressionistic, deliberately

than literature or the theatre.

out to the unusual: these are all

non-linear version of his own life is

Music, dance, painting - in

elements of Cox’s films which find

he is taking easy shots at large

no exception.

that order - are more related

parallels In the experiences

targets.

to film than theatre and

described here. He is responsive to

literature.

the non-materialistic and enigmatic

Cox writes with graceful discre tion about the women he has

What presumably makes us read (auto)biographies of the

us a good deal about Cox as a man - and possibly why we should not

famous is to understand a little

That may well be the case, but,

more how they went about the business of living in such a way as to bring them to the kind of atten

though this formulation is pre

approach of so much cinema auto

ceded by an account of some of the

India when one is here, yet when

biography (time will tell if

one is here, one is too dumb

tion that has warranted writing

music that has mattered to him, it is left dangling, unexplored.

founded to speak.” Fortunately,

discretion sells as well as letting it all hang out for public titillation).

about their lives at length. The

As one who has often admired

this does not stop him from writing

He appears to retain affection and

introductory chapters of Cox’s

Cox’s films for their daring and for

with sensuous accuracy of its

respect for the mothers of the three

book re-imagine aspects of a European wartime

children, whom he plainly and touchingly

childhood: about how

adores, even if the women are no longer

marched into our house

part of the immediate

[in Holland]”; about the

daily circle of his life. And

filmmaker father, of

we’re not talking here

whom we hear too little;

about Princess Fergie

about the mother “who

describing her ex as her

was a great human being who gave to anyone who

“bestest friend”, but of someone who seems

needed it”; about the odd vignettes of experience

genuinely to believe he is compounded of every

which decades later fil

one he has ever,

tered their way into his

however fleetingly, been close to.

films; about the school days in which “Everything

about the friends who

crushed.” And so on. It is sin

have helped him, such as actor Norman Kaye and

cerely enough presented

producer-actor Tony

but it is hard to share the sense of immediacy which

Llewellyn-Jones, to those who had enough faith to

Cox seems to want to con

back his often commer

jure up by these

cially unpromising

remembrances of times

ventures, and to the col

past-or the sense of

laborators who have

their connectedness to

stuck with him through

the mature filmmaker.

film after film. He is espe

Further, the vividness of individual images tends

cially vivid about the

to be undercut by the way

Tale (1991) in which the

INDEPENDENCE DAY Michael Rogin , British Film Institute, London, 199 8, 96 pp ., index , illus ., £ 7 .9 9

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making of A Woman’s

tells us of a cruel aunt C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

BFI MODERN CLASSICS

He is also generous

that awakened in me was

Cox is irresistibly drawn

Book*) Received

loved, disdaining the kiss-and-tell

qualities he finds in travelling in India: “One can only write about

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VIDEO SYSTEMS DIVISION

te c h n ic a litie s

CGI titles and graphics by Barrie Smith

n important cogin

hardware and dedicated software;

the post-produc

however, there are signs that the NT

tion chain - titling

platform is about to rock the boat.

and g ra p h ic s -is a growing sector

in the industry.

we’re a design-based house. In the broadcast titles area we are a full service production house ... we’ll do concept design, direction, pro duction, post-production. Garner houses “a couple of Onyxes” running mostly AliasIWavefront soft ware plus, he adds, “ other small

Garner Maclennan

packages that we’ve mixed with Alias -

A digital design house of long standing

and proprietary software that we’ve

and repute, Garner MacLennan has the

written and developed ourselves.”

The title and graphics content of televi

resources, talent and will to take on

With the capability to output at

sion broadcasting has long been a role

virtually any production - either as a

both broadcast and film resolutions,

assum ed by electronic processing, ini

total effort or as a contributor to a

the company took on the title work for

tially with analog methods such as the

project.

the feature Joey (Ian Barry, 1998). The

Chyron titling hardware and digital

Jeff Oliver is MD of Garner MacLen-

effects ‘black boxes’. In recent years,

nan Design and states the company

even feature films have allowed digital

has

processing to intrude into the creation of head titles. A number of Sydney com panies are now able to specialize in this area and offer title and graphics services ren dered out to both broadcast and film

always done a hell of a lot of 3D work, mostly for TV commercials, as well as a large output of broad cast material, such as station IDs and station imagery - and that always involves 3D.

resolution: some are dedicated to pro

In his view, the company has a big

ducing the CGI portion of a production

design department, strong in 3D pro

with little or no interest in tendering

duction, “which fits in with the whole

for the main body of the work; others

network that the company has.”

see digital title/graphics creation as an end in itself. Most of these CGI houses employ high-end Silicon Graphics C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

Oliver:

We’re design-based first of all, tech nology is not relevant to a point, so

requirements? Oliver:

They [Village Roadshow/MGM] just basically gave us the brief and we came up with the design. The brief was a narrative brief. How that was visualized was totally up to us. There were a lot of contractual requirements, re credits, etc. - but basically they just gave us an outline of what they were looking for and we came up with the whole concept, which we ended up producing. It’s totally 3D animated.

adds, “The biggest limitation is money, of course; money and time.” In working on the title, he declared Village Roadshow/M GM :

An absolutely excellent client. They took a big risk doing that job, but I think that they are pretty thrilled with the result. And they really stuck by us. It was great working with those guys. One of the things that made the job so successful and so pleasurable was that they hung out. They hung out for our idea. They really embraced the idea and the design and supported us through it, because it took a couple of months to do. And the job is really beautiful. Oliver agrees that contributing a design component to a feature film can attract clients. In his opinion, “When the work is that good it can help pull work” , by the fact that people get to see it and they can see Garner’s work in an environment other than a television-com mercial kind of environment. The work on Joey has also been applauded in festivals

Limitations? Oliver is confident there

worldwide, Oliver rem arks: “ Every

are no limitations in CGI work, neither

thing it’s been entered into, it’s

in terms of hardware or software, but

cleaned up and won!”

te c h n ic a litie s

Conja Producer Bruce W illiamson sees most of the clients who approach Conja arriving “with very little in the way of a concept or set look they want” . In his view, “ Conja is perceived as a creative digital effects house with the ability to come up with innovative images to match the project or product.” He feels the “ broad base of equipment, software and experience at Conja allows it to cater for all sections of the market - from features to broadcast promos.” Some recent credits include head titles for the m ini-series House Gang, produced by Film Australia and soon to be shown on SBS. In this case, Williamson states the company was “given a rough brief, which we then enhanced. This was accepted and we continued on with that.” An interesting project was the titling for a documentary made by Rosemary Blight, Boy in the Bubble, for RB Films in Sydney. Williamson claims, “We were given a pretty free reign and asked to come up with a concept, which we did. And this was subsequently followed.” Another was Doom Runners, a 35mm feature produced in 1997 for

Williamson:

Initially, with Paws we looked at a number of options and in the end it was dictated to a point by budget because of the length of head titles for a motion picture film. Tradi tionally, a feature film will have quite a lengthy head title sequence and, if you’re looking at doing this in a sort of total digital solution, then it can become quite expensive. A number of options was put forward.

which Conja designed a head title

But in the end, the choice came down

sequence intended to set the tone of

to the use of cel animation. Williamson

the drama; a post-apocalyptic adven

feels,

ture. An upcoming telemovie, 13

Gantry Row, required main titling to match an existing concept yet still work in with the opening live action. Recent commercial work included NRL promos for Channel 9 and the

Sports Tonight opener for Channel 10. The family doggie drama, Paws (Karl Zwicky, 1997), was another challenge, which took Conja on a route away from CGI - at least for the main title sequence.

It works both creatively for the film and as well as for the budget. Because of the broad spread of tal ent here we were able to provide a number of solutions, digital, film opticals - or animation. He feels,

The producers really did quite well when you think about it, because they come to one house and they’re able to have a look at all the varia tions and settle on which one would

work creatively - and within the budget. In the end, that was how it boiled down to with the Paws titles. They simply just looked at it and said, “This is great.” The animation works well. It’s a comedy film. It’s a family film. It just provided the right feel and look for it all. In his opinion,

It was the best answer to the ques tion, whereas, on the other hand, the title sequences that were struck for House Gang had a fair bit of computer enhancement; computer technology was used quite exten sively.

Extro, it became apparent that the total output of the design house was centred on “ broadcast work for the TV networks” . Murray:

We do station idents, opening titles for programmes, promos, graphics packages, that sort of thing. We don’t do television commercials as such. He enlarged on Extro’s role in the industry by saying that one of its spe cialities is combining live action with 2D and 3D graphics. The company

The design house runs three SGI Onyx

uses two SGI 3D work stations - an O2

machines plus five 3D work stations.

and a High Impact. Software? Houdini.

Software? Williamson: “ In 2D we use

The company’s “top-end w ork” is sta

Flame or Illusion. For 3D we use Maya

tion id e n ts... spinning numbers and

or Softimage.”

merging shapes, as well as movie

The Conja producer remarks that the company was “one of the first ones to use Maya in Australia. We were one

opening titles in the vein of Saturday Night at the Movies. Other clients have included virtu

of the test-beds here. We’ve had Maya

ally “ all the networks in Australia and

since the beginning of the year.” One

New Zealand.” Murray:

of the first jobs Conja handled with Maya was the Rugby League promo for Channel Nine.

Extro Speaking to Michael Murray, MD of

We recently did a big package for the movie network on Optus Vision, and we’ve just completed a C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U G U S T 1 998

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te c h n ic a litie s

Harris are now ready to spread their wings and take on title and graphics work for TV commercials as well as programme production. Harris claims that already a number of people have viewed their work, have been excited by it and passed favourable comment. He adds,

Obviously we’re able to offer a ser vice that is comparable to some of the top-end providers - but at a much more reasonable price. With the tightness o f ’90s budgets in all forms of production, an approach such as DP’s is bound to attract clients. Harris feels strongly that “ if we can walk in and offer them larger margins by providing the same prod uct” , their position in the marketplace is assured. Heil sees it as a factor of DP being “ human resource focused” with “cre ativity that will win the jobs in the long

large job for Sky in New Zealand a whole movie package for its movie network.

will play 2K film resolution images in

now getting to a point where they can handle 2K or higher than PAL.

real time. This works in with the only

run. As the work builds, we will also be investing in the hardware.” A factor which helps the NT-based company

The Extra MD is quick to point out that

SGI Onyx 2 in Australia. Wilcox: “ I work

D ig it a l P u ls e

take aim at the SGI end of the market is

the company’s output is not so much

in the 3D animation area and so all the

Newly moved to Redfern premises,

the constant rise in processor speeds.

in terms of special effects as such,

work I do is passed on to Flame and

Digital Pulse is run by MD Brett Heil

Harris is confident “ in the very near

adding,

Inferno.”

and Marketing Director Chris Harris.

future we’ll be looking at 1,000MHz

We don’t make a car look like it’s going underwater when it’s n o t... not so naturalistic, more graphic. We’re very graphically oriented. We’re a graphic design company, so all of our work is graphically styled.

An interesting example was a

The main activity over the last two-

chips. Although the expense may be

recent Arnotts Shapes commercials

and-a-half years has been computer

there, the speed will be along with it.”

where a pizza girl juggles tomatoes,

animation and multimedia produc

while performing som ersaults on a

tions, in the nature of 3D

dered with 3D StudioMax2 software,

piece of cheese. From the single fig

“w alk-throughs” for property and

while special effects for TV commer

ure, the camera pulls back to reveal

architectural clients. The platform of

cials are handled by Digital Fusion,

When asked if the company set up to

that there’s millions of pizza girls all

choice is Windows NT; the reason is

widely regarded as a “ good special

handle title or graphic output for film

over the biscuit. Wilcox explains that,

obvious - cost. DP foresees that within

effects product at the NT level” ,

production, Murray answered, “Cer tainly we can, but we haven’t marketed ourselves to that end of the market for various reasons. But our hardware and software is capable of it.” V id e o la b

This company’s CGI titling and 3D work sees duty per force of the company’s

The biscuit is computer-generated and broken into parts before send ing to Inferno. To accompany it a 3D graphic of a piece of cheese was created which bends at the centre in time with the person’s actions. All of these elements were then com bined to create the end - making one great big camera move.

extensive film grading and telecine

It becomes tricky to handle the resolu

activities. Scott Wilcox, Head of the

tion levels needed: the Arnotts bickie

company’s 3D Animation section,

was created in 3D at a 4K resolution ...

notices that in Videolab’s mainly TV

a film resolution with steroids. This

commercial work “ more often than not

enabled the Inferno operator to get

these days there’s always some tricks

close for the start of the shot, then be

to be done - and computer graphics

able to pull back and still hold quality.

comes into it nearly alw ays.”

The one big 4K graphic of the biscuit

He has found that, on these occa sions, Flame does “a lot more than

one need to produce a sim ilar effect for transfer to film resolution, the sy s

lot with text and give it a very 3D look

tem can work at an oversize resolution

without having to use 3D ” .

level - even up to 4K. Wilcox:

agrees that “the gear has to keep up with all of the current graphic trends.” Videolab’s Flame unit has been

12 months its investment in NT hard

according to Harris. In the longer term,

ware would have reached a figure

the company is keen

approaching $250,000; to have gone the SGI route would have seen, as Harris estimates it, an expenditure nearing “triple or quadruple the price” . Finding that the company has developed and succeeded in the niche that architecture has become, Heil and

to be involved in the programme market. Our ideal thing is entertain ment. We’re going down the entertainment path in the long run. Certainly in terms of films and TV series, we’re keen to do all that type of work. ©

frames to feed Inferno. Should som e

units as Henry and EditBox. It can do a

titling with a “difference” , so Wilcox

DP’s 3D animation primarily is ren

was cut up into 36 PAL resolution

traditional edit suites - even such

There is currently great demand for

upgraded to become an Inferno, which

In terms of 3D you can dial in exactly how many pixels across and down you want. And that’s always been the case: most of the editing suites like Flame and Inferno are C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

O p tic a l& G r a p h ic

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te c h n ic a litie s

MOMI no more by Barrie Smith

ve ryb o d y w ants th e ir

and a phone booth from Dr Who; plus

M O M I — or so

lots of other bric-à-brac.

it seem s. In sp ite o f se v e re g ro w in g pains, th is fin e ly -co n ce iv e d

attraction is s t ill am ongst London’s m ost p o p u la r to u rist attractio n s.

While the venue boasts 70 laser disc players running continuous video displays, many exhibits house a pro jector of some sort, 16 and 35 mm. In general, it is museum practice to show film as film and video as video -

It was bound to happen: the acronyms

more than 1,000 video sequences are

finally spat the dummy and shot them

shown continuously, each computer-

selves in the foot! Or so it appears to

controlled.

have happened in dear old London town, where that archive of the deep

But what is m issing is any sign of the ’90s buzz technology, multimedia

and dark m ysteries of the moving

interactivity, CD-ROM, the World Wide

image, MOMI, is confronted with two

Web - you know, all those new-fan

grim realities.

gled media capable of bringing motion

MOMI, the commonly-used term for the museum, had to go: few knew what it referred to and, besides, it con

and sound to your desktop and livingroom. A sad lack by any measure. Also missing is any informed cover

flicted with MOMA (Museum of

age of the new sound technologies,

Modern Art). And after nine years of

widescreen systems or special effects.

operation, the Museum of the Moving

True, there are touches of these in the

Image had run out of space on its

exhibition areas, but when you think of

cramped South Bank site. As Sydney prepares to launch its

Britain’s special contributions to the technology of cinema over the last cen

own Australian version of the London

tury, it could be argued there should

establishm ent, there may be some

be more.

lessons to be learnt. I have made two longish visits to

And what of such global (and British) companies as Quantel, which

not have “the kind of marketing-spend

charging, wounded buffalo precinct. I

to achieve the public profile of places

MOMI and spoken with a number of

singlehandedly revolutionized digital-

must confess to spending £80 upon

like the British Museum or the Victoria

departmental representatives, respon

signal processing of video and film

absolutely bloody n o th in g -sp illin g

and Albert” , but was happy that “we

sible for the marketing of the museum,

images? And the acknowledged exper

myself forth onto the retail area after a

have over 400,000 visitors a year.”

its curatorial activities and technical

tise developed by British special

heady three hours strolling through

aspects.

effects film people and their facilities,

cinema-land.

Mind you, getting to talk with the

its level so high that the Lucases and

As the marketing department’s

appropriate bods was another matter!

Spielbergs have returned year after

Anna Butler admitted, the shop and

But finally, by dint of talking to staff on

year to film their tricky epics?

cafe are “the big money earners” . Any

Easy to be critical - after the event.

Butler explained that MOMI falls

between the two stools really; we are partly a museum, with educa tional museum status, but we are also an attraction.

plans to enlarge the museum would

All this on an annual promotional bud

via email, I consider I finally got a han

But perhaps in hindsight, MOMI would

take this into account, with an inten

get of around £250,000. More than 2.5

dle on the museum!

have been better served if it had been

tion to “ make the shop much more

million have visited MOMI in the nine

firmly rooted onto a studio locale to

exciting and much more at the front of

years, while a figure of 30 percent can

Chronological

give it the rancid aroma of the real

the experience” . She acknowledges,

be allocated to schools and educa

Jammed under Waterloo Bridge, the

thing. Movie- and video-making are

however, planning has to remain sen si

tional visitors.

m useum ’s 3,000 square metre

active, highly volatile pursuits, im pos

tive to “ pester power” , the expression

domain, is far from ideally placed.

sible to legrope or lock into a specific

for parents having to navigate through

Today, the place is literally crammed

time zone.

the shop at the end of the “experi

My eight-year-old daughter was

ence”, as is the case with most

absolutely mesmerized with MOMI. For

site, then following up conversations

to the ceiling with cinematic artefacts

After all, the whole thing was com

from the earliest days (and before!)

pleted and opened by HRH the Prince of

right up to 1958. That’s right, 1958. As

Wales in September 1988 - at a cost of

educational curator Jane McCarthy

£12 million all up, and not a quid from

explains, the museum is arranged in

any public purse (remember, it was

“ a chronological order, so it starts with

Thatcher time!).

pre-cinema and ends around 1958” .

galleries and museums worldwide:

We have to be a bit sensitive about how much we put in reach of the small children. But, it is still very important to us, any source of earned income.

Attractive

her a large and unexpected part of the appeal was the presence of the ‘interac tors’, characters coming to life from an exhibit and using convincing accents and dialogue to explain the item on dis play. Of great appeal was the charming

Charge!

According to Butler, MOMI is in the top

Southern belle who ran Reynaud’s

odd and the expected: Marilyn Mon

In many ways, the staff and executive

15 most-visited attractions in London,

Théâtre Optique r e p lic a -a captivating

roe’s shimmy dress from Some Like it

have done well to get as far as they

adding that,

show with a print from an original hand-

Hot-, Chaplin’s hat and cane (did he

have. MOMI’s main funding is sourced

The nam e isn’t that well-known.

really have only one of each?); some

from the British Film Institute, supp le

W e actually don ’t use the nam e

cameras from the Samuelson collec

mented by fees from workshops and

M O M I any m ore, because we

tion; Phenakistoscopes and Zoetropes

special functions. And the pounds do

foun d out from research that people

o f the ideas w e had and the interac

galore; a mini-stage or two where the

roll in from the shop; whatever you do,

didn’t understand w hat M O M I was.

tors, w ere very new. N o w a lot o f

So what does it have? Mostly, the

take your credit card with you; this is a

coloured 65mm negative. “When we started” , Butler outlined, things like actor interpreters, a lot

kiddies can chroma-key them selves

don’t miss the shop for your Wallace &

So w e tend to use the full M useum

our m useum s are doing them , and

over precarious backgrounds; a live

Gromit T-shirts, flip books, MOMI cof

O f the M oving Image.

nationally, n ot just in L ondon . N o w

animator splashing on cells; a Dalek

fee mugs and replica Zoetropes. But

She admitted that the museum does

w e need to think: W hat’s the next C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1 998

He's the best in the business. And exclusive to Atlab.

He's in dem and. Be sure to book y o u r studio tim e

te c h n ic a litie s

siili

On the Fox’s tail by Barrie Smith ore stag es for fe a tu re and series w o rk; th e S yd n ey scene is revvin g up as an ‘o ld -n e w ’ stu d io com plex

thing? How do we move on from there? U p g ra d e

mas will show an expansive diet of Australian and international films.

While the bobcats wrenched soil from

museum of the moving image?

Watson adds:

the Sydney Showground’s surface to

The ambivalent answer to this question may be Sydney’s Cinémath

nology (in the mechanical sense) will

èque, currently in planning as a

naturally have high elements of wear

component of the Museum of Contem

and tear.

porary Art on the Western shore of

section admits that, with the number of film projectors continually in use, wear “ is a problem” . He adds:

We are replacing some equipment each year, but we do have prob lems, and I think the technology that has gone into the museum is actually getting older now. When we come to update on a full scale, we will use different systems than were originally put in. When asked ifthe old projectors would be dumped, he replied:

No, I don’t think it will be a ques tion of getting rid of them. Projectors have been the same for many years. In fact, the major change in projection really has been with the sound formats that are now used and with the lamp houses and the lenses. But the actual mechanism itself has changed very little in the past 50-odd years. So we would be keeping the film projectors. However, Boyd’s main challenge is to

Circular Quay, aiming for completion by 1999.

It’s crazily ambitious and we won’t initially be able to show a thousand or two thousand films a year like the NFT does. It will be more of the nature of 200-300 a year to start with.

ready the seven or more stages in the

Also to be included is a small, 70-seat

film history and glimpse a piece of its

Fox Studio development for its May 1998 opening, across town another complex was in the early planning and construction stages. To explore a slice of past Australian

preview theatre on the building’s sixth

future, you may like to invest in a

admits that the Cinémathèque will

floor, with easy access to the Ciné

ticket, hop on a train at Sydney’s Cen

never be a MOMI, but concedes that

mathèque wing.

tral Station and prepare yourself for a

Project Co-ordinator David Watson

trip along the lesser-known East Hills

components of the latter could appear

train line. After a ride of around 15

at the Quayside venue over time and

C u r r e n t fu n d in g

be comparable with Britain’s National

In just nine months, $10,000,000 has

minutes, passing six or so stations,

Film Theatre. Within the MCA will be

already been raised in a capital

you hop off at Turrella - deep in the

three cinemas and exhibition galleries.

appeal, but another $20,000,000 is

heart of southern Sydney suburbia.

The latter will house changing displays

needed. However, this funding is the

Across the road from the station is a

and new media exhibitions. As he says:

total MCA target, as the Cinémathèque

film studio that has been an important

We’re particularly building the new galleries to have the ability to show computer-based digital works, things that require sound baffling, events that require dark, movable setups and ambiences, if you like.

is included in that cost. There is optimism within the MCA

part of our feature industry since the 1940s - surely the only such facility in

that the total will be reached, hope

this country served by a suburban

fully with help from government

train service!

sources. Watson suggests, and

Originally known as Avondale Stu

adds, “We feel that we have been

dios, then Wynne-Avondale and more

As part of the early MOMI team, David

exemplary in raising this money on

recently Fontana Studios, the complex

Watson explained that the London

our own, and that really it is about

has had a number of owners during its

museum

time that we had some true govern

50-odd years of life. The present

ment support.”

owner, Rick Kabriel, has been in the

was on the pulse, had the latest clips and was very timely. But, within two or three years, it got rather oldfashioned. The idea was that it be up-dated, but money prevented that.

chair since the early 1960s and has F u tu re f u n d in g

him self been a very visible part of the

Much ‘ leverage’ is placed on the

Sydney film production environment

unique site as a natural magnet for

during that time.

supervise the construction of a new

Watson views the MCA Cinémathèque

visitors. Currently the museum

IMAX theatre, virtually right next door

as “a different enterprise” . It will have

receives its largest income from the

to the current under-bridge MOMI

“ a whole wing devoted to the history

Power Bequest of Sydney University

haunt, as the Sydney industry has pro

complex.

of film, but it will not be in a sense of a

and from shop rental on four sites

gressed through various

This theatre will be a 500-seat, purpose-built IMAX cinema, Boyd explained:

We hope to have one of the largest, if not the largest, screen in Europe; approximately 20 metres high and 30 metres wide, showing 2-D and 3-D films and incorporating 35 and 70mm projection as well.

C in é m a t h è q u e And Australia? Are we ever to get a

A museum based upon a moving tech

Richard Boyd from the engineering

Hows Fox.

Over the years, many have w on dered at the endurance of the Turrella

backing onto the George Street façade.

boom-and-bust cycles. The ‘trick’ was

This unusually-sourced cashflow pro

that Rick managed to feed the facility

Watson explains, there will be display

duces more income than is derived

with a continuous stream of (mostly)

areas: “ Enough for poster displays, for

from adm issions. Watson explains that

television commercial productions

technology such as cameras, the latest

“ substantial” shop space will be

mingled with the odd feature and tele

digital equipment and image hardware.”

included in the new wing, leading to

vision series.

walk-through, 3-D story.” In the foyer of the Cinémathèque,

initial estimates that the MCA will

The day of the old-time studio has

C r a z ily a m b it io u s

receive $3,000,000 per annum from

well and truly passed: Suprem e, with

It is planned that the two main cine

this source.

its 140-plus staff, closed in the 1970s; C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

Over 800 million feet of film, over 400,000 hours of video and over 500,000 sound recordings make BBC Worldwide the largest wholly owned broadcast archive in the world. And it’s available for you to use in the creation of advertising, films, documentaries or research.To make these resources more accessible, BBC Library Sales now has a representative in Sydney. So shooting yourself should rarely be an option.Amber Knight will facilitate your access to the BBC archive to ensure you find exactly what you’re looking for. Telephone: (02) 9957 3777 Fax: (02) 9957 6448. 0 0 H W o r l d w i d e

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te c h n ic a litie s

Cinesound (at Bondi and Rozelle) went

also recently established offices in

well before; as did the ’30s-con-

Prague.

structed Pagewood complex. Now it looks as though ’6os-built Artransa (now the ABC Film Studios) may be

with a five-metre ceiling; the other is 84 square metres, with a similar ceiling

problems. Fontana would appear to be

height. Both are fully sound-proofed

the ‘last of the last’, which affords this

and allow full vehicle access from out

story of the construction of ‘ new stu

side. The company owns 16 and 35mm

d ios’ a sort of déjà-vu piquancy.

film gear as well as 1” tape origination equipment. Backing this is Avid edit

Many were surprised when Rupert Murdoch embarked upon the Fox Stu dios saga, but what at first was not entirely obvious was the concept of running the stages as dry hire facili

ing, a screening theatre, make-up and wardrobe accommodation, as well as set construction facilities and staff. Overall staff complement is around 15. Council approval has been given for construction of the first of the four

ties, with outside com panies operating

identically-dimensioned stages to go

peripheral industries within the area.

ahead. Each stage will occupy a 25 x

The trick is to keep staff figures low, but still furnish a desirable production environment. Rick Kabriel and his associate,

50 metres internal size. The overall thinking behind the four-studio plan is based on the Prague studios in that, whilst each of

Stephanie Ceccaldi, have a similar, if

the four can be isolated, inter-stage

much slimmer, strategy. Ceccaldi,

dividers can be rolled back to deliver a

through her television commercial pro

50 x 100 metre jumbo stage. Backing

duction company Manifesto Films, has

each are props stores, workshop areas

assum ed operational control of

and admin offices. Each studio will

Fontana as a base for her activities.

offer large vehicle access. Unusually,

Now working in conjunction with

the end studio will house a tank for in

Kabriel, plans are underway to build

water shooting.

another four stages on the Turrella backlot - for hire to all comers. The studio facility company is known as Filmspace.

According to Kabriel, the first stage should cost about $5-6 million; to complete the final structure should call for another $4 million. Start-date on the first new stage is early 1999, with a

Space Fontana, as it is now stands, occupies

3-4 month schedule in mind. And where will the hirers come

nearly 1.5 hectares of land, an 8km

from? Both Rick Kabriel and Stephanie

crow’s flight from the Sydney CBD. You

Ceccaldi feel the main demand for

can drive there from the CBD in around

such a complex will be from feature

20-30 minutes, or perform a 10-15

and television series producers, look

minute scam per from the airport. Well

ing for well-fitted, well-located

located? Sure. The only downside is

studios. As a side issue, the Turrella

that Turrella is the other side of town

environment appears to be quite

from the film labs and video post-

noise-free, as the Mascot flight paths

houses, as well as the ad agencies

steer around the region.

which currently ‘feed’ the machine. The rear of the backlot adjoins a

Postscript: This writer, Barrie Smith,

creek which feeds Cook’s River and a

has worked as a director in many of

National Park, a large part of which

Sydney’s old studios. Fie still remem

has been levelled in preparation for

bers with affection shooting in the

further studio construction. But, even

wonderful, high-ceiling Pagewood;

when the additional four stages are in

Cinesound’s Rozelle studios, well-

place, there will be enough room for

located close to some of the best

moderate outdoor shooting.

drinking holes in Sydney; Artransa,

Rick Kabriel originates from Prague,

antiseptic and, in the ’60s, near to

capital of the present Czech Republic.

nowhere; and Merv Murphy and Gwen

Over the years, he has cemented a

Oatley’s Supreme Sound Studios in

close working relationship with that

Paddington, an eccentrically singular

city’s Barrandov Studios, claimed to

home and early training ground for

be amongst the largest in the world.

many of the country’s top technicians

The arrangement is reciprocal, and

of today.

gives Fontana/M anifesto/Film space

Information on Filmspace:

entrée to preferential access and pric

Ros Carr on tel (61.2) 9567 0491,

ing in the Prague complex; Fontana

fax (61.2) 9597 4797.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

or this writer, the appeal in this

At present, there are two studios in operation: one m easures 325 metres

hived off to save Aunty’s budgetary

Desirable

LEGENDS ■

story lay as much in the courage

in undertaking such a large venture to service our notoriously-unreliable film industry, as the colourful legends which lay behind Avondale Studios and its successors. Rick Kabriel landed in Sydney in

So, of course, Jack built it totally solidly with all the prohibited materials, and then clad it in corru gated fibro to cover the solid materials. As a result, the studio is incredibly sound-proofed. For Jack I Bruce, quality was very important. Even the floor is very thick par quetry.

the late 1950s with a burning am bi

According to Kabriel, Jack Bruce had

tion to make films - his own way. His

four hobbies: filmmaking; women;

way was to operate a studio. And, just

Tahiti, where he would spend much of

by coincidence, a studio came on the

his spare time; and Porsche cars.

market, Avondale, then owned by an Englishman, Jack Bruce. The two met,

Avondale in its early years was an important and independent facility.

with the aim of passing the studios

Many early features were shot there,

over to Kabriel.

amongst them Into The Straight (T. 0 .

nally come into existence by the

McCreadie, 1949) and The Kangaroo Kid (Lesley Selander, 1950), while the

efforts - and capital - of Bruce. The

most notable in the last half-century

(possibly apocryphal) story is that he

would have to be Jedda (1955).

The Turrella operation had origi

came from a very rich family in Eng

Director Charles Chauvel and cine

land; having caused lots of problems

matographer Carl Kayser staged many

with some of the maids in the family

night exterior shots in the Turrella hin

home falling pregnant, the family all

terland surrounding Avondale. The

came together and made a proposi

present large studio was also used for

tion to him: “We’ ll give you one

some of the bush interiors.

million pounds, which you can keep,

At the time, the studio floor suf

as long as you promise never to come

fered subsidence, due to the

back to England.”

installation of a large artificial lake,

Bruce told Kabriel that “ he jumped at the opportunity” , sailed to A us

populated with a crocodile and snakes. The water ran over and found

tralia and made it known that he was

its own level in the corner of the

interested in films. The time was the

stage.

late 1940s, at which time little was

Kabriel’s appearance on the scene

happening in the Australian film

in the early ’60s meant that Bruce

industry.

could at last find a buyer for Avon

So Bruce built Avondale Studios.

dale, which was on the verge of

At the time, Kabriel relates, the site

bankruptcy. Kabriel: “ I bought it from

was basically surrounded by virgin

Jack. We had a very good relationship.

bush:

Right behind the studio was a swamp, and there were snakes, etc. The snakes frequently used to come through the stage during shooting.

Fie wanted it to go on as a film company.” Strapped for cash, Kabriel bor rowed £400 from the bank, £200 of which was used as a deposit on Avon dale. Bruce was happy that the place

The Englishman was obviously som e

was occupied and being looked after,

thing of a businessm an, and is

so he let the young Czech have it for

reputed to have worked a deal with

the £200 down payment plus a rental

the government of the time to tie up

payment to be made at the end of

the print processing from overseas

one year.

negatives of feature films to be shown in Australia. Fie and Phil Budden began Commonwealth laboratories, which later became CommonwealthFilmcraft, then Colorfilm; the latter was absorbed in recent years into Atlab. Kabriel recalls that Bruce built

Kabriel remembers saying,

I want an option to buy, and he just laughed and said, “Yes, if you make that in a year and pay me all the money, we’ll talk about it then.” Plunging head on into television com mercial production, Kabriel made % ; Y

Avondale during stringent wartime

run for it” and pulled in a lot of busi

m easures that prohibited the use of

ness over the ensuing twelve months.

strategic m a te ria ls-ste e l, bricks,

So, at the end of the year, he w as able

concrete, e t c .- in any new building.

to pay Jack Bruce the purchase b a l

By law the only material that should

ance of 88,000. Dollars or pounds?

I have been utilized w as fibro. Kabriel:

“ I don’t recall!”, say s Kabriel.

IJ H N l ¡T ÏT S M àm â

T e n a nIn te ra ctive

dia Cïeane er Effects Artel Software

w 3 ^ShSC[LMgEL|

a s i i i i i e x Pty.Ltd ( 0 2 ) 9 3 3 2 4 4 4 4 Suite 5, Level 2, 2 6 3 L iv e rp o o l St, East S yd n ey NSW 2 0 1 0 I fax (0 2 ) 9 3 3 2 4 2 3 4 w e b site

www.adimex.com.au em ail lnfo@adimex.com.au

Media 100 is a registered trademark o f Media 100, Inc. After Effects is a trademark of Adobe Systems. Commotion is a registered trademark o f Puffin Designs, Inc. Trahsoft and StudioBOSS are registered trademarks o f Transoft Technology Corporation. ICE and its products are registered trademarks o f integrated Computing Engines;, Inc. Avid is a registered trademark o f Avid Technology, Inc. A ll other trademarks are the property o f their respective owners. *

F unding D ecisions

P roduction Survey Features in P re-P roduction

Feature Film

Siam Sunset

59 T e le v is io n D ram a

The Potato Factory

D ocum entaries

Rush The Third Generation River of Dreams The First Journey Island Style

59 59 59 59 59

Demons in My Head Holy Smoke In A Savage Land Pitch Black Passion Sample people Waste

Features In P roduction

Cat’s Tale Dear Claudia Fresh Air Muggeres Second Drill

59 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60

Somewhere In the Darkness The Missing The Matrix Two Hands

60 60 60 60

Features in Post-Production

Babe: Pig in the City Erskineville Kings Fifteen Amore Hurrah James Paperback Hero Spank The Craie The Game The Reckoning

61 61 61 61 61 61 62 62 62 62

D ocum entaries

If It Doesn’t Kill You

A nim ation

The Way of the Birds

T elevisio n

Day of the Roses Misery guts Africa, Heaven, Hell and the Future Chooks A Shit of a Job Queensland’s Natural Born Killers Inside the Beast Hipsi, the Forest Gardener Flipper - Series 3 6c S Lost World Feeling Sexy

62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62 62

mproduction I

WASTING

C O M I C T A L E N T • A T W O - H A N D E R • P I T C H I N G I N THE DARK

FFC Funding Decisions

RIVER OF DREAM S

THE FIRST JO URNEY

(54 MINUTE ACCORD)

( 3 X 5 5 MINUTE ACCORD)

Early W

Following a B oard m eeting held in April 1998, the F F C has entered into contract negotiations w ith the produc ers of the following projects:

Feature Films S IA M SUN SET

apprehended and tran spo rted, se parately, as co n victs to Van D iem en's Land. Ikey take s the long voyage to H obart w h e re he is again arrested and spends the next seven ye ars in a chain gang. M e a n w h ile M a ry gains e xperie nce as a sly grog se lle r of w h isk y m ade from potatoes. A t la st she is released and sets up le ga lly as fo u n d e r of a sm all brew ery, The Potato Factory.

Documentary

A rtist S ervices D: J oh n

P olson

P: A l C lark

EPs:

RUSH

A n d r e w K n ig h t , P eter B eilby

W s: M

Dist:

(55 MINUTE ACCORD)

D a n n , A n d r e w K n ig h t

UIP,

S ou th er n S t a r ,

Channel

S tella M otion P ictures

4 PM P

P-D: P h il ipp e C harluet

e rry creates co lo u rs fo r an English pa in t com pany. His exuberan ce fo r life is m atche d only by his passion fo r his w ife , M aree. U ntil one day, a re frig e ra to r fa lls from a plane and lands on her head, killing her. H aunted by g rie f and loss and obsessed w ith the idea th a t he is a m agn et fo r disaster, P erry em barks on a to u r of ou tb ack A u s tra lia and m eets up w ith G race, a w om an w h o is as m enaced by the w o rld as he is. Siam S unset is an hila rio u s and ro m antic ad venture ab out a m an’s se arch fo r p e rfe ctio n in the fa ce of ove rw h e lm in g ca ta strop he.

Television Drama

W s: K ieran W

ow e r, speed and the charism a of the c a r are an in trin sic p a rt of A u s tra lia n young m en's w a y of life. Rush w ill exam ine the phenom enon of 'jo y rid in g ' and its co nse quen ces, w h ile at the sam e tim e re fle c t the im p o rta n t issues and them es fo r boys on the brink of m anhood and th e ir co nnection to the su burban 'c a r cu ltu re '. The film w ill fo llo w th e lives, habits and a spirations of th re e young men w ho reveal th e ir personal storie s and a 'c u ltu re ' w h ic h caused som e of them to break the law .

THE THIRD GENERATION (52 MINUTE ACCORD)

S creentim e

Ga ia Films

archand

W-D: T racie W

P: T o n y B uckley onaghan,

alsh

P: J en i K endell

V ic tor G lynn

Presale:

W: A lan S eymo ur

SBS

Presale: N etw or k S even Dist: C o l u m b ia P ictures C o r po r a t io n (U K )

he ad ventures of M a ry A ba cus begin w h e n , em ployed as a m aid in a g re a t London house, she is dism issed because o f a sexual in d isc re tio n and th ru s t into p ro stitu tio n . She gains w o rk w ith p e tty crim in a l Ikey Solom on w ho, although m arried to H annah, a b rothelkeeper, realizes th a t he is in love fo r the firs t tim e - w ith M ary. A fte r his w ife be trays him to th e au th o ritie s and he is arre sted, he m anages a da ring escape to N e w York. Hannah and M a ry are also

D: R oger S choles

P: A n d rew W aterworth EP: S tephen A mezdroz

Presale: S B S

Ws: A ndrew W aterw orth , R oger

hris Gale, and A b o rigine born in 1967, w a s rem oved from his m other A lic e w h e n he w a s nine m onths old. A lic e w a s also rem oved from her m other Dinah as a young child. Chris found h im self a lone b la ck child in a w h ite w o rld . W ith increasin g a liena tion, he w e n t fro m one institu tio n to another. Until re ce n tly his hu rt led to an ger and violen ce. N ow , fo r the firs t tim e, and w ith th e help of his aunties Lola and Coral E dw ards and Ju d y A tkinso n, Chris w a n ts to fa ce his past and create a n e w and p o sitive future .

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGU S T 1998

S choles

K ey

Presale: ABC

g re a te s t jo u rn e y of all tim e, hiking

A fric a to A u stra lia , this th re e -p a rt

is the sto ry of fo ra g e rs and h u nter/gathe rers, sm all bands of

SELKIE

va lle y by va lle y m aking th e ir m ark and

(CHILDREN'S FEATURE FILM)

claim ing the n e w -found w o rld of th e ir

B luestone P ictures

ow n. This qu est w ill explore human orig in s and inquire w h e th e r, regardless

W: R ob G eorge

fe a tu re film aim ed at the 6-13 ye arold audience.

HI FIVE ISLA N D STYLE (55 MINUTE ACCORD) PORCHLIGHT FILMS

D Director

D: C arla D rago P: Liz W atts

SW Scriptwriter

(PILOT EPISODE) Ps:

P osie G r a e m e -E v a n s , H elena H a r ris

Presale:

N in e N etw ork

a lf-h o u r p ilo t fo r a pre-scho ol ch ild re n s ' program m e.

Ws: C arla D rago , M aud P age

C Cast

W H A T 'S IN THE BOX?

Broadcaster: SBS

PC Principal Cast

(PILOT EPISODE)

a c ific Island ers love th e ir m usic. On

Ps:

D IS T Distributor

There is alw ays singing, alw ays dancing, alw ays a gu ita r or radio playing. M u sic plays a vital role in th e ir re spe ctive cu ltu re s and it is an

regreto it cannot accept

im p o rta n t pa rt of th e ir oral tra d itio n s.

inform ation received in a

A cro s s the w id e suburban sp ra w l of

differentform at.

Sydney, a handful of P acific Island er co m m u nities are scatte red . They are

Cinema Papers does not

brow n fa ce s in a w h ite cro w d - people

accept responsibility fo r the

from tra d itio n a l cu ltures living, w o rkin g

accuracy o f any inform ation

and g row ing up in the bigg est

supplied by production com

indu strialized c ity of the South P acific.

panies. This is p articu larly

Island Style is a film ab out the youth of

the case when inform ation

S ydney's P acific Island er com m unities

changes but the production

and ho w th e ir ow n style of m usic becom es a co rne rston e in solving th e ir problem s and fo rg in g an id e n tity of th e ir ow n.

C herrie B ottger ,

A n n P a t c h e tt -G ough

the streets, in the home, at ch urch.

N O T E : Production Survey

supplied.

tr ib u to r s

A ro m antic com edy.

people w an derin g across unknow n

LP Line Producer

correct what h as already been

International sales agent: D aro F il m D is

te rrito ry , generatio n by generation,

A S Associate Producer

company m akes no attem pt to

Presale: CHANNEL 7

m ystery of ho w ou r an cestors em erged from A fric a to populate the planet. This

P Producer

form at. Cinema Papers

A rtist S ervices

series w ill inve stiga te the great

Co-P Co-Producer

form s now adhere to a revised

M U M B O JUM BO (TELEMOVIE)

the tra il of m odern hum ans. From

of ra ce or place, w e m ay all be related.

W D Writer-director

The Commercial Television Production F und has announced four new projects:

he First Jo u rn e y w ill fo llo w the

EP Executive Producer

S E Story Editor

( 4 X 1 HOUR M INI SERIES)

EPs: D es M

P h il ipp e C harluet

Presale: A B C

THE POTATO FACTORY

D: R obert M

eir ,

W-D: J ohn H ughes Ps: J oh n H u g h es , D o n n a C a m e r o n

he K im berley region of n o rth w e s te rn A ustralia is s u b je c t to deeply c o n tra d ic to ry visions of the future . C urrent proposals to dam the Fitzroy River and to irrig a te huge areas of co u n try w e s t of the Fitzroy River fo r cotton and su g a r plantation draw s to g e th e r the inco m m en surate w o rld vie w s th a t w ill have to be re co n cile d in our ne gotia tion of the m illennium . River of Dream s w ill re fle c t on the ra d ica lly dive rge nt philosophies en acted in and on the land, on the m eanings em bedded in the flo w of the w a te r, of the rive r and its banks and its surround in g plains, as th e y collide In a m om ent of crisis fo r our co lle c tive future.

CTPF Decisions

B eyond P roductions

orks

Presale:NETWORK T en

a lf-h o u r pilo t fo r a pre-scho ol ch ild re n s ' program m e.

Production Survey Featured in Pre-Production D EM O N S IN M Y HEAD Production company: E m pire M otion P ictures

Budget: $500,000

P rincipal Credits Director: NEIL JOHNSON

Associate producer: KYLIE DU FRESNE

production

ProductionSurvey orld s t u d io s ,

Production:

Costume designer: A ureole M cA lpine Editor: NEIL JOHNSON Sound designer: N eil J o h n so n

P lanning

and

D evelopment

Casting: J a n e R o w l a n d , N eil J o h n so n Dialogue coach: N ik ki P rice Shooting schedule by: N eil J oh n so n Budgeted by: N eil J o h n so n

P roduction Crew Insurer:

R oyal & S un A lliance

Camera Crew Camera operator: G r a n t H oi Focus puller: D u n c a n B arrett Clapper-loader: D u n c a n B arrett Camera assistant: D u n c a n B arrett Camera type: D ig it a l B eta c a m

On - set Crew 1st assistant director: V elvet E ldred Script assistant: NlKKI PRICE Continuity: L is a B reheny Make-up: S tar FX - Lis a J acob Make-up assistants: Lis a M c M a h o n , J a c in t a M

C ooper P edy

(SA)

in l e y ,

Film gauge:

S cott K roopf

Synopsis sci-fi thrille r. M arooned space travelle rs struggle fo r survival on a seem ingly lifeless sun-scorched w orld. W hen a tita n ic eclipse th ro w s the planet into darkness, the w orld erupts w ith nocturnal life and the real battle begins.

R ob G eorge

Cast a r ic o n te

G reg B o w m a n - M

iles

c ia ),

is est

M an

in the

Shooting stock: FuJlCOLOR Film gauge: 16 m m

U n iv e r s e )

A m eteorite crashes into the back garden of Travis B row n. Upon opening it, he d iscovers a headset th a t allow s the w e a re r to bring stra nge objects across from a n other dim ension.

HOLY SMOKE Production company: J an C h apm an P roductions Director: J ane C a m pio n Producer: J an CHAPMAN Scriptwriter: A n n a CAMPION Cast: K ate W inslet

B a r b a r a H ersey

pianist, com poser and eccen tric, Percy G rainger, and the intense relationship w ith his m other Rose, w h ich dom inated his life. The film charts Percy's rise from child prodigy to the toast of Edw ardian London, revered and ce lebrated thro ugh out the w orld .

(100 MINS) B ill B ennett P roductions D: Ps:

B ill B en n ett

otio n

Budget: $ 2 m 1998 1998 1998

P re - P r o d u c t io n : A ug S ept / O

Director: CLINTON SMITH Producers: E m il e S h e r m a n , B a r to n S m it h Executive producer: JONATHAN SHTEINMAN Scriptwriters: CLINTON SMITH, PETER B u c km a ster

W A STE

Presale: SHOWTIME Distribution: HOLLYWOOD PARTNERS,

Production company: DE PASQUALE

B eyond F il m s

P r o d u c tio n s P ty Ltd

et in the late 1930s, a ne w ly m arried husband and w ife an th rop ologist team travel to an island group in N ew Guinea to study the sexual m ores of a group of villagers. Their relationship begins to break dow n w he n the w om an realizes he r husband is w ro n g ly interp reting the re search to fu rth e r his ow n academ ic am bitions. She enlists the help of a pearl tra d e r to travel to another island w he re she intends to re search a village of headhunters, and begins to fall in love w ith him. By the tim e she returns to he r husband, w a r has broken out in the P a c ifio a n d the Japanese are poised to invade t W r island.

n io t is

Budget: $300,000 Production office: B r is b a n e Production: 25/5/98 - 13/6/98

Principal Credits Director: T ony DE PASQUALE Producer: T ony de P asquale Line producer: G eoff C ooper Scriptwriters: J eff A f io u n i , G reg A f io u n i , T ony

(S t e v e ), M

e l in a ),

m o t h e r ),

a r ia

a v is ),

(as rs

alter rs

a storopoulo s e l in a ' s

C on B a b a n io t is ( cafe

man

a g er ).

y j^ d v e n tu re storie s about cats.

Production company: J. M c E lr OY HOLDINGS Budget: $3.5 3 m il l io n Production: M arch 1998 Locations: B r a m p to n I s l a n d ,

Production Crew Production co-ordinator: N athan MAYFIELD

Completion guarantor: F il m FINANCES INC.

B ryce M

Vehicles: S ta ge & S creen

Camera Crew Focus puller: T erry H ow ells

ANTHONY LANGONA

Key grip: R ob HANSFORD Grip: G lenn A r r o w s m it h Gaffer: C olin W

Make-up: A m a n d a R o w b o t t o m Hairdresser: ZELJKA S t a n in Stunts co-ordinator: Z ev E leftherio u David Ngoombujarra's right hand: J ohn M

oore

Personal trainer (for Fabrizio): A n t h o n y D i C ecco Chaperone (for Duane Moore): P eter D ocker Production house (Rome): P a n o r a m a P r o d u c t io n s Safety officer: T o m C o ltr a in e Unit nurse: T ed G reen Still photography: A n n a B er ta lli, M

ari

Unit publicist: F ran La n ig a n (M

Ca n

D o",

S a m B athurst

S teve M

arcus

Principal Credits

Assistant caterer: TlM ORMAN

ebster ,

Travel (flights): T raveltoo

B r en d a n

Scriptwriters: B r en d a n F letcher ,

Art department co-ordinator: L ucy S parke A rt department runner: A d a m M

P aul F enech Directors of photography: MlKE KuEM, Production designer: M

A rt Department Art director: A liso n P ye

F letcher , P aul F enech

c G oldrick

Set dresser: C olin ROBERTSON Props buyer: M

a r it a

u ssett

Standby props: D ean S u lliva n

a d e l a in e

Vehicle co-ordinator: LAURENCE HUMPHRIES

H etherton Editor: AREITO M

" T ruck"

iles

On - set Crew

W ardrobe

1st assistant director: B r en d a n

Costume assistant: D e n is e ( n e e ) PETROVIC

F letcher

Costume standby: K elly F o r e m a n

P ost- production

Post- production

Film gauge: S uper 16

Assistant editor: Ca r o l in e S cott Editing rooms: T he JOINERY

h it t ,

A u sten

Production company: RB F il m s

T a y s h u s , R obyn Lo a u , L eah P urcell ,

Production office: S ydney

Er n ie D ingo

Sound post production: S o u n d f ir m Sound editor: GLENN N e w n h a m Laboratory: ClNEVEX Telecine/rushes transfer: A A V D ig it a l

he sto ry of a young boy and an old man trap ped beneath rubble in a co llap sed building. The old man d istra cts th e boy fro m th e hopeless

"T w o

e l b o u r n e ),

(B roken H il l )

Cast

a n sfield

est

Budget: $ 80 0 ,0 0 0

B arry J e n k in s , R o w a n W

Producer: ROSEMARY BLIGHT

R eady

Boom operator:MAL HUGHES

Catering:

Director: P au l F enech

ear Claudia is a rom antic com edy about a lonely postm an, a desperate hitchhiker, a gifted sculptor, an infatuated pilot, a blind sailor, a stre et kid, a m istress, a m iner, a butcher, tw o thieves and a dead man. W a lte r and Claudia crash into the story by plane. The others arrive in a bag of mail.

1998

PEARCE

o n ic a

Continuity: A n n ie W

SO M EW H ER E IN THE DARKNESS

P rincipal Credits

1st assistant director: M

3rd assistant director: LlSA F erri

R on B uch

G r a n t J ordan

FRESH AIR

il l ia m s

On - set Crew

V e n d r a m e A gency

Synopsis

Director: N eil M

Clapper-loader: JUDE L o vatt

2nd assistant director: M

B ryan B r o w n , A l ek sa n d ra V ujcic

ro m antic com edy about a couple m arooned on an island.

arren,

en zies

Travel co-ordinator: TRAVELTOO

A pr il 1998

Producers: D a v id W

Cast

C arter

andy

Insurer: A O N R isk SERVICES

he disturbing and vio le n t po rtrayal of Sunny Clinsm an, 55 and te rm in a lly ill w ith w ee ks le ft to live, w h o pays tw o estranged arm y re cru its to kidnap his only son's gay lover, in an attem pt to lure his son Evan into a catand-m ouse game fuelled by a hidden agenda of su icid e and s e lf-re trib u tio n . It is the cruel story of a m ilita ry man so g u ilt-rid d e n th a t he fo rc e s his only son into killing him. A su icid e dram a th a t de m o nstra te s the ra w fa cts of a life sp ent living by a code. A lesson in expectan cy. A drill w e w ill all have to en counter.

credits

ay / J un e

ilso n

Production runner: B en Low e Production accountant: M

Principal Credits

Director: CUDLIPP Producers: D es POWER, JlM M c E lrOY Scriptwriter: C hrid C ud lipp

Production: M

C u r tis (C o u n t r y )

Unit assistant: B r itt K o r n a a t

Production company:

P asquale

Director of photography: B en N ott Costume designer A ureole M cA lpin e Editor: J en F in e r a n Sound designer: M ark P idcock Sound recordist: T o m STEVENSON

ason

P h il H e n d e r s o n - W

V er d ic t P ictures Pty Ltd

R a v e n s w o o d , G old C o a s t , Q u een s la n d

Unit manager: R ick K o r n a a t

Director: CHARLES " B u d " TlNGWELL Producer: CAMERON J a m e s M iller Co-producer: P eta CRAWFORD Executive producers: O scar S cherl ,

A ri S y n g e -

T oula Y ia n n i ( M

Principal

el b o u r n e ),

SECOND DRILL

Production manager: the cats

a r t in ),

Location managers: S tep h e n B rett (M

Locations assistant (Broken Hill):

Production Crew

R eeve ), M ar ie O rr ( M ay

Production secretary: LOUISE STIRLING

D a y , J a so n B arry

Scriptwriter:

archant

Production co-ordinator: S er en a G a ttus o

urphy

Cast

Production:

ann

Production Crew

J a m e s P o d a r id is

S hirley S c h u r m a n n ( M

R eeve ), A d a m M

P rincipal Credits

B ill B e n n e t t , J en n ifer B en n ett

W s: B ill B e n n e t t , J en n ifer C luff

L iv in g M

1998

DEAR CLAUDIA

P ictures

Production:

IN A SAVAGE LAND

R ya n ( M

SAM PLE PEOPLE Production company:

arch

Scriptwriter: ROBERT TAYLOR

Cast

C ope ), J oyce D raper ( M

assion is the story of acclaim ed

Production: M

Legal services: R oth W

International sales agent: B eyond F ilm s

t h e m s e l v e s ),

D evelopment

Storyboard artist: H ugh M

G ary S m it h , C hr is C raib

F r eem a n

Sa m u el

and

Extras casting: INESE VOGLER

Producers: N igel O dell , D a v id R e d m a n

credits

D oug S h a w

R ichard R oxburgh (P ercy G r a in g e r )

Editor: K en S a llo w s

P lanning

C a s t in g ( I t a l y )

Executive producers: JOHN W0LSTENH0LME,

Editors: G len S h ort , S erena H a rris Sound recordists: B arry D o n a l d ,

and

Costume designer: KERRI MAZZOCCO

Casting: A liso n B a r r e t t , D in a M

P rincipal credits

Director: R alph La w r e n c e M a r sd en Producer: Ralph La w r en c e M a r sd en Associate producer: Loretta Fitzgerald Scriptwriter: Ralph La w r e n c e M a r sd en Directors of photgraphy: D a v io d Fraser ,

P a m e l a , R oger

Production designer: CHRISTOPHER KENNEDY

Cultural attache: K en S a u n d e r s

$4m

att

ALBERTI

anuel

(A u s t r a l ia ), B eatrice K ruger , F.B .I.

wo m edical stud ents becom e involved in an illic it organ tra n sp la n t scam .

P r o d u c tio n s

Principal

REP

Scriptwriter: M

Director of photography: GEOFFREY HALL

WINCHESTER FILMS,

Budget:

P ost- production

Cast

Line producer:YvONNE COLLINS

P oly G ram

Featurej in Production

R o m e , I taly

Producers: Ly n d a H o u se , J im S tark

E n t e r t a in m e n t s

Director: D ean M

P a r a c h il n a S A ,

and

Script editor: D u n c a n THOMPSON

MUGGERS

NSW ,

Director: MANUEL A lberti

Production company: R e d m a n

andy)

el b o u r n e ,

Principal Credits

Distribution:

M arketing

P a r tn e r s , B eyond F il m s ,

Locations: M

S B S I, S h o w t im e

(S m o u l

Development: FFC

Synopsis

a c D o nald

aste is a com edy ab out tw o best m ates M ax and Joel. Born into a fa s t food th ro w a w a y so ciety and m oulded by years of television, M ax and Jo el are fo rc e d to cope w ith the re sp o n sib ilitie s of adulthood.

International distributor: HOLLYWOOD

B roken H ill

even ty p ic a lly funn y/sad days in the lives of th re e aspiring a rtists - a film m aker, a pa in te r and a m usician w h o are alm ost 30 and live, w o rk and ro ck un der the flig h tp a th in the m u lticu ltu ra l in n e r-w e ste rn su burbs of Sydney.

Synopsis

ark

Production: 2 1 /4 /9 8 - 1 7 /6 /9 8

Distribution guarantor: B eyond F il m s

a yn e

B e l in d a C larke ( M

F il m D is tr ib u t o r s

Finance

Finance: A u s t r a lia n F il m C o m m is s io n ,

J oe ), Luke R obertson

a n ),

R ose

Government A gency I nvestment

(R e g is ), A m ber

J a m e s D o b b in (B ill ), D a v id V allon

and

By: R ob G eorge

(T r a vis B r o w n ),

A llu m (L a r is s a ), J a n e R o w l a n d ( M

Production company: M a t t Carroll Film s Distribution company: B eyond F ilm s

Propspeople: JAMES DOBBIN, JASON JURD

Py g r a m ( M

and

P a u l D en n y ( J oel ),

Production company: SCREENCRAFTS

A rt D epartment

atthew

a x ),

C a r o lin e D u n p h y (B h a j a ), W

PASSIO N

Post- production

S uper 16 m m

CAT'S TALES

Director: PETER DUNCAN Producer: M a t t Carroll Scriptwriters: P eter G o l d s w o r t h y ,

J on H a l p in ( M

d er in g

Based on the stageplay: P ercy

A d a m H ead

(S la ppe r ), A nd y M

Post-production supervisor: NEIL JOHNSON

M arketing

S h o w t im e

Cast

Finance

Wardrobe supervisor: A ureole M cA lpine

F il m s P ty Ltd Distribution company: ROADSHOW

Network presale: S B S , C h a n n e l 4 (U K ),

Post- production

Early J uly , 1998

Principal Credits

W ardrobe

Art director:

ovie

ainly U.S. m oney. P acific Film and T elevisio n Com m ission provided fin a n c ia l in ce n tive s to film in Q ueensland, lo ca tio n s advice and support.

Special fx make-up: S tar FX - Lis a J acob Hairdresser: S tar FX - Lis a J acob

Ro a d s h o w M

Director: D a v id T w o h y Producer: T o m E n g e l m a n Executive producers: T ed F ie ld , A n t h o n y

iller

POST-PRODUCTION

La w y e r s - Karl

A rt Department

Principal credits

THE M IS S IN G Production company: UPSIDE DOWN

Gauge: S uper 16 m m

1st assistant director: V era B iffone Continuity: Ka t a r in a K eil Continuity attachment: G il l ia n I so ardi Make-up: T rish Falzon

Production company: Locations: W a rner

Underwriter: FACB

On - set Crew

I n terscope (P oly G r a m ) W

Editor: D a n y COOPER

NYREE SMITH

S cott

PITCH BLACK

J a so n J urd

Production designer: G a v in B arbey

| s itu a tio n by ta kin g him on a jo u rn e y of

I1 the m ind.

Length 92 MINS

Production secretary: Legal services: R ed C h ip

continued Producers: JANE HOWLAND, NEIL JOHNSON Line producer: JANE ROWLAND Executive producer: G eorge B rook Scriptwriter: NEIL JOHNSON Director of photography: G r a n t Hoi Production designers: JAMES DOBBIN,

Scriptwriter: N eil MANSFIELD

P ictures Camera equipment: SAMMYS Shooting stock: K odak

Government A gency I nvestment

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T 1998

Make-up supervisor: J a n " Z iggy "

Safety report: PETER CULPAN

p ro d u ctio n (FFC)

Production company: M t xm MOVIES

M arketing International sales agent: G oldwyn F il m s I ntern ation al

Cast oore

ja r r a

il l ie ),

Featured in Post Production

D a v id F r a n k l in (F ather

O 'B r ie n ), R ebecca F r ith (S u s a n )

h a untin g th rille r w h ic h te lls the sto ry o f T om m aso, a h ig h -ra n kin g V a tica n prie st, w h o is fo rc e d by circ u m s ta n c e s to q u estion his fa ith and values.

Director: MAURICE M u rphy Producer: BROOKE WlLSON Executive producer: MAURICE M urphy Scriptwriter: M a u r ic e M u rphy Director of photography: J oh n BROCK Production designer: E m m a H a m il t o n La w e s

(S u t h e r l a n d ), D a v id N g o o m b u -

Editor: D a n a H ughes Composer: C arlo G iacco Production manager: B rooke WlLSON Art director: JULIA HlSHlON

BABE: PIG IN THE CITY Production company: KENNEDY M

iller

P rincipal Credits

achow ski

Director of photography: B ill P ope Production designer: Ow en PATERSON Costume designer: K ym B arrett Editor: ZACH STAENBERG

A rt D epartment A nimals Animal trainers: K arl L ew is M iller ,

oss,

H ugo

J oe P a n t o l ia n o

he M a trix te lls of a co m p u te r

h a c k e r in th e 22nd c e n tu ry w h o jo in s a band of fre e d o m fig h te rs s tru g g lin g a g a in st evil c o m p u te rs th a t c o n tro l th e Earth. The m ach in es keep th e ir hum an slaves passive by lite ra lly plugging them into The M a trix - a v irtu a l re a lity universe th a t ap pears as the 20th c e n tu ry w o rld w e know .

TW O HANDS Production company: BLINDFOLD 3 P ty L im it e d

Distribution company: REP F il m s Production office: SYDNEY Production: 2 0 /4 /9 8 - 1 2 /6 /9 8

Principal Credits Director: GREGOR JORDAN Producer: MARIAN MACGOWAN Executive producers: M ark T u r n b u l l , e n z ie s ,

S teve M artin

Cast

T im o t h y W

h ite

J a m e s C ro m w ell (Fa r m er H oggett ), M a g d a S z u b a n sk i ( M rs H oggett ), M ickey R ooney

aving triu m p h e d at the N ational S heepdog T ria l, Babe re tu rns hom e a hero, but in his en th usiasm to be at th e side o f his beloved "b o s s ", th e little pig a c c id e n ta lly causes a m ishap w h ic h leaves Farm er H oggett in tra c tio n co nfin ed to bed. W ith the bank th re a te n in g fo re c lo s u re , M rs H og gett's only hope fo r saving th e farm is to a c c e p t an o ffe r fo r Babe to d e m o nstra te his sh eep-he rding a b ilitie s a t an overseas State Fair in excha nge fo r a ge nerous fee. Thus, Babe and M rs H og gett se t o ff on a jo u rn e y th a t take s them to a fa r aw a y sto ryb o o k m etro polis, w h e re Babe e n co u n te rs an in cre d ib le a s so rtm e n t of anim al frie n d s, e x p e rie n ce s the jo y and s o rro w o f life and learns ho w a kind and stea dy h e a rt can m end a so rry w o rld

Scriptwriter: GREGOR JORDAN Director of photography M

alco lm

ERSKINEVILLE KINGS

c C ulloch

Production designer: S tev en J o n e s -E v a n s Costume designer: E m il y S er en s in Editor: Lee S m it h

P roduction Crew Production manager:

crew

Art director: COLIN GlBSON

A n d e r s o n ), La u r e n c e F is h b u r n e

B ryce M

Development

S can lan S tudio

K e a n u R eeves (T h o m a s " N eo "

and

P roduction

Unit publicist: F io n a S ea r s o n , D D A

e a v in g ,

M ark La m pr e ll

Visual effects: T he N eal

M ake-up supervisor: NlKKl GOOLEY

o r ris ,

Planning

On - set Crew

C a r r ie - A n n e M

iller

Storyboard artist: PETER POUND

1st assistant director: C o lin F letcher

o r p h e u s ),

B ill M

D oug

Director of photography: A n d rew L esnie Production designer: ROGER FORD Costume designer: NORMA MORICEAU Editors: J ay F ried k in , M argaret S ixel Composer: N igel W estlake

Unit production manager: C arol H ughes

itchell ,

iller ,

Line producer: B a r b a r a G ib b s

Production Crew

Cast

Production company: UNDERGROUND F ilm s Production office: SYDNEY Budget: $ 7 5 0 ,0 0 0 Production: 28 J a n u a ry - 24 February

P rincipal Credits

S a m T hompso n

On - set Crew 1st assistant director: J ohn M artin M ake-up supervisor: CASSIE HANION Unit publicist: Fio n a S earso n

G overnment A gency I nvestment

Director: A lan W hite Producers: A nnette S im o n s , J ulio Caro Scriptwriters: A lan W hite , A n ik C hooney Director of photography: JOHN SWAFFIELD Production designer: ANDREW H orne Editor: J a n e M oran

Development: FFC

Cast

M arketing

M arty D e n n is s , H ugh J a c k m a n , L eah V a n d en b er g , J oel E dgerton , A aron B labey , A n d rew W hooley

International sales agent: B eyond Fil m s

Cast

C o lin R o b er tso n

W ardrobe Wardrobe supervisor: R obyn ELLIOTT Standby wardrobe: A m a n d a C raze Wardrobe assistant: L is a J avelin

W ardrobe

C I N E M A P A P E R S â&#x20AC;˘ A U GU S T 1998

ased on the tru e sto ry of a rom ance be tw e e n an A u s tra lia n m o th e r of th re e and an Ita lian POW se t in the fin a l ye ars of W W II.

Scenic artist: COLIN BURCHALL Construction manager: D ave Fran ks Key carpenter: M ick G olitschenko Carpenters: A nthony La m o n t , M athew B olger . G ilbert H a n so n

Government A gency I nvestment

Post- production

Development: Film V ictoria Production: FFC, NSW FTO

Construction Department

Post-production manager: al

M arketing

B r yn in g

Assistant editor: B arry La n f r a n c h i Laboratory: C inevex Shooting stock: K odak Double head projector: T he JOINERY Length: 95MIN Gauge: 3 5 m m

Government A gency I nvestment Finance: Film F in a n c e C orporation (FFC)

Other I nvestment Production: PREMIUM MOVIE P a r t n e r s h ip (P M P ) Distribution: T otal F il m

HURRAH

a yfa ir

Production company: Production office: M elbourne Budget: $ 3 .6 m Production: 23/8 - 3/10/97 Location: WENTWORTH, N S W credits

Director: Fra nk S hield s Producer: J ulie M a r lo w Co-producer: JOHN WOLSTENHOLME Executive producers: D a v id R oe , L es L it h g o w

ACS

Production designer: P au l H olt Costume designer: A n n a S enio r Editor: B ill M urphy Composer: P eter B est Sound designer: D a v id L ee

P lanning

and

D evelopment R alph M

T e l e v is io n ,

E n t e r t a in m e n t

a r to n

C sokas (R a o u l ),

T u s h k a B ergen ( J u l ia )

hrough the shim m erin g re d -o ch re distan ce, in the w h ite -h o t lig h t of passion, tw o lovers create th e ir ow n re ality. Hurrah is a m ysterious, intense love story.

JAM ES Production company:

Line producer: D a n ie l S charf Scriptwriter: J ohn W o lste n h o lm e Director of photography: N in o M a r t in e t t i ,

Storyboard artist:

and

International sales agent: BEYOND F ilm s

Cast R u ssell P age (J a m e s ), R ebecca Y ates (C u i r e ), M artin H en d erso n (T o m ), P aul M ercurio (D a vid K n ig ht ), R a d h a M itchell (Ta m a r a ), P eter Gw y n n e (D r D errick ), P hillip H older ( M r P o w er ), G eorge S partels (J ack G ra n t ), K ip G a m b l in (R o u n d ), R a in y M ayo (D a n ik a )

ames is th e co m ic sto ry of a young

ru g b y hero w h o leads a s e c re t double life as a b a lle t da ncer.

Cast:

H urrah P r o d u c t io n s P ty Ltd

Principal

P ost- production Recording studio: A lan Eaton S tudios Laboratory: A tlab Laboratory liaison: Ia n R u ssell Negative matching: NEGTHINK Screen ratio: 13:1 Shooting stock: K odak

G ertraud I ngeborg

Director: GEORGE MILLER

Scriptwriters: GEORGE MILLER, JUDY

Directors: Lar ry a n d A n d y W a c h o w s k i Producers: J oel S ilve r , A n d r e w M a s o n Executive producer: BARRIE OSBORNE Scriptwriters: ANDY AND La rry W

L is a H en sley , S teve B a s t o n i , T a r a J a k s e w ic z , D o m in ic G a l a t i ,

Art director: CATHERINE MANSILL Art department co-ordinator: A lice Luey Art department runner: B en S kin n er Set dresser #1: JuLElT JOHN Set dresser #2: PETE BAXTER Assistant set dresser: Kath B urton Standby props: J ohn K ing Storyboard artist: B en S kinn er

Standby props: B en B a uer Armourer: JOHN Fox Wardrobe buyer: C a th erine H erneen Standby wardrobe: Ka ren Falting

Cast

P rincipal Credits

Long

Art department: D a n iel OWEN Art department assistant: GERARD K eily Set dressers: M ar it a M u sset t ,

Production: S ep tem be r 1 9 9 7 ...

Producers: G eorge M

a r ia n

A rt D epartment

atthew

Art department co-ordinator:

Film gauge: 3 5 m m Length: 90 MINS Finance: P r iva te

Distribution company: U n iv e r s a l P ic tures

Production company: MATRIX FILMS PTY Ltd Distribution company: WARNER B r o s . Production: 1 4 /3 /9 8 - 2 4 /7 /9 8 Location: SYDNEY

A rt D epartment

P ost- production

THE M A T R IX

cCa h o n ,

Art director: PHILIP BOSTON

Principal Credits

w o H ands fo llo w s the m is adventures of Jim m y, an aspiring young ho olig an w h o loses ten thou sand g a n g ste r d o llars and has to pull his firs t bank job to avoid the bullet.

Fa b r iz io B e n t iv o g l io (T o m m a s o ), J ohn M

Production office: S y d n e y , M orpeth Budget: $450,000 Production: 2 - 2 1 FEBRUARY, 1998

Synopsis

P a r tn e r s

Runners: J oclyn M

Bryan Brown, Heath Ledger, Rose Byrne, David Field, Steve Vidler, Susie Porter

Other Finance International financing: HOLLYWOOD

Unit publicist: F r a n LANIGAN Catering: K eith F is h , Y ve tt S in i

tt;

FIFTEEN A M O R E

Choreographer: P au l M ercurio Still photography: SKIP WATKINS Catering: E at a n d S hoot T hrough

Still photography: LlSA ToMASETTl

o b ro th e rs re c o n c ile fo llo w in g the death of th e ir father.

continued C o r p o r a t io n

Z eig en bein

urray

S a v il l e , S a n d i A u s t in

Production Survey Development: A u s t r a l ia n F il m F in a n c e

Security: T ed M

oser

Production Crew Production manager: E lisa A r genzio Production co-ordinator: A n n a M olyn eau x Production secretary: E leanor P h ilpo tts Location manager: M al BRYNING Location assistant: C ath Lee Unit manager: Leigh A m m it z b o l Unit assistant: P h il l ip T aylor Production accountant: T revor B la in ey Insurer: HOLLAND INSURANCE Completion guarantor: F.A.C.B. Legal services: Foster H art Travel: S tage & S creen T ravel

Camera Crew Focus puller: T rish K eating Clapper-loader: T ov BELLING Camera equipment: CAMERAQUIP Key grip: N oel M udie Grip: O liver P etrovic Gaffer: L es Frazier Best boy: A d a m KERCHEVAL Lighting equipment: FRAZIER L ighting Generator operator: A n d rew J espen

On - set Crew 1st assistant director: B ob H o w a rd 2nd assistant director: S teve H a r d m a n

Continuity: J ulie B a t e s - B r e n n a n Boom operator: G erry N u c i-F ora Make-up/hair design: ANDREA CADZOW Make-up/hair: JENNIFER LAMPHEE Special fx co-ordinator: P eter S t u b b s Stunts co-ordinator: W ally D a lto n Safety supervisor: P eter CULPAN

T he J a m e s G a n g P ty Ltd

Distribution company: BEYOND FILMS, REP D istribution

Pre-production: 1 0 / 1 1 / 9 7 - 1 6 / 1 / 9 8 Production: 19/1 - 1 3/3 /9 8 Post-production: 16/3 - 2 8 /8 /9 8

Principal Credits Director: Lynda HEYS Producers: M ariel BEROS, S haron K ruger , R o ss M atthew

Scriptwriter: STUART B eattie Director of photography: M artin M c G rath Production designer: Luigi PlTTORlNO Costume designer: A n n ie M a rsha ll Editor: J ohn S cott Composer: N erida T yson C hew Sound designer: G un tis S ics

P lanning

and

D evelopment

Casting: Faith M artin & A sso c ia t es Extras casting: Kate F insterer Storyboard artist: D avid R u ssell Shooting schedule by: A drian P ickersgill

P roduction Crew Production manager: P erry S tapleton Production co-ordinator: R uth W atson Production secretary: VANESSA CRITCHLEY Location manager: A nton D enby Unit manager: R ick K ornaat Production runner: SCOTT LOVELOCK Production accountant: SOPHIE SlOMOS Insurer: H.W. WOOD Completion guarantor: FACB Legal services: R oth W arren Travel co-ordinator: STAGE & SCREEN Freight co-ordinator: STAGE & SCREEN

Camera Crew Focus puller: KATRINA CROOK Clapper-loader: SlMON WILLIAMS Key grip: B rett M c D owell

PAPERBACK HERO Production company: PAPERBACK F il m s P ty Ltd

Distribution company: B eyond F ilm s & P olygram F ilm ed E n ter t a in m en t

Pre-production: 5/1/98... Production: 20/2/98... Post-production: 6/4/98...

P rincipal Credits Director: A ntony B o w m a n Producers: La n c e REYNOLDS & J ohn W

inter

Co-producer: D a n i R ogers Scriptwriter: A ntony B o w m a n Director of photography: D avid B urr Production designer: J on DOWDING Costume designer: LOUISE WAKEFIELD Editor: VERONIKA JENET Sound designer: A udio LOC Sound recordist: G reg BuRGMANN

P u n n in g

and

D evelopment

Casting: Faith M artin & A sso c ia t es Extras casting: Lydiard & Rossi Budgeted by: J ohn W inter

P roduction Crew Production manager: ROSSLYN ABERNETHY Production co-ordinator: S tottie Production secretary: LOUISA KORS Location manager: C hris S trew e Unit manager: D a ve S uttor Production runner: A n jii B ryers Production accountant: N ad een KlNGSHOTT Completion guarantor: FACB Legal services: T r ess C ocks & M a ddo x Travel co-ordinator: S howtravel

Camera Crew Focus puller: J ohn W a r eh a m Key grip: L ester B ishop Gaffer: GRAHAM RUTHERFORD

On - set Crew 1st assistant director: C harles R otherham

3rd assistant director: M arc A shton Continuity: J enny Q uigley Boom operator: G ary D ixon Make-up: M argaret S tev en so n Make-up assistant: M aree M c D onald Stunts co-ordinator: D a n n y B a ld w in Unit nurse: C o nnie W eb b e r -R udd Catering: E leets C atering

On - set Crew

A rt D epartment

1st assistant director: A drian P ickersgill 2nd assistant director: G uy C a m pb el l 3rd assistant director: D im itri E llerington Continuity: Ly n n - M aree D anzey Boom operator: D avid P earson

An director: A d a m H ead Art department co-ordinator: K atie N ott Art department runner: D ean M c G wyer Art department assistant: C h ristin e F eld Draftsman: A n d rew H ays

Television

production

Production Survey M

ichelle

S otheren

"H arry" W

ark

Standby wardrobe: H elen M

A n d r e w G a r d in e r

Set finisher:

& P a c if ic F il m

T ed M

c Q u e e n - M a so n

Assistant editor: A d r ia n M

Other I nvestment

Development: S A F il m CORPORATION

Cast (J a c k ), J ea n ie D r yn a n (S u z ie ), B ruce V en a b les (A r t ie ), R itc h ie S in ger

Production: P r e m iu m M

D ix o n - W

Production company: U ltra F il m s P ty Ltd Distribution company: P alace C in e m a s E n t . C o r po ra tio n Pre-production: 2 4 /1 1 /9 7 - 2 /1 /9 8 Production: 5 /1 -1 0 /2 /9 8

Principal Credits Director:ERNIE CLARK Producer: D a v id L ig h tfoot c D onald

Executive producer: R olf DE H eer

and

D o m e n ic o P rocacci

Scriptwriters: DAVID FARRELL &

a tt

Cast

C hecc M

SPA N K

Documentaries

Publicity: D a v id Farrell

R obert M

ammone

tone

u sso lin o hittle

(T in a ), M

IF IT DOESN'T KILL YOU

(P a u l ie ), V in ce

ario

G a m m a ( N ic k ),

4 X 2 6 MINUTE EPISODES)

(V in n y ), V ic to r ia

( J o ), L u c ia M arco

astron-

F ilm P rojects W orking I m a g es

Production company:

V e n t u r in i (A n g )

Pre-sale:

aulie re tu rns from Ita ly to fin d his old m ates N ick and V inny planning to se t up a cafe in the c ity's prem ier cafe strip. Vinny's girlfrie n d Tina ba nkrolls th e ir plans, but th e y c a n 't find a building. Enter local rich kid Rocky Pisoni, te m p o ra rily in charge of his Pa's building de velopm e nt com pany. R ocky take s over the p ro je c t w ith disastrous consequences.

P lanning

and

Principal

Distribution company: V illage R o a d s h o w Ltd Budget: $ 1 .2 m Production: 27 J a n u a r y - M arch 1998

Production Crew

P rincipal Credits

A ir Express

Camera Crew Focus puller: Rags P hillpot Clapper-loader: S u n n y W il d in g Steadicam photography:

G arry M

Locations: M

elb o u r n e ,

en tw o r th ,

p o s t - pr o d u c tio n

P rincipal

credits

Director: R uth B erry Producer: M ark C h a p m a n Writer: RUTH BERRY

S ynopsis he m ysterious life of the m usky rat kangaroo.

(44 EPISODES) Production company: VILLAGE R o a d s h o w P ictures / M G M

Budget: $45 m

d o cum en tary looking at the future of A fric a thro ugh its youth.

Locations: GOLD COAST C urrently

in pr o d u c tio n

CHOOKS

LOST W ORLD

(30 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY)

(PILOT EPISODE)

ix young people spend 17 days on a sm all ketch in the tre a ch e ro u s w a te rs of Bass Strait. An em otional and dram atic jo u rn e y th a t reveals a lot about w h a t it is like being a young person in A u s tra lia today. If it doesn't kill you it w ill make you stronger.

he chook-hum an re la tion ship in co ntem porary A ustralia .

A S H IT OF A JOB

ovie

a r ner orld

Roadshow S t u d io s

pre - pr o d u c tio n

Executive producer: JEFF H a y ES

FEELING SEXY Budget: $7.26 MILLION Production: co m m en c in g m id - M ay Locations: B r is b a n e an d near I psw ich

Principal Credits

post - production

Pre-sale: SEVEN NETWORK

Principal credits

Pre-production: 2 0 /4 /9 8 - 1 2/6 /9 8

Director: D aryl S parkes

Principal Credits a tt

Producer: FIONA EAGGER Scriptwriter: S o n ia B org Based on the novel titled: T he W By: M

ay of the em e

B irds

c D onald

Ca t h e r in e A r ena (E r ic a ), N icholas

P ost- production

Gaffer: GRAEME SHELTON

B ell , G reg Ev a n s , Ka te G o r m a n , G eoff

Film gauge: 35MM

Best boy: D a ve S m it h

P a in e , A n it a C e r d ic , A n n e P helan

Government A gency I nvestment

wo Irish lads find them selves caught up in a bungled IRA m ission. Fearing fo r th e ir lives, th e y fle e to A ustralia, and end up being chased across the co untry by the Im m igration D epartm ent, the SAS, and an Irish "su p e r grass".

Production: COMMERCIAL TELEVISION

Synopsis

Director: D a v id a A llan Producer: G lenys R owe Executive producer: C hris N oonan Scriptwriter: D a v id a A llan

Director: S a rah W

(C o l in ),

P ictures Locations: W

Budget: $75,000

Post-production: 1 1 /1 /9 9 - 2 5 /3 /9 9

c K ee

Director: M arilyn C arney Producer: A nn e S mallw ood Writer: MARILYN CARNEY

Production company: VILLAGE ROADSHOW

credits

(DOCUMENTARY)

Production: 1 5/6 /9 8 - 8 /1 /9 9

Cast

post - production

P rincipal

Production company: T w e n t y 20 P /L Distribution company: D aro DISTRIBUTION

Production manager: J odie C raw ford F ish

Budget: $840,000 In

THE W A Y OF THE BIRDS

Key grip: MARCUS BOSISTO

On - set Crew

Production manager: MONICA Z etlin

1st assistant director: D a v id Lig h tfoot 2nd assistant director: J ulie B yrne 3rd assistant director: C lair P arker Continuity: T rudy G a rdener Boom operator: R ob C utcher Make-gp: S uzy WARHURST

RAINFORESTS In

F L IP P E R -S E R IE S 3 & 4

credits

Director: M ichael D avie Producer: M ichael D avie Writer: M ichael D avie

F ilm V ic to r ia

Production Crew

organ

post - production

Principal

Synopsis c K ec h n ie

Anim ation

J im e o in (F er g u s ), A lan M

Budget: $221,000 Locations: FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND

(DOCUMENTARY)

iller ,

Editor: A n n e Carter

Scriptwriter: JlMEOIN Director of photography: JOHN WHEELER Production designer: P en n y S outhgate Costume designer: M ichael C h iso lm Editor: M ichael C ollins

R obert M

(DOCUMENTARY)

Budget: $139,000

Director: T ed E m ery

esley ),

Synopsis

Finance: A u s t r a lia n F ilm C o m m is s io n ,

Producers: M arc G r a cie , D a v id F oster Line producer: S teve Luby Executive producers: B runo

H IP SI, THE FOREST GARDENER

B roken H ill , S y d n e y , G old C oast

C h a r s l esw o r t h , A lan F in n e y

B ased on the book by M orris G leitzman

c K ec h n ie

Director of photography: GARRY M

Synopsis

AFRICA, HEAVEN, HELL A N D THE FUTURE

c K echnie

credits

David vs G oliath sto ry of the q u in tessen tial baseball gam e as played in A u stra lia .

young English boy, Keith, dream s of com ing to A u stralia fo r the blue w a te rs and tro p ic a l islands. In a bid to convince his parents, w ho ow n a fish and chips shop in South London, he show s them beautiful photos of Australia.

credits

W riters: G regory M

JlM

Director: STEVENS Producer: J im S tevens Writer: J im S tev ens

Director: S cott Feeney Producer: J an T yrell

Garry M c K echnie Producers: G regory M iller , G arry M

in production

Principal credits

SBS

C olin H ay (B a r r y ), J a n e H all (A lic e ),

H arry P a n a g io t id is

THE CRAIC Production company: FOSTER-GRACIE

Script editor: DUNCAN THOMPSON Casting: ACTORS I nk Casting director: A ngela H eesom Production manager: SCOTT M c D onald Production co-ordinator: Leo na C ic hon Location manager: NADINE SCHOEN Unit manager: J ohn Fa ir h ea d Production assistant: CLAIR PARKER Production runner: A n n a STEEL Financial controller: FACB Production accountant: T rudy T albo t Insurer: W ebser H yde H eath Completion guarantor: FACB Legal services: R oth W arren Freight co-ordinator: A u st r a lia n

and

Synopsis

D evelopment

C urrently

post - production

P rincipal

Budget: S3.9 m Locations: I n an d around B r isb a n e

Director:

D a v id Lightfoot

Director of photography: D avid Foreman A.C.S. Production designer: APHRODITE XONDOS Editor: T ed M c Q u e e n - M a so n Composer: S ean T im m s Sound recordist: D eS K e n EALLY

Budget: $250,000

International sales agent: I n tra F il m , R om e

P oletto (R ocky ), M

(DOCUMENTARY)

( 1 3 X 3 0 MIN TELEVISION SERIES)

Synopsis A paranorm al th rille r.

Poster designer: R obyn W

IN S ID E THE BEAST

M IS E R Y GUTS

A li S heedy

P a r tn e r s h ip

M arketing

A n d r e w S .G ilbert

ack, an ou tb a ck ro a d -tra in tru c kie m oon ligh ts as a rom ance novellist. W hen the book becom es a be st-seller, he m ust do some fa st-ta lkin g to co nvince his long -tim e friend , Ruby, to pretend to be the w rite r.

ovie

ased on the sto ry of A u s tra lia 's w o rs t tra in d isa ster, the G ranville Train Crash.

Director:

(P M P)

(R a l p h ), C harlie L ittle (E rrol ), A ngie

Synopsis he d e stru c tive p o w e r of na tu re's fury. Hosted by Frank W a rw ic k .

credits

Cast

AAV

credits

Director: I a n G onella Producer: I a n G onella Writer: I AN G onella

Cast

GOLD COAST, SOUTH East Q u een sla n d , W arner B rothers M ovie W orld studios

Production: FFC AND SAFC

Video transfers by:

pre - p r o d u c t io n

Principal

N oel N osseck Producer: M ichael Lake Executive director: E d MlLKOVlCH Executive producer: JEFF HAYES Scriptwriters: W illiam B a s t , P aul H uson

Government A gency I nvestment

Budget: $113,000 In

T ony C avanagh the book by M urray H ub bard an d R ay C onnor

R ebecca G ibn ey , P aul M ercurio , J ohn B ach , P eter O 'B r ien , J eremy S i m s . C arol B u r n s , H eather M itchell , S tephen C urry

Locations:

Principal

Laboratory liaison: I AN ANDERSON

C la u d ia Ka r v a n (R u b y ), H ugh J a c k m a n

Co-producer: SCOTT M

c Q u e e n - M a so n

(DOCUMENTARY)

Budget: $ 4 .4 5 m

Laboratory: ClNEVEX

B eyond F il m s Ltd

B ased

Production: 2 0 /4 /9 8 -2 0 /5 /9 8

and

(PFTC)

International distributor:

il l ik e n ,

(LA- b a s e d )

Post-production supervisor:

M arketing

Production company: WlLSHlRE COURT

B rehren

vo n

credits

Synopsis

MOVIE OF THE WEEK

O’ G rady

Post- production

Government A gency I nvestment FFC

olly

Wardrobe assistant: Ka r in

Mixed at: S pe ctr u m F il m s Laboratory: A tlab

T ele vis io n C o m m is s io n

Ha n r a h a n

B ob D aley

Post- production

Production:

THE RECKONING

G w e n d o l y n " J a c k " S tukely

Standby wardrobe:

T kautz

Wardrobe supervisor:

Construction manager:

elissa

p sych olo gical th rille r ab out a bullied young man w h o gets his ow n back at a fa n c y-d re s s party. (No othe r de ta ils supplied)

W ardrobe

aggs

Construction Department

Principal

Cast: B ruce S a m a z a n , M

Q U EENSLA N D'S N ATUR A L BORN KILLERS

Director: P eter FlSK Producers: SlMONE N orth ,

Budget: $ 1 m

Wardrobe supervisor: GRAHAM PURCELL

C urrently in production Presale: N etwork T en

P r o d u c t io n s

A rt Department

W ardrobe

d o cu m e n ta ry th a t lifts the lid of the people w h o deal w ith the w a s te of hum an so ciety.

(4 HOUR M INI SERIES)

THE G AM E

Art director: P hil M ac ph er son Props buyer: PERSIA BROKENSHA Standby props: R oger La m e y

ard

S ynopsis

DAY OF THE ROSES

Production company: Q yqo F ilm

Make-up assistant: J odie Le n a in e - S m it h Unit nurse: MICHELLE M c G o w a n

Standby props: H arry Z ettle Action vehicle co-ordinator:

W riter: DARYL S parkes

Budget: S4 m Location: BRISBANE

continued Props buyers: PAUL HuRRELL &

Producer: D aryl S parkes

P r o d u c tio n Fu n d

IN P R O D U C T IO N “Inproduction ” id compiled by Tim Hunter, Please contact him a t Cinema Papery Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons, on 0394162644 orfa x 0394164088

S ynopsis he W a y of the B irds is a ha lf-h o u r anim ation ab out a young girl and he r kinship w ith a m ig ra to ry bird.

T E L (03) 9416 2644 C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U G U S t 1 998

ยกp ip IP SP iSli

C 5

3 o < 3/> tíO T h e A u stralian

EVAN W I L L I A M S

The Age

J IM SCHEMBRI

The Sunday Age

T O M RYAN

H era ld Sun

LEIGH PAATSCH

The Age

A D R IA N M A R T I N

STAN J A M E S

The A d elaid e A dvertiser

C in em a Papers

T I M HUNTER

PAUL HARRIS

"T he G reen G u id e ”, The Age

S A N D R A HALL

The S y d n e y M o rn in g H erald

F oxtefí* M oviesen

BILL COLLINS

í H fx

T riple J

PETER CASTALDI

A panel of 12 film reviewer.) bao rated a oelection of the lateot releaoeo on a ocale of 0 to 10, the latter being the optimum rating (a daoh meano not oeen).

i O W

«i

> S

0) 2

E o S _ro g o « 8 "Z </> “¿ ~s •-

E § IS « £ ■a o -o S « l * J

ktyd o zen

O JD

! a 5 1 1m S «o a> _c ra M

^ ry * j 3 « ® Ï 2 1 § 3 £ -

.a «

A FTERG LO W

6 .5

5 .5

A lla n R u d o lp h

£ 1 « €O A. ta 0 5 0 ^ 3 ec «V) o x : ®

2 a T H E B IG L E B O W S K I

Jo e l Coen

£ bo 1 5 3O <o

S I >* x: 0> JQ_■ -O>N

11 m ^< O

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BLU ES BRO TH ERS 2 0 0 0

Jo h n L a n d ia

00 w ri

mm ¡H -

2 9 THE BOYS

7 .8

1 .4

Row an W ooda F O R R IC H E R O R P O O R E R

B r t ja n S p i c e r LAW N DO GS

6 .2

4 .8

5 .1

6 .4

3 .6

J o h n D n ig a n L O S T IN S P A C E

S t e p h a n tt o p h in A N IL B Y M O U T H G a r if O l d m a n TH E SO UND O F O N E H A N D C L A P P IN G

O ~J - .. <2 9 bo to w -c c n ^ S o ÿ <u/) {D *2tfl

® to jy tu "O 5 j§ (A £ re »_ »_ 0 ) j= y> ■ o re xi (0 a» ■= c* « ■ E C8O t- í B « bo o u 1 1 > 5 5k •3 E ■Oo g O o Q. 5 . « « 3E .2 ^ re re û) tj 0 a) bo Q. 02 02 i/> ^

R ich a rd F la n a g a n

S T E L L A D O E S T R IC K S C o J u j G ied rotjc A THO USAND A C R ES Jo celtjn M oorhonAe

T W IL IG H T

R obert B en ton

wo Australian film directors have been flexing their international wings

darker, more menacing mood, and a definite move away from his last film, The

again recently with varied results. While John Duigan’s America-set Lawn

Dogs received good word of mouth, chiefly for its atmopsheric depiction of a

Leading Man (1997), Moorhouse heads down a similar melodramatic path to her last effort, Howto Make an American Quilt (1996), steered perhaps by her leads,

respectable m iddle-class housing estate simmering with all manner of sexual

Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer.

tensions, Jocelyn M oorhouse’s American re-telling of King Lear, A Thousand

Acres, was not so kindly received. What’s interesting though is that both Antipodeans have brought with them

And then back at home, Rowan Woods moves right away from large open spaces and explores, rather harrowingly, the dark places of the inside. Suburban homes and the psyche are W oods’ realm in The Boys, and they’re places we’ve

an understanding of wide open spaces, and use this to great effect on the

not often been with such detail or effect. But isn’t it interesting that while A us

screen. They both present a view of the American countryside not often seen,

tralian filmmakers overseas are searching out familiar landscapes, those at

purely because it’s an outsider’s perspective. But where Duigan opts for a

home are turning inward to find out how we really tick? TH

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A UGUST 1998

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