Cinema Papers No.127 October 1998

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CI NEMA PAPERS

OCTOBER 1998

INSIGHTS in b its

2

fe stiv a ls SC O TT M U RRAY

Brisbane Film Festival

10

RAYM ON D Y O U N IS

Sydney Film Festival

12

TIM H U N TE R

M elbourne Film Festival

legal ease

14

16

examines the Contestability of the Image: Postmodernist Appropriation and Intellectual Property Rights

JA M E S COOPER

in review

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FILM S: Dead Letter Office, Funny

Gamer, Head On, In the Winter Dark, Welcome to Woop Woop.

TELE-FEA TU RES, SHORTS & VIDEO: Game Girb, Heal hear,

R a n k i n g the T r e a s u r e s British cinema of the 1930s is far more varied than the textbooks would have us believe, as B A R R IE PA T T ISO N discovers when A B C television unreeled scores of little-seen Gaumont British films

Living Colour, See Jack Run, Succubur, Terrain.

BOOKS: The Filmmaker and the Prortitute: Dennu O’Rourke ’o The Good Woman of Bangkok, L ’Age d’Or.

te ch n ica litie s

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D a n g e r o u s and D e p r a v e d Hemy Fool is the new film of acclaimed American director Hal Hartley, and quite a radical change. Hartley explains why to TEA RLA CH H U T C H E S O N 28

Fox City is up, running and heavily booked BA RRIE SM ITH ; Supersonic is In the M ix DINA R O SS; Shekhar Kapur's Australian Connections TIM H U N TER

in p ro d u ctio n

50

d irty dozen

64

Louis Nowra: Images on a Wall

PETER WEIR AND THE T R U M A N SHOW

The acclaimed playwright and prolific scriptwriter Louis Nowra talks to M argaret S mith about his beginnings in film and his new work, R adiance

After the brilliant but largely ignored Fearledd, Peter Weir has a huge commercial and critical hit with The TrLunan Show. In a revealing interview, Weir talks to P A U L K A LIN A .

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kFILM BY NICK BROOMFIELD

)pens at Palace Cinem as on S ep tem b er 17 |pn Melbourne and Sydney with other states to follow.

| "A dead rock star, a crazy heroine, %t a bunch of conspiracy theorists with hand-held cameras... might it be a JikM Nick Broomfield film . The Observer, London

Yet To Be Classified

116 Argyle St, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia 3065 PO Box 2221, Fitzroy MDC, VIC 3065 Tel: (61.3) 9416 2644 Fax: (61.3) 9416 4088 email: s_murray@eis.net.au

COOKING IN THE CELLULOID KOSHER KITCHEN he Jewish Museum of Australia, as part of the Australian Family Project, is holding a Festival of short films, Celluloid Soup: Images of the Jewish Family.

The films must be under ten min­ utes and depict representations of the Jewish family. All films will be screened at the Longford in Melbourne during September, and then travel to Syd­ ney, and the best five films will be shown throughout a special exhibi­ tion at the Jewish Museum of Australia, Circles and Cycles.

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Anyone sitting on a short film they’d like screened at the Globe Stanmore should ring (61.2) 9332 2722 for more information, but only if the film is less than ten minutes long and finished on 35mm. cover

FLICKERING ENTRIES

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lickerfest 99, the 8th Interna­ tional Short Film Festival, is now accepting entries for films, animations and documentaries under 30

INITIATING FELLOWSHIPS he New South Wales Film & Television Office announced recently the recipients of its Creative Initiative Fellowships for featurefilm directors, producers, scriptwriters and documentary film­ makers. These Fellowships are targeted at filmmakers who have already made a contribution to the industry, and is intended to help them make their next professional step. The filmmakers are: Producers: Helen Bowden, Robert Connolly, Ross Matthews, Jonathan Shteinman and Vicki Watson; Writers: Kathryn Millard and Rivka Hartman; Documentary filmmaker: Sarah Gib­ son; and Directors: Samantha Lang, Rowan Woods and Murray Fahey.

:

Actor Laura Linney and

The Truman Show director Peter Weir.

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Cynthia Mann

Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon, courtesy of Peter Weir.

minutes. Flickerfest is held at Bondi Beach in Sydney from 3-9 January 1999, before touring nationally.

Prizes include: $2000 for Best Film; $1000 for Best Documentary; $1000 for Best Australian Film, plus industry awards.

For entry form send info to: Email: flickerfest@bigpond.com; download from www.flickerfest.com.au; tel (61.2) 9 211713 3 or fax (61.2) 92118278.

Entries close 17 October 1998.

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QUICK SHOT here’s a new player in the interna­ tional sales and film distribution world, and that’s Scanbox Interna­ tional, a joint venture between Melbourne-based Scanbox Asia Pacific and its mother company, Scan­ box Danmark, based in Denmark.

Already Scanbox has acquired two new Australian feature films for inter­ national sales: Redball, directed by John Hewitt, and the forthcoming Sample People, to be directed by newcomer Clinton Smith.

Scanbox Asia Pacific is also a feature-film production company, and the first major feature film it will produce is Komodo: The Living Terror, to be directed by Jurassic Park special effects artist, Michael Lantieri.

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GLOBAL SHORTAGE he Globe Group is looking for local short films to screen with features at its cinema in Stanmore.

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Rachel Griffiths, Louise Smith, Mary Coustas and Diana Berman

OUT AND ABOUT he Australian Film Commision’s Industry night for August brought out a few familiar faces, including Dark City director Alex Proyas, all-round Australian film icon Bryan Brown, and Rachel Griffiths, overseeing the screening of her short film début, Tulip.

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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 the editor nor the publisher can accept liability for any loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the copyright owners. Cinema Papers is published by MTV Publishing Limited, 116 Argyle St, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia 3065, and is indexed by FIAF.

AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR PLAN B

lan B, due to premiere on 2 November at the Globe in New­ town, Sydney, is looking for new short films under the ten-minute mark. The deadline for entries is 20 October, and enquiries can be made to Michele Santosa, tel (61.2) 9518 4589, fax (61.2) 9439 3985, email Kimble Rendali, Alex Proyas, Micheles@omnicon.com.au, or Simon Andrew Mason and Andrew McPhail. Fellow, tel/fax (61.2) 9484 0900 or email simon66@hotmail.com

NEW KID ON THE BOX

Editor: Scott Murray Deputy Editor: Paul Kalina Editorial Assistance: Tim Hunter Advertising: John Adler Subscriptions: Mina Carattoli Accounts: Peter Lademann Proofreading: Arthur Salton Office Cat: Oddspot Legal: Dan Pearce (Holding Redlich) MTV Board of Directors: Ross Dimsey (Chairman), Natalie Miller, Matthew Learmonth, Michael Dolphin Founding Publishers: Peter Beilby, Scott Murray, Philippe Mora Design & Production: Parkhouse Pty Ltd Tel: (61.3) 9347 8882 Printing: Printgraphics Pty Ltd Film: Condor Group Distribution: Network Distribution © COPYRIGHT 1998 MTV PUBLISHING LIMITED

nother Sydney-based short film competition coming up is the Short Black Film Festival. Screening around a selection of Manly restau­ rants bars and cafes from 11 October, with the finals screening at Manly Oval, Short Black is looking for entries. They must be under seven minutes long, and include a key symbol, The Joker. Awards in three categories, Professional, Open and Under 20, will be awarded on the

closing night.

Entry forms are available from: Candy’s Coffee House, 29 Belgrave St, Manly NSW 2095. Tel (61.2) 9977 0816.

Website: www.pon.com.au/shortblack

THE SECOND REVELATION EVelation Independent Film Fes­ tiv a l is also calling for entries.

Any genre, any format, anything that’s been produced since 1995, is eligible, as long as it has spirit! The deadline is 31 December 1998; information and

C IN EM A PAPERS IS PUBLISHED W ITH FIN AN C IAL ASSISTAN C E FROM THE AUSTRALIAN FILM C O M M IS S IO N AND CIN EM ED IA

contributors John Conomos teaches at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney.

Diane Cook is a Melbourne writer, SCRIPT ASSESSOR AND EDITOR.

James Cooper lectures in law at University of Technology, Sydney.

Jan Epstein is a Melbourne writer and FILM REVIEWER.

Michael Helms is the editor of Fa t a l V is io n s .

Tearlach Hutcheson manages the Inwood Theater, Dallas, Texas.

Brian Mc Farlane is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Monash University.

Peter Malone manages the Catholic Film Office.

Dina Ross is a freelance journalist AND BROADCASTER, AND REVIEWS THEATRE

for Th e A g e .

S usan S hineberg is an Australian arts JOURNALIST AND BROADCASTER CURRENTLY RESIDENT IN BERLIN.

Barrie S mith is a Sydney writer, DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER.

Margaret S mith is a Sydney writer AND DIRECTOR.

Raymond Younis is a lecturer in COMMUNICATION AND FILM STUDIES AT

Central Queensland University’s Sydney Campus.

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bits entry forms are available from: Richard Sowada, Festival Director, REVelation Independent Film Festival, PO Box 135, South Fremantle, WA 6162. Tel/fax: (61.8) 9336 2482. Email: dakota@omen.net.au

BEACHSIDE FILM BABIES anandus Film Festival in Noosa is calling for entries in two different categories: film or video productions no longer than five minutes and featuring the name or the place Noosa some­ where in the film; and film or video productions up to 15 minutes long with the theme ‘character of landscape’.

There will be three age groups: up to 17 years, 18-25 and over 25.

Deadline is 25 October for a 14 November screening, and entry forms are available from: Panandus Film Festival PO Box 211, Noosa Heads, QLD 4567. Tel: (61.7) 5474 8855.

Email: panandus@coastnet.net.au

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ASOUNDIDEA he Australian Screen Sound Guild has announced that, in October of this year, the first annual Screen Sound Awards will be held to recognize and celebrate excellence in the craft of cre­ ating a soundtrack. The aims of the Guild, based currently in Sydney and Queensland, are to maintain, recog­ nize, promote and facilitate original and creative work, and achievements from those involved in the screen sound profession, to promote the pur­ suit of knowledge, and to liaise with associations and people involved in the profession. These awards are a step towards a broader recognition for the screen sound industry.

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SCREEN SCORE COLLABORATION outh Music Australia, Fox Studios Australia, AFTRS and Caribiner Wavelength are putting together a new project, Camera Camerata. Composers and musicians between the ages of 18 and 30 will be called upon to write and perform origi­ nal music for four films, under the

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guidance of experienced mentors and the project’s Artistic Director, com­ poser-conductor Edward Primrose.

Films, composers and mentors are as follows: Feeling Sexy Dir: Davida Allen.

Composer: 29-year-old Claire Jordan.

Mentor: Chris Neal.

Static Dir: Derin Seale. Composer 21-year-old Steven Baker. Mentor: Art Phillips.

Let’s Wait Dir: Stephen Sewell.

Composer: 25-year-old Sophie Emery.

Mentor: Cezary Skubiszewski.

Rotation Dir: Paul Winkler. Com­ poser: 27-year-old Matthew Jones.

Mentor: Richard Vella.

A public screening and performance of the films and their scores will be held on 7 October at the new theatre complex at Sydney’s Shore College.

GROWING SCREEN CULTURE he AFC’s survey on National Screen Culture Activity 1995-1996, which focused on organizations that received funding from the AFC’s Industry and Cultural Development Branch (ICD), has

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shown a number of promising trends: • Audience attendances for festivals, screenings and exhibitions are up, 1.2 million people in the two-year period; • Screen culture attracted a lot of publicity: 4,400 press articles, radio and television items in that period; • Almost 2,000 independentlyproduced films used facilities from ICD-funded organizations; • The screen culture sector has become successful in generating its own income through services and activities, the private sector and government bodies. The proportion of self-generated income had increased from 75 percent to 80 per­ cent in 1995 and 81 percent in 1996; • While the number of full- or parttime employees fell, the number of volunteers, trainees or work experi­ ence people increased within the two-year period; • Screen-culture organizations are instrumental in developing a local multimedia industry through conferences, seminars, touring

SUBVERSIVES IN BERLIN - DOWN UN DER STYLE imothy Grossmann, who runs the arthouse cinema Kino Balazs in East Berlin, is pretty chuffed. Along with two other cinema owners he has put together Germany’s first Aus­ tralian and New Zealand Film Festival inside two months. He stands proprietorially at the entrance of the Festival’s opening venue - an old church in the middle of the former East Berlin - greeting the milling crowd with quiet pride. The place looks, smells and sounds spooky, and very Berlin. The high rough-hewn walls have a faintly bombed-out look, rather as if World War II stopped yes­ terday. Tonight we’re seeing the sixteen short films from Sydney’s Tropfest, and clearly Timothy sees this as something of a coup.

“These short films really substanti­ ate my view of Australian films in general”, he says in his melodious English. “They’re not just well made and put together, but I’m also very taken with the whole idea of it all starting in a coffee shop [Sydney’s Tropicana cafe]. It was a miracle just how well the Tropfest finalists fitted the opening of our Festival”.

The fascination with things Aus­ tralian had already taken root with the minor furore around the 2000 Olympics campaign in Berlin, which saw the alternative scene here extremely anti-Berlin - and very proSydney. Combine this with the fact that Timothy is an East Berliner and someqne for whom Australia held a

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particularly exotic, miraculous quality, plus the sudden appearance a couple of months ago of cliched Australiana on bill-boards everywhere (desert, Aborigines, kangaroos) advertising a certain cigarette - “Australia’s Num­ ber One Smoke!” - and you have the genesis of a Brilliant Idea.

Timothy Grossmann and his col­ leagues, Frank Zilm (who runs Blow Up, also in East Berlin) and Franz Stadtler (from Filmkunst 66 in the West), are showing over 30 movies in this Festival. As for the selection process, Timothy is convinced that films like Dingo, Muriel’s Wedding, Shine, The Piano, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, Heavenly Creatures, and documentaries such as Cracks in the Mask are not only first class but share what he sees as a common Antipodean motif.

“The central figure is often a little bit funny, outside the mainstream, but also driven - otherwise they will just drown, they simply won’t find them­ selves. And as a result they are often quite subversive.” He suggests this may have to do with Australia’s penal colony origins, with being different. “I am an East German and also different.

We have the same language as the other Germany but for the last 40 years we’ve had a completely different history, a different everyday culture and this culture has no voice now”. (In his opinion, German cinema as a whole seems to have lost its identity).

Timothy also happens to be a very

“different” East German. His father, an American Gl with communist leanings, defected to East Germany in 1952 when the McCarthyist steamroller loomed in the form of military court proceedings. Now that is different. “I really feel for people who are coming from the side”, he says. “You have this catharsis, something small that breaks through, it’s a different per­

funny and quick, and that appeals very much to me”.

The three intrepid fans of Down Under movie-making plan to repeat the Festival next year, this time with more original English-speaking ver­ sions (unfortunately, they had to make do with some German dubbed copies for some of the films). They’ll have the latest Tropfest offering, more

spective and a much more interesting one, I think”.

Since that seemingly distant time when the Wall came down, Timothy and his cohorts have seen many, many Australian and New Zealand films. Sure, maybe some of the exoti^g cism has dissipated, but as cinema buffs they remain impressed. “I like the humour”, says Timothy. “I like the very professional way of shooting films, the good actors and the excel­ lent editing. It’s often very original and

recent movies, maybe some directors and hopefully some bands.

“I think what German cinematogra­ phers and directors could learn from Australia is to see what you have in your own country for things, for sto­ ries on the street, not always looking to Hollywood, but grounding yourself in the social fabric, so the audience can see it has something to do with them. It’s about interesting stories, it’s about communication ... and it’s about subversion”.

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exhibitions, residencies and training; and • There was a 41 percent increase in the number of ICD-funded screening events and festivals, encompassing short films, features and documentaries.

FURTHER BEYOND DISTRIBUTION roduction company Mullion Creek Productions has joined with Beyond International Limited to form the company Mullion Creek & Beyond. This new joint venture is set to develop and produce television for both domestic and international release, as well as having a “first look” deal on feature films and IMAX produc­ tions. Upcoming projects include: a feature film, Diving for Pearls, directed

by Geoff Burton and based on Kather­ ine Thomson’s play; Equus - The Story of the Horse-, a new IMAX film; and a television documentary, Guitar.

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CASTING A NEW NET ally Bristoe, formerly with Mullinars casting agency, has struck out on her own with The Casting House. Her aim is to provide the independent filmmaking sector with a range of budget casting options for features, short films, and corporate­ training films, a new service for an otherwise-untapped market.

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Maura Fay Casting has expanded and opened a Melbourne office.

YOUNG FILMMAKERS GET THE FUNDING AND THE TRAINING he seven recipients of the latest round of the NSW Young Film­ makers Fund were announced recently, and they are: Anne Delaney and Brett Evans: No Mess, a documentary about two women who clean up after murders and accidents - $25,000; Michael Henderson: Life after Birth, an animation about twins in a womb doubting life after birth - $10,000; David Messer: Shooting Stars, an animation about two shooters aiming for the stars - $10,000; Tim Slade: / Was Robert Mitchum, a true tale about a love affaire with movies of a man who cannot see$25,000; Adam Blaiklock: The Piano Bomb Detective’s Last Case, a thriller with plenty of special effects - $9,500; and Annie Beauchamp: Desire Lines, a film about a woman jumping off a building and falling in love - $9,500.

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The NSW Premier and Minister for the

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Arts, Bob Carr, has also announced six people selected for the Digital Visual FXTraineeships, a partnership between the NSWFTO, Animal Logic, DFilm Digital Film Services and Bril­ liant Interactive Ideas. The six people are: Angela Pelizzari, Craig Welsh, Jane Maguire, Shamus Baker, David Gross and Kelly Wallwork. They will spend six months working with one of the companies with their salaries jointly funded by that company and the NSW Government. The Traineeship is part of the $560,000 New Media package announced by Carr earlier this year.

JACKSON DEFIES CRITICS eter Jackson, the brilliant director whose article on the New Zealand Film Commission caused so many ruffled feathers when first published in New Zealand, and then in Cinema Papers (no. 125, pp. 15, 42), has just announced the financing on his The

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The following is an abbreviated version of a eulogy written and spoken by John Mitchell: n 1950, Maggie Cardin arrived with all her belongings, first class, on an ocean liner to start the second half of her life in Australia. During her Aus­ tralian career, she worked for the ABC, at Supreme Sound Studios at Padding­ ton, and later went to Colorfilm at Camperdown. She took charge of the camera negatives from a film shoot and, having carefully catalogued them, stored them in ‘her5vault.

After the editors had finished their work cutting the workprint on a pro­ duction, she would painstakingly match the negative, ready for final release printing. Millions upon mil­ lions of dollars worth of film stock was entrusted to her. In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, just about every Australian film went to her for neg matching.

One can see her name along with Col­ orfilm in the credits of every major Australian film, from Jedda (Charles Chauvel, 1955) to the Mad Max sequels. (She even appeared in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome as a hag on the Thunderdome.).

Those who worked on films at that time knew that if The Duchess of Col­ orfilm was looking after your job it was in safe hands, although I am sure they would have been told, in no uncertain terms, what she thought when work was sent in to her with wrong edge numbers or something of the kind.

Maggie was always prone to dis­ course on her fascinating past. You could be excused if some of the tales

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Lord of the Rings. New Line Cinema will commit more than US$130 million to the live-action, special effectspacked trilogy, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel. All three films will be shot in New Zealand, with production beginning mid-1999.

The announcement has engen­ dered smiling faces all over New Zealand, as has word that Jackson and the NZFC have patched up their differences. When Jackson first spoke out, many suggested his career in New Zealand was as good as over.

The Lord of the Rings is striking proof that it isn’t, and that criticizing a hand that feeds is not the creative death sentence Australian directors tend to believe it to be.

EARLY AUSSIE TV FILM he National Film & Sound Archive, in association with Melbourne Cinematheque, will be presenting two

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appeared fantastic and possibly mythi­ cal. She would often start an anecdote about her past and then, just as she reached an interesting bit, go vague about details.

Her journey started on 18 August 1906, in London. Maggie had a very event-filled life: the only child in a sin­ gle-parent family, she suffered the tragic death of her mother, Julie, who perished on the Titanic when Maggie was six. She was placed in the care of a guardian who had Maggie educated as a lady of means, sent to a finishing school in Paris where she learnt to run a large household. She could have been a movie star and certainly knew how to act like one. But at some stage in her early years in London, she real­ ized she would need a regular income and so trained to become a technician in the blossoming English film industry.

Listening to her tell it, it seemed that during the next 25 years she worked with just about everyone of any note in the English film and vaudeville scene - and she probably did. No mat­ ter who one mentioned to her, she could tell some little story about them.

You could ask: Maggie, did you know Noel Coward? “Yes, dear, he and his mother lived in Edbury Street, near Vic­ toria Station. I used to have tea with her, dear.” What about Pavlova? “She lived next door to me, dear. She was very tiny and quite ugly, but she knew howto dance.” Alfred Hitchcock? “I taught him all he knew, dear.”

She worked for the BBC at the time of Logie Baird and at Alexander Palace or Ally Pally as she catted it. She had a

feature-film spin-offs of 1970s televi­ sion shows: Country Town (Peter Maxwell, 1971), based on the melo­ drama Bellbird; and The Box (Paul Eddey, 1975), adapted, of course, from that sexy, saucy series. The screenings are on 21 October (7pm: Country Town; 9pm: The Box) at the State Film Theatre, East Melbourne.

APPOINTMENTS ilm Australia recently announced the appointment of Kylie Bourke as Policy and Research Manager.

Bourke previously held the position of Policy Manager with the Screen Pro­ ducers Association of Australia, and has also worked for the National Insti­ tute of Dramatic Arts and AFTRS.

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he Australian Film Finance Corpo­ ration has appointed Chris Oliver as its new Investment Manager. Oliver has worked as an executive producer

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film business in Curzon Street, would occasionally have to pawn her furs to pay the staff, and during the war was seconded to the Dutch to make war films.

In Australia a few years ago, she was interviewed on video for the film archives about her work as a neg matcher. The earnest young inter­ viewer had done his homework about her very carefully, but still he had no luck getting her to talk about her past. Maggie looked very fetching in her outfit which included a little pink hat with a feather, but the poor inter­ viewer had a dreadful job trying to keep her on the subject. She kept branching off onto what she thought was important for young people to know. That was Maggie.

She was very proud of being awarded membership of The Institute of the Australian Cinema Pioneers and was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers’ Society. She died early on the morn­ ing of 9 July and a number of film folk attended her funeral the next day.

Barrie Smith adds:

I last saw Maggie at a preview of Fox Studios in Sydney in May this year. As she held court with all her old buddies, glass of champers in hand, it was amazing to see the likes of cameramen John Seale and Russell Boyd, as well as well-known editors, enjoy her sometimes-scandalous tales of the industry. We will sadly miss The Duchess of Colorfilm.

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

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bits for Film Australia for the past eight years, and also has experience as an independent producer. He is replacing David Noakes, now with Jennifer Cornish Productions. ollowing the Becker Group’s acquisition of Dendy Film Distribution, Jane Alsobrook has been appointed Distribution Head. She will be replacing Lyn McCarthy and Graeme Tubbenhauer, who had owned and operated Dendy for over thirteen years. Alsobrook was previously the president of REP Rim Distribution, also a division of the Becker Group, and head of Twentieth Century Fox Classics Division.

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illage Cinemas International recently announced the appoint­ ment of David Glass as General Manager, Exhibition Development and Movieline. Glass has been serving as the General Manager of Village Cinema’s Singapore cinemas for the past five years. In his new position, he will be responsible for Village’s part in the tele-ticketing joint venture with Hoyts and Greater Union. He will also be overseeing exhibition developments and invest­ ments in Asia.

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he Australian Film Commission has appointed four new commis­ sioners, including a new Deputy Chair, Des Clark, Chairman of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Filmmaker Rolf de Heer, actor-director John Poison and producer Helen Leake are the other three commissioners.

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PO BOX 2221 FITZROY MDC VIC 3065

ilm Australia has announced the appointment of three new execu­ tive producers, Stefan Moore and Mark Hamlyn, both based in Sydney, and Franco di Chiera in a new Melbourne-based position.

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CORRIGENDUM nbits” in the previous issue (Cin­ ema Papers, no. 126, p. 9) failed to mention that Buena Vista Interna­ tional’s Vice President, and the Managing Director of BVI AustraliaNew Zealand, is none other than Alan Finney. In a phone call to the Editor, Finney asked whether Cinema Papers considered him so famous that printing his name would be unnecessarily stating the obvious.

The Editor replied that this was certainly the case, adding that to only specify Finney’s Buena Vista title might be falsely seen as an attempt to diminish his status as an actor, especially given his star turn in 1998’s most-underrated film, Welcome to Woop Woop.

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ADDENDUM

A

s Cinema Papers went to press, we were saddened to hear of the passing of Aggy Read. Read was a film­ maker and one of the vanguard leaders of the Australian film renaissance. He was a partner (with David Perry, Albie Thoms and John Clark) in Ubu Films, whose contribution to the exhibition, funding and support for experimental filmmaking was invaluable. Read was closely involved in the establishment of the Sydney Filmmakers, and often accompanied the first-time presenta­ tions of New Wave Australian films at international festivals and events.

He had been living and working in Brisbane since the mid ’80s.

email: cp@parkhouse.com.au

COMMERCIAL COWBOYS Dear S

ir

have just seen the Director’s Cut of Walkabout, and want to com­ mend you for the publicity you gave ¡tin your June issue.

It probably amounts to stating the obvious by now, but the crucial seg­ ment which has always been omitted on television involved that of the plaster cast production line, staffed

by Aboriginal child labour, producing reproductions of both themselves and other “native fauna” for the tourist trade. No wonder this was cut - what a wonderfully subversive little inclusion! And, of course, it explains where the Aboriginal boy had come froml| and why he left!

The challenge he receives from the

I

8

JO H N M A Y B U R Y

supposed partner of the “commercial cowboy” running the little operation echoed for me the complaints voiced by the white exploiters in Jedda, who similarly complained about no good young bucks going on their walkabouts.

What is really intriguing, too, is that I don’t believe that the actors from this segment are even included in the credits.

Was that a young Cul Cullen playing the “cowboy”? Has anyone ever asked director Roeg about the segment’s omission?

Thanks again for giving a brilliant, beautiful, but deeply disturbing, film the attention it deserves.

Stephen Grace

nglish avant-garde director John Maybury, whose feature, Love is the Devil, looks at the life of artist Francis Bacon, talks about films that influenced his life and work.

From very early on, it would be things like Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle; experimental films like that, and Jean Cocteau’s movies, Le Sang d’un Poète (The Blood of a Poet, 1930). I loved Fellini, Fass­ binder, the Paul Morrissey-Warhol movies, Andy Warhol’s earlier films.

Stuff like Taxi Driver (Martin Scors­ ese, 1976) had a huge impact on me when I first saw that. I love anything, I’m really eclectic in my tastes, but those things really leapt out at me. I still really really love Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Veronika Voss, 1982), one of the really late Fass­ binders. And then I love Tarkovsky; Zerkalo (The Mirror, 1975) is one of my favourite films. When I was younger, I really loved Fellini’s film sGiulietta Degli Spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits, 1965), Satyricon (Fellini Satyricon, 1969) - and certainly all that Italian cinema, the French New Wave, early Godard. Anything that’s pretentious and arty is my cup of tea.

And I was always surprised at people

E

saying things like, “Oh, that’s so selfindulgent, that film”, and I’d think, “It’s really beautiful, it’s a master­ piece. What’s self-indulgent about it?” “Well, it hasn’t got a real story.”

But I love cinema that exists as art as much as it’s cinema, and it’s not ashamed to be art. At the same time, someone like Martin Scorsese really interests me, because his films com­ bine the aesthetics of art cinema with a really good commercial eye. A film like GoodFellas (1990) is an amazing film; it’s a beautiful film, it’s a shock­ ing film and it’s a great story.

I grew up with movies on televi­ sion: Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933), Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942), the 1930s and ’40s films, and the whole illusion of that time. The Devil is a Woman Qosef Von Sternberg, 1935), those old Stern-( ' berg-Dietrich movies like Shanghai Express (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934): they’re just fantastic films.

And the whole mythology of the gods and goddesses. I remember reading Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon and its sequel, and being completely mesmerized by it, especially by Anger’s take on that sordid under­ belly, and the illusion of Hollywood.

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

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Brisbane Film Festival b y S co tt M u rra y risbane continues its ascent as Australia’s most user-friendly festival. Ticket sales were up 60 percent on an already-successful 1997, and the annual event seems to have gripped the city and surrounds in a way the organizers could have only once dreamed about. It is confidently curated, with a diverse range of films and a real desire to please its patrons.

20:00 Thursday 30 July The Festival began with John Ruane’s Dead Letter Office, which has been extensively covered in a past issue1 and is reviewed in this. Suffice it to say, this gentle film, which has had rather underwhelming reviews in the Australian press, contains a truly remarkable performance by Miranda Otto.2 Its quality has been too little remarked on; it should be shouted about from the streets as one of the best in Australian cinema.

The bit players, too, are good, though George DelHoyo in the male lead is sadly exposed when called to recount the horrors of his character’s homeland, reverting to television-style acting. That is particularly unfortunate as its adds to the already unsettling impression of Deborah Cox’s screen­ play being based and dependent on the clichés and constructs of television serial drama.

Director John Ruane strives hard to imbue the film with atmosphere - it reminds one strongly of his earlier Feathers - but he needs stronger source material on which to exercise his special talents.

Preceding Dead Letter Office was Lynn-Maree Danzey’s Fetch, which was shown in Compétition (Court Métrage) at Cannes this year. On one level, it is the horror of all horrors: a gag film. On another, it delivers.

Starring the too-little-seen Rebecca Frith and the much-seen Matt Day, who gets better with each performance, it is a near flawless piece of short filmmak­ ing, with an ending that literally no one expects.

12:00 Friday 31 July The first full day began with José Luis Guerin’s Tren de Ombres (Train of Shadows: The Spectre of Le Thuit), a Spanish film made in France. It was a great pity only ten people and a dog attended, as this is a truly fascinating film.

10

One deduces from the opening (there were no subtitles, but very little dialogue) that Guerin recently unearthed some footage shot by a Gérard Fleury in 1930. The film is, natu­ rally, in black and white, and shows a well-to-do bourgeois family at play at their minor château near the Nor­ mandy town and lake of Le Thuit. It is all sunny and happy, a perfect image of a perfect past.

Within a minute or so, though, one suspects something is odd. The people don’t seem fully at ease in their clothes.

Perhaps they are in their “Sunday bests”, which might also explain why their garments are so neat.

Then there is the face of the eldest, and very beautiful, daughter. Her face seems too modern ... or are one’s expectations of the past merely foolish generalizations?

One’s uneasiness continues to mount and, despite the numerous scratches and nitrate blisters, let alone the time-faded labels on rusting film cans, one ultimately decides the footage is actually fake.

This decision comes about an hour before the director lets the audience in on his sleight-of-hand. (This is a case where it proved fortuitous not to have read the unnecessarily-explicit pro­ gramme notes.)

The obvious question is: Did the director misread his audience and the believability of his artifice, or did he expect audiences to be on to his game and then spend the remaining time deconstructing it?

Whatever the intention, the result, for this viewer at least, is an hour of fascinating detective work, examining what it is about filmed reality that dif­ fers for acted drama.

One is greatly helped on the journey by the beauty of the images (thanks to Guerin and DOP Thomas Pladvell), the

mother (1908-13) when she took a series of photographs in her home town. The images are extraordinary not only for capturing clearly a van­ ished life but for their aesthetic brilliance. Few photographs from that era have as much clarity (in all its senses) as these do.

What weakens the film is an overlypoetic and -mannered narration (by Breien) that seeks to question aspects of memory and authorship. Her closing suggestion that her grandmother took photographs because “she wanted to fly” is less than helpful.

14:10 Friday 31 July Again clever programming was at work here. The short, Anna Perotti Sings (Stephan Caspar), is about two unem­ ployed working-class lads waiting at the world’s most desolate bus station.

They talk of finding a better life.

Behind them is a poster advertising the imminent return of local-singermade-good Anna Perotti.

Dong’s Chorok Mulgoki (Green Fish), the story of a young man’s difficult choices on leaving the army. Jobs are almost impossible to find and, like many of his age and background, Makdoong (Han Suk-Kyu) must decide whether to become part of the gang­ ster underworld that increasingly grips South Korea.

Chance plays its part when a girl he has seen on a train, and whose scarf he has kept, is found working as a singer in a nightclub; she is the girl­ friend of a local gangster.

Makdoong slips almost effortlessly into the corrupt world, even though he is at first not asked to do anything untoward. But descent is inevitable and the end is a truly pathetic moment of tragedy one knows has been coming since the start.

Along with many other modern Korean films, Green Fish suggests that South Korea is the world’s greatest liv­ ing hell, a capitalist state gone mad with consumer desire, dissipated

[...] the Brisbane Film Festival has all the pleasures of a regional international fesM well-chosen, without the inordinate number of already-boughtiil switch to colour being a quite transcen­ dental moment.

This bravely-experimental film lingers on in the mind in a way few films today do. It is 38-year-old Geurin’s sec­ ond feature and his career should be followed.

With the programming astuteness one now expects of Brisbane, Tren de Ombres followed a nine-minute short by the acclaimed Norwegian director, Anja Breien (famous for Wives).

Solvorn is a recreation of a brief period in the life of Breien’s grand­

Suddenly, Perotti appears at the same stop. She hails a taxi out of nowhere and asks one of the lads, who dreams of being a famous drummer, to come with her and join the band. He hesitates under pressure from his mate (of the “Don’t leave me alone” kind), and declines. The taxi drives off.

This stark black-and-white film in subtitled Welsh is a pithy look at a moment of decision not taken that will affect characters’ lives for years to come.

This parallels neatly Lee Chang-

ideals and a lack of will to fight back.

It is a challenging, disturbing and extremely impressive first film.

16:50 Friday 31 July What can one say about the recent career of Claude Chabrol, other than quickly remind oneself of the greatness of his earlier work? While not as awful or misogynistic as L’Enfer and Le Céré­ monie, Rien Ne Va Plus is a complete nothingness, a caper movie even more trivial than Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz, 1988). This is the type of C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

festivals

soulless, witless, hack cinema that Chabrol and his comrades rightly denounced in Cahiers du Cinéma.

Most dispiriting is the appalling visual quality of the film. It looks like it was shot on Super 16 (the creeping black death of modern, particularly Aus­ tralian, cinema), an ineptly-shot mess of grainy, uninspired compositions. At least L’Enfer looked like a Chabrol; this looks like a cheap videoshop-only flick, despite the quality cast (Isabelle Huppert, Michel Serrault, François Cluzet).

Perhaps the next Chabrol will herald the long-awaited return.

19:00 Friday 31 July Masato Harada, a charming and informed guest of the Festival, pre­ sented his Bounce Ko-gals, a dazzling look at what are termed “high-girls”, schoolgirls who earn extra money by selling themselves and/or their inti­ mate possessions.

Flarada spent several months doing research and his film is a remarkable

dark alleys, before robbing them. One ko-gal uses a stun gun to zap the cus­ tomer post-payment and pre-sex.

In the film, the Yakuza understand­ ably get somewhat annoyed with the ko-gals moving into their ‘legitimate and professional’ turf, muddying waters by leaving angry, disappointed clients out in the marketplace.

Harada speculated in the questionand-answer session after the screening that many middle-aged Japanese men have found it impossible post-femi­ nism to communicate with women of their own age. Instead, they have retreated into a fantasy world of sex with girls the age of their daughters.

Harada finds their behaviour disturb­ ing, and both he and the film urge a major rethink.

Harada also questions, as does his film, why the girls sell themselves in the first place. Most are well-to-do and have more than enough money from their parents to live well. Why would they demean themselves so basely just to be able to afford a label prod­ uct, especially since the girls (as revealed in a hilarious and depressing scene at a restaurant) often find label goods to be inferior to cheaper ones?

This is consumer desire gone mad.

Bounce Ko-gals is a rich film, stag­ geringly well-acted and with a joyousness in cinematic language rarely seen since the Nouvelle Vague.

Most striking is the positive tone. After all the Korean and Taiwanese films of recent times, it is a shock to see a film where there is hope, where people can make courageous decisions, where evil does not have to triumph.

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

18:40 Saturday 1 August story as a link for invaluable footage of village life and ritual. Many ethno­ graphic films are endured rather than enjoyed, but this is a delight from beginning to end, the performances unprofessional but winning.

The downbeat ending is somewhat puzzling- is this the price of a glimpse at paradise? - but so was the reaction of censors at the time who felt the native breasts a little too confronting.

Now fully restored, this 60-minute gem is well worth seeking out. It also should be required viewing on all Qantas flights to Bali as a stark reminder of what mass tourism does to oncespecial places.

Park Ki-Yong’s Motel Seoninjang (Motel Cactus) was shot by the great Australian DOP, Christopher Doyle. The lighting, the controlled colour and the nuances of time passing are all bril­ liantly done, which is fortunate given the film has limited narrative interest.

Set in one room of a motel hired out for sexual assignations, Motel Cac­ tus tells four discrete stories. The first two are both melancholic and hyp­ notic, but the oppressiveness of the setting, the dourness of the telling, the lack of variation and the seeminglyendless shot of the motel sign in rain quickly pall.

The film does nothing, either, to leaven one’s concerns about the mate­ rialistic hell of South Korea.

16:50 Saturday 1 August For the first ten minutes or so, Olivier Péray’s Petits Désordres Amoureux (Love Tangles) is an insufferable exam­ ple of the French cinema at its most

21:30 Saturday 1 August There is a growing wisdom that some of the best cinema is now being made in Spain; many of its directors have not

12:15 Saturday 1 August John W. Hood has already written favourably and knowledgeably about Jayaraaj’s Kaliyattam (The Play of God}.3 All this author can add is that

Hi. such as Valladolid in Spain. Its range of films is wide and (films that bedevilled the big festivals last year (but not this). document of a bizarre sub-culture of Japanese life that has only recently waned (perhaps to be replaced by something even more bizarre).

These middle-class teenage girls, dressed in school uniforms with the trademark above-ankle-to-below-knee white socks, want the extra money to buy famous-label clothes and acces­ sories. A good money-earner is selling underwear to sex shops; “fresh”, as in just-taken-off, brings the highest price.

The girls also pretend to be prosti­ tutes, luring men into hotel rooms or

would be cruel to reveal here, as hope­ fully the film will be more widely seen than just at Brisbane. In the tradition of Lelouch, the resolution challenges viewers to reassess all that has come before and their reactions to it.

the poor image quality (even for an Indian film) made this long, alreadyreviewed film an avoidable task after the first hour (only to be spotted by the eagle-eyed Festival Director, Anne Demy-Geroe!).

15:00 Saturday 1 August Legging (Dance of the Virgins): A Story of the South Seas (Henry de Falaise and Gaston Glass) is an ethnographic gem. Shot in a totally undeveloped Bali of 1922, in two-colour Technicolor, this charming film has a creaky love

lotel Seoninjang (Motel Cactus).

trivial: cutesy, plastic, over-clever, avoidable. Even the acting, surpris­ ingly, is sub-par, as if the filmmaker had no choice but to use his mates.

Slowly, however, the film’s many qualities assert themselves. It doesn’t end up being in the class of the best Rochant or Truffaut, but it is an advance on Rohmer’s more recent moral tales.

Certainly female sexual desire has rarely been so openly portrayed, or the fear some men have of it.

The success of the film hinges to a large extent on the ending, which it

been backward in publicly backing this claim.

SBS has been the major point of access to Spanish cinema in Australia, and some of it is certainly good. There is an energy in Spanish cinema that is often beguiling, as well as its playful­ ness and surrealist edge.

The Spanish feature on show in Brisbane, Alejandro Amenabar’s Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), is typical of the recent boom. It is a styl­ ish film, with a pretty male actor and, yet again, yet again, a naked 54

11

Sydney Film Festival b y R ay m o n d Younis

“The Pied Piper”; the lawyer’s tor­ mented past as a seemingly-helpless he 1998 Sydney Film father; and the grieving parents in the Festival (Director Paul small town. All three strands highlight Byrnes’ 10th and last) the same concerns: the tentative struc­ was a veritable feast. tures that bind a seemingly strong As always, the docu­ community; the deceit, the terrible mentary section was particularly compromises and the façades which strong; and, predictably, strong films are erected to conceal these from from Asia featured prominently. view; and a redemptive task which is Notable documentaries on Bergman fuelled by something other than the (The Voice of Bergman), Paradjanov noblest or purest of motives and which (The Last Collage), Buhuel (A Mexican is thwarted by an expanding fabric of Buñuel), Capra (Frank Capra’s Ameri­ deception. can Dream) and Flou Hsiao-Hsien The attempt to find some meaning (HHH: Portrait ofHou Hsiao-Hsien), in such tragic circumstances is con­ and a tribute to Pennebaker and Hegestant in the film. This is a sort of dus stood out. A short restrospective postmodern rites-of-passage narrative on Frank Capra was both timely and for the 1990s, with its fragmented thought-provoking, especially in the structure and fractured lives, with light of the recent diminution of his many ironic twists and without the reputation. Indeed, a number of films playful subtext of many similar films. screened at the Festival would suggest The sweet hereafter is a consequence that this phenomenon is quite unjusti­ of the piper’s failure on so many lev­ fied. Films such as Meet John Doe els; and this failure is due, perhaps, to (1941) and The Bitter Tea of General the innate flaws that the piper, so to Yen (1933) still have much of interest speak, cannot transcend. to say to a new generation of cinemaThe Apostle lacks the structural goers. It would seem that a revaluation sophistication of Egoyan’s film but is of Capra’s oeuvre as a whole is long no less incisive, it is relatively straight­ overdue. forward in style and structure, but And then there were the other gathers strength from an uncommon eagerly-anticipated films: Rachel depth of characterization, especially Perkins’ Radiance, Robert Duvall’s The on the part of Duvall in the central rôle.

Apostle, Gillian Leahy’s Our Park, Mau­ It, too, is concerned with the troubled rice Elvey’s astonishing The Life Story negotiation of some sort of redemptive of David Lloyd George (1918), the three capability: Sonny Dewey, a man who Cannes prize winners - Abbas “hollers” at God and hears the voice of Kiarostami’s Ta’m E Guilass (Taste of Jesus Christ, commits a murder and Cherry) (Palme d’Or), Wong Kar-Wai’s tries to rebuild his career as a preacher Happy Together (Best Director, 1997) in another land. He displays violent and Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Here­ tendencies and repellent behaviour, after (Grand Jury Prize, Ecumenical but Duvall does not turn away from the Prize) - as well as Michael Winterbotcomplexities; he does not patronize or tom’s Welcome to Sarajevo1, among belittle such characters - indeed, one many others. of the remarkable things about the film is the extent to which Duvall imbues The Apostle and this man with dignity. The intensity of The Sweet Hereafter Duvall’s performance keeps the view­ Atom Egoyan’s new film is a deeplyers’ interest from flagging. satisfying meditation on the extent to which the unexorcized demons of The Long, Happy Life of one’s past irrevocably shape one’s David Lloyd George future. The film deals with a lawyer Maurice Elvey’s silent masterpiece, who travels to a small town near the The Life Story of David Lloyd George, Rockies to bring justice to the grieving was a revelation.2 This film had been parents after a bus crash kills many presumed lost since 1918. The Wales children. But his own life is haunted by Film and Television Archive and the the devastation caused in his daugh­ National Film Archive in London have ter’s life by drug dependency and by masterfully restored it. It was shown at his own powerlessness. Fie sets out to 18 frames per second. gain revenge against the wrongdoers The film looks at the life of the in the town and, in so doing, against British Prime Minister, beginning with his early career as a Nonconformist an image of his own abjection. and ardent nationalist with socialist Egoyan interweaves three frag­ leanings and ending with his ‘heroic’ mented narrative strands: the text of

T

12

leadership in the Great War. It was suppressed because of its subject’s socialist sympathies.

One has to sit through a great deal of mindless nationalism and the film is predominantly a hagiography, but it is an astonishing film for its time in other respects: it employs eleven different tints to emphasize certain themes (for example, yellow for heroism), as well as various framing devices such as keyholes and heart-shaped frames to highlight the thematic concerns. The photography — probably the work of a number of cinematographers judging by the stylistic variations within the film — seems remarkably pristine in many cases. The film makes no men­ tion of George’s anti-Semitism; the film itself was never finished. But it was one of the great treats of the Festi­ val and another reminder of the expressive power of the silent film.

The Unbearable Burden of Being Two of the Cannes prizewinners explored existential angst.

Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry is con­ cerned with a man (Badii) who wishes to end his life and seeks someone to pour earth upon his open grave.

Kiarostami favors a minimalist style in order not to distract the viewer from the existential drama of this man’s unravelling life. Colour is controlled tightly: brown tinges dominate until the end when greens and blues prolif­ erate, perhaps to evoke a renewed sense of hope and growth. It is engag­ ing for the most part but there is a serious flaw: because Badii withholds his reasons (on the rather dubious, not to say patronizing and insulting, premise that his listeners will not

understand!), it is difficult for the viewer to connect in any profound way with his predicament. The effect is somewhat akin to watching a self­ destructive cipher. Perhaps the distancing effect is deliberate. If it is, then the result is an emotionally-cold exercise: it gains from its intellectual grappling with the troubled question of suicide and complicity but loses too much because the ideas are not arrest­ ing enough consistently to sustain the interest of the viewer. It is not surpris­ ing that some viewers chose not to stay until the end.

Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together is about two men’s attempts to ‘start over’. They travel from Hong Kong to Argentina ostensibly to see Iguazu Falls and to rebuild their lives. It is another rites-of-passage/road film in which angst and an impossible rela­ tionship figure prominently. One man works as a doorman; the other as a prostitute. But the film is remarkable for its style: Kar-Wai employs colour and black and white in order to evoke two levels of existence - a fundamental duality-w hich cannot be reconciled (and, on a further symbolic level, two lovers whose alterity is ineraseable).

He also employs rapid cutting to evoke the angst-ridden instability of these lives. The dominant register is anguish and the stylistic innovation (strident contrasts, heightened areas of light and shadow, dynamic intercutting) is used to intensify the sense of separa­ tion and dissonance that permeates the lives of these two postcolonial hybrids. This is a form of hybridity that is full of unresolved, and the film suggests, ultimately unresolvable, tensions. c r 54 C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

Melbourne Film Festival b y Tim H u n te r he trouble with festival and excitement were being generated, and the Festival hadn’t even begun. overviews is that they can never be truly Certainly that buzz was to become objective or definitive. more evident as the Festival continued, There is no way you and perhaps it was more noticeable can see everything offered because in a large-there really wasn’t one last scale international film festival, so the year. Much has been said about last films you see, the choices you make, year’s Festival: about its over-commer­ are determined by your own tastes and cial content, the corporate presence and desires. Therefore, the following is not the need for it to make money. First­ even going to pretend to fully cover time Festival Director Sandra Sdraulig the 47th Melbourne International Film bore the brunt of most of that. Whatever Festival; it is just going to be my else last year’s Festival was or wasn’t, it impressions about the Festival and was a financial success and, because of the films I saw. that, the Festival was able to return for Perhaps the first impression formed 1998. This year, there were queues, about this year’s Festival was one of there was much excited film-chat at the Festival Club, and people were generally sheer volume of choice available. Sit­ ting down with the screening schedule, keen and eager to see and talk about a pen and a diary, and trying to work the films being screened. out exactly what to see, when, and how Of all the films I saw, the most sur­ to see everything I wanted to was a prising and inspiring were those from major undertaking. There was so much countries not well known for their filmon: a hefty swag of films in the Interna­ making. Ayneh (The Mirror) from tional Panorama; some promising Iranian director Jafar Panahi (The Australian content; the retrospective White Balloon, 1996) was a beautifullyshowcases, “Kiss Me Deadly” and realized film about a small girl finding “Funky! Freaky! Foxy!”; “Regional Fea­ her own way home from school that tures”; the “Exotic Erotic”, “East of turned itself on its head halfway, chal­ Broadway”, “Pump Up the Volume” lenging and subverting traditional film and “Sushi and a Switchblade” show­ narrative structure. Likewise, Festen cases; and the documentaries and (The Celebration), a Danish film by short films. It seemed impossible to Thomas Vinterberg, allowed you into a squeeze it all in. Already anticipation very personal and painful family birth­

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14

day celebration, via hand-held video cameras. There really was a sense that we as the audience were intruding, voyeuristically, in a forbidden place .

Fable-like stories were also obvious among filmmakers. The Austrian film Die Siebtelbauern (The Inheritors, Ste­ fan Ruzowitzky), France’s Gadjo Dilo (The Crazy Stranger, Tony Gatlif) and the Burkina Faso Baud Yam (Gaston Jean-Marie Kabore) told elegant, sim­ ple tales that were disarming and compelling.

Japanese films were prominent, with Hana-bi (Fireworks) from Takeshi

results. Canadian Thom Fitzgerald’s The Hanging Garden was a strong début, as was Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art and Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ‘66.

Less easily defined was rr (Pi) from American Darren Aronofsky, which was so bewildering in its level of informa­ tion and understanding that it left audiences completely overloaded or just plain cold.

As always, the Festival was the launching place for a good many new Australian films, again with varied results. Without doubt, the strongest Australian film this year was Ana

A much more equitable balance was reached in this year’s Festival between commercial and more obscure material; and, as far as numbers-crunching goes, ticket sales were up by 35 per cent, and attendances reached something like 90,000.

Kitano and Unagi (The Eel, Shohei Ima­ mu ra) as highlights that divided Festival audiences, but which beguiled me nevertheless.

Established directors and their new films also featured, some to great acclaim (Neil Jordan’s The Butcher Boy, Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, Pedro Almodovar’s Came Tremula[Live Flesh]), and some to lukewarm disap­ pointment (Tom Di Cillo’s The Real Blonde and Claude Chabrol’s Rien Ne Va Plus), and, as usual, there was a host of first-timers, again with mixed

Kokkinos’ Head On (see review this issue), with Rolf de Heer’s Dance Me to M y Song not far behind. Less impressive were new films from John Ruane (Dead Letter Office), James Bogle (In the Winter Dark) and Nadia Tass (Amy), which all started with good ideas or concepts, but soon lost their way in pedestrian storytelling, unfulfilled suspense and sentimental­ ity, respectively. Jon Hewitt’s new low-budget feature Red Ball provoked some strong responses from the Victo­ ria Police and audiences alike, but C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

festivals

whether it was a bad hardboiled cop thriller done well or a Rim suffering from a lack of time and money is not an easy call to make. It will, assuredly, become a cult Rim. Even without the “Exotic Erotic” showcase, which promised to explore human sexuality in all its forms, the Rims in this year’s Festival seemed preternaturally occupied with sex, sex­ uality and relationships, and the gay theme was particularly obvious. The Hanging Garden, Love is the Devil Cohn Maybury), High Art, Head On, Relax... It’s Just Sex (P. J. Castellaneta) and The Opposite of Sex (Don Roos) all dealt with homosexuality in one way or another, and displayed a growing acceptance in our culture for such a lifestyle and such Rims.

The more explicit exploration in the showcase “Exotic Erotic” was pretty much a mixed bag. Sex Life in L.A. (Jochen Hick) was remarkable for its

Kim Novak’s début; and, after a mix-up with prints, the only 35mm print of Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952) in the world made it to screen on the last night of the Festival - a real treat.

The documentaries, as always, cre­ ated a great deal of interest, especially Waco: The Rules of Engagement (William Gazecki) and Mob Law (Paul Wilmshurst), but, for me, a couple of offbeat docos like Kid Nerd (Shereen Jerrett) and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (Errol Morris) provided great entertainment, as did two Rims focusing on Hollywood’s glory days: Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (Simcha Jacobovici) and Frank Capra’s American Dream (Kenneth Bowser). Interestingly, both looked at how the archetypal American Dream of the 1930s and ’40s was manufactured

by Europeans. A fascinating double bill.

Not quite so fascinating was The Sil­ ver Screen: Color Me Lavender (Mark

advertising pitch. That is its purpose, I suppose, but some more critical appraisal would have been appreci­ ated. It seemed that every Rim was a sure-Rre festival favourite, a must-see, this year’s most controversial Rim, etc.

Consequently, there was some disap­ pointment experienced. And I don’t like beingtold what to think of a Rim before I see it. That is, after all, why I’m seeing it. Both Gummo (Harmony Korine) and Funny Games (Michael Haneke) were beat-up as controversial and divisive, especially in the newspa­ per ads, but the Rims themselves were not nearly as shocking as all the hype had led me to believe.1 Anyway, that’s a small quibble really, considering that I saw over 70 Rims, and only suffered a handful or two of disappointments. After last year’s rather bland selection of Rims, it certainly was a joy to go along and see so many, and such varied, Rims. And, of course, I haven’t even mentioned Animagic, or the Mousetrap multime­ dia installation.

A much more equitable balance was reached in this year’s Festival between commercial and more obscure material; and, as far as numbers-crunching goes, ticket sales were up by 35 per cent, and attendances reached something like 90,000 - not bad going for Sdraulig’s second year.

Well, that’s my impression, anyway.

City of Melbourne Short Film Awards

explicit and frank material, but that was about all; Uncut Qohn Greyson), the only Rctional Rim in the showcase, was something of a disappointment, especially after Greyson’s moody Lilies last year. Finished (William E. Jones), upon all reports, was a bad, bad, bad self-indulgent look at the death of a porn star, and the best of the lot was Unmade Beds (Nicholas Barker), a very real, very sad journey with four single people trying to Rnd love in a lonely world.

The “Kiss Me Deadly” retrospective provided some welcome nostalgic escapism into the simpler, darker world of 1950s Rim noir. The title Rim, Robert Aldrich’s 1955 classic, with a recently discovered different ending, had some great lines (“You’re never around when I need you”, “You never need me when I’m around”) and a broody atmosphere; Pushover (Richard Quine, 1954) provided us with C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

Rappaport), a great disappointment for a number of reasons. First, it was not nearly as interesting as Rappaport’s The Journals of Jean Seberg (1997).

Ostensibly, it was about the represen­ tation of gay male characters in early Hollywood Rims, but it spent far too long focusing on the Crosby-Hope road movies, and then on Walter Brennan as grizzled but loyal unrequited love of the leading man. The other problem was the way the Rim was pitched in the Festival programme. Using quotes from overseas Rim reviews and the Rimmaker himself, it set itself up to be “The Celluloid Closefs evil twin brother”. The thing is, it just wasn’t.

If I have one major gripe about this year’s Festival, it is about the pro­ gramme. Just about every Rim was represented by a series of quotes pulled from press kits and some uncredited connecting hyperbole and endless praise that read more like an

Winners in this year’s Short Film Awards as awarded by the jury (Fiona Cochrane, Zakir Hossain Raju, Alkinos Tsilimidos and Christina Heristandidis) are as follows: G r a n d P r ix T he C ity o f M e l b o u r n e A w a r d for B est Fil m , $ 5 ,0 0 0

The Storekeeper (South Africa, Gavin Hood)

The C it y

of

M e l b o u r n e A w a r d for

B est S h o r t Fic t io n , $ 2 ,0 0 0

Joint winners: The Sugarbowl (Bel­ gium , Hilde Van Mieghem), The Sheep Thief (Algeria-UK, Asif Kapadia) T he C it y o f M e l b o u r n e A w a r d for B est A n im a t io n , $ 2 ,0 0 0

Flatworld (UK, Daniel Greaves) T he C it y o f M e l b o u r n e A w a r d for B est D o c u m e n t a r y , $ 2 ,0 0 0

PI Snaps (USA, Monica Sharf) T he C ity o f M e l b o u r n e A w a r d for

T he Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian S hort Film, $ 2 ,0 0 0 Two/Out (Kriv Stenders)

The Kino Cinema’s Award for Excellence in an Australian S hort Film, $ 2 ,5 0 0 Relative Strangers (Rosemary Hesp)

Best Student Production The Man From the Deep (Denmark, Martin Hagbjer)

Best Achievement in a V ideo Production Come Dancing (UK, Richard Knew)

International Catholic Film Organisation Award for an outstanding Australian short FILM PROMOTING HUMAN VALUES

Tulip (Rachel Griffiths)

Audience Polls The top ten most popular feature films at the 47th Melbourne International Film Festival are as follows: 1. Radiance (Australia, Rachel Perkins) 2. Dance Me To My Song (Australia, Rolf de Heer) 3. Gadjo Dilo (The Crazy Stranger, France, Tony Gatlif) 4. The Interview (Australia, Craig Monahan) 5. Amy (Australia, Nadia Tass) 6. Festen (The Celebration, Denmark, Thomas Vinterberg) 7. Head On (Australia, Ana Kokkinos) 8. Came Tremula (Live Flesh, Spain Pedro Almodovar) 9. The Spanish Prisoner (USA, David Mamet) 10. High Art (USA, Lisa Cholodenko) The top ten most popular documen­ taries are as follows: 1. Waco: The Rules of Engagement (USA, William Gazecki) 2. Hephzibah (Australia, Curtis Levy) 3. Jabiluka (Australia, David Bradbury) 4. Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz (Germany, Julian Benedikt) 5. Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog (Netherlands, Don McGlynn) 6. The Saltmen of Tibet (Switzerland/Germany, Ulrike Koch) 7. Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (USA, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders) 8. Year of the Horse (USA, Jim Jarmusch) 9. Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (Canada, Simcha Jacobovici) 10. Modulations (USA, lara Lee) ®

B est Ex p e r im e n t a l Fil m , $ 2 ,0 0 0

The Persistence of Memory (UK, Anthony Atanasio) T he B e y o n d A w a r d fo r B est A u s t r a l ia n S h o r t C o m e d y , $ 5 ,0 0 0

Fetch (Lynn-Maree Danzey)

1 Some of the ads were just plain wrong as well: Motel Cactus was confusingly described as 24 hours in the life of a motel room, when it is clearly set over a far longer period.

15

Contestability of the Image: Postmodernist Appropriation and Intellectual Property Rights b y J a m e s C o o p er he common law tradition in intellectual property has focused on the protection of the economic interests of the creators of original works of art. The common law has developed a range of rules governing the ownership and use of images includ­ ing the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), The Trade Marks Act 1 9 9 5 (Cth), and the tort of Passing-Off. The develop­ ment of these rules rests on fundamental modernist concepts of authorship and originality.

Postmodernism contests the appropriation of images into conventional property relations. Postmod­ ernist discourse rejects the privileging of the ‘creative author-artist’ as the legal subject on whom rights are bestowed. Rather, postmodernism analyzes meaning and value from context - the work’s interplay of social,

T

cultural and political representations and references.

The painting or artwork is a mere sign taking meaning from the interpretations of the viewers, who are the ‘originators’ of meaning. For the postmodernist artist, creativity is the re-articulation of images through recontextualizing the image. Commonly, parody and satire are used to undercut the authority of prior dis­ courses embedded in the image.

The purpose of this article is to consider the law of copyright in the light of postmodernist discourses on culture and, in particular, the extent that the law of copyright limits and restricts the use of parody in postmodernist art.

Defining Postmodernism The term “postmodern” has become a label for a wide range of contemporary intellectual and artistic movements, and it would be a mistake to seek a sin­ gle essential meaning.

Postmodernism reflects a noticeable shift in sensi­ bility, practices and discourse formations which distinguishes a post-modern set of assumptions, experiences and propositions from that of a preceding period . 1 Postmodernism is marked by an increasing denuncia­ tion of abstract reason and a rejection of any projects for human emancipation based on science, technol­ ogy and reason (“grand narratives”). The concept of objective knowledge of the real world, “univocal” meanings of words and texts, any certitude in a uni­ fied “self’, is denied. Postmodernists embrace

ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic. Condemning meta-narratives as ‘totalizing’, they insist upon a plurality of power-discourse formations (Foucault), or of ‘language games’ (Lyotard).2 The postmodernist challenge to the stability of mean­ ing, if taken seriously, has profound implications for art and the legal protection afforded the “artist”. The Deconstuctionist movement (initiated by Derrida in the late ’60s) argued that the relationship between “the signified”, or message, and the “signifier”, or medium, is continually breaking apart and re-attaching in new

16

combinations. That is, the production of meaning is through the structure of language and its protocols, which are always in a state of flux. For Derrida:

Writers who create texts or use words do so on the basis of all other texts and words they have encountered, while readers deal with them the same way. Cultural life is then viewed as a series of texts intersecting with other texts [...] this intertextual weaving has a life of its own [...] Rec­ ognizing that, the deconstructionist impulse is to look inside one text for another, dissolve one text into another, or build one text on another.3 On this basis, representation in any form cannot pro­ claim any objective, universal truth. Any truth claim can

only be constructed within the system of representation itself and only obtains meaning through its context.

Postmodernism queries not only the appropriation of images under copyright and the privileging of the author-artist-composer, but the whole question of the validity of law as a modernist “master narrative” on justice.

What is required is nothing less than the decen­ tering of the disciplinary subject and hence the ‘deconstruction’ of precisely the form of disciplinary thinking that repeatedly situates the conscious indi­ vidual legal thinker as the privileged adjudicator of the truth of propositional content and as the inde­ pendent wielder of instrumental power.4 C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

legal ease

Postmodern Art For postmodernist artists, the form of representation becomes the benchmark of reality; there is an accep­ tance ofthe loss o f‘reality’ and an emphasis on decoding the protocols of the medium. The effect of the cultural construction (enculturation) of meaning is that the icons and images of popular culture become the most proximate referents of reality — and therefore a major place of dispute between post­ modern artists and those claiming ‘ownership ofthe image’ (with apologies to Edelman). Postmodernist artists emphasize the heteroglossia and fragmenta­ tion of cultural forms through techniques such as parody, irony and pastiche, and the use of collage and montage, and a preoccupation with participa­ tion, performance and happening (the signifier), rather than the finished object (the sign).5 Postmodernism also calls into question the modernist cult ofthe ‘creative individual’ as the originator of artwork who is the privileged legal subject in copyright law. Postmodernism argues that meaning is intertextual and both producers and consumers of cultural texts participate in the produc­ tion of meaning. Postmodernism displaces both the concept ofthe ‘artist’ and the very understanding of the ‘self. If the ‘self is a construction of social dis­ courses, then the ‘rational man’ of modernism and the ‘alienated worker’ of Marxist theory is replaced by the schizophrenic (Lacan’s description is one of linguistic disorders resulting from a rubble of distinct and unrelated signifiers6) of postmodernist thought.

This ‘decentred’ subject is free to locate and change its identity and recognize the intertextuality ofthe ‘self. For an artist, he/she is free to adopt multiple representations of genres, styles and even the self.

Copyright and Parody Parody presents unique problems to the law of copy­ right, but, despite this, there is no special status accorded parody or any definition within the Copy­ right Act 1968 (Cth) (“The Act”). The question of infringement of copyright is treated in the same way as any other infringement.

Edelman defines parody as:

A creation based on a creation: it creates from what is already created. Hence, its ambiguity.

On the one hand it has to be distinct and distin­ guishable from the work being parodied, while borrowing its characters. On the other hand, so as not to run foul of the legal obligations of ‘respect’, it cannot falsify the work being parodied.

Parody is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary7 as a composition, prose or verse in which an author’s characteristic turns of thought and phrase are imi­ tated and made to appear ridiculous, especially by applying them to ludicrously inappropriate subjects.

Weir8 points out that parody has a long and distin­ guished career: Shakespeare, Pope, Austen, Joyce, Hemingway, Voltaire, Cervantes and Swift were all parodists. Arguing from a moral rights perspective, she argues for a special treatment for parody because “true parody” has social and literary merit manifesting as free speech and creativity.

Issues relating to parody have been considered in AGL Sydney Ltd v Shortland County Council (1990) 17 IPC 90 and Schott Musik International GMBH v C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

Colossal Records of Australia Pty Ltd [1996] 1033 FCA1 (26 November 1996) (annexed).

In the first case, AGL sought to restrain SCC from running an advertisement praising the benefits of electricity. AGL had previously published an adver­ tisement which promoted the use of gas. SCC used the same scenario, dialogue and even the same actors! Foster J. (at 28) reiterated that “the statute grants no exemption, in terms, in the case of works of parody”. His honour accepted the statement of principle in Glyn v Weston Feature Film Co (1916) 1 Ch 261 (The Gaslight case)

that no infringement of the plaintiffs rights take place where a defendant has bestowed such mental labour upon what he has taken and has subjected it to such revision and alteration as to produce an original result.

The focus of Australian courts in examining Copyright infringement is to consider whether a substantial part ofthe original work has been copied. In Williamson Music v Pearson Partnership [1987] FSR 97, a television advertisement parodying the song “There’s Nothing Like a Dame” was held to infringe as the parody took a substantial part ofthe original.

The cases reveal that the court examines both the qualitative and quantitive aspects of what has been taken when determining if a substantial part ofthe work has been taken. Thus, in Francis Day & Hunter v Bron (1963) Ch 587, the Court held the taking ofthe relevant eight bars of a song justified a finding of substantial objective similarity.

In general, the principles for infringement of artistic works (which includes paintings, sculptures, engravings, photographs) involve the same test of substantiality. However, problems develop around the distinction between ideas and their expression in artistic works. In Hanfstaengl v Smith (1905) iCh 519, a copy is said to be “that which comes so near to the original as to suggest the original to the mind of every person seeing it”9. In this case, a rough copy of the plaintiffs painting of “Psyche” appearing in an advertisement was held to be an infringement. The copy of a part of a photo or painting may also be an infringement. Thus, where a man used the plaintiffs photograph ofthe Prince of Wales by cutting out the head and replacing his wife’s head on a drawing, the court held there was a breach of copyright. In Bauman v Fussell10the defendant painted a picture based on a photograph taken by the plaintiff of two cocks fighting. As the relative positions ofthe cocks was not arranged by the plaintiff, it was held not to infringe because the positioning was of less signifi­ cance in determining whether the defendant had taken a substantial part ofthe work.

The substantiality test is problematic for post­ modernist art forms. Edelman’s ironic definition (supra) reflects the problem that parody is by nature derivative and must borrow closely from the original to be effective. The question of infringement resting solely on the issue of whether the work contains a substantial reproduction ofthe plaintiffs work must usually be answered in the affirmative.

Whilst the court has focused on the issue of sub­ stantiality, the issue ofthe originality ofthe parody may still determine the issue of infringement. Origi­ nality is central to the copyright law for the grant of

protection under the Act. If an artistic work reflects the skill and effort ofthe artist, such that the parody is a sufficient reworking ofthe original, then it may have its own copyright. In Kristarts SA v Briarfine Ltd (1977) FSR 557, the court examined the painting to determine the features in which copyright subsisted,

the choice of viewpoint, the exact balance of fore­ ground and background features, the figures introduced [...] it is the choice of this character that the person producing the work makes his original contribution.

Parody and Moral Rights Besides the threat to postmodernist parody from the protection ofthe economic interests under the Act, the introduction o f‘moral rights’ may further erode the use of parody. In Schott Musik International GMBH v Colos­ sal Records of Australia Pty Ltd (supra), the opening shots were fired in the use of moral rights to prevent the debasement of a work. In this case, the court had to decide whether a techno dance music adaptation of Carl Orffs chorus from the “Carmina Burana” debased the work. (5.55(2) removes the statutory licensing scheme for recordings if the adaptation debases the work). Whilst Australia is yet to enact the ‘moral rights’ provisions ofthe Berne Convention11, the case high­ lights their possible use to limit parody.

The proposed scheme would involve an amend­ ment to the Act to accord relevant copyright holders the right of attribution and, more controversially, the right of integrity. According to the discussion paper12

the right of integrity would include the right to object to any material alteration, distortion or other derogatory treatment of a work. The right would be limited by requiring action taken prejudi­ cially to affect the author’s honour and reputation.

However, according to the discussion paper13, the use of a work or film for the purpose of parody or burlesque is unlikely to amount to an infringement ofthe right of integrity. Though the paper reassures that the régime is not intended to affect the impor­ tant rôle played by parody and burlesque, it acknowledges that there may be “borderline” cases!

The placement ofthe parody exception within the context of an author’s right to respect appears contradictory and provocative, since parody, by definition, aims to distort the original author’s work and to treat it irreverently and comically. The law of copyright is a looming site for contested culture on which judges will have to traverse the slippery slopes of taste and aesthetics in determining accept­ able and unacceptable parody.

By comparison with Anglo-Australian copyright, the USA has recognized the rôle of parody within the ‘fair use’ exceptions in the U.S. Copyright Act. The American courts consider the effect ofthe use upon the potential market for or value ofthe copyright work in determining fair use. Unless the parody usurps demand forthe original, orthere is an “unreasonable” taking from the original, there is no infringement. The function of fair use is to prevent the stifling of creativity.

In the recent case Campbell vAcuff-Rose Music Inc. (U.S. Supreme Court, 7 March 1994, internet copy annexed), the Supreme Court found in favour ofthe rap group 2 Live Crew in relation to its cs=- 56

17

Critics and viewers have been far kinder to P eter W eir’s latest film than they were to his unjustly

Show is likely be one of 1998’s best-remembered films, and is already promising to be an Oscar-1

marketing campaign, The Truman Show is a media-savvy fantasy about Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), that he is trapped inside a soap opera in which he was, literally, born and raised. “ The Truman Show”

producer Christof (Ed Harris), who has created a massive environment in which actors and conceal)

secret from Truman. From beneath a dome, Christof and his crew control every aspect of Truman'ili

has been applauded for its wry critique of how television has deform ed modern society’s perspectwi

rites-of-passage stories is no less central to The Truman Show than it is in his other works. P e te rl1 18

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

W hat

is y o u r r e s p o n s e t o t h e f il m ’ s

USA? Delighted and relieved. Jim Carrey is so well-known for his broad comedy, there was a feeling we might be like the drunk and fall between the two bar stools.

RECEPTION IN THE

G iv e n

t h a t t h e r o l e is v a s t l y

DIFFERENT TO WHAT JlM CARREY HAS DONE IN THE PAST, WHAT DID YOU SEE HIM BRINGING TO IT?

There’s something alien about him, something strange, and that was a qual­ ity the character had to have. It wasn’t just a case of taking a good actor and putting him in the role. There had never been a character like Truman Burbank.

G iv e n C a r r e y ’ s

a s s o c ia t io n w it h

MADCAP ROLES, DID YOU AT ANY STAGE SEE THE PO SSIBILITY OF A PROBLEM, OR HAD HE AGREED EARLY ON TO YOUR VISION OF THE ROLE?

Of course, we had to have an accord, and that first meeting was critical. I wouldn’t have accepted the film with­ out that having gone well; and I’m sure that was true on his side. I had a very open mind about how he should be, because I was still thinking and coming up with ideas about what it would have been like to be born and live under these circumstances for 29 years.

One of the first things I thought was that those around him are all actors.

They would have leaned in close to him, beaming away, because they would know they are on camera when they are close to him. Plus, if he liked you, you would maybe get a long-running part.

Then I began to think about other aspects of what that life might be like.

At the end of the movie when he is told the full truth about his circumstances, there needed to be a reaction from the character which was, “Oh, so that’s what it was.” Unconsciously, all his life, it would have seemed that there was something, and he never knew what it was. That something caused him to be a performer. It’s as if there was a will from those around him to be entertaining, to be funny, to be “on”, which is not dis­ similar to Jim’s own story in a way. He was the entertainer of the family. That’s true of many theatrical people.

T rum an

dismissed Fearless (1993). The Truman contender. Heralded by an innovative a 29-year-old who comes to realize

is the money-raking creation of ed cameras conspire to keep the ife. The film understandably e of reality. Weir’s interest in eir speaks to Paul Kalina.

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

n e e d e d t o b e in n o c e n t o f

THE LIE.

He was also a really strange person. I think if he’d have stayed on in that town, if he hadn’t come across the truth, he would have gone completely crazy.

He was kind of an adolescent really. His development was arrested. That was part of his strange­ ness and also part of his appeal to the audi­ ence. It was, in a curious way, a ritesof-passage movie.

Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey).

The Truman Show.

Ma n y

of th e

USA r e v i e w e r s

ten d ed

TO SEE THE FILM LESS AS A RITES-O F-PASSAGE JOURNEY THAN AS A CAUTIONARY TALE OF THE GLOBAL MEDIA. DOES THE FILM HAVE THAT SPECIFIC INTENT ABOUT THE MEDIA, OR ARE THE U SA CRITICS READING INTO IT WHAT THEY WILL?

One of the appeals of the script was its many plains and levels, and that’s one of them. I don’t think it’s necessarily the most interesting, but it’s there.

It’s true that the American media concentrated on that, to the extent that sometimes I felt uncomfortable because it seemed as if, in the view of many, I was a self-appointed critic of television - headlines saying, “Weir against television”.

But they’re very concerned there, as are many people in the world, about the kinds of programmes... And it’s not just the content. It’s the loss, for many, of a sense of reality and the fact of children being exposed to so much television.

Do YOU SEE THE FILM AS MODERN-DAY B r a v e N e w Wo r l d ?

I think you can look at it that way.

World domination by giant corpora­ tions with which the people are complicit. The walls of the prison are built by the very inmates.

B r a v e N e w Wo r l d

e n d s w it h t h e

PROTAGONIST EXPECTING TO BE EXPELLED FOR HIS REBELLION, BUT THEN FINDS HIMSELF DISPATCHED TO UTOPIA.

And in this case, it’s a Utopia that the producer has constructed. I think that Christof [Ed Harris] is such an interest­ ing character, he is a kind of artist. He sees himself as a great teacher, doing something very worthwhile.

There was a decision early on in talk­ ing to Ed that he would not be crazy, insane - in the legal definition. He is certainly a fanatic, but, on the other hand, while making billions of dollars he was doing something that he thought was beneficial to the world and was demonstrating a way to live.

That’s what makes him truly sinister.

Is C h r is t o f b a s e d o n a n y a c t u a l PRODUCER OR FILMMAKER?

Not specifically. In my research I was interested in the couturiers, who are kind of quasi-artists: Armani, Karl Lager­ feld, Versace, who was alive when I was working on it. They generally dress in black, they have enormous influence on the world, and a very particular self­ view, as if they were great artists and designers of more than just clothing.

And the way they’re dealt with by the press. Their “vision” is implied each time they come out with a new line.

At

w hat stage w as

E d Ha r r i s

c a s t in

THAT ROLE?

At the last minute. Somebody else was cast and it just didn’t work out. I was deep into the film, in fact I was days away from shooting those scenes which were at the end of the schedule.

19

Fortunately, he was available and came straight into the movie with about two days’ preparation.

C h r is t o f

is a fa r c r y f r o m t h e

TYPICAL VILLAIN OF THE PIECE.

It was difficult. With the most recent James Bond movie [Tomorrow Never Dies, Roger Spottiswoode, 1997], you have this manipulating character in the control room. How to reinvigorate the cliché?

Ed was wonderful to work with because his background is in theatre.

He tends to be cast along certain lines in the last decade - he’s often the policeman; the Gl with a buzz-cut; he can be on one side of the law and the other- and play these things very well.

This part, I think, demonstrated how much more he can do.

Ed said he would normally not con-

them as if I were an aspiring director on the show, who was on the afternoon shift, and asking them to put in a good word for me to get me onto what was the most-prized shift, which were the week­ end shifts where the most experienced directors were. It was a way of passing the time, but it helped keep their aware­ ness that they were somebody else.

Then I suggested we shoot a docu­ mentary of that, and got a documentary crew in and shot a lot of stuff with them.

They were so warmed up in these char­ acters that they began to invent their own backgrounds. That became a little promotional film in the end.

I made sure the documentary was shot on 35mm. I had my eye on it. I thought there may be something here I could use. In the end, part of that went Into the opening titles.

Truman was more of an everyman.

I’d like to have seen his version of it, but, unlike theatre, you can’t get to see anyone else’s take [on a film].

Andrew wanted to direct the film; he just didn’t have any track record and it was too expensive.

When I read it, I felt the first problem was New York. More than usual, I had to satisfy the credibility of the idea.

You had to believe it was possible.

Being set in the near future, you have to relax the area of logic for the audi­ ence to join in with the film, so they would not be constantly thinking, “Could this happen?” I said no pro­ ducer would build New York! Also, it wouldn’t be an ideal community. Why would you create something that had all the problems of our world? Why not build an idealized world?

There was a long period of prepara­ tion, which wasn’t only spent working on the script with Andrew. I was always writing about the show for my own use, collecting material about the show. I even went so far as to make up swap cards that I thought could be in cereal packs and so on. They were called Tru­ man trivia and on the back were details about an extra who’d been on the show, or the first person who’d died on the show and other arcane knowledge.

During all that time I was thinking this is going to be a difficult sell. Direc­ tors today have to be involved in the marketing. It has become so critical, unfortunately, and I began to think of marketing ideas and asked to meet the marketing department of Paramount before pre-production had even begun.

They were astonished, and in a way

I think th at involvement with the director did get a lot of the key people thinking. The campaign was masterful and, in a country which is very literal, fantasy, unless it's of the most obvious kind, is not common in their movies. They like to have things very clear, and so this film was in jeopardy of being nothing more than a curiosity piece in the midst of conventional summer fare. sider going into a film with a complex character like that with only a few days, but sometimes there’s a benefit in not having too much time to think, reacting intuitively to a part.

He had a lot to work with because I could show him the programme [“The Truman Show”, the TV serial Christof masterminds]. And I had a very detailed backstory. I wrote up quite an involved piece about how the show was put together, and that concen­ trated on Christof.

Sco tt M urray

h a s s u g g e s t e d th a t he

COULD BE THE X F IL E S ’ CHRIS CARTER.

[Laughs.] I wonder what Chris Carter would think of that.

W hat

of th e

OTHER CHARACTERS AND ACTORS?

With the cast of those close around to Truman Laura Linney as his wife, Meryl, and Noah Emmerich as his best friend, Marlon - to keep the schizophrenia alive I would talk to them off the set as if they were in their actor persona.

I would call them by their names. She was Hannah Gill, playing the part of Meryl Burbank, and Lewis Coltrane who was play­ ing Marlon, everyone being named after an actor. I would talk to Meryl Burbank (Laura Linney).

The Truman Show.

20

HOW DID YOU WORK WITH ANDREW NlCCOL ON THE SCRIPT?

It was a long process. We started In November 1995 in LA and 10 drafts later we were finished. I re-worked the tone of the film. Everything changed really, other than the concept and the charac­ ters. We took It apart and rebuilt it.

W hat

s h i f t s t o o k p l a c e d u r in g t h e

COURSE OF THOSE

10 DRAFTS?

His was more what I think you could call Kafkaesque. It was certainly darker. It was a more psychoI logical piece. He had it set in New York City and was going

That led eventually to Seaside, to a pristine community created in the style of the last century. Given that it was set in the near future, this would be the way people would like to live, almost like a holiday brochure really, an ideal island somewhere. And every­ thing was for sale, everything from clothing to furniture to the houses themselves could be purchased in the mail order catalogue. That was the way we went.

There was an immense amount of detail. And we had a lot of fun.

Andrew’s a New Zealander. I don’t know if that helped; I’m sure it did in the sense of humour that we shared. In the meantime, he wrote and directed Gottoco [1998], his first feature.

interested, that I wanted to meet with them all. ■ Some 30 people came to the meeting -from television advertising, the Inter­ net department, the trailer people, the poster people - and I gave them Tru­ man trivia cards. I told them, “I think you should sell this whole thing as if the show does exist.” None of that really happened, and they didn’t sell it that way, but I think the fact that I was there that early, whereas [directors] don’t normally come on until the film is made, worked. They came to see me on location and one of them said, “I know the guy who’s got the only com­ puter programme to make up a face out of a myriad of other photographs.”

That became the poster.

I think that involvement with the director did get a lot of the key people thinking. The campaign was masterful and, in a country which is very literal, fantasy, unless it’s of the most obvious kind, is not common in their movies.

They like to have things very clear, and so this film was in jeopardy of being nothing more than a curiosity piece in the midst of conventional summer fare.

D id

t h e f il m h a v e a n e a s y p a s s a g e

THROUGH THE STUDIO?

It did. I thought they’d have more con­ cerns about Jim, and the difficulties of marketing. I was more concerned than they were, but I'm glad they didn’t say anything. As soon as Jim and I said, “Yes”, and the script was accepted, it was all on.

I was anxious about the script because the major change in the penultimate draft was that he didn’t C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

leave the studio. Every draft prior to that, including the one that they’d given the go-ahead on, had sequences outside the studio. At the end of the film, there was a neat tying-up of every aspect of it: you saw the villain, as it were, punished, and you saw Truman with his girlfriend. It had all kinds of stuff going on for ten minutes after­ wards. I decided in that [last] draft that he shouldn’t leave the studio, that it was interesting to walk into darkness, and for us to wonder what happened to him.

What they were concerned about was budget. It was one of those films that was like a horse that wanted to bolt.

They knew that, I knew that, everybody did. It was potentially a money-eater at many levels, so they pegged the bud­ get off, initially, around $50 million. It finally just couldn’t be held at that and went to the low $60 millions, which wasn’t a bad price given that Jim had cut his fee, the opticals and the diffi­ culty of filming in that town.

I took the town of Seaside, which was C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1 998

a wonderful discovery and the only candidate for the town - there was no back-up. There was a very tense period negotiating with the town council, and they did warn me that the weather was foul during the period we planned to shoot there, which was December, Jan­ uary and February. It’s outside the hurricane season, but it was certainly unstable on the gulf there; the colli­ sion of hot and cold air on that body of water produces incredibly changeable weather, and did we get it!

Because the story involved the con­ trol of the weather, you couldn’t take advantage of serendipity. One morning there was a brilliant fog there, but I couldn’t see a reason to write it into the script. So we had to wait for the fog to clear. It was basically meant to be very sunny.

Da v i d T h o m p s o n ’s

r e v i e w o f t h e f il m

-th a t’s one ofthe regulations of the council - and a lot are white. When the weather is good, there is very little atmosphere. It’s very clear; it’s almost like the sharp definition you get on a mountain top on a sunny day. Remark­ able. That was wonderful for the look ofthe film, but caused a lot of prob­ lems for Peter photographing it. There was so much bounce. But, neverthe­ less, that was embraced. He just had to build the light up on the actors and use a lot of silks. We knew it was the look ofthe film - this squeaky-clean look of a commercial, everything ideal­ ized, a kind of toy-town - which was what David Thompson reacted to. It was such a sinister premise really, this convention of liars and the exploitation of a child, which is really where it began.

There

a r e s o m e o b v io u s t h in g s w e

TALKED A LOT ABOUT THE LIGHTING,

d o n ’ t g e t t o s e e in t h e c o u r s e o f

DESCRIBING IT AS A LIGHT-DRENCHED

w a t c h in g

FILM NOIR. HOW DID YOU AND D O P

W hat

P e t e r B iz io u

INCLUDED AND EXCLUDED FROM V IEW ?

crea te th a t lo o k?

Firstly, most of the buildings are pastel

T rum an 24

hours a day.

w e r e t h e c r it e r ia o f w h a t ’s

No camera in the toilet [laughs]. That

was Christof. I had to be Christof a lot.

It was a very schizophrenic experience, he says laughingly, because I would be the director ofthe movie but I was also the director ofthe television show, which was all part of building up the logic of the piece of how it was put together. It had to work internally as a piece, which is true of any fantasy. It may be another world, but that world has to have its laws. Often I’d find myself switching to Christof.

So

it w a s

C h r is t o f

w h o d id n ’ t w a n t

A CAMERA IN THE TOILET.

In fact, in the interview sequence we shot a lot more than you see, and some of that stuff was very funny, really.

Christof was very proud that he’d not put a camera in the toilet. We con­ structed rules about where the cameras were and what they were shooting.

And then there’s the sex life of Tru­ man. I had to find ways of covering these things quickly and economically, so I had a couple ofthe carpark atten­ dants talking about the fact that you never see anything when they go to

21

bed together; the camera always pans off. I thought that’s because they’re teasing them, which probably gave it an erotic content because he had such a broad audience.

There

is a w o m a n in t h e

U SA

w ho has

A CAMERA IN HER APARTMENT WATCHING HER EVERY MOMENT.

JennyCam. We tried to contact her, without revealing who we were, from the cutting-room. They [the editing assistants] introduced me to the Web­ site. I was astonished. You can’t think of anything that isn’t goingto happen.

But she likes it, can you imagine? She just thinks it’s wonderful. She plans to do it until she dies.

I’ v e

n e v e r a c t u a l l y v is it e d t h e s it e .

It’s incredibly boring, but there’s

we saw with Lady Diana. The very peo­ ple who were so shocked that she was chased by the paparazzi to her death were the people for whom the paparazzi were working. But it seemed to me, watching all the coverage, that no one had put that together. They’d forgotten that she was a human being, not an actress starring in some soap opera.

A n d r e w U r b a n ’s

r e v ie w o f t h e f il m

brilliant Buddhist one, with Christof as Siddharta’s father, the King, trying to stop him leaving the garden and dis­ covering the pain of life that lies outside the palace walls.

I SAW THE FILM VERY MUCH WITHIN SUCH ARCHETYPES AND, IN FACT, AS BEING CLOSE TO YOUR OTHER WORK, ESPECIALLY FEAR­ LESS. B o th

f il m s d e s c r ib e a c h a r a c t e r

WHO MUST CONQUER AN OBSTACLE, A PSY­

CALLS IT A VERY GOOD PARABLE OF THE

CHOLOGICAL FEAR, BEFORE HE CAN ENTER

C h r is t ia n C h u r c h ,

INTO THE NEXT PHASE OF HIS LIFE.

th e

C h r is t

f ig u r e .

w it h

Do

C h r is t o f

as

y o u c a r e to

COMMENT?

The film picked up metaphors as it went along. I was surprised as we began to put it together how it was relaying other meanings.

I was rather more drawn to Greek

I am drawn to stories like that, and in this case what I liked was that he was not a “man”. He hadn’t become a man, and was this adolescent. He had to get out in orderto find himself and his real­ ity. Christof is asked by the interviewer, “Why has Truman not discovered the

story.” “I don’t think so”, I’d say. “The times we’re living through are bizarre.

The story is simply reflecting that.”

The key elements involved in the story are as old as stories themselves: the search for truth; a love story that’s part of the search for meaning; the overcoming of odds, of a conspiracy; a flight while pursued by forces of dark­ ness. These are old things, plus the journey to yourself, the rite-of-passage. But, really, the context of the story is the times we’re in.

Ma y b e

t h a t ’ s w h y t h e f il m n e e d e d t o

BE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY NONA m e r ic a n s .

It’s a funny thought, isn’t it?

W hat

w as yo u r r e sp o n s e to th e

UNJUSTLY-PANNED F E A R L E S S ?

I love that saying that a film is its own country. When filmmakers begin their careers, they’re very interesting for their talent and fresh voice alone, but they give a quick reflection of their society.

If they have the potential for a long career, after a certain number of films they become the country. always the potential that just when you’re watching you may see some­ thing exciting, or something “real”.

I think that’s the appeal, which brings up the question of what’s real and unreal. That, I think, is an essential interest of the film. Viewers have for­ gotten that Truman’s not aware, or else they’ve blurred the line in terms of all the other characters, believing they’re [Weir’s emphasis] real.

Everyone’s shocked at the end when his actual life is in danger, which is what

22

legend. Christof is Zeus, in the sense that he’s trying to control the mortals.

In my reading, as I recall, the one thing Zeus could not do is interfere with fate. He could do other God-like things, including controlling the weather, but he cannot, as Christof/Zeus does, begin to interfere with the decisions his creature has taken, which is to leave.

So Christof/Zeus crosses a line at the end and is punished for it.

There are all sorts of other under­ standings. Somebody gave me a

secret of his world before now?” And he answers, “We accept the reality with which we’re presented.” That was a very concise way of statingthe theme of the film for me, and the implication that it has for any society with which you have been presented.

It’s certainly true to me of the late 20th century, where we seem to be accepting of many things that are intol­ erable and a distortion of what I think of as reality. Quite a few American journal­ ists said to me, “This is a very bizarre

I think I probably anticipated it because of the way I treated the film. The ques­ tions involved in the film enter into metaphysical areas, which are off-lim­ its in the thinking of some critics. They don’t like it being dealt with on the screen. I knew there would be people who would be prejudiced against this type of material. So I don’t count that, in a way, as a criticism of the film so much as a criticism of that way of thinking.

It was a very difficult film,

E3“ 56

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

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RANKING the O ne

of t h e l a r g e s t r e t r o s p e c t i v e s e v e r toi

BARRIE PATTISON

b u r n e d t h e m i d n i g h t oi

OUTPUT OF GAUMONT B RI TI S H, A RARE GLIMPSE

F

our years back, the ABC bought the entire Rank feature film library, some 500 titles. The prize, of course, was the Dirk Bogarde years, when Rank and British filmmaking was shown and recognized world­ wide.

Serving those up one more time is not particu­ larly newsworthy. However, in scooping up the prime material, the ABC acquired titles from the ’ 20 s to the ’80s, with nearly half of these from the pre-1950 period.

Simultaneously, a few oddities surfaced on the commercial channels: Paul Robeson in King Solomon’s Mines (Robert Stevenson, 1937); Lucie

Manheim aiding the war effort; George Formby keeping ’em flying. Some old viewing copies from British International also had enthusiast screenings.

Most of the pre-World War II English material was not seen here, or indeed in its country of ori­ gin, for more than half a century. It was known only to nostalgic Anglophiles in their pension years. The London National Film Theatre had programmed for decades on the principle that its audience was not going to turn out for British films, though, when vintage material was finally printed up, it drew 80 percent attendance figures in Barbican Centre screenings.

All this was an insight into a National Cinema (and a number of other areas) unprecedented since

the first years of Australian television when the networks bought the Hollywood packages, days you could turn on now-lost black-and-white Fredric March and Lee Tracy five nights out of seven.

To put this in perspective, serious enthusiasts are still talking about Henri Langlois’ 1960s Paris retrospective of 200 Japanese films. Before it stopped screenings, the largest season yet under­ taken by the Sydney Quay Cinémathèque was 20 sombre New Zealand features.

It’s easy to suggest that a collection of this nature is not the preselected material you would hope to find in a film museum season. It is accu­ mulated rather than compiled - on the Everest C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

TREASURES

play

A u st r a l ia u n r e e l e d to little f a n f a r e .

IL F OR A O N C E - O N L Y O P P O R T U N I T Y TO V I E W T H E I N T O S C O R E S OF U N L O V E D F I L M S OF T H E I 9 3 O S . principle. We can see these because they are there.

This proves as much a strength as a weakness.

After viewing several hundred, in years of eye-red­ dening, past-midnight sessions, suspicions have been confirmed and assumptions confounded.

Who remembered that Charters and Caldicott sur­ faced in Sidney Gilliat’s work before they were played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne?

How about the character advising that transAtlantic ’phone calls are seventy-five 1938 pounds a minute, or the airliner in Robert Stevenson’s would-be realistic Non Stop New York (1937) with sleeper cabins and an observation platform?

One surprise is that frequently it is the earliest material that has the best-quality signal. The blackC I N E M A P A P E R S - OCTOBER 1998

and-white films of the ’30s are often pin-sharp and striking in their tonal range (even if there are a few white mould spores in there), leaving the scary thought that the tapes must have been struck off the camera negatives.

Many of the later, more-marketable films look as if they were made from indifferent 16mm prints, and T. Hayes Hunter’s 1933 The Ghoul is still derived from that murky negative Bill Everson squeezed out of the East European archive 25 years back, blown up to get rid of Czech sub-titles.

Indeed, the copies made from preservation materials are notably dupier, signalling the titles that were considered worth saving, while the remainder were left to rot. This raises some inter­

esting questions: Who thought Hindle Wakes (Maurice Elvey, 1918) and The Man from Toronto (Sinclair Hill, 1933) were the pick of this lot? Do the original negatives still exist? If they are doomed to decomposition anyway on the nitrate that won’t wait, why not make these first-rate video copies of them while the chance remains?

The mother lode in this library is the Gaumont British-Gainsborough collection. The French giant had subsidiaries around the globe and its English 1930s production has passed into the batch via the usual string of mergers. Attention, of course, focuses on the uncovered works of celebrity direc­ tors. The Hitchcocks are familiar, but there are three rarely-seen films by Michael Powell.

P o w e ll Powell appears to have headed up the Gaumont British film unit. The 1933 The Fire Raisers was his twelfth movie. Hopes rise as the credits list later collaborators, star Leslie Banks, designer Alfred Junge and editor Derek Twist, and the opening scene, with insurance adjuster Banks ignor­ ing the fire officers and entering the blazing dockside building to find the incriminating ledger, is spectacular.

However, this seems to have swal­ lowed the budget and, despite considerable ingenuity on Junge’s part and a nice turn by villainous Francis L. Sullivan calling his hench­ man “dago” and questioning Banks’ captured sidekick over and over, the film settles down into tedious society melodrama, with “One day you’ll come a cropper and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the cause of it” dia­ logue. There are wrong eye-lines and the model work is appalling - toy boats bursting into flame.

Red Ensign of 1934 at least tries to dramatize shipyard politics, with Banks running Burns McKinon Co., refusing to sell to be registered abroad (“Patriotism is good busi­ ness”). The best scene overcomes the cut-price staging with him throwing a paid agitator off the dock crane and winning over the workers at the open-air meeting where they rattle their hammers in approval. There is a montage of ship building actuality paralleling the Grierson documen­ taries, but, when our hero has to drive to the scene, the only back-pro­

jection plate they can find is taken from a train and makes it look as if he’s doing 200 mph.

Powell’s Phantom Light, of the same year, seems more promising with lighthouse keeper, Gordon Harker (“I’ve been in the service 25 years and I’ve never let my light go out”), assigned to the remote coastal station where the railway is run by a woman in traditional costume and the pub buzzes with the story of his predecessor, driven mad in the haunted light.

There is an intriguing cast: Ian Hunter as a furtive reporter that Harker suspects of being a Commu­ nist; leggy Binnie Hale fresh from her triumph in the London No, No Nanette-, Donald Calthrop and Milton Rosmer; but the standout is bit player Herbert Lomas with his demented monologue about “all those drowned souls beating their wings against the glass, like birds”.

Night location shots of the Trinity House Station and the rescue boat launch lift the film, and the model work has improved sharply with the appearance of the Phantom Light really disturbing.

You can see the Powell of Edge of the World (1937) and I Know Where I’m Going (1945) in this one, but hopes fade as the atmosphere and suspense are traded off for easy laughs and a plot cobbled together from The Ghost Train (Walter Forde, 1931) and Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939), none too inge­ niously. It’s easy to understand why Powell went independent and shifted his loyalty to Korda.

A s q u it h Anthony Asquith also takes a pound­ ing. His forgotten, 1933 Lucky Number turns up, with Clifford Mollinson as a disgraced soccer player wandering penniless through a nocturnal, Germanic fun fair and unexpectedly bursting into the “Close Your Eyes and Wish For Happiness” song, mixing the plots of Le Million (René Clair, 1931) and Pennies from Heaven (Norman McLeod, 1936) alarmingly.

1939’s Freedom Radio, one of Asquith’s early collaborations with Anatole de Grunwald, here as co­ writer, is a super creaky propaganda piece. Ladylike Diana Wynyard is a star in Nazi-controlled Norway,

finally realizing the error of her ways and taking the clandestine station microphone from the fingers of dying doctor-husband Clive Brook. It has one of the best collections of ripe dialogue in the cinema: “They’re tak­ ing my granny to the police station” ; “That was Wolfgang. They invade Poland on Friday” ; “They like giving orders. They like taking orders. I know the German mentality.”

There’s more of the same in Asquith’s 1942 Uncensored, with Eric Portman’s jealous brother, Peter Glenville, selling out the patriots.

Just as well his 1941 Cottage to Let gets another airing. A good cast Banks, Alastair Sim, John Mills, 14year-old George Cole - do sub-Hitchcock with Nazis at the Gar­ den Fête, intricate camera moves and death in a distorting mirror. This one at least entertains.

However, before we write-off lesser Asquith, have a look at Brown on Resolution/ Forever England/ Born for Glory of 1935, credited to the industrious Walter Forde but described in star John Mills’ autobi­ ography as having location material

by Asquith.

The framing story has officer Barry McKay pairing with workingclass Betty Balfour pre-World War I (“In the service, they’re a bit fussy about a fellow getting married until he’s got his half stripe at least” ; “Marrying above you is as bad as marrying below you”). She ends raising young Mills, in a phony three-wall set, till he too goes off to sea. He gets into a boxing match with some awfully nice Kraut sailors, and then the film’s quality and texture abruptly change with the tense preparations for the battle with the German raider, Zeithen, filmed at sea. The battle itself is poor model work again, but the

C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1 998

scenes of Mills holding off the shore party, sent to stop his sniping, instantly evoke the Tell England landings. A shell bursts right next to him - on the side where he has now gone deaf, I notice.

This is the first of Mills’ squadron of naval heroes, if you discount him squiring Jessie Mathews through Albert de Courville’s 1932 The Mid­ ship Maid.

Minimizing the graphic ending of C. Forrester’s story, and the appeal­ ing treatment given a young, singing Howard Marion Crawford as a nice and therefore doomed German, show a sensibility closer to Asquith.

Once admired, it still has interest today.

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

V e id t The showings open the door that shut away Conrad Veidt’s missing English films. Veidt has lost his place in film history. Remembered now for virtually only three roles Cesare in Robert Weine’s 1919 Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari, Jaffar in Korda’s 1940 The Thief of Bagdad and, of course, Major Strasser - he was a dominating figure of the European and USA silent film, and moved into German talkies with his impact only enhanced by a smooth vocal delivery.

Veidt quit Nazi Germany, which attempted to retain him on a return visit that had Gaumont British rush­

ing in its own doctor to guarantee the authorities of his fitness to travel.

He became the company’s big inter­ national star, though as late as 1932 he was still unable to speak the lan­ guage, despite appearing regularly in the English versions of polygot Euro­ pean films, learning his dialogue parrot-fashion and still appearing more authorative than the British stage-trained players around him.

Veidt’s role in the European gay scene should have preserved his icon status, but he even dipped out there - his spot going to John Wayne!

Robert Milton’s 1934 Belladonna was still officially lost, but five rare titles showed up. We can, at last, observe what the British cinema made of this heavyweight contender.

There is comic-turned-director Walter Forde’s 1932 Rome Express. I remember studio head Michael Balcon apologizing on British television when he had to follow that one, despite a cast that included most of the celebrity character players on the payroll - Cedric Hardwicke, Donald Calthrop, Frank Vosper and Finlay Currie included.

Balcon could have thrown in Vic­ tor Saville’s 1933 I Was a Spy, a halting espionage melo with a couple of eruptions into big sets and hordes of extras, with Veidt heading up the Huns, while Madeleine Carroll does Mile Docteur.

A year later we get to Fothar Mendes’ long-missing Jew Suss (1934), whose programming drew protests from local Jewish commen­ tators. They had forgotten that, before the Nazi version, the Feon Fuchtwangler story of persecution had received this more accurate treatment. Even in cramped studio space, designer Junge builds a striking Wurtemberg: the black scorch marks above extinct braziers, the contrast of Veidt/Suss’ tasteful home and Duke Vosper’s opulent

court with its secret panel and orgy rooms. A great-looking film, it does give Veidt a chance to create an imposing, conflicted character, though finally it is too grim and theatrical.

Also surfacing was the 1934 Passing o f the 3rd Floor Back, the then-celebrated stageplay in a version directed by once-esteemed Austrian “psychological” director, Berthold Vieterl, who worked in Hollywood and was husband of Salka Vieterl, writer on Garbo movies. Here Con­ rad shows up as a returned Christ, no less, losing his battle with Frank Cellier’s corrupting property tycoon, with the set piece of the guest house boarders going on the Margate expedition where the camera passes over their boat as it reaches Tower Bridge. This is an ambitious venture, though also archaic and stagey.

Trying again, Gaumont proffered Veidt in Forde’s 1936 King o f the Damned, set in one of those tropical hell holes where sirens wake the con­ victs to do road work and feed the dead to the sharks as a hygiene measure. Conrad in his white suit becomes their leader after the rebel­ lion and (anticipating Bridge over the Paver Kwai, intriguingly) has them working more productively than the brutal guards. Despite its action setpiece revolt and pretensions, this is a simple-minded adventure yarn.

The studio had turned one of the most charismatic of all the cinema’s performers into a bewildered man­ nequin. Korda would do better, but Veidt was never to regain his earlier screen authority and would sink to featured player in Hollywood Nazibasher flicks.

La n g Also a celebrity performer, Matheson Fang is now forgotten. One of the few British stage notables 54

al Hartley’s films are often inaccessi­ ble to many viewers because of his approach to story­ telling. Hemy Fool is the exception. It is more ambitious and less restrained than his previous work - “an epic”, a visionary statement of impressive proportions.

Hartley says he has been thinking about Henry Fool (played in the film

by Thomas Jay Ryan) for some time: I had the name as early as 1981 in film school. He just hung around for 15 years, waiting for a place to manifest

28

himself. After reading Samuel Beckett, I asked myself, ‘What would happen if the most important person in town is also the most depraved and dangerous?’

This character just pushes its way up to the foreground. I don’t know where this comes from.

So, the standard question of ‘influ­ ences’ arises. Hartley refers to Faust, James Joyce, Jean-Luc Godard, the Bible, Andy Warhol, Kaspar Hauser, David Byrne and Beckett. Hartley refers to Henry Fool’s life appren­ tice, Simon Grim (played by James Urbank): Simon doesn’t talk because he sees things too clearly. He’s struck dumb.

God says to Moses, ‘I’ll show you my presence, but you have to get in this

crack in the mountain because, if you get too close, you’ll get wiped out.’ He comes down and can’t talk for a while.

So what about Henry and Simon’s relationship?

I wanted the devil to be brought back into the American myth. The devil is an important part of our Christian tradi­ tion. He’s there for a reason.

When confronted with Henry, Simon sees reality. Other people would see a vision of hell. In reality, Simon can see reality all the time, but he doesn’t have eloquence. That’s what Henry gives him - eloquence.

So why this film now?

I didn’t want to be just a craftsman when it comes to filmmaking. I wanted to pit my skills and intuition against

the unknown. In some ways, Henry is such a push.

David Byrne, early in his career, once said he suspected the Talking Heads would develop a strong but smalt fol­ lowing that would slowly spread out.

He thought that was great.

I do what I have to do and trust the audience wilt come to see it. They may not come on the same day.

And yet, besides the intellectual depths to which this film rises, it also lowers itself to the scatological depths which many viewers believe Hartley has previously shied away from: vomiting, beatings, diarrhoea and sex. Perhaps his Catholicism has prevented such explicitness in previ­ ous works. Hartley disagrees, C IN E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

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Fay (Parker Posey).

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A u s t r a l ia ?

A nglo

or

Eu r o pea n ?

My family are Australian. The Housing Commission estate was regarded as one of the great failures of the Victorian government at the time. It was just popped down in paddocks in the middle of nowhere.

Fr o m

a n e a r l y a g e , d id s e e t h a t t h e r e w a s a c l a s s

STRUCTURE IN AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY?

At that time in Melbourne, if you had a bog Irish back­ ground - we were Catholic - you found it much more difficult to get on. Melbourne was run by Protestants and to be considered bog Irish was to realize where you were in the scheme of things. My father was a truck driver.

W hen

d id y o u s t a r t w r i t i n g ?

I know exactly when I started writing because, during the Vietnam War demonstrations, I was in a street the­ atre group and I was the only one who could type. Just as secretaries think “I could do better”, I started to change the plays I had to type. Then I started to write.

I didn’t want to be a writer; I wanted to be an actor.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE BEFORE YOU WERE ACTUALLY A W RITER?

It came about because I had a play on at La Mama, a one-act play, in 1973 or ’7 4 .1 remember leaving the

30

0 W

Hrflxpl ^ 6 ^

Yes, I was born in Melbourne. I grew up in Fawkner, a Housing Commission estate near Broadmeadows.

Was

A j

5

play - 1 didn’t go to the opening night party - and thinking, “I’ve written the worst play ever; I’ll have to write something better.”

YOU WERE WRITING IN THE 7 0 S IN A TIM E OF GENUINE REBELLION. DlD THAT INFLUENCE YOUR WORK?

What influenced my work was how the English play­ wrights, John Arden and Edward Bond, combined a political outlook on life with a very ferocious personal viewpoint. I loved the mixture of the two.

D id

t h e f il m

en ce

Wa l k a b o u t [N ic o l a s R o e g , 1 9 7 1 ] in f l u ­

YOU AT ALL?

I adored Walkabout because it hardly had any words.

You see, I’ve never been a film writer who has particu­ larly liked words.

P e t e r W e ir

o n c e s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e t r e a t m e n t is

OFTEN A TRUER VISION OF THE FILM THAN THE SCRIPT BECAUSE IT’S ABOUT IMAGES RATHER THAN DIALOGUE. DO YOU WRITE TREATMENTS?

No, I don’t, because perversely I think a treatment squeezes out a lot of the juice of characters. [Pro­ ducer] Jan Chapman said, when we did the telemovies together, “You’re one of the few writers I know who wants to cut dialogue.” I’d sooner have a film without any dialogue at all.

W h ic h

o f y o u r f il m s c o m e s c l o s e r t o a c h i e v i n g

THAT?

Probably Map of the Human Heart [Vincent Ward,

1993], because we started with just images on a wall; out of images eventually came a story.

W hat

w a s t h e f ir s t p l a y t h a t r e a l l y m e a n t s o m e ­

t h in g

TO YOU IN YOUR DEVELOPM ENT?

Inside the Island, because it was the first play I’d set in Australia; my previous plays had been set else­ where. It was a play that some people thought was too extreme, because, in the late ’70s, early ’80s, there was that thought that anything extreme couldn’t happen in Australia. Some critics said, “I don’t like it because it couldn’t happen here”, as if the extremes of personality and behaviour couldn’t happen.

What I based it on, even though it wasn’t set in the First World War, was how soldiers went mad in the trenches because they couldn’t take it anymore; they had seen the worst of human behaviour. What fasci­ nated me was that Australians had seen the worst of human behaviour, and how they coped with it.

HOW DID YOU COPE WITH WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHEN YOU WERE FAIRLY YOUNG?

C INE M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

I remember the premiere, where some members of the audience ran out during the performance. And I was thinking, “I’ve done something wrong here.” It made me very nervous about writing things set in Australia. It had taken me so long to do so, but it got this extreme reaction and was pilloried by critics. The only thing that saved it financially was that Patrick White wrote a letter published in The Sydney Morning Herald for a couple of weeks saying he liked it, and that got the audience along.

I SAW YOUR PLAY THE G O LD EN A G E , WHICH WAS SURREAL, BUT IT HAD A SOFTER EDGE AS WELL.

Curiously, The Golden Age is a love story that ranges from Tasmania to Melbourne to the ruins of Berlin. I was very interested in writing an epic and, at the same time, holding it together by a love story. It is very rare to have an Australian play that is a love story.

T hey

a r e u su a lly a b o u t tw o m en , tw o m a t e s .

Two mates in the trench having trouble with their sexuality.

C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

Or

m o th ers and s o n s , or d au gh ters and fath ers

...

It is interesting that the great American theme is fathers and sons, but the great Australian theme is mothers and sons, except for Stephen Sewell, who sometimes writes about fathers and sons. It is very rare for Australian theatre, very rare.

W h en

d id y o u m o v e in t o f il m a n d w h y ?

I’d always been interested in movies, but not interested enough to write screenplays. Then, in middle ’80s, I wrote a television movie script and sent it off to the ABC. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to write such a thing, and it all began from there. Jan Chapman decided to produce Displaced Persons [Geoffrey Nottage, 1985].

W hat

w as th at a bo u t?

Displaced Persons was set in the North Heads Quaran­ tine station in 1945. A group of refugees arrive with a deadly disease, so they are forced to stay in a quaran­ tine station and one by one they die. Here are these people who had escaped war-torn Europe and the camps, and arrive in Australia thinking that they are

going to have a bright new future, but die of a disease right on the very edge of Sydney.

Wa s

it b a s e d o n a t r u e e v e n t ?

There was an event where displaced people arrived and a deadly disease ran through them. I took it from that particular point.

YOU WORKED WITH JAN CHAPMAN ON SOME OF YOUR OTHER PROJECTS?

I’d written Displaced Persons as it were on spec.

Hunger [Stephen Wallace, 1986] was her idea, and I thought I wouldn’t mind writing something that was somebody else’s idea.

During the middle ’80s, Romanians were going on hunger strikes to get their wives into Australia. Jan thought that would be a very good story idea, because it was very emotional and it was about some­ body coming from a Communist country.

Essentially, that was a great failure as a script. I was swamped by research that I didn’t make them into real people. I didn’t know how to handle it.

31

I f y ou â&#x20AC;&#x2122;re u sin g U R S A G o ld , youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not u sin g the la te st tech n o lo gy . A t F r a m e , S e t

&C M a tc h

you will fin d the b ran d

new U R S A D ia m o n d an d D a V inci R en aissan c e with E D W in .

T h e U R S A D iam o n d has b etter reso lu tio n , m ore windows than ever b e fo re , p ro v id es a m ore stab le im age an d can on ce an d for all elim inate the anti-aliasing that c au se s ja g g y ed g es (especially

on car grilles). A n d with E D W in , w indow s can be draw n to any

the U R S A D ia m o n d , ph on e R ick Sch w eik ert on

shape. O n top o f th at, P eter S im p so n and A1 H a n se n are the

9954 0904. F ram e, S e t

two m o st q u alified p e o p le in Sy dn ey to u se it. F o r a dem o o f

o p e ra tin g the b e st m ach in es in very d ark ro o m s.

&CM a tc h .T h e

b e st p eo p le

YOU OFTEN TACKLE DIFFICULT SUBJECTS. APART FROM Ia n D a v i d [B l u e M

u r d e r ],

M ic h a e l J e n k i n s ,

t h e r e ’ s n o t a s t r o n g t r a d i t i o n in

e t c .,

A u s t r a l ia

p e o p le to go o u t an d do r e s e a r c h .

A

fo r

lo t o f o ur

FILMS AND TELEVISION SER IES ARE DRAWN MORE FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

In Australia, we have a tendency, because we are a very middle-class culture, to base stories that are con­ tained inside that suburban backyard fence. 1 think it has been very hard for some writers to believe that there is another world beyond their suburban front yard. It is just as simple as that: we are a middle-class culture.

IS THAT HARD FOR YOU?

What is very bizarre for me is that I could walk down the street where I live and find that practically any person is a migrant who has this extraordinary story to tell: stories of what their parents have gone through in Europe or Asia, or what they have gone through. All these wonderful stories are around us and yet they are not told.

I got a book the other day that is fascinating me.

I can hardly believe that stories like these are not being told more frequently.

The stories will come in the second or third genera­ tion. It happens in all stories of migrants: first, people arrive, work hard to pay for their children; the children work hard and become doctors and lawyers; and the third generation squanders it by becoming filmmakers!

Your

f ir s t f e a t u r e ,

Ma p

[V in c e n t W a r d , 1 9 9 3 ], pr o jec t.

W here

o f the

Hum an Heart

w a s a v e r y a m b it io u s

d id t h e id e a c o m e f r o m ?

I used to play tennis with Vincent Ward, whom I got to know because I thought his first film, Vigil [1984], was

a rip-off from one of my plays. My agent got us together and I realized it wasn’t - we just had similar interests - and we got on famously. We were playing tennis together and one day he said to me, “What do you think about an Eskimo in the Australian desert?”

And I said, “I really can’t come at that Vincent. First of all, I know nothing about Eskimos.” We continued to play tennis and talk about the idea, and then I said, “I’d be very interested if 1 could actually start the story in the Arctic.”

From then we knew it had to be a love story, an epic love story, and that it would be about World War II and how that transformed the lives of some Eskimos.

Vincent lived at the time in a basement in Sydney and we filled the walls of the basement with photographs.

We would come in after tennis, have a few beers, and re-arrange the photographs on the wall until it even­ tually began to tell a story.

D id V in c e n t W a r d

change you r scr een pla y

in t h e s h o o t a t a l l ?

The shoot was very, very difficult, in that we went in thinking we had more money than we really did. I had to go back to Montréal and England during the shoot, and every day I would rewrite the scenes because we were running out of money. The shooting script we had was not what we ended up with during the shoot.

It was extremely difficult, not only because of rewrites, but because of the pressures every day from the production guarantors who took over the film. By the time it got to editing, which I was involved with closely, we were changing the story.

What you actually see has almost an hour-and-ahalf of story missing. We shot some of it, but from the bombing of Dresden we had another hour of film story

[laughs] of which we only shot a fraction. In some respects we wanted to do a David Lean epic.

On a l o w b u d g e t ?

All we needed, he said cavalierly, was another 15 million dollars. I could fully understand why Vincent couldn’t shoot some scenes and why we had to change so much of the story in editing. It was a remarkable achievement to get what we actually did end up with.

T h e A r c t ic

s c e n e s w o r k b e s t in t h a t f il m

,

MAYBE BECAUSE THEY WERE SO AUTHENTIC.

I think they were the purer ones because we still had all the money when the Arctic scenes were shot. In the German and Montréal scenes, we began to run out of money in a rather severe fashion.

It certainly was a wonderful thing to do. Vince and I were in the Arctic for about three months, and he and I stayed in various villages of Inuit and Dunna-Za Indi­ ans. It was not only a wonderful film to research, but we met some fascinating people.

YOU HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY ATTRACTED TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, HAVEN’T Y O U ?

My mother’s first husband was Indonesian and my aunties both married Javanese. They were in exile from Indonesia because they fought on the Dutch side during the war of independence.

In my upbringing, I vividly remember that my two uncles weren’t allowed to go back to Java because they were on the black list. They couldn’t see their mothers, who both died while they were in exile. I always remember that sense of my two uncles’ being displaced and in exile. I guess I was always fascinated that they were Indonesians in very white Australia.

My first novel, The Misery of Beauty, contained

probably the first gay Aboriginal character in Aus­ tralian literature. The first Aborigine that I was ever very close to was a drag queen.

Ca n

w e talk abo u t

C o s / [M a r k Jo f f e , 1 9 9 5 ]

b r ie f l y .

Cos/'was a film that I enjoyed writing to a certain degree, but I found that the combination of half-Ameri­ can money and half-Australian money meant that the script, to a minor but interesting degree, had to be compromised. We had to make a crucial decision that I now regret, though I was part and parcel of the deci­ sion. Not setting it in 1971 saved us a lot of money, but it took away the background of the Vietnam War which, to me, gave it a much more interesting design.

That is an indication of how to save a lot of money, but in so doing you actually remove something crucial.

These

d a y s y o u w o u l d n ’ t n e e d t h o s e b ig s e t s t o

sho w th e

V ie t n a m

e r a . It c o u l d h a v e b e e n d o n e in

A CHEAPER

w a y if t h e d ir e c t o r w a s i n n o v a t i v e .

You could, but just the idea of 1970s’ clothes, cars and music blows the budget to a degree which is a lot on a small-budget movie.

YOU WORKED AGAIN WITH MARK JOFFE ON T h e M a t c h m a k e r [M a r k Jo f f e , 1 9 9 8 ],

All film projects, to me, have problems that you have to surmount. Unlike plays, films seem to be hurdles, and with The Matchmaker it was a project that was put on the back-burner by Working Title Films.

They asked Mark whether he would be interested in having a look at it. I’d worked with Working Title on Map of The Human Heart, so Mark and I went to Ire­ land where we tried to decide whether we could punch up the story. I did my pitch on how to revise

and revitalize the story, and Working Title liked it.

Then I came back to Australia, wrote a script and they said, “Let’s do it.” Mark went to film it, saying that he wanted me to join him in Ireland to re-write the script again, but I never heard from him. He got another writer in, so the script of The Matchmaker contains little of my script.

I think Mark wanted something a little less quirky, a little softer, to appeal to the American market, which is his decision. I have no argument with that at all. It is his throw of the dice; he is the director. I am not precious about my scripts; it is a director’s medium!

W it h H e a v e n ’s B u r n i n g [C r a ig La h i f f , 1 9 9 7 ], I s u s ­ pect

THE SCRIPT IN INTENTION MAY HAVE BEEN QUITE

DIFFERENT TO THE MOVIE, WHICH BECAME A B-GRADE GENRE FILM. THERE WAS A MORE CLEVER FILM IN THERE WHICH WASN’T AS VIOLENT OR GRATUITOUS.

Films seem to be about problems, hurdles to over­ come and solutions to be found. Working Title Films was interested in doing my script, which was then called “Andalusia”. It was set in Europe and was about a former Stasi Officer on the run with a FrenchAlgerian girl. Because I was Australian and the movie would have to be financed by the European Script Fund, it was having a difficult time being considered, so I showed it to Craig Lahiff and he said, “Why don’t we do it, but set it in Australia?” We got on well, shar­ ing a similar love of Don Siegal movies, and I thought, “Why not do Don Siegal meets Tristan and Isolde? ’ As you can see, the film had a weird genesis.

Th ese to rs

t w o f il m s s e e m t o s u g g e s t t h a t t h e d i r e c ­

WEREN’T SURE ENOUGH ABOUT THE AUTHENTICITY

O F TH E F IL M , A N D P E R V E R TE D Y O U R O R IG IN A L ID E A .

I don’t see it like that. Directors can do what they damn well please. I hope they don’t, but I am merely there to service their vision. In that respect, you could say that the reason why Mark Joffe didn’t like my take on The Matchmaker was that I was at odds with what he wanted to do - which is fair enough.

I happen to like Heaven’s Burning because it does what Craig and I set out to do, which was to do an Australian film that raced like a locomotive through the story. I thought many Australian films were moving too slowly.

Film is a collaboration where the director has the final say. Any writer who whinges and whines about what a director has done to his script has no idea what film is. Writers are paid a lot of money to provide a blueprint, and essentially screenwriters are the golden spittoon in the gaudy bar of movies.

HOW DID YOU COLLABORATE WITH RACHEL PER KIN S? Ra d i a n c e

w a s a p l a y o f y o u r s f ir s t .

She had seen an extract at the Eora Centre, the Abo­ riginal Centre in Sydney, and thought it wonderful.

She approached me and asked to film an extract. I was being absolutely calculating - 1 thought if she blinked when I said this then we weren’t going to do a film - and I said, “Why don’t we do the whole thing?”

She paused momentarily, didn’t blink, and said, “Why not?” That is how it happened.

The money came together quickly, and luckily we had Andy Meyer who put a lot of his own money into it, so it was real money. Even though it was small budget, we could handle it because there rs* 57

Unwelcome strangers What kind of person terrorizes the innocent and talks to the camera at the same timef

Brian M cFarland examines dark going on in the bush, with a quartet of valley folk attempting to find solace together when violence threatei\ their environment\

Ra y m o n d Y ounis

investigates

Suck what?

Ever since Alan Finney vowed “no moj£ shorts”, audiences have had to visit festivals to see short films or late night to SBS. M i c h a e l H e l m s finds a film he believes ^ deserves to be on the big screen

J o h n C o n o m o s delights in a new book on the surrealist masterpiece by Buñuel and Dali, and a time of true cinematic exploration 4 5

W A N T TO D A N C E ? • W A N T A B E E R ? • W A N T TO K I L L ?

'Si'W tm

C a s t : ) o h n a t h o n S c h a e c h (T e d d y ), R od

Film

T a y l o r (Da d d y -O), S u s ie P o r t e r (A n g ie ), D ee S m a r t (K r y s t a l ), R ic h a r d M o ir (R e g g ie ), M a g g ie K ir k p a t r ic k (G in g e r ), Ba r r y H u m p h r ie s (B lin d W a ll y ). A u s tr a lia n DISTRIBUTOR: ROADSHOW. AUSTRALIA-UK. 3 5 m m . 1998. 97 MINS.

WELCOME TO W 00P W 00P D ir e c t e d

by

S t e p h a n E l l io t t . P r o d u c e r :

F in o la Dw y e r . C o - p r o d u c e r : A n t o n ia Ba r n a r d . S c r e e n w r it e r : M ic h a e l T h o m a s , b a s e d on t h e n o v e l

Th e D e a d H e a r t

D o u g l a s K e n n e d y . D ir e c t o r

by

of

PHOTOGRAPHY: MlKE MOLLOY. PRODUCTION d e s ig n e r :

O w en Pa t e r s o n . E d it o r :

Ma r t in W a l s h . O r ig in a l Co stu m e

d e s ig n e r :

m u s ic :

G uy G r o s s .

L iz z ie G a r d in e r .

S

tephan Elliott has been called Australian cinema’s “enfant terrible”, with good reason. An icon­ oclast with a campy flair for bad taste, Elliott loves to shock audi­ ences. And shock them he has with his latest film, Welcome to Woop Woop. Ever since Frauds flopped at Cannes in 1993, and, despite the

C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

m u

V ’ 'v

w

1

V

success in 1994 of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Elliott continues to have detractors.

But those who imagine that Elliott is simply being vulgar in Welcome to Woop Woop are wide of the mark.

Called The Big Red for audi­ ences who might find its Australian title too esoteric, Woop Woop pre­ miered in Cannes last year as a work in progress. Elliott fronted to the Midnight Screening in green velvet. There was a general air of expectancy, but those who thought it was going to be another Priscilla

\ were disappointed. The audience was subdued. Critics were loath to I condemn the film, but few found it enjoyable. The most common reac­ tion was one of bewilderment, with I not a few Australians worried that j the film’s vulgar parodying of the stereotype of the Ocker male (Rod 1 Taylor, making a come-back in Australian films as the arch-villain, Daddy-0 ) would reflect adversely 1 on Australians generally. | » Now that Woop Woop is \ finished, several things can be I observed about the film’s much-

improved final form. Twenty minutes have been cut from the workprint that was screened in Cannes, which gives the film pace, thins the surreal storyline and makes the plot clear. The print is now graded, and the colours are gorgeous. This is particularly true of those sequences set in Australia’s red heart, while the New York sequences retain their steely-blue cast (viewers are reminded to stay in their seats until the end credits have rolled). Lastly, and most importantly for the success of the

37

rilólo

POT

review ■ KKim W

Films continued Rodgers and Hammerstein sound­ track, Elliott fired the original composer, Stuart Copeland, and brought in the talented Guy Gross.

These changes have not only made the film more riotous and entertaining. They have also sharp­ ened the film’s satire and made it appear, in retrospect, much blacker and more prescient than it appeared just fifteen months ago.

Welcome to Woop Woop has been called an anachronism, a gross comedy in the ’70s tradition of The Adventures of Barry McKen­ zie (Bruce Beresford, 1972). There is truth in this, which Elliott under­ lines by casting, in uncouth roles, Barry Humphries as Blind Willy, and Alan Finney as Daddy-O’s grin­ ning sycophant. But there is more to the film than this. Welcome to Woop Woop is a frightening, bizarre coupling of The Lord of the Flies with The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974), Waco meets Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) this side of the black stump. It is unsettlingly Australian, by way of Li’tAbnerland, and the Beverly Hill­ billies. But not nearly so amiable.

Woop Woop is the reverse of ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986). Plotwise, Johnathon Schaech as Teddy Bojangles, the Yank held prisoner by Daddy-0 in Yobboland, is closer in character, sweetness and innocence to Hogan’s Mick Dundee, who, far from being unsophisticated and a bully, is street-smart, highly moral and gets on well with women.

Woop Woop is also the flipside to Elliott’s own Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, where, after initial hos­ tility in an outback town, the three gays win out over prejudice and bigotry. What Elliott seems to be saying in Woop Woop is that Australia is going back­ wards. Just as Pauline Ginger (Maggie Kirkpatrick) and Daddy-0 (Rod Taylor).

Welcome to Woop-Woop.

Hanson has mined the crude, unso­ phisticated vein that lies beneath the surface of the Australian stereo­ type, which in tough times tips easily into racism and fascism, so Daddy-0 can be seen as a gross caricature of what Pauline Hanson is seen to represent.

Elliott’s command of film, and his love of kitsch and the outra­ geous has allowed him to thumb his nose at “political correctness” and launch a broadside against all that he perceives to be evil and ugly in the Australian character.

Daddy-0 is a vulgar, beer-swilling, tap-dancing villain of the first order, an autocrat posing as a paterfamilias who rules with an iron fist his fiefdom of Woop Woop (a shanty town built on the site of an old asbestos mining town in the dead heart of Australia). Elliott lam­ poons Daddy-0 mercilessly, but for all his jocularity, and sentimental concern for his over-sexed daugh­ ter, Angie (Susie Porter), and sick wife, Ginger (Maggie Kirkpatrick), Daddy-0 is a frightening thug.

Wearing a sleeveless footy jumper, with a tennis sweat band around his head, there is nothing he will not do to prevent the hapless Teddy, or anyone else, from leaving Woop Woop and thwarting his will.

Elliott’s flair for plumbing

humour and the depths of bad taste is everywhere evident. Most spectacular is his use of the sound­ tracks of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals as a Greek chorus. When Angie first meets Teddy and the Combie van rocks with their lovemaking, the soundtrack erupts to the strains of “I Cain’t Say No!” Sim­ ilar commentary is provided with songs from Oklahoma, The King and I, South Pacific, The Flower Drum Song and The Sound of Music. The most apposite perhaps is the use of “Climb Every Mountain” from The Sound of Music, which is the leitmo­ tiv associated with the attempted flight in a tractor of Teddy and Krys­ tal (Angie’s sister, played by Dee Smart) from the long reach of Daddy-O, who pursues them. It’s only a short step in the imagination to equate Teddy and Krystal’s flight from the fascist Daddy-O, to the flight of the Von Trapp family from Nazism, over the Austrian Alps.

Similar in feeling is the funeral of Ginger, Woop Woop’s matriarch, whose funeral pyre (a giant moun­ tain of the town’s garbage) is lit by flaming torches at night to a fullthroated rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, from Carousel.

The emotional pull of Welcome to Woop Woop at this point is quite extraordinary, the scene gaining power and political point from

visual associations with Viking funerals and massed Nuremberg rallies, all instinctively appropriate to the film’s sub-textual theme.

It’s not drawing a long-bow to see Welcome to Woop Woop as a film which, in the late ’90s, dares to tackle head-on one of Australia’s most sacred cows: the myth of the blokey, genial, dinky-di, unsophisti­ cated but decent Aussie who believes in a fair go for all. Woop Woop exposes the dark side of sunny Australia with exuberance and glee. One of the film’s most startling and memorable scenes is the appearance out of the Aboriginal darkness of Daddy-O’s nemesis, Big Red. But there is ambivalence there, too, fear mingled with affection, which betokens perhaps the direc­ tor’s own nostalgia and longing for the days of the picket fence.

JAN EPSTEIN

FUNNY GAMES D ir e c t e d

by

M ic h a e l Ha n e k e . P r o d u c e r :

V e l t H e id u s c h k a . S c r e e n w r it e r : M ic h a e l Ha n e k e . D ir e c t o r

o f p h o t o g r a p h y : Jü r g e n

Ju r g e s . E d it o r : A n d r e a s P r o c h a s k a . C a s t : S u s a n n e Lo t h a r (A n n a ), A r n o F r is c h (P a u l ), U lr ic h M ü h e , Fr a n k G ie r in g , S t e f a n C l a p c z y n s k i , D o r is K u n s t m a n n , C h r is t o p h B a n t z e r . A u s t r a l ia n

d i s t r ib u t o r :

F il m s . G e r m a n y . 1997. 35 m m . 103

Dendy m in s .

ichael Haneke has been exploring the representation ofviolence in the mass media for some time. Benny’s Video (1992) examined the link between film representations ofviolence and a sort of heightened indifference to human suffering and pain; 72 Frag­ mente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, 1994) extended this analysis by focusing on the indiffer­ ence to mass suffering. These earlier films are certainly memo­ rable, but the cinematic strategies and impact were not always suffi­ cient to bear the conceptual content.

Funny Games offers a decon­ struction of the thriller genre, and is in many ways Haneke’s most effective and engaging film to date.

It begins in the vein of the classic Hollywood thriller, with at least five recognizable conventions being mimicked: the initial suggestion of an existing order, a false sense of security in an idyllic place, a remote setting, the entrance of a sinister figure or the introduction of a source of imminent danger and the terrible disruption of that existing order. There are nods to films like A Clockwork Orange (in the costuming), to Hitchcock and film noir.

M

C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 19 98

The film deals with a familiar scenario in this genre: a family in a remote holiday home. A young man appears at the door (even though the family’s house is well protected by a high fence and gate). He says that he is a friend of one of the neighbours; he entered the prop­ erty through “a hole in the fence”.

He asks for eggs and is allowed to enter the house. He is then joined by a friend: both refuse to leave; both terrorize the family with golf clubs and, later on, with a gun. But just when the viewer is beginning to get a sense of déjà vu, Haneke adopts an audacious strategy: he allows one of the intruders to address the audience. (This is the only character who is allowed to speak to the audience in the film.

There is, as it were, an implicit understanding between the violent man, who is about to wreak havoc within the family home, and the audience.)

Haneke allows this character, Paul (Arno Frisch) - a name that becomes grimly ironic in the course of the film - to comment on the conventions of the genre on a num­ ber of occasions. For example, before he assaults a member of the family, he turns and winks at the audience, as if to remind the spec­ tators of the complicity between his desire for violence and their expectation that violence will serve its function as a form of mass entertainment in films of this kind.

Haneke does more than evoke this complicity; he suggests that the production of‘games’ in which vio­ lence is represented is itself conditioned by the audience’s

mass appetite for scenes of vio­ lence and carnage, and, worse, that this appetite seems to demand more and more sensa­ tional representations ofviolence.

On another occasion, the wife pleads for the quick death of her husband (in order to spare him gratuitous suffering). Paul sug­ gests that this would be inconsistent with the conventions that govern films of this kind and, with the expectations ofviewers who would gain less pleasure, less entertainment value, from a curtailing of the violence! It is clear that the film is concerned on a profound level with the specta­ tor’s desire for prolonged and, therefore, more suspenseful repre­ sentations ofviolence or cruelty or bloodshed. The representation of the prolonged torture of the family fulfils the audience’s appetite for violence as a means of mass enter­ tainment. (At one stage, when things have already reached a terrible stage, Paul can still say, “We’re not even up to featurefilm length yet”!)

The film is concerned with three key issues: first, the othering process in Hollywood thrillers (by which thugs, rapists and other criminals are demonized as ‘other’; that is, as drug addicts, members of minorities or ethnic groups); second, with the effects of repre­ sentations ofviolence upon audiences on a mass scale; and, third, with the problematic nature of that desire which informs and fuels cinematic representations ofviolence as forms of mass consumption.

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

With regard to the first issue, Haneke deliberately subverts the genre convention: the killers are not members of a minority group; they are not Orientalized or racialized. They are not entirely demonized either. They come from the same class as the victims; the danger comes from within, in a sense.

With regard to the second issue, Haneke has been arguing for some time against the disinhibiting effects and the domestication, so to speak, of mass-produced and mass-consumed representations ofviolence in the media (more on this in a moment). With regard to the third issue, his films are pro­ found meditations on the disquieting relationship between the spectator’s desire and a sort of non-reflective but implacable complicity in the dynamics of bru­ talization. It is the position of the spectator that is paramount in these films.

Haneke’s argument seems to be that mass-produced and massconsumed representations of violence are causally related to a sort of disinhibition, because the artificiality of the images (simu­ lacra) supersedes the brute reality ofviolence. In other words, representations come to take the place of reality. As a conse­ quence, violence itself begins to seem less disturbing, more easy; one seems to be less account­ able. In this sort of postmodern dystopia, Haneke argues, the fear that adverse consequences create is diminished. The sense of the horrific is diluted, diminished and transformed.

The antidote to all of this is provided in Haneke’s films, also: they serve to unmask explicitly the formal and conventional structures which sustain the complicity between the spectator’s desire and representations ofviolence; between the spectator’s pleasure and the demands of the genre.

Haneke’s films make explicit what the genre conceals in order to be able to function as a genre (thriller). It is in this sense that Funny Games is a timely and thoughtful deconstruction of the genre. The aim is not to explore the reality or nature ofviolence.

The aim is to present and clarify the role of the spectator with regard to the reception of simu­ lacra in the mass media. This is an ethical project of the greatest importance which revolves around

questions of exploitation, victim­ ization, complicity and disinhibition.

Haneke has not demonstrated the causal relation between repre­ sentations ofviolence and the effect of disinhibition (though one might argue in his defence that that is not the filmmaker’s task).

Haneke also fails to observe an important distinction between rep­ resentation and reality (for it seems that no representation of a violent event can be identical to an actual event itself). It is neither obvious nor self-evident that disin­ hibition or increases in violence necessarily follow from the mass reception of representations ofvio­ lence. Indeed, much recent research would suggest that things are more complex.

The main problem, however, is that quantitative talk about simulations ofviolence (more rep­ resentations, more consumption, more disinhibition and so on) does not translate readily into qualitative terms. There is a very real danger here, namely that the focus on media representations as causal factors will obscure our view of other relevant causal factors. There is also a very real risk of assuming that there is only one cause of the alleged damaging effects.

In any case, Haneke’s film is a vitally important one, not least because it reminds the spectator of his/her generally concealed rôle (‘concealed’ because the dynamics of the genre require this in order to register as ‘effective’ or ‘successful’ or ‘suspensefuP or ‘entertaining1). It is also a cracking good thriller for the most part, although its self-reflexive inser­ tions are intended to, and do, alienate the spectator. In the final analysis, it may be that Haneke has reinvented the genre. This is a fiercely intelligent and articulate film that succeeds, arguably, where other similar attempts (for exam­ ple, Man Bites Dog [C’est arrivé près de chez vous, Rémy Belvaux, 1992] or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, [John McNaughton, 1990]) fail - they end up replicating the very things that they set out to attack, especially in terms of not alienating (or in terms of entertain­ ing) the spectator. Haneke’s film cleverly avoids this trap. It will be quite a surprise if this film does not turn out to be one of the most thought-provoking and innovative films of the year. © RAYMOND YOUNIS

IN THE WINTER DARK D ir e c t e d

b y Ja m e s

Bo g l e . Pr o d u c e r :

R o s e m a r y B l ig h t . S c r e e n w r it e r s : Ja m e s B o g l e , P e t e r Ra s m u s s e n ,

b a s e d on

A NOVELLA BY TlM WlNTON. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARTIN MCGRATH. P r o d u c t io n Co stu m e

d e s ig n e r :

d e s ig n e r :

N ic h o l a s M c Ca l l u m .

W e n d y C o r k . E d it o r :

S u r e s h A y y a r . Ca s t : B r e n d a B l e t h y n (I d a S t u b b s ), Ra y B a r r e t t (Ma u r ic e S t u b b s ), R ic h a r d R o x b u r g h (M u r r a y Ja c o b ), M ir a n d a Ot t o (R o n n ie ). A u s t r a l ia n DISTRIBUTOR: GLOBE. AUSTRALIA. 1998.

95 MINS.

he first thing we see is mist swirling over craggy mountain­ sides, and the first thing we hear is a voice intoning, “I started to have these dreams.” This recalls the unfulfilled melodramatic promise of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) and how it lost interest in narrative power, settling for a series of seductive images instead.

In the Winter Dark doesn’t do this, but, though its first twenty minutes or so seem to set up potentially productive tensions among its characters, it isn’t in the end the persuasive rural melodrama it might have been.

In a number of ways it invites comparison with the recent The Sound of One Hand Clapping (Richard Flanagan) - and suffers from it. Both involve violent events in difficult mountain terrains (the Blue Mountains here); both are concerned with coming to terms with the present in the light of interpreting the past; and both are marked by a narrative mode which eschews the linear in favour of something more like a mosaic of memories and dreams and flash­ backs. The new film dissipates its interest between a tale of rural danger and one of fractured rela­ tionships.

The story of In the Winter Dark, derived from a novella by Tim Winton, is essentially told in a long flashback, with other discontinu­ ities along the way. It opens with the discovery of a body lying in a muddy forest: the body belongs to Ida Stubbs (Brenda Blethyn) and the man who picks it up, weeping as he does, soon proves to be her husband, Maurice (Ray Barrett).

The long central section of the film will explain how the body came to be there, and the film ends as it began: with Maurice clutching the body and then a fade to him sitting on his verandah bathed in a golden light, awaiting “redemption or pun­ ishment” and finding there’s only the sunrise.

There are two sets of charac­ ters in the mountain valley setting.

T

39

review Films con tin u ed The Stubbses are presented as “ordinary”, their house and meals and clothes encoding this; but there is something secret in their past. Maurice has married Ida “when no one else would”; there has been a fake pregnancy and an infant death, perhaps the result of smothering by a wild cat, for them to negotiate. They have come to more or less comfortable terms with each other, at the cost of not talking about what has been most crucial to them. Maurice is subject to terrible dreams involving cats and child; Ida is visited by equally disquieting reveries.

The other couple is only tenta­ tively constructed during the film’s —

.....

narrative time. Murray Jacob (Richard Roxburgh) is a laid-back former lawn-services man, who drinks claret, reads Penguin Clas­ sics and has an uncool taste in music which sounds like Magic 693 (there’s Conway Twitty, Neil Dia­ mond and Merle Haggard). He lives alone in the best house in the val­ ley, having retreated there for somewhat obscure reasons. Preg­ nant Ronnie (Miranda Otto) is the pretty-spoken partner of a guitarist who has left her alone in their vaguely hippy-style house. Murray rescues her from a night of expo­ sure in the rain and they form an edgy relationship, in which she communicates largely in four-letter words.

The two pairs are brought together by a series of attacks by some marauding creature, possibly a feral cat, which kills Maurice’s

sheep and Ronnie’s Muscovy ducks. Rather than involve the authorities, Maurice organizes a hunt for the creature, and this leads to Ida’s fatal running out into the night, just as Ronnie’s baby decides to arrive. That is, there is a lot going on, some of it more con­ vincing than others. The writing of the scenes in which the two cou­ ples eat together to discuss what to do, and those in which the two men first go off on a spotlighting expedition to track the creature, alternating with scenes in which the two women get drunk as they try on maternity clothes, is often awkward, not rooted in the way their characters have been pre­ sented to us.

Where The Sound of One Hand Clapping builds a sense of some­ thing genuinely dreadful in the past as a key to understanding the present, In the Winter Dark lacks the intensity of feeling and detailed interest in its characters which would make its development seem more than merely portentous.

There is skill in the way in which the mise-en-scene is manipulated to distinguish among the Stubbses, Jacob and Ronnie’s ways of living and thinking, but the cutting from one to the other becomes either intrusive or predictable and the musical soundtrack keeps nudging us uncomfortably to anticipate the next revelation. For instance, in the clumsy scene in which the four sit around Ida’s meal table to discuss how to handle the attacks of the unknown predator, director James Bogle cuts in a maddeningly unsubtle way from one unrevealing medium close-up to another. A flamboyant visual and editing style can be a source of pleasure if one feels it is serving some purpose; when it looks merely obvious, as in a match-cut between a rifle going off outside and Ida dropping a jar of fruit inside, it just draws atten­ tion to itself.

There are only four roles of any consequence: hardly anyone else is even seen, and you could scarcely ask for a more accom­ plished quartet than Bogle has assembled here. If it’s not quite clear what British Brenda Blethyn, one of the best film actresses in the world, is doing here, it is also true to say that she is wholly convincing as the farmer’s wife with a sup­ pressed past. Ray Barrett’s craggy features have assumed almost iconic significance in Australian cin­ ema, but here his effortless command of the screen is at the service of a curiously ill-defined role: the screenplay never seems properly to get inside this bulky countryman with a tormented inner life. Roxburgh and Otto, two of the “hottest” young Australian actors, are frequently left making bricks from the screenplay’s straw. All four are vivid performers; whatever goes wrong with the film is not to be laid at their door.

Not having read Tim Winton’s story, I can’t be sure how much is the fault of undue respect for an oddly non-compelling set of cir­ cumstances. The film often looks wonderful - coincidentally, it has the same cameraman, Martin McGrath, as The Sound of One Hand Clapping - but, without mak­ ing the earlier film sound like a masterpiece, it has to be said that this time the beautifully-composed and lit images seem less meaning­ ful one by one and fail to build the sense of dread suggested in the opening sequences. © BRIAN McFARLANE

40

DEAD LETTER OFFICE. D ir e c t e d

b y Jo h n

R u a n e . P r o d u c e r : D e n is e

Pa t ie n c e . C o - p r o d u c e r : D e b C o x .

S c r e e n w r it e r : D e b C o x . D ir e c t o r pho tography:

of

E l l e r y R y a n . E d it o r : D e n is e

Ha r a t z is . P r o d u c t io n

d e s ig n e r :

C h r is

K e n n e d y . C o m p o s e r : Ro g e r M a s o n .

Co stu m e

d e s ig n e r :

K e r r i Ma z z o c c o . C a s t :

M ir a n d a O t t o (A l ic e ), G e o r g e D e l H o y o (F r a n k ), N ic h o l a s B e l l (P e t e r ), S y d B r is b a n e (K e v in ), G e o r g in a Na id u (M a r y ), B a r r y O t t o (G e r a l d ). A u s t r a l ia n d i s t r ib u t o r :

P o l y G r a m . A u s t r a l ia . 19 9 8 .

3 5 m m . 95

m in s .

■ ohn Ruane’s third feature, I scripted (and co-produced) by Deb Cox, is a quiet, modest tale, a light romantic drama about sup­ pressed emotion, relentless yearning and unresolved dreams. It centres on a young woman in her twenties, Alice (Miranda Otto), who’s been writing to her longdeparted father since childhood.

He’s never responded, and this is ostensibly behind her restless and dippy approach to life - his absence and the mystique with which it imbues him leave her emotionally suspended, locked into perpetual girlhood and unable to anchor her­ self to any person, place or pursuit.

Alice lives in a ramshackle and socially disjointed group house by the sea, doing very little, trying to divert her attention and energy via perfunctory sex with a nameless, dishevelled hippie boy (Mark Wil­ son) who lands in her doorway looking for an old mate and never leaves. Intent on breaking out some­ how, and finding Daddy, she applies for and lands a job at the local Dead Letter Office, hoping it will help her track him down. She eventually finds him (Barry Otto, in a very effec­ tive cameo) and the meeting proves to be a major turning point, though not of the kind she’d anticipated. In the meantime, equally significant is her developing relationship with Frank (George DelHoyo), head of the Dead Letter Office. Like Alice, he’s obsessed with the past - albeit a far more tragic one stemming from Pinochet’s bloody coup in his native Chile-and with dreams of what his life might be, but he lacks the hope which motivates Alice. The two clearly have the potential to heal one another’s wounds, but their obvious empathy and mutual attrac­ tion is hampered by Frank’s obstinate self-containment and despair, and the impending closure of the Office.

The film, the first Ruane has directed but not written or co-writ­ ten, is rooted in Cox’s familiar brand of whimsy-filled with gentle misfits stumbling through life and society,

C IN E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

HEAD ON D ir e c t e d

by

A n a K o k k in o s . P r o d u c e r :

Ja n e S c o t t . S c r e e n w r it e r s : A n d r e w B o v e l l , A n a K o k k in o s , M ir a R o b e r t s o n .

D ir e c t o r

o f p h o t o g r a p h y : Ja e m s

P r o d u c t io n Co stu m e

d e s ig n e r :

d e s ig n e r :

G rant.

N ik k i D i Fa l c o .

A n n a B o r g h e s i . E d it o r :

Jil l B il c o c k . S o u n d

d e s ig n e r :

L lo y d

Ca r r ic k . Ca s t : A l e x D im it r ia d e s (A r i ), Pa u l C a p s i s (Jo h n n y ), Ju l ia n G a r n e r (S e a n ), T o n y N ik o l a k o p o u l o s (D im it r i ), E l e n a Ma n d a l is (B e t t y ), E u g e n ia F r a g o s (S o p h ia ), Da m ie n Fo t io u (Jo e ), A n d r e a M a n d a l is (A l e x ), M a r ia M e r c e d e s (Ta s ia ), D o r a Ka s k a n is (D in a ), A l e x Pa p p s (P e t e r ), V a s s il i Za p p a (V a s s il i ). A u s t r a l ia n

d i s t r ib u t o r :

19 9 8 . 3 5 m m . 10 4

ften first features from acclaimed short-film directors have far too many expectations foisted upon them, and invariably fail to live up to those expectations.

Broken Highway (Laurie Mclnnes, 1994) and BeDevil (Tracey Moffatt, 1993) are two cases in point, and some would say that The Well (Samantha Lang, 1997) also falls into that category. But sometimes first features not only live up to the anticipation and expectations, but surpass them, and Head On is defi­ nitely one of these.

Director Ana Kokkinos impressed a good many people with her 50-mmute short, Only the Brave, in 1994, a film that dealt with ethnic, sexual and familial identity through two teenage girls living in Melbourne’s northern sub­ urbs. She treads similar ground in Head On, a film adapted from the unrelenting but well-received novel, Loaded, by Christos Tsiolkas. This time, though, the main character is a young Greek man, Ari (Alex Dimitriades).

Ari is 19, unemployed and living a fairly full-on lifestyle. Over a 24hour period, he parties hard, takes lots of drugs and has sex with a string of anonymous men. His two closest friends are poles apart: Joe (Damien Fotiou) has just become

O

unable to get a grip on late twenti­ eth-century mores or, alternatively, happily set in their eccentric ways.

And as in her recent television material (Simone de Beauvoir’s Babies, SeaChange), the leads on whom we focus stand out markedly -they’re a little brighter, a little more ambitious for fulfilment and a place in the modern world than those who form the backdrop.

Dead Letter Office is satisfying on many levels; in tone and style, it brings to mind films like Heavy (lames Mangold, 1996) and perhaps Ted Demme’s 1996 Beautiful Girls (there are obvious echoes of Spotswood[N\ark joffe, 1992], too, but Spotswood is more comedic), but for me the script clings too much to television convention and sketchy characterization (in which one-liners and snappy retorts abound) to take it fully into that league. It’s as though Cox wants to deliver a sub­ stantial drama but is defeated by some assumed need to play it for the off-beat, the unexpected, the whacky - although, ironically, the script is also highly schematic. Wisely, Ruane has eschewed whimsy for drama as far as possible, keeping the focus squarely and seriously on Alice and Frank’s relationship and playing down the jokier elements which could undermine its impact. This is not to say the film is without humour - on the contrary - but it’s predomi­ nantly wry rather than whacky. In taking this approach, he’s enhanced the script’s cinematic potential and brought a good measure of charm and maturity to the film.

But for me, the script constrains the film’s possibilities considerably.

One of the problems is the lack of an effective subplot. Aside from some symbolic play with a pigeon who’s adopted the Dead Letter Office as home, there’s little to underscore the Alice-Frank story.

The Office’s imminent demise is

apparently intended to serve this purpose, to provide narrative and thematic resonance to the main story’s exploration of issues such as personal loss, change and renewal.

Its metaphorical significance is obvious but it fails on two counts.

First, Alice and Frank’s three colleagues are too thinly drawn.

They’re only a step or two removed from caricature and while Ruane’s direction downplays this, as I’ve mentioned, it’s disappointing that their capacity to enrich the story isn’t utilized. For example, Mary (Georgina Naidu) is afforded a cou­ ple of acutely significant lines (“A girl like you could never hope to understand a man such as him”, she cautions Alice about Frank), but there’s no room for this or any other secondary relationship to offer more. Similarly, the hippie lover is merely incidental comic relief.

Second, there’s the issue of the Office and its operations. This is a work based firmly in contemporary reality; it doesn’t call for any real suspension of disbelief and, accord­ ingly, we’re implicitly asked to accept the Dead Letter Office as a contemporary workplace. But here’s a portrayal of the public sector as it was around twenty years ago, rather than as it is in the late 1990s.

This isn’t simply a matter of pedantry but of the script pushing a particular, anachronistic line about the politics of bureaucratic change, which is out of touch with the reality it purports to understand. It’s the old line about the public service as a kind of rest home for nuff-nuffs and little Aussie battlers, and the cruel contempt of “them upstairs” who don’t give a damn. It’s not that the closure of the Dead Letter Office isn’t credible or that the public sector isn’t rife with perceived managerial amorality, but that the machinations in this case are well out of date. (They’re also inconsis­

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

tent, why is Alice recruited in the first place to an office which is about to be closed?) This under­ mines the capacity of this component of the story to embellish the Alice-Frank story in any mean­ ingful way, and the film’s ability generally to comment (as it clearly intends) on imbalances between power and justice, organization and individual. On a related note, why has Frank, who’s shown himself as a man of enormous integrity —if a somewhat broken one - done absolutely nothing to try to ease the situation for his staff?

Having said all this, I’d also emphasize that Ruane (together with long-time collaborator, cine­ matographer Ellery Ryan) has eked every ounce of drama and poignancy from the script and assiduously avoided the God-forbid “quirky little Aussie film” it could so easily have become. He’s brought a degree of magic to the screen, despite the fact that the story itself contains few surprises.

He’s aided by strong performances from Otto (in what’s arguably and thankfully her most womanly and adult role to date, at least in the final act) and DelHoyo, who graces Frank with remarkable charisma and intensity. Furthermore, there’s terrific chemistry between the two, and it’s a joy when they finally embrace - here are some of the few moments of genuine romantic passion to grace Australian cinema in recent memory (why are so many Australian filmmakers reluctant to take sexual/romantic relationships seriously?).

Ultimately, Dead Letter Office is a charming film which given sufficient time will undoubtedly find an appre­ ciative niche audience. But precisely because it is a quiet, modest film, neither funky nor quirky, the ques­ tion is probably whether it will be given sufficient time. © DIANE COOK

Pa l a c e .

m in s

engaged, lured by the offer of a house and security; Johnny (Paul Capsis) is gay and drags up as Toula, his dead mother, when he goes out. Ari is wrestling with a lot of pressures: family expectations, cultural expectations, sexual expec­ tations, the whole shebang.

Everyone expects him to live the acceptable Greek life: find a girl, get married, get a good job, make lots of money, buy a house, raise a family, make your parents proud.

But Ari just doesn’t want that. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows that that’s not it. So he loses himself in a fast-forward lifestyle where those things don’t count. The trouble is, they do, and Ari’s on a constant collision course with no real sign of escape.

There is quite a lot that is remarkable about this film. Firstly, it’s an impressive adaptation of a difficult book. Tsiolkas’ Loaded is a frenetic first-person narrative full of flashbacks and interior mono­ logues that is very visual but difficult to visually realize at the same time. Somehow, the team of writers-Ana Kokkinos, Mira Robertson and Andrew Bovell - has produced a script that captures the level of urgency and energy, as well as presenting Ari’s more esoteric and abstract impressions and opin­ ions. And aside from one scene in a police detention cell not in the orig­ inal novel (not surprisingly, the weakest part of the film), the script follows the novel’s narrative path.

Comparisons with the novel notwithstanding, it is a remarkable film, because it is so uncompromis­ ing, especially in its portrayal of Ari’s sexual encounters. From a particularly-convincing masturbat­ ing scene at the start of the film, through back-alley episodes, to his passionate and aggressive sex with

41

review Films con tin u ed his brother’s housemate, Sean (Julian Garner), towards the end of the film, not once is the act of sex shied away from. There’s certainly nothing explicit or pornographic, but its representation of man-toman sex is frank, fast and full-on.

Ari may be struggling with identify­ ing his sexuality, but he certainly has no problems with the act itself.

And it’s dealt with as just another part of Ari’s life, no more important than his friendships with Joe or Johnny, the music he listens to, the constant conflict he has with his parents or the drugs he takes.

Woven through the film is a very definite and well-developed exploration of cultural identity.

There are wonderful, illuminating moments where big questions are asked, and small replies are given that answer more than was being asking (“If you tell a wog the truth, they use it against you”; “Aren’t you proud to be Greek?” “I had nothing to do with it.”). But they’re never overstated, and they’re not laboured; they’re just well-placed insights that elevate the film into a more searching, rounded portrait of a young man out of control.

And while we’re on that subject, mention must be made of Dimitriades and the extraordinary performance he gives as Ari. He’s come a long way since Heartbreak Kid (Michael Jenkins, 1993) and Heartbreak High (series), and brings to the part strength, com­ plexity and a wholeness that commands attention. Given that he’s on screen for the entire film, that is a remarkable and powerful achievement. The rest of the cast are a great support for Dimitriades, with not one slack performance between them, and a great credit to Kokkinos, who has directed them with understanding and purpose.

Head On is best described as a driven, focused and unrelenting film. Kokkinos’ uncompromising vision of the film makes It a strong and rare work-one that some may find discomforting and others chal­ lenging, but one whose inherent truth cannot be denied. © T IM HUNTER

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T e le -f e a t u r e o , S h o rtd ,

V id e o d

HEATHENS Directed by Megan S pencer . Producer : Megan S pencer . Co - producer : S cott Goodings . Director of photography : Megan S pencer . Music : Philip S amartzis .

Ca st : Chook , Barry , S cott , Derek , T hommo, Justin . Australian distributor : S iren .

19 9 4. H1-8. Australia . 30 mins .

GAME GIRLS D ir e c t e d

by

M ir ia m C a n n e l l . P r o d u c e r :

M ir ia m C a n n e l l . D ir e c t o r

of pho tography:

M ir ia m C a n n e l l . E d it o r : M ir ia m C a n n e l l .

A u s t r a l ia n

d i s t r ib u t o r :

A u s t r a l ia . 23

S ir e n . 19 9 7 . DVC. m in s .

theatrical run and television screening might have instantly vaulted Year of the Dogs (Michael Cordell, 1997) to the top of the public profile ladder, but it certainly hasn’t been the only Aussie-rules documentary to take to the field in recent years.

In fact, Heathens, the arm-pit camera view of a bunch of rabid St Kilda fans by documentary maker Megan Spencer, was in production long before Dogs opened a lens. Now, savvy local video company Siren has teamed it up with the more conventional Game Girls by Miriam Cannell to provide an even wider and, in the case of Heathens, crazier view of our incredibly popular native game.

The title, Heathens, is more a description of its subjects than anything else, but should also act as a warning to potential viewers adverse to profanity and sensitive about verbal violence.

But, hey, after an opening mon­ tage of beer bellies and tattooed flesh that finishes on an incredibly pimpled shoulder bursting out from underneath a navy blue singlet, you know things are going to get ugly. Of course, if you have ever witnessed a league game from any position besides your favourite lounge chair, or perhaps wandered past a clash , held at your local suburban oval, you’d be familiar with the dia­ logue on display here, though it’s doubtful you’d have ever concen­ trated as intensely on football fans as Heathens does. And we’re not talking about fund-raising,

A

banner-making club sycophants here, either.

Basically, Heathens tightly focuses on a core group of six supporters, regularly joining them in the outer and only offer­ ing brief insights into other aspects of their weekly ritual.

Sure, we get drunken after-match analysis that dissolves into a defining relationship story, a l<araol<e to speed metal thrash band Slayer’s “Jesus Saves”, an interaction with opposing team supporters, a strange (again drunken) crawl on the floor of the St Kilda headquarters foyer, and a final shot of an after-match piss in the park, but essentially these are only asides.

Heathens’ 30 minutes is almost entirely devoted to its subjects’ reactions to on-field events.

Spencer simply turns her back on the game and trains her camera on the faces of this verbally assertive crew. At first, it’s like each charac­ ter is performing for the camera, until you realize Spencer’s sly edit­ ing has captured them during the course of many games.

Heathens was actually filmed over several seasons. While there’s always going to be some sort of camera awareness no mat­ ter how many cans of beer are consumed, it also becomes appar­ ent that Spencer is out to capture obsession in its purest form, and her intention is to throw it straight back in your face for you, the viewer, to deal with. Being almost entirely devoid of editorial com­ mentary is a sure way to make its 30 minutes hard going for some viewers and, like its machine-gun exposure of expletives, sure to limit its sale potential.

On the other hand, this amaz­ ing and original doco, which is anthropological in approach, contains several universal truths that I suspect are just as applica­ ble to hard-core fans of any sport and could be easily enjoyed by any such audience. You can see a group mindset ticking over here as someone misses that shot for goal, but the trance of elation when the umpiring does go their team’s way is just as fascinating.

The humour in the creation of the language of abuse is also at times ridiculously hilarious.

I mean, what colour are your pubes?

Spencer has become the unfunded, suburban Margaret Meade of moving pictures and

since Heathens has produced Hooked on Xmas, a wistful portrait of a pair of suburbanites who used to completely dress the exte­ rior of their house every festive season, and is currently working on a documentary devoted to a female wrestling fan.

Miriam Cannell, the producer, director, editor and camera operator on Game Girls, wants to be a script editor. This ambition shines through in this neat pack­ age called Game Girls, which carefully assembles a succession of talking heads discussing the role of females in the corporatized world of the Australian Football League. Interviewees include: members of two teams, Collingwood and Essendon; female support groups; a token male, Wayne Jackson (CEO of the AFL); Beverly Knight, the first female member of the Essendon Club board (who can sound as harassed as any male counter­ part); a trainer and hysiotherapist for the Western Bulldogs; and media representatives who begin to tell the most interesting anec­ dotes about the hurdles they’ve overcome to establish and con­ tinue their positions.

The tone is kept light here, almost undermining Cannell’s intention to reveal how far females can go in modern football.

It’s not until the end of this 23minute doco that we get some serious insight towards that pro­ posal when we encounter an AFL recruitment officer and an Essendon District Football League umpire. Both women handle their roles with a coolheadedness and aplomb that’s hard to see any male maintaining for any indefi­ nite period.

While it’s hard to see Game Girls as having any sort of immedi­ ate galvanizing effect on any potential viewers, it does broach a subject worthy of further discus­ sion. Game Girls really lends itself more to providing some starter points towards creating a debate on female roles in the AFL, and should at least achieve some television distribution, if not through the education system where it’s already been honoured as runner-up documentary in the 1997 National Student Film and Video Festival.

Whatever way you play it, don’t leave this tape on the video shop interchange bench. © MICHAEL HELMS

SUCCUBUS Directed by Harry Weinmann . Producer : Nicole Ma . S creenw riter : Tobsha Learner .

Director of photography : Ellery Ryan .

Production designer : S imon Mc Cutcheon .

Editor : Mark Atkin . Make - up : Jose Perez .

Ca st : S tephanie Power , Nick Barkla .

36 m ins . 19 9 8. 3 5 m m .

urrently, there’s some sort of critical re-emphasis percolating on the importance of the short film.

While a variety of new and different film festivals are providing show­ case zones for films that are longer than 60 seconds but under one hour, there’s no doubt that the the­ atrical exhibition of shorts in Australia has no immediate eco­ nomic viability, no matter how they’re pacl<aged. If anywhere, the commercial future of the short film in Australia probably lies in cable television. As always, there are anomalies, of which the 36-minute Succubus, directed by Harry Wein­ mann, is a card-carrying leader.

Essentially, Succubus is the tale of an encounter between a young guy dossing down in a city laneway and an older woman who entices him back to her own abode.

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C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

despite being the first film to be directed by Harry Weinmann. The craftsmanship of the technical tal­ ent is a constant. From the elegant cinematography of Ellery Ryan to the haunting and lyrical score of Rajan Kamahl, the production design of Simon McCutcheon, the prosthetics make-up work of Jose Perez and computer-effects work that is often invisible, all hands seemed to have been working at optimum performance, which speaks volumes for Harry Wein­ mann who orchestrated all.

Perhaps it can all be put down to thorough preparation and Weinmann’s background in storyboard presentation. While it might read like some sort of exercise in retrochic, the finished product of Succubus is more related in tone and style to the director’s stated influence of German Expressionism than he could’ve probably hoped for. It’s the real thing. Whether Suc­ cubus can find a home in the multiplex world of modern cinema remains to be seen, but don’t knock back any opportunity to see it. © MICHAEL HELMS

TERRAIN

Strange consequences await both parties. From its opening frames, Succubus cleverly goes about creat­ ing its own thoroughly-mapped-out and entirely-convincing dramatic universe. Opening credits of gold set against a rich background of cobalt turn to dust as we dive into a familiar yet different view of the Melbourne skyline.

A shadow caresses a sleeping man before we’re all led into the home of one Lilah Liebermann, a woman of obvious wealth and taste. Although we’ve already been alerted by the gothic décor and opening shadowplay, in the tradi­ tion all sorts of renderings of the fantastique, all is not what it seems. While the use of special effects play a central rôle in the actual revelation, the ability of Suc­ cubus to dramatically engage rests solely with the acting of its stars, Stephanie Power and Nick Barkla.

By its end, we all should’ve been • transported, if not transformed.

Succubus is the sort of short that should precede a feature. At once, it’s mysterious and fascinat-

ing, was made with obvious exact­ ing care and, to hang a hook on it, comes on like an up-market version of an episode of Bryan Brown’s Twisted Tales.

To retain maximum impact and be true to sumptuous production values that belie its low budget, Succubus positively requires bigscreen viewing. Pairing it with something like Legend or Willow, for example, would allow it to com­ plement the main film and enhance its own standing like few other shorts produced in Australia. Suc­ cubus is a complete fantasy film that takes an age-old theme (the elements of relationships) and marries it to a finely-honed story (by Tobsha Learner), enacted against meticulously detailed backdrops.

Once we’re inside the abode of the titular character, an other­ worldly ambience seeps in that is as equally seductive and perfectly balanced as the incredible, string­ laden score.

Unlike many others, Succubus is no first-timers shot in the dark,

C I N E M A P A P E R ' S • OCTOBER 1998

Directed by T erry Kyle . Producers ; T erry Kyle , Peter G regory . Associate producer : Belinda G laistner . S criptwriter : T erry Kyle . Director of photography : Peter G regory . Production designer : Adam Head. Composer : Craig Hanacek . S ound recordist : Jeff Licence . Cast : Jonathan Hardy (Ballard), Amanda Mires (ASria), Gerowyn Lacaze (Lear), Daniel Kealy (Joyner ), S allyanne Ryan (Manderson ), Marc James (Felle). Archipelago Films .

Filmed : January-F ebruary 19 9 4. A ustralia .

V ideo .

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errain is listed in Scott Mur­ ray’s Australia On The Small Screen 1970-1995 as being pro­ duced on video and as being an unreleased theatrical feature. It was made in Queensland in 1994 on a small budget, written and directed by Terry Kyle. It seems to be the work of film students.

It is set in the galaxy, a small group working in a research sta­ tion on a distant planet, which to all intents and purposes is like earth except that there is some­ thing destructive in the atmosphere which has had cata­ strophic effects on the mission leader.

One of the difficulties of this kind of film is picking up who is who and who is doing what in the expedition. The technological jar­ gon gets in the way of identifying characters and working out what the tensions are and where they come from.

Terrain has a brief running­ time, but it moves quite slowly trying to create the other-worldly atmosphere, and the tension is not achieved, even in the climax.

The film has a strong plot resemblance to John Tatoulis’ Zone 39 (1996), highlighting Aus­ tralians’ love for science fiction as well as the difficulties in making it. © PETER MALONE

SEE JACK RUN Directed by Stephen Am is . Producer : Roger Gough. Line producer : Christine Collins . Associate producers : Darrel Stokes , Martin Hunter, Christopher Hewitt . S criptw riters : Stephen Am is , Robert Gough. Based on the play, Who Cares , by G illian Wadds . Director of photography : Darrel S tokes . Production

doomed life), the callow condem­ nations of the science master/sports master. It also involves teenage friendships and relationships, his girlfriend’s preg­ nancy and his brother’s drug habits.

The film is unevenly acted and shows signs of its small-budget production values. Flowever, it holds some interest and certainly has proved to be useful viewing for city teenage student audiences and for parents. © PETER MALONE

LIVING COLOR Directed by Neal Taylor . Producer : René Nagy . Co- producer : S ummer Nicks .

S c r ip t w r it e r : N e a l M. E. T a y l o r .

DESIGNERS: KlM BOUNDS, SALLY SHEPHERD.

Editor : Robert Murphy . Composer : Barry Campbell . Cast : T rent Mooney (Brian Johnson), Molly Brumm Gan), Ellis Ebell (Colin), Elissa Holloway (Karen ), Peter Docker (Steven ), Ka th y T homaidis (Maria), John McCullough (Moss ), Barbara Hughes (Desmond), John Flaus (Mr Greeves ).

A.F.M.S. Productions. Budget: $9 7,0 0 0.

Filmed : August -S eptember 19 9 1.

Australia . V ideo .

small-budget Australian tele-feature with a brief run­ ning-time, See jack Run was made at Open Channel, Melbourne.

Based on the play Who Cares by Gillian Wadds, it focuses on a teenager, Brian Johnson (Trent Mooney), who has learning diffi­ culties and comes from a problematic social background.

Like Don McLennan’s Mull (1988), which was set in St Kilda and made the suburb and its envi­ ronment the equivalent of a character, See Jack Run uses innercity locations and Port Phillip Bay. Also like Mull, it crowds a great number of social problems into its short running time, probably too many. Drugs, truancy, absentee parents, teenage pregnancy and Catholic moral teaching are all issues.

Brian is also a poetic dreamer.

Throughout the film, he tells the story of his fantasy of sailing the ocean, going to Africa and encoun­ tering a witch-doctor with a special plant that can give a dead child new life. This acts as a kind of cho­ rus focusing on his ambitions and potential.

Flowever, the facts of the plot concern his being at school, his inability to read, his covering-up, his being befriended by a teacher who wants to teach him to read (perhaps the use of Romeo and Juliet is a bit optimistic in terms of comprehension as well as for sug­ gesting interpretations of Brian’s

A

D ir e c t o r

of ph o to g ra ph y:

P r o d u c t io n

d e s ig n e r :

N ic k Pa t o n .

Ken t S h er lo c k .

E d it o r : G e o f f L a m b . C o m p o s e r : S h a n e B r y z a k . Ca s t : D e r e k R u c k e r (D o u g l e ), K im D e n m a n (M o lly ), M ic h a e l Ju lia n K n o w l e s (C h r is t ia n ), Ev e l y n T a y l o r (Ra c h e l ), S c o t t W e b b (D o c t o r ). A u s t r a l ia .

C in e r g y M.P.E. B u d g e t : $ 2 .5

m il l io n .

F il m e d : 5 -2 1 Ja n u a r y 19 9 2 . 35

mm.

95 MINS.

n unreleased theatrical feature that hails from Queensland, the film is basically a twist on a stalking game. A deranged man wants to kill a young woman because of his woman-hating ide$ ology. The woman’s lover is also trapped and becomes part of the killing game.

The film creates some tension, but it tends to rely on a blood-andguts approach to terror and mayhem. And the mayhem, malefemale violence and male-male violence, is protracted well beyond its dramatic power.

One of the difficulties with Liv­ ing Color is that its screenplay degenerates into the ‘you bitch’ mode and relies on aggressive swearing rather than more imagi­ native ways of communicating hostility and building up tension.

What is disturbing about the film is the rampant misogyny of the killer. Because he comes all full blast from the beginning, his anti-women rantings have no welldrawn character base and so remain at the level of gratuitous rantings, which an audience can only take so much of. The killer would be at home ‘in the company of men’, taking the callous atti­ tudes and behaviour of Chad in Neil Labute’s film to its murderous conclusions.

The film looks and sounds more like a practice exercise in the cat-and-mouse genre.

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© PETER MALONE

43

if review Bookd THE FILMMAKER AND THE PROSTITUTE

DENNIS O’ROURKE’S THE GOOD WOMAN OF BANGKOK Edited

by

Chris Berry , Annette Haaailton

end, and, in the process, “activates the ‘you’”. It is this “l-You” rela­ tionship that engages a whole range of emotions, desires and sometimes inconsistent responses.

O’Rourke reconstitutes his identity.

In so doing, he does not fully iden­ tify himself with the “transnational male imaginary” (p. 31) which char­ acterizes the groups of Australian or American men in Thailand and

their “power as critics”; their “dis­ tance and power” comes at a great cost-namely, the reduction of Aoi to a disempowered, helpless vic­ tim. Some male commentators, on the other hand, deny Aoi’s agency but in order to reinforce their own entrenched power.

Berry draws attention to many films (for example, the Joe Leahy series) in which Australia is repre­ sented as a western nation which reconstitutes itself in relation to “an Asian Pacific other” (p. 42).

Australia’s identity is problematic, however: if one grants that nation­

The white, male “saviour” does not succeed in redeeming Aoi and this failure can be read as a metaphor of collective failure or incapacity.

Here one sees the tension between a theoretical or conceptual frame­ work on the one hand, and the inability to assimilate, or even to deal (adequately) with, the encounter with the “other”.

The film suggests that Australia must overcome the “original sin” embodied in its colonialist past; that documentarians need to acknowledge the “myth of objectiv­ ity” as an “original sin” that

hood here needs to be understood in Asian terms, Berry argues that it becomes necessary to “forget Aus­ tralia’s past colonialist relationship” with other nations in the region. O’Rourke’s film then becomes a reminder of what needs to be forgotten: the sex tourists, the exploitation and the colonialist attitudes towards the “Orient” and its subjects. Australia’s claim to being “in” Asia is undermined by the repetition of exploitative rela­ tionships —the very sort of relationships that the film enunci­ ates and reiterates. The film invokes the “white saviour” myth (p. 50), undermines it, yet “refuses to let go of it” (p. 51). Aoi does not play out her “assigned role” in the “white saviour narrative” and, in this way, O’Rourke problematizes white, patriarchal attitudes (some of which inform his own practice).

informs their own work; and that “western feminist critics” need to acknowledge their own privileged status “as westerners” (p. 54) if the processes by which non-west­ ern women are fetishized as passive victims are to be over­ come. Berry concludes by reflecting on “the objective selfeffacing rhetoric of academic criticism” (p. 54) — or “traditional academic rhetoric” (p. 55) — and the need for another mode which will allow him to enter into a gen­ uine encounter with the film.

Hart Cohen offers a particularlythoughtful analysis. He argues that the film keeps “three promises”: the promise of sex scenes; a deconstruction of the “ethno­ graphic eye”; and the abandoning of the “high moral ground” that characterizes documentaries (p.

67). The film raises interesting

AND LALEEN JAYAMANNE, POWER

Publications , Power Institute A rts , Un iversity

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of Fine

S ydney , S ydney 19 9 7 ,

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he Good Woman of Bangkok (1992) has attracted an aston­ ishing variety of critical responses and generated a debate that is of great importance in contemporary media and cultural studies. Some see the film as an uncommon act of bravery or honesty; some see it as a key transformation of the conven­ tions of the documentary film —a deconstruction of the codes by which rigid demarcations between truth and fiction are sustained for purposes which are not entirely trustworthy; others see it as a reflection of patriarchal attitudes, of ambiguity, uncertainty and com­ plicity; and others insist on the Orientalist-inspired exploitation of the figure of the ‘Asian’ as the ‘exotic other’ or on misguided white liberalism. There are other responses. This book brings together essays, reviews and inter­ views and as such provides an invaluable sourcebook.

In the first extended analysis, Lateen Jayamanne discusses sev­ eral approaches to the film. She hits the mark especially when she points out that certain approaches to the film are so dependent on ide­ ology that no film could ever “shift” the dogmatic assumptions that inform them. She also argues force­ fully that a reading which presents Aoi (Yagwalak Chonchanakun) as a passive victim is dubious because of its misogyny and fundamentalist ideology. She sees the film in per­ formative terms: Aoi is not a puppet; her mode in the film is “one of extended conversation” and of a “desire” which is often contradictory (p. 28).

The film is seen in terms of a transformation of a “masculinity myth” in Australian film. O’Rourke charts the transition from the “he” of the beginning to the “I” of the

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44

maintains prostitution there.

Jayamanne sees the film in terms of a dramatized passage which aims at forging a relation­ ship. But the process is “fragile and perilous” (p. 32). The film’s “generosity” lies in its “ability to create a structure in which this perilous journey can come to pass” (P- 32).

Chris Berry focuses on the under-researched relation between “collective metaphor” (in Australia and in Asia) and uncomfortable affect. He sees the film in terms of a “long line of collective self-repre­ sentations” of Australia (p. 36). It is striking that he, like Jayamanne, questions the ideological use of Aoi as passive victim on the part of a number of “western women reviewers” (p. 40). But he makes a further point: this appropriation allows these critics to maintain

questions about authorship: the fictional filmmaker (he is given fic­ tional status in the film’s opening) records Aoi’s life from the point of view of the consciously invoked “author”. The adoption of this “fic­ tional auto-inscription” makes it impossible for the film to fulfil its objective: namely, to subvert “the investment in the discourse of truth that is revealed as a conse­ quence of the filmmaker’s intervention” (p. 68). So, the cru­ cial question is not whether Aoi’s life is the “truth” or not, but rather whether the terms of the film are legitimate. A logic of alien­ ation is unleashed in the face of the “Orientalist other” (p.

69) and it is one which cannot be controlled by the very fig­ ures who give it form. Aoi is trapped in a sense (for exam­ ple, she must pay her father’s debt), but Cohen discerns a “potential transformation of the forms and institutions of this world” (p. 70) in the film.

Aoi’s situation is one of “fated tragedy” (p. 70); if it is not possible for her to be a “good woman” of Bangkok, it is nev­ ertheless possible for her to be conscious of “goodness”.

This is the form of her “tran­ scendence”. The filmmaker does not give form and mean­ ing to the story in order to redeem it in aesthetic terms and provide a reply to nihilism. Rather, one finds a tension between the form of the film and the form of Aoi’s life: O’Rourke “crosses from documentary into fiction and Aoi (momentarily) crosses from her life into film” (p. 71). The narrative of “truth” which Aoi’s voice repre­ sents becomes dominant and, as a consequence, this creates a gulf between the filmmaker’s form and the life which it is attempting to encompass. The effect is one of discontinuity. That form which is supposed to uncover and redeem her existence is disrupted. In this way, O’Rourke’s film suggests, “despite his intentions” (p. 71), that life cannot be displaced by form. O’Rourke employs parody to undermine power relations in doc­ umentary films and yet is attacked by critics for such “anti-humanist moves” (p. 72). He is the “elusive parodist” who allegedly betrays his colleagues and admirers and is in turn betrayed by the parodic nature of the film. The key issue is the dynamics of representation

C IN E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

with regard to “the power to control women” (p. 73). The film finally criticizes humanism in the sense of rejecting the “truthful discourse” of documentary films and in introducing a discourse of the “author” not in order to provide another “truth” but rather to deconstruct approaches that would resist such strategies.

The volume is a valuable anthology with insightful bridging essays. However, other readings strike one as unsatisfactory or problematic because they are so decontextualized. O’Rourke has made it clear (“I was pretty crazy at the time”, p. 149), and the film also makes this clear, that the authorfilmmaker is not a dehistoricized, generalized or essentialized male observer or participant. The male narrator’s starting point is one of incipient and profound crisis. The narrative foundation is unstable, disturbed, anguished. It is difficult to see how decontextualized and ideologically-motivated interpretations of the film can do justice to its trajectories if this point is ignored or overlooked. It is surprising to find so little discussion of the troubled foundations out of which the film’s trajectories spring. Indeed, such narratological complexity makes the film seem much more sophisticated than many of its interpretations. Moreover, it is puzzling to see the extent to which many interpreters have failed to consider the disanalogies between the “author” and the essentialized male gaze which is set up in order to be attacked by a number of the film’s critics. The three interpretations discussed are insightful and important but raise problematic questions: there is no explanation of how Australia can “forget” its “original sin” or how it is possible to do so and, moreover, there is no explanation of how being “in” Asia can lead to a sense of compatibility (for surely one does not follow from the other). Deconstructive readings are offered which can be quite incisive but they would seem to undermine the very possi­ bility of emancipation, and the very possibility of any coherent talk of emancipation, with regard to figures such as Aoi (but then perhaps this is O’Rourke’s inten­ tion). Such caveats aside, however, the volume as a whole will provide an invaluable starting point and source book for future discussions of the film.

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© RAYMOND YOUNIS !

L'AGE DOR Paul Hammond , BFI Publishing , London , 19 9 7 . 7 6 p p , £ 7 .9 9

P

aul Hammond’s new book on Buhuel and Dali’s rarely-seen, surreal avant-garde classic, L’Age d’Or (1930), is highly welcomed by anyone who cares for surreal cin­ ema and Hammond’s superbly unique, idiosyncratic film criticism.

Hammond’s pun-encrusted, intu­ itive style of film criticism is predicated on an interdisciplinary approach to the arts in general. As a critic, painter and translator, Hammond sees cinema in elliptical relation to the other arts. Ham­ mond, who is author of Marvellous Melies, co-author (with the artistwriter Ian Breakwell) of Seeing in the Dark: A Compendium of Cinemagoing, a much-needed anthology of first-person accounts of cinephilia, will be most remem­ bered (whenever the dust of time settles) for his unprecedented anthology, The Shadow and its Shadow: Surrealist Writing on the Cinema. My thumb-worn copy of this extraordinary book is a testa­ ment to its paramount significance to film criticism. It is a book that forms an indispensable corner­ stone to surreal-film writing and to film criticism in general. Ham­ mond’s finely-crafted, suggestive and eclectic introduction to this “desert island” reading masterwork signifies the mind of someone who sees cinema independently of the changing academic and cultural fashions of film theory, and abhors the dogmas of contemporary bor­ der-patrol thought. Hammond’s infectious feel for language, its rhythms, shape and moods, colour his magnetically-appealing free­ wheeling style of film-critical writing. He writes on the cinema with non-authoritarian verve and iconoclastic humour, using a plethora of diverse interdisciplinary sources, in order to craft his dazzling film criticism.

The trouble, for me, is that he is that kind of a film critic - fearlessly unpretentious, well-informed, play­ fully discursive and erudite, and sceptically witty in seeing and hearing cinema within its own terms - that I simply can’t get enough of in an era where he is part of a minority in contemporary film criticism. Neverthless, with this new addition to the BFI Film Classics series, we can rejoice that there is another Hammond film book on our bookshelves now.

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

The series to which Hammond’s book belongs is, I find, at certain times too parochial in its selection of authors. Certainly, there is the odd non-English author in the series: for example, Salman Rushdie, whose reading of The Wizard ofOz makes it uncontestably one of the finer examples of the series; Albert Manguel’s Bride of Frankenstein; Jim Kitses’ Gun Crazy; and Adrian Martin on Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, another critic who belongs to the minority tradition of film criticism anchored in a cinephile’s embrace of the medium itself. The series needs to be opened up more, notwithstanding the non-English authors included so far, to negotiate a wider nonnationalistic pluralism of critical voices.

L’Age d’Or is indisputably regarded as one of the most impor­ tant collaborations of (surreal) cinema history, combining the unique creative talents of Luis Buhuel, one of cinema’s enduring giants, and Salvador Dali. The film itself, which is a highly powerful combination of scorching visual poetry and social criticism, is sel­ dom seen nowadays. For many years, L’Age d’Or has been the source of censorship and puritani­ cal vilification. It has become a cult classic of the avant-garde cinema for its subversive amour fou eroti­ cism and social criticism of the moral and political bankruptcy of traditional bourgeois values. It should be noted that this film, the second collaboration between the two Spaniard surrealists, was the first time that the filmmakers deployed social criticism in their work.

In fact, L’Age d’Or, as Ham­ mond illustrates, was inspired by Buhuel’s reading of the Marquis de Sade. The surreal poet Robert Desnos introduced Buhuel to de Sade, and, according to Buhuel, de Sade’s notion that it is only in the imagination where humans are truly free, a notion that coloured this dark, subversive film and the filmmaker’s subsequent films. De Sade dazzled Buhuel with his transgressive, revolutionary world of social customs, insects, sex and theology. Financed by the de Noailles, the liberal arts-loving aris­ tocrats who also financed Un Chien Andalou (1929), L’Age d’Or did not emphatically deploy the free asso­ ciation of ideas style of scripting as Buhuel and Dali did for their first

film. It nevertheless displays a sub­ tle narrative line (unlike in Un Chien Andalou) that passes from one small detail to another, and so on, something one can observe in Buhuel’s Le Fantôme de la Liberté (1974).

By the time L’Age d’Or started to be filmed both Buhuel and Dali’s friendship was very strained for a number of reasons, including the appearance of Galea in Dali’s life.

Hammond’s thoroughly-detailed, sharply-delineated and entertaining introduction to the film explores its complex sources of inspiration and influences, its remarkable “oneiric” collage textual characteristics and “film maudit” status in world cin­ ema. Adopting the metaphor of the scorpion’s tail with its various dis­ tinct sections and its deadly poison end sac, Hammond gives us a fecund speculative and historicallyinformed reading of the film, its intuitive mise-en-scène textual strategies of montage, framing, movement within frame, camera angle, lighting and use of the Louis Delluc-inspired photogenie insert shot - a key stylistic central to Buhuel’s early cinema and the French avant-garde, which (after Griffith, De Mille and Delluc) high­ lights big close-ups of objects (other than the face) in order to make the object-world strange.

L’Age d’Or started as an ento­ mological essay on the instinctual behaviour of the scorpion, an instinct noted for its self-destruc­

tive and primordial will to power.

Characteristic to the surreal tenet of making a film that emphatically does not look “well-made” and is polemically therefore “anti-artis­ tic”, Buhuel opens up L’Age d’Or with scientific zoological documen­ tary footage of the asocial scorpion (directed by J. Javault and André Bayard between 1912 and 1914), which also functions (as Hammond observes) as a foil to Duverger’s photogenic camerawork and Buhuel’s deft cutting.

The low-life scorpion gang of bandits who appear in the film after the stock footage of the scorpions is led by Max Ernst and includes Pierre Prevert as one of its members. These bandits are outlaws without women who behave like somnambulistic automata of irrationalism, eccen­ tricity and anarchism. L’Age d’O rwith its Freudian-shaped verbal and visual gags of eroticism, thanatos and the unconscious, its gothic-Goyaesque, anti-clerical representation of decomposed bishops and amour fou with Gaston Modot and Lya Lys as the doomed ecstatic lovers - can also be read as a homage to silent comedy. Specifically, the film (alongside Un Chien Andalou) is a homage to the films of Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon.

But the film’s amour fou theme, with its lovers encountering all the abject elements of social transgres­ sion and ritual - mud, shit, putrefaction, etc. - recalls the Bakhtinian emphasis of the Ameri­ can silent comedy of victims covered in feathers, eggs, paint and tar. Moreover, American amour fou films of the ’20s and ’30s, with their depictions of separated lovers transgressing taboos of race, class, creed, time and space, such as in Borzage’s Seventh Heaven (1927) and Van Dyke’s White Shadows of the South Seas (1928), had a deci­ sive influence on Buhuel’s ideas centring around amour fou.

L’Age d’Or is a sublime mas­ terpiece of surreal cinema which testifies to the surreal thesis that personkind’s liberation begins with the insistence that reality needs to be adjusted according to our unconscious, and not the other way around as the life-dimmers (Manning Clark) of puritanism would have us believe. Hammond’s handsomely-illustrated book uncovers new and significant cultural, historical and produc­ tion details about the making and critical reception of L’Age d’Or since its first appearance in 1930.

Thus, there are two big reasons to rejoice for this book: Hammond’s exemplary ironic and descriptive-based film criticism and new important information on the film itself. The final image of Buhuel atop his own “Simon of the Desert” pillar at his resting place at his own hometown of Zaragoza is worth the price of the book alone. © JOHN CONOMOS

45

The only rental company able to supply PanavisionÂŤ as well as every other leading make of motion picture cam era equipment to the Australian film and television industry.

-P A N A V IS IO N

Sydney: 61 (2) 9436 1844 Fox Studios Australia: 61 (2) 9383 4555 Melbourne: 6 I (3) 9646 3044 W arner Roadshow Studios: 61 (7) 5588 6543

te c h n ic a litie s

Fox City b y B arrie Sm ith ontroversial one day, accepted the next: Fox Studios is up, running and fully booked. The Aus­ tralian newspaper in June ’98 described the new film city as “con­ troversial”. The evocative label bore back in time to when minority figures in the NSW State Government tried desperately to rally public opinion against it.

Well, like death, taxes and Mt Everest, Fox Studios Australia is here - and here to stay.

The 24ha film studio complex occu­ pies the old Sydney Showground, now ‘out West’, while the $120 million movie centre sits comfortably and accessibly a few minutes’ drive from the CBD and ten kilometres from Sydney airport.

In the run-up to the official opening on 2 May, there was vocal opposition to the Murdoch group’s acquisition of the site, but little antipathy from Syd­ ney film technicians - and none from the production fraternity itself.

Early on, when little was known, there was concern that Fox, becoming such a huge employment force, would control and depress technician fees.

As it eventuated, the venture is in fact a huge facility - open for hire to all and su n d ry- and Fox Sydney management has taken every step to avoid being seen as a prime employer.

This writer has visited the site a number of times (see first report in Cinema Papers, no. 116, May 1997) and seen the transition from a country show environment to a Hollywood quality facility.

Mi x The site is leased by Fox for 40 years with a ten-year option and breaks down into three zones: largest is the production areas (45 percent of the site); the other two are the studio tour

and the public access areas (total around 50 percent). Currently, six stages are completed and in use.

According to Fox Studios Australia CEO Kim Williams, the public precinct “is quite fundamental to the commer­ cial viability of the place. We’ve never made any secret of that.”

In Williams’ view,

Film studios are inherently costcentres, rather than profit-centres.

They are very expensive things to build. So, from the outset, we’ve

never been shy about it making it clear that the public development is quite fundamental to the financial viability and sustainability of the place.

Finances aside, Williams concedes public acceptance is “an important component in terms of celebrating film and television as the great creative products of the 20th century”. He sees it as being quite logical for a major production complex to cosy up to a public access facility, and believes the mix of work and play environments can “lift the veil” on film and television activity in a way that will “inform, entertain [and] amaze the public”.

The showcase will be the “backlot experience” - an opportunity to gain insight into the entire film and televi­ sion production process, everything from casting, set design, special effects, stunts, make-up, wardrobe to digital post-production.

Williams:

It’s a hard task to create something which is informational and educa­ tional, but at the same time entertaining and compelling.

We’re involving some important creatives in that process. Baz Luhrmann and Barrie Kosky are working on, what I think will be, a quite remarkable performance demonstration for the public an immersive experience.

It is expected that 1.4 million people will visit the exhibition in its first year.

Williams confirmed that,

Wherever possible in the retailing C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

47

area, we’ve endeavoured to relate it to film and television. There’ll be a very substantial music store here with the capacity for live perfor­ mances and live broadcasts to originate from there.

Meal breaks Next to the post-shoot beer, most crews take great interest in food as the shooting day grinds on. Initially, there were no plans for the company to provide restaurants, leaving crew meals to the production companies and freelance caterers.

This has now changed, as Williams explains:

We will have a proper and substan­ tial coffee shop that will operate through very extended hours to provide sandwiches, hot foods at lunchtime and other services through the day. We’ve been very eager to respect and reinforce the basis on which the Australian indus­ try has grown up, which is built on its being freelance and on there being a wide variety of service providers to the industry.

There is also a restaurant, which we’ll call a commissary, but it’s just a general-purpose eating place; the public will be allowed to go there as well.

48

Fully booked Williams:

We’re fully occupied at the moment with two productions: Babe 2 is wrapping production at the moment [June ‘98], while still continuing on some exterior shots. And we have The Matrix which is occupying five of the sound stages; that will be here for about another two months.

It is expected a big overseas-sourced production will move in immediately after The Matrix.

Future bookings?

Williams:

He added that the company could be of further assistance to production companies “as a production services company”, to provide things ranging from employer of record services and liaison with a variety of government agencies.

With a number of producers, we’ve provided location advisory services.

We’ve done comprehensive location surveys and detailed documentation of external locations.

In the realm of direct production, Fox Studios has a joint venture with Icon Productions (Mel Gibson and Bruce Davies), and a body of independent

developments which Fox has initiated itself. An important one is the relation­ ship with Baz Luhrmann. Williams says, “We work closely with Baz. He is absolutely independent and Fox trea­ sures and respects his independence.”

In dealing with other entities there would be, Williams confirms, “a much more active relationship through the development process”.

Then the question arises: Who gets priority in booking a stage for a pro­ duction period? Would Fox have the edge? Williams:

You can only operate a place like this on one basis: it’s first come,

We’re holding bookings through until the year 2002. It’s been reported that we’re fully booked until then, which we’ve never said.

But we are fully booked through the start of next year and then we have a series of quite substantial, spo­ radic bookings until 2002.

Disquiet Some still fear that Fox will become a monster facility and, simultaneously, a prodigious competitor in the produc­ tion sphere itself. Williams agreed that Fox “works in a variety of roles; [one is] as a facilities company servicing the tenants on the site - both permanent and itinerant tenants.”

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

te c h n ic a litie s

first served, and the people who make firm bookings and lodge deposits have an absolute firm hold over the stages. You can’t operate it in any other way.

When asked how he viewed the com­ petitive environment with Fox in Sydney and Warner-Roadshow’s Gold Coast stages, Kim Williams diplomati­ cally explained that Fox has

a very cordial relationship with our colleagues on the Gold Coast.

They’ve been running an enterprise now for 10 years and a very large amount of work has passed through there.

In contrast, Williams sees the Sydney amenity as

providing services and resources that are much needed, but have not been available to Sydney-based pro­ ductions previously. In terms of international work it actually increases the level of interest in using Australia.

Williams is convinced Sydney is

the fulcrum of production. The two major production cities in Australia are Sydney and Melbourne - and Sydney clearly has certain advan­ THE PUBLIC wo cinema complexes will be operated by Hoyts: a mainstream multiplex art deco design “echoing the romantic era of the 1920s and 1930s” will have 11 screens; the arthouse cinema will comprise four screens. Seating will range in size from 150 seats to 500 seats.

In the “pro precinct”, there will also be three rushes screening the­ atres: two will be relatively small, with a seating capacity of 25-30 seats; the other will have 50-60 seats. One of the public cinemas will have a dedi­ cated capacity to run previews, double heads, etc.

Public and professional areas on the site are quite clearly separated, so that the public doesn’t intrude into the professional areas.

T

The Stages Essential rules apply in terms of the

ANCILLARY TENANTS A A run-down on who is already on j ^ ^ s i t e at Fox: AET. Specialists in pyrotechnic, atmospheric and fire special effects.

Animal Logic. CGI and digital post­ production services.

Atlab. Collection and dispatch of film components for laboratory and Dfilm

C I N E M A PAPERS • OCTOBER 1998

tages in that a large body of the cre­ ative community lives here.

Sydney is the international gate­ way to Australia. It’s the home to many important filmmakers and to a whole range of cinematographers, technical support personnel, edi­ tors, musicians - and, I suppose, above all - actors.

Would there be a cost saving in using Fox as opposed to shooting at the Gold Coast? Williams:

I’ve never done a financial analysis of the relative cost between produc­ tion in Sydney and the Gold Coast.

I imagine there would be certain cost savings.

Rates Like the proverbial piece of string, there are prices and prices when it comes to the hire of a stage. Williams expresses it this way:

Clearly things are negotiable according to the period of occu­ pancy, the number of stages that are taken. The rack rates range from a low of around $7,000 a week [TV stages] up to a high of $28,000 a week for the major stages. © noise level sound design to all stages: 8odbBA exterior level achieves 3odbBA inside due to the design of the overall structure with a NR 25 rating.

This is achieved via sound lock doors and the accuracy of their design, bi­ fold large elephant doors, and the design of roof and walls. In total, 10 layers make up the roof to ensure the sound rating is maintained.

Stage walls are acoustically treated, incorporating specialized bar­ riers and effective sound absorption materials to reduce the internal rever­ beration time. Acoustically secure cable ports ensure minimal intrusion of sound when used in conjunction with external support vehicles.

Although configured as four film and two television stages, all can be adapted for either use. All the stage floors are concrete and are covered either with durable plywood or vinyl for television applications.

two elephant doors, ancillary building with production offices, etc.

Cineffects. Mechanical, atmospheric, pyrotechnic and physical effects.

Faith Martin. Casting agency.

Fox Icon, joint venture between Fox Studio Australia and Icon Productions.

Global Television. Broadcast vehicles, cameras, videotape machines, digital FX units etc.

Kodak. Film storage and support for Cineon systems.

Maura Fay and Associates. Casting agency.

Moneypenny. Specialist accounting and financial management services.

Mullinars. Casting Consultants Panavision Australia.

Pride Studios. Physical, mechanical and atmospheric effects, design and construction services.

Prototype Casting agency.

Stage One

Stage Four

Area: 3,535 sq.m Dimensions: 86 x 41.1 x 20m S oundproofing: 80 percent S pecial Features: Housed in a

A r e a : 751 sq.m

restored heritage Pavilion.

one e le p h a n t d o o r.

D im e n s io n s : 3 3 .1 x 2 2 .7 x 1 0 m S o u n d p r o o f in g : 100 p e rce n t S p e c ia l Fe a t u r e s : A ir-c o n d itio n e d ,

Stage Two

Stage Five

Area: 3,007 sq.m Dimensions: 64.4x46.7x15m S oundproofing: 100 percent Pit: 12 x 18 x 3m deep (40 x 60 x 10ft

A r e a : 935 sq.m

deep)

with TV rating, two elephant doors, eye tracks.

S pecial Features: Air-conditioned, two elephant doors, ancillary building with production offices etc.

D im e n s io n s : 35 .3 x 26.5 x 10m S o u n d p r o o f in g : 100 percent S p e c ia l Fe a t u r e s : Air-conditioned

Stage Six A r e a : 745 sq.m

Stage Three

D im e n s io n s : 2 8 .1 x 2 6 .5 x io m

Area: 1,324 sq.m Dimensions: 4 0 x 3 3 .1x 12 m Soundproofing: 100 percent S pecial Features: Air-conditioned,

S o u n d p r o o f in g : 100 percent S p e c ia l Fe a t u r e s : Air-conditioned with TV rating, two elephant doors.

Show Film. Travel and freight services.

Soundfirm. Post-production sound, sound mixing facilities, ADR, foley.

Spectrum Films. Post-production facility.

Stage and Screen. Travel and freight services.

Studio Kite. Special effects.

The Stunt Agency. Stunt coordinators.

TropNest. A writers’ initiative.

49

tech n ica litie s

In the mix b y D m a R oss t’s human nature to try and pigeonhole artists: this one is traditional, that one avant garde; he is a crowd pleaser, she dares almost too much.

Compartmentalizing is our way of play­ ing safe and making sense of individual talents. But it doesn’t always work that way.

How can you neatly label the music group Supersonic, for example: three musicans-cum-composers-cum-film directors, who cross musical bound­ aries with such ease, that even describing the work they do is almost impossible? One moment they are writing upbeat jingles for commercials, the next lyrical full-scale film scores.

Perhaps the easiest way to compre­ hend the Supersonic style is to listen to their latest CD, Scope. The musical range covered is mind-boggling. From the jazzy “Critical Mass” to the eerie, outer-space ambiance of “Flashlight”; from the dark drum and bass of “Teddy” to the Henry Mancini-esque

I

“Toy”.

50

The world of Supersonic is one where traditional instruments happily co-exist alongside state-of-the-art digi­ tal technology and where the mood sequences swing from the romantic to the absurd, the funky to the psyche­ delic. Yet the technology never replaces the emotive content of the music. It is always listenable and audience-friendly. To call Supersonic one of the most versatile music trios working in Australia today is no under­ statement.

Yet, when you talk to Supersonic, there is no indication that the broad sweep of their collective imagination is in any way unusual. It is all in a day’s work, beavering away in the four stu­ dios that comprise Supersonic’s headquarters in the heart of Sydney’s Kings Cross: one for each of the musi­ cians, and a central studio for mixing.

It is a far cry from their early days, when the group came together in 1990.

Andrew Lancaster, Paul Healy and Antony Partos met when they were studying music in Sydney. There was an immediate rapport. Says Partos:

We knew straightaway that we could make music together and,

more importantly, that we could concentrate on writing our own work and still be able to collaborate on joint ventures. That is the secret to our versatility perhaps: being able to pool our resources, bounce ideas off each other, cross-fertilize, and still have the time to develop our own creativity.

The three start and finish each other’s sentences as people working together for a long time tend to do. They talk about their early days as struggling musicians, studying, working, writing whatever music they could to make ends meet. Eight years ago, moving into their Kings Cross studio was a gamble, rents were high, they were starting out. It was just one studio then. But the work kept coming in.

And coming in.

Advertising was their bread and butter at first and even now forms an important part of their portfolio. You may not know you are listening to a Supersonic melody when you tune in during a television commercial break, but the chances are high: Pepsi, Optus, Kelloggs, Nike, Fosters. There’s a distinctive quality to the sound: clarity, sophistication, a marrying of the music to the message.

Lancaster:

We are able to write to the brief, that’s important. A client, an adver­ tising agency, has a vision and our role is to interpret that vision through music.

They agree that writing for corporates can be tough, as composers battle against popular trends and expecta­ tions.

Healy:

We do try and influence the agen­ cies to be a bit more daring if we can. There’s a tendency for all com­ mercials to sound the same, which we actively dislike. A little while ago, the buzz word in ad music was The Prodigy. The creative directors had all heard this band, and thought C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

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tech n ica litie s

it was the cutting-edge. So the brief went: “Make it sound like The Prodigy. [The three laugh.] Our challenge was to convince them there’s often another way that is just as effective.

So writing music for performance - the­ atre, dance, film - refreshes the creative parts some jingles cannot reach.

Supersonic has completed the score for the Sydney Theatre Company’s pro­ duction of Patrick Marber’s play of sexual intrigue, Closer, seen in Mel­ bourne in July. Other collaborations have included the score for the AIDS tril­ ogy, Angels in America, for Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir Street’s confronting, post-modern Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Healy worked on the music for Bar­ rie Kosky’s forthcoming production at the STC of Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electro. None of these com­ missions could be called ‘easy music’ each demands the concentration and participation of the audience, yet at the same time the music must allow the action and dialogue to flow undis­ turbed.

Partos:

Writing for the stage or for dance companies is exhilarating, because you can take risks you would never dare in film. For Chunky Move Dance Company, we have com­ posed a variety of works, loud, aggressive, insinuating. It’s very lib­ erating.

Lancaster:

In fact, we’re composing the music for Chunky Move’s one-hour ABCTV special, WET, which is a dance-drama tele-feature.

Healy:

And we’re always interested in new ventures. We have just submitted a proposal for the mdTV Project, commissioned by OzOpera, MusicAxtsDance Films and ABC-TV, which seeks new, original, music and concepts. Working with a number of different groups is very important to us, as you need to keep ideas fresh, seek a variety of outside stimuli.

The ABC and SBS have been important sponsors of their talent. Their compo­ sitions have included scores for the series Seven Deadly Sins (“Lust” and “Greed”, which won the Australian Composers Guild Best Music for a Mini-series award) and music for SBS’s irreverent Eat Carpet. Lancaster edited an SBS special on the SBS Youth Orchestra and Partos has composed the soundscape for the 18-minute film,

52

Empire, produced for the ABC’s Indige­ nous Programs Unit as part of last year’s Festival of Dreaming. It is an immensely lyrical, hauntingly beautiful work, highly emotive, darkly dignified.

Partos:

The work is an elegy, a tribute to those Aborigines and early Aus­ tralians who died in the name of empire building. In its quiet way, the film is a savage indictment of colonization. Essentially, what you see is a series of landscape shots: parched earth, the salt-encrusted skull of a bird, a Union Jack in tat­ ters. The vision is bleak. Only, finally, the rains come, offering some promise of hope. The work was performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, with whom I have a long association, and broad­ cast as part of the series, “Three for the Lucky Country”. I’m hoping to receive a grant to enable me to compile all the work I have done with the TSO on CD. To date, the three have completed the scores and/or sound designs of some 25 short films and documentaries, including Idiot Box, directed by David Caesar, a particularly inventive project as composition, sound design and edit­ ing were incorporated into the brief.

Another film, the short Bullet Proof and Blind, won several awards for sound in 1994. New departures also include working on music video clips with artists of the calibre of Nathan Cavaleri and the Jaynes.

Healy:

Diversity, you see, diversity. I mean, there’s Antony’s work with the TSO, I’m working on a new CD with the working title, Porn Star; Andrew’s going to collaborate again with Custard and is joining forces with their lead singer David McCormack to work on the music for David Caesar’s next film, Mullet.

So where do they go from here?

Partos:

We would all say that there are two major goals for us this year. The first is for each of us to be recognized for the diversity of things we do.

Andrew, for example, is known to some members of the music industry as a director and sound designer, not as a composer. We have all suffered from the ‘pigeonhole syndrome’.

But, most importantly, we are look­ ing for feature films to work on, films where music is an integral part of the action. The more complex, the more esoteric the concept, the better. ®

Australian Connections b y Tim H u n te r hekhar Kapur, the Indian director whose film Ban­ dit Queen (1994) created a stir, especially in India where it was banned, recently finished filming his first Eng­ lish-language film, Elizabeth, for the British production company Working Title. The film stars two Australian actors, Cate Blanchett, as Elizabeth I, and Geoffrey Rush, as Sir Francis Walsingham, her confidante.

That’s not the only Australian con­ nection. As well as procuring the talents of Australian editor Jill Bilcock, Kapur also commissioned composer David Hirschfelder to write the score, which has been recorded and mixed in Melbourne.

While it was Hirschfelder’s idea to record the score in Australia, Kapur had been primed to possibly make fur­ ther use of the post-production facilities here. “I think at one point Jill spoke to me about doing post-produc­ tion here”, he explained during a break in mixing the soundtrack.

S

Every facility I’ve seen in Australia offers great post-production exper­ tise, but I think Working Title has already got a director from India, and they didn’t want the director from India to go to Australia and do the post-production there; they’d feel a little out of control. They want some more control over the film than that.

Kapur is constantly amazed at the number of Australians involved in the international film industry, a phenome­ non which he thinks is tied up with Australians’ urge to travel and search for identity. However, it was some­ thing a little more basic that convinced

Kapur that Hirschfelder was the man for the job. “PolyGram set up a meet­ ing with me in a place called the Soho House in London, and sometimes just two people get along”, he said.

I had not seen Strictly Ballroom [Baz Luhrmann, 1992], and I’d heard the score of Shine [Scott Flicks, 1996], but I think that’s not why it happened. It happened because of a connection. Sometimes it’s very difficult to make that, and try and understand that connection.

I’m always looking for how much emotion will be given. Once you’re a composer, obviously there are cer­ tain parameters of your art that you accept. You can take five painters of equal technical ability, and one of them’s great and one of them’s bor­ ing. The one that’s great’s difference is attitude and emotion; how much of themselves they give.

So, I instinctively look for people that will give their soul.

Flaving assumed that he [Hirschfelder] did a film like Shine and had been nominated for an Oscar, I felt that he had the techni­ cal ability. I felt that warmth, and I felt that here was a man that scored with a heart, and was des­ perately in search for things to connect with.

We discussed things and, within about twenty minutes of meeting, we just went to a piano that was in the club, he played some notes, and I thought, “If a man can give me notes that I like so fast, then I need to hang onto him.” Those notes became the love theme, and they were made in twenty minutes in a club in Soho on a piano. © C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

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T h e m o s t c o m p e te tiv e ra te s in S y d n e y

Lights

j ilm and Television Studies may be a rela­

■

tively new fie ld o f study at Bond Universi™ t y b u t it’s proved to be a fa s t developer.

‘The success of the Bond Film & Television program results from four factors”, says Professor of Film & Television, Bruce Molloy.

“First, is the balance between theory and practice; second, the strong professional input, both from the advisory committee that oversees the courses and from the many industry professionals who contribute to the teaching program; third, the enthusiasm, creativity and dedication of both staff and students, and fourth is the fact Bond University works to three semesters in each academic year, allowing completion of both undergradu­ ate and postgraduate Film and Television degrees in minimal time.”

Camera

Action

An Effective Team Professor Bruce Molloy has been a director of Barron Entertainment, makers of “Ship to Shore” and “Kings in Grass Castles”, and a board member of the PFTC and the Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF). Another member of the teaching team is Bridget Goodwin whose documentary “A Young Tree Green” was screened on prime time on ABC TV on September 8.

Over the past three years, students have undertaken internships on numerous productions including “Flipper #2 ”; “Pacific Drive”, “Meteorite”; “Project X”; “Fire”; “Medivac”; “Dear Claudia”, “Black Ice” and “Misery Guts”.

Masters Students in the News Well-known Gold Coast ABC TV reporter Karen Berkman, a one-year Master of Film and Television student wrote a feature script, “Suspicion”, as part of her studies, and is currently under consideration by a major Australian producer.

Nicole McCuaig, who will graduate with a master’s degree this year, won the documentary prize at this year’s Queensland New Filmmakers Awards for her dramatic expose of Schoolies’ Week, “Rage of Inno­ cence”, which screened on ABC TV in February this year. Nicole’s next project, a feature film, has received development funding from the Pacific Film and Televi­ sion state film agency.

The Future “With the prospect of introducing a new masters in interactive media, and with plans for expansion of inhouse production, the future for Bond’s film and televi­ sion students appears very bright indeed”, said Profes­ sor Molloy.

Unique Internships A unique feature of the Bond Film & Television course is its link with the Warner Roadshow Studios at Coomera. Advanced students have been interns at the studios, many of them finding employment based on the experience and contacts they gained there.

For fu rther information please contact

Brett Hartley: Phone: (07) 5595 2508; Fax: (07) 5595 2545

BOND UNIVERSITY T h e

b e s t

y o u

c a n

d o

3 11

fe s t iv a ls : b r is b a n e

Penèlope Cruz. A little original casting would be a relief.

The film starts brilliantly, an eerie and moody documentation of a hand­ some and wealthy bachelor as he does nothing with his life, other than play tennis and try not to spend two nights with the same girl. With such a partner turn-over, it is to be expected he finds a psycho in the pack. The result is person­ ally disastrous and leads to the film’s unsettling shift into science fiction.

In many ways, the film parallels the work of major British writer Christopher Priest. His books always begin realistically, but by half-way have shifted to pure tabulation. John Fowles has written extensively about Priest’s great narrative skills, but also expressed his anxiety at reaching that point in each book when novelistic reality is abandoned for science fiction (or some other fabulist form).

Open Your Eyes has the same concerns. The last half feels like it has come from another film, as if some of Gattaca [Andrew Nicol, 1997] got swapped with it at the lab. The futuris­ tic elements are potentially interesting but rendered somewhat silly, the direc­ tion rather clunky. The open ending is also annoying. No wonder the director has got into verbal disputes with audi­ ences at festivals around the world.

Ultimately, given all he has asked his audience to accept, there is an arrogance in snubbing his nose at them with such an open-text ending. All films are open texts; do we really have to have it shoved so unsubtly in our faces?

12:00 Sunday 2 August Vincent Minnelli moved from theatre to film at the ripe old age of 40 (mid­ dle-aged yet-to-be-filmmakers don’t despair) to make the classic Cabin in the Sky. With an all-black cast (cinema’s first), and great comic performances

by Ethel Waters and Eddie Anderson, this is pure delight. Waters can also belt out a tune, as does Lena Horne in her first screen role.

Cabin in the Sky is both a witty addition to the gone-to-heaven-andreturned genre (cf Here Comes Mr Jordan) and the black musical. While some of the stereotyping might upset the puritanically correct, for the rest the sheer narrative momentum and the obvious joyousness at work will be a real high.

Then, too, there is Lena Horne pulling up her skirt to reveal her garter and what makes her a women (as the

54

dialogue hints), before singing the gloriously explicit “Honey in the Hon­ eycomb”. How did that ever get past the censors?

14:15 Sunday 2 August Ulrike Koch’s The Saltmen of Tibet is ethnographic filmmaking for the com­ mitted (in this case, a more-than-full cinema). It is a minutely-detailed look at the life of tribesmen who cross the “roof of the world” to collect salt from the high lakes of the Himalayas. This patriarchal culture, where no women are allowed on the trip and all men are strictly classified as to tasks and posi­ tion, is one of the few cultures left untouched by modern man (despite the worst efforts of the Chinese).

Like many a great ethnographic documentary, this is slow-going, care­ fully capturing the lifestyle and pace of its subjects. As such, it is immensely valuable, especially to those fasci­ nated by Tibet or vanishing peoples.

The pity is that it was shot on video (and then telecined onto 35mm film).

While the end result could be argued to be an advance of telecines of the past, it is ghastly to watch in a cinema.

Video belongs on television, where it looks kind of acceptable; in a cinema, it is an abomination.

Still, the capacity audience seemed to feel differently, communally relish­ ing this record of a special people.

“Communal” is not a bad word for Brisbane. Being a less-hectic city than Sydney or Melbourne, without its pressures and angst (though the new parliament had just sat and the battles there were rather frightening). As a result, the Brisbane Film Festival has all the pleasures of a regional interna­ tional festival, such as Valladolid in Spain. Its range of films is wide and well-chosen, without the inordinate number of already-bought films that bedevilled the big festivals last year (but not this).

Brisbane’s is a festival growing in stature and one hopes the political turmoils in the north do not negatively affect what is now a major culture event in this country. © 1 See Michael Kitson, “John Ruane’s Sen­ timental Comedies”, Cinema Papers, no. 125, June 1998, pp. 32-4, 73.

2 See Margaret Smith, “Miranda Otto: Truth or Dare”, Cinema Papers, no.

120, October 1997, pp. 18-22, 42.

3 John W. Hood, “A Depleted Showcase the 1998 Panorama of Indian Cinema”, Cinema Papers, no. 125, op. cit., p. 70.

-ea 12 f e s t i v a l s : S y d n e y

Radiance The most popular film (according to one report) ofthe Festival, surpris­ ingly, was Rachel Perkins’ Radiance.3 This is surprising because ofthe painful nature ofthe subject matter: three grieving sisters trying to make sense ofthe past life (and death) of their mother. The film’s tendency towards naturalism is on occasions undermined by the artifice that is introduced by the narrative frames (Madame Butterfly and Louie Nowra’s play ofthe same name). But the film catches fire when the emotional fragility of each of the sisters is explored and allowed to unravel before us on the screen. Such epipha­ nies carry a tremendous charge and, though these scenes are painful to watch, they are for the most part represented with piercing insight and clarity.

The performances in these scenes are remarkable indeed, from Rachael Maza (the breakdown of her character, Cressy, is overwhelming precisely because the character had seemed so restrained in earlier scenes); from Trisha Morton Thomas (whose charac­ ter had been slightly less restrained than Maza’s); and from Deborah Mail­ man (as the ‘modern’ hybrid, Nona).

Indeed, the film is rather restrained in style; its strength comes from the three central performances and from the accumulated weight of tragic absence that becomes resonant and timely in broader historical terms: absent parents - ever-present ghosts - that haunt the fabric of these characters’ lives.

This is a timely and thoughtful film for thoughtful people: there are half-evoked but nonetheless deeply-affecting subtexts about dis­ possession and the negative impact of colonization upon traditional ways of life and rites of passage, just as there are allusions to division and separation. This is a courageous and painfully honest film. One hopes that Australians will respond to it at the box-office. © 1 See Jan Epstein, “Into the War Zone”, in Cinema Papers, no. 123, March 1998, pp. 28-30,452 See Barrie Pattison, “The Best of British: Maurice Elvey”, in Cinema Papers, no. 125, June 1998, pp. 18, 72.

3 See Scott Murray, “Radiance”, Cinema Papers, no. 125, op. cit., p. 25; and the interview with Louis Nowra in this issue.

3 27

ra n k in g th e tre a su re s

who did not consider movies beneath his dignity, he appeared constantly through the silent period (significantly in Maurice Elvey’s 1922 Wandering Jew). Upon the arrival of sound, he showed a devel­ oping understanding of its demands, and ambitious productions were mounted around him. In Milton Rosmer’s intriguing 1933 Channel Crossing, Lang is an orchid-wearing tycoon trying to escape the conse­ quences of the stock-market crash one of the few British films to touch a subject which Hollywood treated extensively.

A year later he is Nova Pilbeam’s divorced actor dad in Little Friend, a film aggressively in the trappings of progressive cinema - Germanic dream sequences, roving camera, all-white décors. This is again the work of Berthold Vieterl, confirming that his English films unfortunately now seem merely ponderous.

A r lis s George Arliss, whose success in Hollywood at the age of 60-plus was surprising, fits right in here with his archaic stage successes not all that different from the work done around him in the British industry. Rosmer’s 1935 The Guvnor is agreeable and unconvinc­ ing as tramp Arliss uses his distant connection to the Rothschilds to outwit stock swindlers.

His exotics are more interesting.

In East Meets West, directed by Herbert Mason in 1936, “ Old Fox” Arliss, Sultan of Tunara, plays the Raj, favoured by his Oxford-edu­ cated son (“England is strong and splendid”) against wily orientals represented by the ever-admirable Romney Brent. Mason’s 1936 His Lordship has twin Arlisses, one an old Arab hand and the other a snotty Lord who pontificates, “There are only two things to be done with orientals: persuasion and troops.” As with Victor Schertzinger’s 1939 Technicolor The Mikado, the studio Eastern design reveals that the accomplish­ ment represented by Thief of Bagdad is not the stands-alone achievement it appeared. © The second part o f this article will be published in the next issue of Cinema Papers.

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

Cinema s il) b u n and the Senses

îv m 'M i’O

visual culture and spectatorship

November 13-15 1998 University o f New South Wales rs An in te r n a tio n a l con feren ce o r g a n is e d by the S c h o o l o f T h eatre, F ilm a n d D an ce , UNSW , a n d the D e p a rtm e n t o f A rt H isto ry a n d T h eory , U n iv e rsity o f S y d n e y .

In tern ation al keynote speakers: Patrice Petro (University of W isconsin-M ilwaukee) and Ashish R ajadh yaksh a. The Indian film director K u m ar Shahani, will be an international guest at the conference. There will also be a screening of his m ost recent work. Local speakers include M eaghan Morris, Adrian M artin, Helen Grace, Ross Gibson, Cathryn Vasseleu, Simon During and Therese D avis, A lan Cholodenko, Laleen Jayam an ne.

get ffe c t ve

Registration: $120, concession $60. Daily rates available.

Contact: 02 9385 5635 or 02 9351 4213 Email: j.brooks@ unsw.edu.au or g.kouyaros@ unsw.edu.au Cinema and the Senses has been assisted by the Australian Film Commission, the India Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Power Institute, University of Sydney, and the University of NSW.

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^ 2 2 d e s ig n in g v is io n s

and a very emotional film to make. I think I was so exhausted at the end and glad that I had left no stone unturned.

That was the film I wanted to make, and so I can’t really complain. You accept the result and reaction, whatever that is, when you’ve gone to the limit of your ability on a particular project.

It’s painful when you don’t really feel that you had your hands entirely around the material. You’re vulnerable and you hope you’ll get away with it; you hope there’s enough good stuff for it to not be noticed. You read the reviews very closely to see if anyone’s onto you.

My main disappointment was that it didn’t find a wider audience. But the cost was reasonably controlled for a film of that ambition. I don’t know if they’ll make their money back, but it’s a fact of life today that people just won’t go, even filmlovers, for some­ thing that they feel is going to be in some way taxing emotionally.

But

t h a t d o e s n ’ t e x p l a in w h y s o m e

REVIEW ERS GET ANGRY WHEN FILMS TRY TO DEAL WITH TH ESE TOPICS.

I remember a journalist who said, “My husband and I generally like movies together. We have the same kind of broad view of things and we had the most awful fight after that. He went so far as to say they shouldn’t make films like that. That’s not what movies are meant to be.”

Y o u ’r e

o n e of th e few

A u s t r a l ia n

DIRECTORS TO BE CONCERNED ENOUGH ABOUT THE CONDITION OF ONE’S FILMS TO RESTORE THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVES AND MAKE PRINTS FOR THE NATIONAL F il m & S o u n d A r c h i v e . It

m a y s e e m an

OBVIOUS QUESTION, BUT WHY ARE YOU SO DEDICATED TO PRESERVATION WHEN OTHER DIRECTORS SEEM TO BE LESS S O ?

The Archive doesn’t have much of a budget; it is always going to be short of money. There’s nothing like a good print, especially of an older film, and nothing worse than one that’s scratched and faded. The only way of ensuring a good print is by looking after the negative.

I’d made a donation when they were putting Jedda [Charles Chauvel, 1955] together and were short of money, and I thought I should look after my own films first off. So I said I’d go through everything that’s there and do any­ thing I could, spending money on, one, making sure that they had a new print and, two, if there was any question of safety of negatives and so on, that I’d pay for it. It seems to make sense to me that there’s always a good print

56

available should the film be lucky enough to survive time in other ways, if you know what I mean.

It ’ s

an ex a m ple o n e w o u ld h o pe

OTHERS WILL FOLLOW. I UNDERSTAND YOU’VE MADE AN EXHIBITION COPY AND A PRESERVATION COPY OF ALL YOUR FILMS.

I love that idea that there’s something there that looks like it did when it left my care.

A re

y o u d e v e l o p in g p r o j e c t s t h a t

HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE FINANCED AND FILMED IN AU STRALIA?

I’m not developing anything at the moment; I’m reading scripts. It was certainly never my intention to only make films in America. As you know, I live here, I cut my pictures and mix them here, and work on the screen­ plays here. It’s been a case of going off to location.

Initially when I went to America, I was ready for a break. I’d made five feature films, shorts and a television movie, and it was time to have a change of scenery, new people and new stimula­ tions, just like a painter goes to another country to reinvigorate himself.

But that period is long past and now I’ve made, I think, six features there.

Nothing would please me more than to do something here, or anywhere else other than America, just for a change.

I love that saying that a film is its own country. When filmmakers begin their careers, they’re very interesting for their talent and fresh voice alone, but they give a quick reflection of their society. If they have the potential for a long career, after a certain number of films they become the country. You don’t think of Bergman as Swedish, first off. “A Bergman film”: he could live in Bergmania for all I know. There is no other Swede like him. You don’t go to Sweden and say, “Gosh, this is Bergman country.” You could get the feeling of a Bergman film on a foggy night in a forest outside Sydney. They create a landscape, as Hitchcock did, which is so recognizable it becomes Hitchcockian.

Nationality is of interest, but it’s not significant, other than when somebody is beginning their career. They give a very fresh view of their country.

But I feel energetic, invigorated, stim­ ulated. Naturally, when you get a good reception to a film, it is encouraging.

In fact, the danger is to go off too quickly onto something else. There’s a dangerous period when you feel somewhat invincible, like the Roman general, when he got a triumph in Rome and the slave had to whisper, “You’re only human.” ®

17 leg a l ease

parody of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman”.

The Supreme Court stated that copy­ right owners do not have an absolute right to stop others poking fun at their words or music. Justice Souter stated that parody “can provide social benefit, by shedding light on the earlier work, and, creating a new one.” In a recent 1997 unreported decision, the photog­ rapher Annie Liebovitz failed in her action against the producers of the spoof film Naked Gun 33V3. The pro­ ducers used the plaintiffs photograph of Demi Moore naked and pregnant, transposing the leading actor’s, Leslie Neilsen, head in place of Moore’s head.

Once again, the Court held that the fair use exception applied.

It is arguable that both these cases would have been decided in favour of the copyright owner under the Aus­ tralian law. Besides parody, highly referential and simulationist work of artists such as Sherrie Levine and audio­ visual artists utilizing sampling and multimedia are at risk under the Act.

C onclusion Postmodernist artists rely on appropri­ ation of images as a key strategy to contest the claim of authority and meaning of images.

The drive for meaning and the understanding of self are seen as dialogistic processes with other selves that is never complete [...], if what is quintessential human is the capacity to make meaning, challenge meaning and transform meaning, then we strip ourselves of humanity through overzealous application and continuous expansion of intellectual property protections.14 Copyright must be contested because we will lose a vocabulary to respond and challenge the ‘monologic’ tenden­ cies of official culture. Postmodern practices like satire, parody, irony, quotation, collage, stylization and polemic help contest the ownership and control of the meaning of signs.

Such practices challenge and open up images to new ‘recodings’ and genera­ tion of new meaning through metaphor and recontextualization. They help revi­ talize and maintain cultural dynamism against the forces of appropriation and commodification of cultural forms that monopolize our shared images and signs for commercial use. © P o s t s c r i p t : A newspaper is not doing its job properly unless it’s defaming; you cannot be postmodern unless you breach copyright?

B ib l io g r a p h y

Australian Government, Common­ wealth Attorney-General’s Deptartment: Proposed Moral Rights Legislation for Copyright Creators June 1994, AGPS. L. Cahoone (Ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism, an Anthology, Blackwell, 1996 CCH, Australian Intellectual Prop­ erty Law Service para 7-480 R. Ferguson (Ed), Discourses: Con­ versations in Postmodern Art & Culture, MIT Press, 1990 j. M. Gaines, Contested Culture, BFI Publishing, 1991 D. Harvey, The Condition of Post­ modernity, Blackwell, 1989 I. Hoesterev (Ed.), Zeitgeist in Babel, Indiana University Press 1991 P. Keyser, “Postmodernism, moral rights and parody: the potential for contestability within proposed amend­ ments to the copyright law”, UTS, unpublished monograph.

G. Minda, Postmodern Legal Move­ ments, New York University Press, 1995 D. Patterson (Ed.), Postmodernism and Law, New York University Press, 1994 M. Weir, “Making Sense of Copyright Law Relating to Parody: A Moral Rights Perspective”, 18 Monash Uni Law Review, p. 195 N. Wheale (Ed.), Postmodern Arts, Routledge, 1995 1 D. Harvey, The Condition of Post­ modernity, Blackwell, 1989, p. 49.

2 D. Harvey, ibid, p. 45.

3 D. Harvey, ibid, p. 51.

4 P. Schlag, “Postmodernism and Law” (1991), 62 Univ. Colorado Law Review 440, at p. 4475 D. Harvey, ibid, p. 53.

6 J. M. Gaines, Contested Culture, BFI Publishing, 1991, p. 1.

7 vide J. C. Lahore, Intellectual Property Law Service, Butterworths, para 4.11.200.

8 M. Weir, “Making Sense of Copyright Law Relating to Parody: A Moral Rights Perspective”, 18 Monash Uni Law Review, p. 195.

9 CCH, Australian Intellectual Property Law Service, para 7-480.

10 CCH, ibid, 7-480.

11 Australian Government, Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Deptartment: Proposed Moral Rights Legislation for Copyright Creators June 1994, AGPS. 12 AGPS, ibid, p. 2.

13 AGPS, ibid, p. 49.

14 R. Coombe, “Objects of Property and Subjects of Politics: Intellectual Prop­ erty Laws and Democratic crtiique”, in Patterson (Ed.), Postmodernism and Law, New York University Press, 1994, p. 300.

C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER' 1 998

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•a 35

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were just a few characters. It was Rachel’s first film.

S h e h a d d ir e c t e d a n d p r o d u c e d D O C U M E N T A R IE S .

I had never done a film with a first-fea­ ture director, and the great thing about Rachel is that, amidst this confidence, she is not shy in saying what she doesn’t know. We had a wonderful time. We went through books about adapting plays into screenplays [laughs].

The process of writing the script was very interesting, because I couldn’t take my play for granted. Rachel kept on asking questions.

The difficultly about the film is it is such a small budget. It was originally a play and you face a dilemma in that you can’t, even if you wanted to, open it out. We didn’t have the money, and at the same time we wanted to develop the ambience of North Queensland and the tropics. It was a balancing act of making sure the audience didn’t think that they were watching a play and yet not being afraid of claustrophobia.

If t h e y h ad th e m o n e y to d o all th e F IL M IN G O N L O C A T IO N , IT W O U L D H A VE HAD EVEN M O R E IM P A C T .

One has to take the financial constraints for what they are, and at the same time realize that the film is concentrating on three half-sisters and that the emotions between them are the important thing.

H O W D ID Y O U FEEL A B O U T T H E TH R E E FE M A LE A C TO R S ?

Interestingly enough, it is the only play of mine that I can watch on stage with­ out closing my eyes. It is the only play of mine that I can go and see again and again. I don’t know the reason for it. It must be something about the emotions between the three sisters. With the film, I found that I had those same feelings of involvement.

W h e n y o u w r o t e i t , w a s it in t e n d e d T O BE AN IN D IG E N O U S D R A M A ?

I was near Yeppoon staying in a motel.

Yeppoon has a lot of mud flats and I saw a figure on the mud flats and I thought it was a very evocative image.

I rarely spend time in my private life with actors, but, as coincidence and events would actually have it, the most time I ever spent with actors has been with Aboriginal actors Justine Saun­ ders, Rhoda Roberts and Lydia Miller, as friends.

It was the first time I’d ever thought, as a writer, “That is an interesting aspect of them.” So when I wrote parts for Lydia in my plays, it was the first time that as a writer I was taking parts of the actor’s personality and putting it in a character. A lot of writers do that, C I N E M A P A P E R S • OCTOBER 1998

but it just so happened these were the actors that I knew more than any other

they are Aborigines is never mentioned, because, like any group of people who

actors.

I was down in Melbourne and I was thinking about this image and I imag­ ined Lydia, Rhoda and Kylie Belling.

The next day, Lydia knocked on the door. She was passing through Mel­ bourne, and said, “I’ve been thinking

are Aboriginal, they don’t sit around discussing their own identity.

screen it is truly sexy.

The film is an inexplicable mixture of all sorts of things that shouldn’t work and half the time is in danger of falling

The other thing that was very impor­ tant was we didn’t want to do a film where people think, “All right, I’ll go and see it because it is my duty.” We were really keen that it was a film that people tell others to go see: “It is funny, it is moving and, by the way, they happen to be Aborigines.”

apart, but it works!

And what of that visceral moment when Samantha Egger’s husband walks in on her in The Brood to see her giving birth to a child created out of pure rage? Exquisite and unforgettable - as are the haunting tableaux images of The Colour of Pomegranates.

of this idea. Why don’t you write a play for me, Rhoda and Kylie?” It was com­ pletely out of the blue, an absolute case of serendipity! I said I’ve been thinking of this idea, so I wrote the play Radiance, and then Kylie couldn’t do it. Rachel Maza did the premiere and later the film, so actually Radiance came out of wanting to do a play for these actresses.

W a s w o r k in g w it h Ra c h e l , a w o m a n D IR E C T O R , A N Y D IF F E R E N T TO A N Y O TH E R C O L L A B O R A T IO N S ?

I’ve worked with women directors a lot in theatre. It was interesting that the premiere of the play was directed by a woman, Rosalba Clemente. I actually thought that was a great help, because somehow a woman director can get the cruelty of how women treat other women better than men can - the psy­ chological cruelty and how one can whittle away at one another. Having been brought up in an all-woman house­ hold, I fully understand that. A man may go for an easier way of describing and painting the emotions, so I think having a woman was important.

It is a b r a v e r f il m t h a n a n y o f t h e A n g l o f il m s w e a r e m a k in g l a t e l y .

One of the things about it that Rachel and I talked about during the writing was not to be afraid of a richness of emotions.

Y O U H A VE A L W A Y S BEEN IN T E R E S T E D IN Y O U R C H A R A C TER S C O N V E Y IN G BIG P IC T U R E S .

We often forget, especially in the 20th century, how all of us are caught up in big events and we don’t recognize it.

My main concern is never to make any of my characters abstract. It has to start from the personal; they have to be interesting characters who get caught up in large events.

With Radiance, my and the original actresses’ concern was that, whenever people do films with Aboriginal actors, they become abstractions; they become vessels for political stances and, generally, victims.

L o o k a t W il d s id e : t h e y e v e n g a v e t h e A b o r ig in a l a c t o r A a r o n P e d e r s o n an

It a l ia n p a r e n t .

[Laughs.] I like that.

In Radiance, the crucial thing is the emotions between the sisters. That

A r e y o u t h in k in g o f d ir e c t in g ?

Yes, I’m going to direct, but I must say this is not because I’m annoyed with what directors have done to my scripts.

I have written what they wanted. The great irony is that I would never have wanted to direct the film scripts I have written. I am inclined towards a differ­ ent style of directing and directors.

W h ic h d i r e c t o r s a r e t h e y ?

[Sergei] Paradjanov, director of the astonishing The Colour of Pomegran­ ates [Sayat Nova, 1972]. I am attracted to visually-flamboyant films like Nic Roeg’s Eureka [1981], one of the great unsung movies of the past 20 years.

David Cronenberg’s The Brood [1979] also had a huge impact on me.

I also like Tarkovsky films with the dialogue turned off. Images are every­ thing; dialogue is the white noise that glues them together.

Y o u r e x p e r i e n c e i n t h e p a s t in c i n e m a IS W R IT IN G TH E W O R D S A N D H A V IN G THE D IR E C TO R IN T E R P R E T T H E M , B U T N O W YO U ARE G O IN G TO BE THE D IR E C TO R A N D N E E D IN G A D O P TO HELP IN T E R P R E T Y O U R P IC TU R E S ? D O Y O U T H IN K TH A T IS G O IN G TO BE A PR O B LE M ?

I don’t know. I directed a short film recently and it gave me a confidence to know I can film my own scripts without being precious about them.

IS T H IS PA R T OF Y O U R E V O L U T IO N , TO O ?

T h e w r it e r is s o m e t i m e s a l o n e l y P R O F E S S IO N , A N D S O M E T IM E S Y O U

W h a t is t h is f i l m : h a s t h e id e a c o m e

W A N T TO BE IN V O L V E D IN O T H E R F O R M S

F R O M Y O U , O R S O M E W H E R E ELSE?

OF TH E C R E A T IO N .

Well, it is a mixture of both, but it started out of images. That is how it always begins. I see a figure in a cer­ tain landscape and I want to know why that person is there.

The best films are dreams. I’ve just been working in LA with Kathryn Bigelow, who directed Near Dark [1987] and Strange Days [1995]. Near Dark is to me one of the most exciting films of the ’80s, a vampire movie set in the American mid-west, and it has all the power of wonderful movies in that sometimes you actually think it is a dream you are watching.

C i n e m a is s o m u c h m o r e p o w e r f u l B EC AUSE Y O U ’ RE IN A D A R K PLACE LIKE IN A D R E A M . W IT H T E L E V IS IO N , Y O U ARE S U R R O U N D E D BY E V E R Y T H IN G ELSE.

Television is word-driven and drives me to distraction. Nothing in television can compare to the violence and beauty of Gene Hackman’s death in Eureka.

There’s an exceptional movie called White of the Eye [1987], directed by Donald Cammell, who recently blew his brains out. It is an extraordinary mix­ ture of schlock, operatic emotions, horror and visual extravagance. It has one scene where Cathy Moriarty walks away as Hot Chocolate sings, “I Believe in Miracles”. On paper, it seems a banal combination, but on

I am very lucky in that I achieve a deep satisfaction out of writing my plays and novels. What I like about being involved in films is to be part of a film’s creation with the director, to travel to places I would never have normally gone ... and the money.

W h a t is y o u r f e e l i n g a b o u t w h e r e the

A u s t r a l ia n f il m in d u s t r y is a t

A N D W H E R E IT M IG H T GO?

The difficult thing for the Australian film industry is going to be the move from the small budgets we have been dealing with to larger ones. With that comes a certain level of compromise.

One of the interesting things is that move from quirky movies into some­ thing that is emotionally truer and richer.

I think the quirky Australian movies are wonderful, but they are very defen­ sive in that they want their cake and eat it, too; they want you to feel the emotions and, at the same time, they want you to laugh at the emotions.

Whereas with The Boys [Rowan Woods, 1998] and Radiance, they are vulnerable movies; either good or bad, they are vulnerable. Muriel’s Wedding [P. J. Hogan, 1994], Strictly Ballroom [Baz Luhrmann, 1992] and Cosi [Mark Joffe, 1994] are not vulnera­ ble; they are films where the humour is defensive. ®

57

The end of the black & white credit roll?

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F u n d in g D e c isio n s

P ro d u c tio n S u rv e y

Feature Film

Features in Planning

Soft Fruit

Television Drama Capital Hill On the Beach

59 59

The Irish Empire Diving School Eye Witness Action.

They-Think I’m in Heaven Winds of Change

59 60

Features in Pre-Production Bored Olives Change of Hearts Demons in my Head The Drover’s Boy Komodo - The Living Terror Passion Sample People Second Drill Selkie Siam Sunset

Documentaries 59 59 59 59 59 59

60

Paperback Hero Snowdrop Somewhere in the Darkness Two Hands Waste

Features In Production

The Magic Pudding Paradise Lost, Paradise Found

59

Strange Planet

60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60

Cat’s Tale Holy Smoke In A Savage land Looking for Alibrandi Muggers Pitch Black

60 60 60 60 61 61

62 62

Documentaries The Man in the Iron Mask

62

Television Driven Crazy Noah’s Arc Tribe Witch Hunt

Features in Post-Production Babe: Pig in the City The Craie Dear Claudia Feeling Sexy Fresh Air The Missing The Matrix

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61 61 61 61 61 61 61

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Short Films Rats and Cats Sugar Inc Tea Party Animals

Inproduction MH E A R T S

CHANGE

FFC Funding Decisions

•

OLI VES

ABOARD

Documentaries DIVING SCHOOL

Board meeting ^^Bin^Juxie 1998, the FF C M ^^tentered into contract negotiations with the produc­ e s jppfhe following projects:

D ist : Fox S earchlight , G oldwyn Films

^ o ftF ru it A hefty family tale.

Adult Television Drama

Documentaries THE IRISH EMPIRE

(5X55 MINUTE NON-ACCORD)

Latent I mage P roductions P ty Ltd D: K en Cameron EP: R ebel P enfold -R ussell Ps: S ue M illiken , S heridan J obbins W: A lison N iselle Presales: ABC, A rena TV Dist: H allm ark En tertainment

Official A ustralian / I rish CO-PRODUCTION

Hilton Cordeli & Associates W-Ds: David Roberts , A lan G ilsenan , D earbhla W alsh Ps: Chris H ilton , R itchie C ogan EPs: Chris H ilton , J ames M itchell , A ndre S inger ' Researchers: SlOBHAN M c H ugh , J ane M ann ing , O live H owe , N iam h B arrett Presales: SBS, BBC, RTE Dist: PRC, SIBS

T h e r e are seventy million men and I women of Irish descent around the world - all spawned from one small nation. The Irish Empire is the extraordinary story of the Irish Diaspora that has emptied Ireland of Its young since the 17th century. The series will look at the psychology and culture of exile, and how a sense of nation has been carried in the heads of successive generations and emigrants. The Australian story is unique in that the Irish legacy is far more than bridges, railways, industries or individuals, although it is all of these. For many Australians it will come as a surprise to discover the profound influence Irish immigrants have had on Australian life.

f o llowing a Bpatd'Meeting the F F ,€ 'Dnas entered into contract negotiations with the productfisiofJhed£oILo\xtihg projects:

P e ld - m J u ly 1998,

Feature FLLm SOFT FRUIT

(100 MINUTES) S oft Fruit Pty Ltd

W-D: C hristina A ndreef P: H elen B owden EP: J ane Ca m pio n

C I N E M A P A P E R S • A U GU S T

political thriller set against the backdrop of one of the youngest and most robust parliaments in the world, Capital Hill is also about the politics of personal power. Who's got it, who wants it, and what they're willing to do to get it It tells the story of the prophetic link between two women and their sons. One woman, Gabrielle Jacka, has the charisma and intelligence to become Prime Minister, and the other, Ka-Ling Tuc, is a refugee who has evidence which can bring down the illegal Triad organisations in Australia.

A

ON THE BEACH

(2X2 HOUR MINI SERIES) S outhern S tar E ntertainment Pty Ltd D: S im o n W incer EPs: E rrol S u llivan , J eff H ayes P: Errol S ullivan W: D avid W iliam so n Presales: CHANNEL 7 Dist: H allm ark Entertainm ent

olding fast to the memory of a wife and children who could not possibly have survived the holocaust, US submarine commander Dwight Towers makes his way to Melbourne, the last remaining place on Earth to be affected by the nuclear fallout of W W III. He is attracted to the beautiful, wild and dangerous Moira and meets her ex-lover Julian, an egoist but brilliant scientist. Just as all optimism seems in vain, a new scientific theory offers Julian, Dwight and his crew one last heroic mission - t o sail north on a quest for life, and a future. Instead they find a horror only imagined.

H

998

SUNSETS

EYE WITNESS

(55 MINUTE ACCORD)

P rospero P roductions D: J ulia Redwood P: Ed P unchard Presales: ABC TV, Channel 5, RTE, D iscovery Europe Dist: Prim etim e UK

iving School will plunge the viewer Into the turbulent and pressured world of the world's premiere diving school in the UK. Focusing on a tenweek commercial diver training course, the series will follow 20 people, four of whom are Australian who will fly 12,000 kilometres and spend $12,000 to risk their lives. They will endure humiliation, physical and mental abuse, be forced to eat, sleep and work with theirteam members. Even after all of

D on Featherstone

P P roducer

ACTION

(27 MINUTE ACCORD) S onja A rmstrong P roductions W-D: Russel V ines P: S onja A rmstrong Presale: ABC TV Dist: ABC I nternational

L P Line P roducer

C C ast P C Principal C ast S E Story E ditor W D W riter-director D I S T D istrib utor

NO TE: Production, Survey forms now adhère, to a revised form at. Cinem a P apers regrets it cannot accept informatum received in a different form at.

C inem a P ap ers does not > accept responsibilityfo r the accuracy of any information supplied by production com-S panics: This is particularly the case when information changes hut the production company makes no attem pt to correct what has already been supplied.

RULE

marriage they, and theirtwo daughters, who are neither wholly Serb or Croat, cannot be assimilated by the new maps drawn up for the former Yugoslavia. Nominated by the UNHCR for resettlement in a third country, they have been granted asylum in Australia.

They Think I'm in Heaven documents a refugee family's difficult first months of life in Australia, a country about which they know nothing prior to their arrival.

G

A S A ssociate Producer D D irector

PLANETS

WINDS OF CHANGE eorge Gittoes Is one of the late 20th century's most interesting painters.

A social realist expressionist painter, Gittoes has witnessed and painted the major social and military conflicts over the last ten years. The film will document the work he has produced on his world travels and will follow him to China where he'll paint the workers and people Involved in the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze River. Eye Witness will provide an insight into the dark and heroic side of the human condition as we approach the millennium.

C o-P C o-Producer

S W Scriptw riter

productions

P-D-W: D on Featherstone Presale: ABC TV

K ey E P E xecutive P roducer

AND

this, it is not guaranteed they will pass.

If they fail, they will never be allowed to return and their hopes of becoming a commercial diver will be over.

(6X30 MINUTE NON ACCORD SERIES)

CAPITAL HILL

(2 X2 HOUR MINI SERIES)

•

62 62 62

nderneath the sheen of Sydney, the sparkling city that will host the Olympics, is a troubled urban mass struggling with the same problems as the rest of the world, including a 'youth crime wave'. Action follows a rather disorganised group of activists operating under the banner "Justice for Young People". The group is spearheaded by 17 year old Kitty O'Gorman, whose powerful personality skips from daunting confidence to taunting childishness and occasional bouts of vulnerability. Who is this young activist and why does she care when most people don't? Is she really passionate about what she is protesting against, or is she just passionate about being passionate?

This is a film as much about youth crime as it is about youth itself.

U

THEY THINK I'M IN HEAVEN

(55 MINUTE ACCORD) Habibi Films P-Ds: S herine Sa l a m a , A mos C ohen Presale: A B C TV

tevan is a Serb; his wife Djurdja is a Croat, and because of their mixed

S

(3X55 MINUTES, 4X40 MINUTES, 3X45 MINUTES NON-ACCORD SERIES) A lley K at P roductions P ty Ltd/ E lectric P ictures P ty Ltd W-D: A lan Carter EPs: A lan Carter , A ndrew O gilvie P: A ndrew Ogilvie Broadcasters: SBS, BBC, RTHK Dist: Film A ustralia

s western cultures try to find some meaning, clues or global trends in the lead-up to the new millennium, they could do well to look to the east There are plenty of statistics and theories about the rapid rise and decent dramatic decline of the 'tiger' economics of the 'Asian century'. Both for the region and globally it is timely to try and get to know from the inside what the human impact is of this huge social change. The series will go beyond the statistics to present the view of life from 'inside the bubble' in Indonesia, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

A

Features in Planning THE MAGIC PUDDING Production company: Energee En tertainm ent

Principal Credits Director: KARLZWICKY Executive producer: G erry T ravers Scriptwriter: M orris G leitzm an Based on the novel titled: T he M agic P ud ­ ding

By: N orman Lindsay Director of animation: ROBERT S m it

Marketing International sales agent: B eyond Film s

Cast T he voices of: G eoffrey Rush (B unyip B luegum ), H ugo W eaving (B ill B arnacle ), J ohn La w s (R umpus B u m pu s ), S a m N eill, J ack T hompson

S ynopsis orman Lindsay's classic tale, written to settle an argument over whether children preferred stories about food overthose of fantasy, is

N

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production Production Survey coming to life in a feature-length animated film.

PARADISE LOST, PARADISE FOUND Production company: A ustralian I nternational P ictures Production: MlD-1999

P rincipal credits Producers: J ohn Emery , W ayne G room Scriptwriter: J ohn Emery

S ynopsis O a ra d is e Lost, P a ra d is e Found looks # at what happened after the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Production Survey

Planning

and

Development

Casting: J ane Ro w land , N eil J ohnson Dialogue coach: N ikki P rice Shooting schedule by: N eil J ohnson Budgeted by: N eil J ohnson

A n adventure thriller about a young boy who suffers the insufferable losing his family - while on holidays on what was always their favourite island getaway. As a result of this, the boy becomes catatonic until a young doctor takes him back to the scene of his terror - and the real living and breathing dragons that exist todaythe Komodo Dragon.

PASSION

Insurer: Royal & S un A lliance

Production company: M att Carroll Films Distribution company: B eyond Films

P rincipal C redits

Camera operator: G rant H oi Focus puller: D uncan B arrett Clapper-loader: D uncan B arrett Camera assistant: D uncan B arrett Camera type: D igital B etacam

Director: PETER DUNCAN Producer: M att Carroll Scriptwriters: P eter Goldsworthy , R ob George Based on the stageplay: P ercy and Rose By: Rob G eorge

On- set C rew 1st assistant director: V e lv e t E ld r e d Script assistant: N ik k i P r ic e Continuity: Ü SA B r e h e n y Make-up: S t a r FX - L is a J a c o b Make-up assistants: L is a M c M a h o n ,

Government A gency Investment Development: FFC Marketing International sales agent: B eyond Films International distributor: HOLLYWOOD Partners , B eyond Film s , REP

J a c in t a M ille r

Special fx make-up: Star FX - L isa J acob Hairdresser: S tar FX - Lisa J acob

Cast R ichard Roxburgh (P ercy G rainger ) B arbara H ersey

A rt Department Propspeople: J ames D o bbin , J ason J urd

Featured in Pre-Production

W ardrobe Wardrobe supervisor: A ureole M cA lpine

Post- production Post-production supervisor: N eil J ohnson

BORED OLIVES

Cast

Pre-production: O ctober 1998 Locations: B risbane

M atthew M ariconte (T ravis B ro w n ), G reg B o w m a n - M iles (R egis ), A mber A llum (L ar issa ), J ane Rowland (M ar c ia ), J ames D obbin (B ill ), D avid V allon (W isest M an in the U niverse )

Principal credits Director: B elinda C hayko Producer: B ruce R edman Scriptwriter: S tephen D avis

P roduction crew Casting: PROTOTYPE CASTING

Finance Government funding:

AFC, SBS M illion D ollar M ovie I nitiative Other: PMP

Marketing D istrib u tio n : PMP, Beyond Films

S ynopsis bittersweet comedy about one night in the lives of six younf people working in a Brisbane Pizza parlour as they confront questions of love, identity and the meaning of life.

A

A CHANGE OF HEART Principal C redits Director: Rod H ay Producers: M urray Fahey , Rod H ay

Cast C hris H aywood , Grant B owler , R oxanne W ilson , T ony B arry

S ynopsis A C hange o f H e a rt is the story of

/4 ja s o n ,th e advertising guru and heartless material man who has to rediscover his morals when he meets a nine-year-old girl who needs a heart transplant.

DEMONS IN MY HEAD Production company: Empire M otion P ictures Budget: $500,000

Principal C redits Director: N eil J ohnson Producers: J ane R o w land , N eil J ohnson Line producer: JANE ROWLAND Executive producer: GEORGE B rook Scriptwriter: N eil J ohnson Director of photography: G rant H oi Production designers: J ames D o bbin , J ason J urd Costume designer: A ureole M cA lpine Editor: N eil J ohnson Sound designer: N eil JOHNSON

60

assion is the story of acclaimed pianist, composer and eccentric, Percy Grainger, and the intense relationship with his mother Rose, which dominated his life. The film charts Percy's rise from child prodigy to the toast of Edwardian London, revered and celebrated throughout the world.

P

SAMPLE PEOPLE Production company: L iving M otion P ictures Budget: $2 m P re-P roduction : A ug 1998 Production: S ept/O ct 1998 1998

Synopsis A meteorite crashes into the back garden of Travis Brown. Upon opening it, he discovers a headset that allows the wearer to bring strange objects across from another dimension.

THE DROVER'S BOY Production company: Y irandi P roductions Production: AUGUST - OCTOBER 1998 Budget: $7 m Length: 100 MIN Gauge: 35 m m

Principal C redits Director: Clinton S mith Producers: Emile S herm an , B arton S mith Executive producer: J onathan S hteinman Scriptwriters: Clinton S m ith , P eter B uckmaster

SECOND DRILL Production company: S econd D rill P roductions Pre-production: AUGUST 1998 Production: O ctober- D ecember 1998

Principal credits Director: C hris Lang m an Producers: Stuart M enzies , T ed Egan Executive producer: T ed Egan Scriptwriter: N erys Evans Director of photography: B rett A nderson Production designer: Robert P erkins

P rincipal C redits Director: Charles " B ud " T ingwell Producer: Cameron J ames M iller Co-producer: PEITA CRAWFORD Executive producers: OSCAR S cheri, J ames P odaridis , J ohn M orrow Scriptwriters: A nthony Langone , Roger D unn Director of photography: I an J ones

Finance Funding: PRIVATE

Cast N in g ali , W illiam I c I nnes , Ernie D ingo , C hris Haywood , Ray B arrett , J ustine S aunders

P roduction C rew Production manager: R on B uch 1st assistant director: T im M iller

S ynopsis

Cast

^^ustralia's first western.

KOMODOTHE LIVING TERROR Production company: S canbox A sia P acific Budget: $25 M Pre-production: AUGUST Production: AUGUST - 18 SEPTEMBER Locations: W arner Roadshow M ovie S tudios , south - east Q ueensland

Principal Credits Director: M ichael Lantieri Producers: T ony L u dw ig , A lan R iche Co-producer: CHRIS B rown Line producer: T om H offie Scriptwriters: H ans B raur , C raig M itchell Production manager: V anessa B rown Location manager: J am ie M c Clennan

S ynopsis

Featured in Production

P rincipal credits i

Director: D onald Crombie Producers: J ane B allantyne , Rob G eorge Writer: R ob G eorge

CAT'S TALES Production company: SCREENCRAFTS P roductions

Marketing

P rincipal credits

International sales agent: DARO D istribution

Director: Ralph Lawrence M arsden Producer: Ralph Lawrence M arsden Associate producer: LORETTA FITZGERALD Scriptwriter: Ralph Lawrence M arsden Directors of photography: DAVIOD Fraser , M ark Freeman Editors: G len S hort , S erena H arris Sound recordists: B arry D onald , D oug S haw

Finance AFC, DARO D istributio n , S w an M usic P ublishing , SAFC

S ynopsis

A

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

P ost- production

SIAM SUNSET

Production Crew Camera Crew

Production: J anuary - M arch , 1999

Paul M ercurio (E v a n ), B ill H unter (S unny )

S ynopsis he disturbing and violent portrayal of Sunny Clinsman, 55 and terminally ill with weeks left to live, who pays two estranged army recruits to kidnap his only son's gay lover, in an attempt to lure his son Evan into a cat and mouse game fuelled by a hidden agenda of suicide and self-retribution.

It is the cruel story of a military man so guilt-ridden that he forces his only son into killing him. A suicide drama that demonstrates the raw facts of a life spent living by a code. A lesson in expectancy. A drill we will all have to encounter.

T

SELKIE P roduction com pany: BLUESTONE PICTURES

Shooting stock: FuJlCOLOR Film gauge: 16 m m

Production company: A rtist S ervices Production: S eptember , October , 1998 Locations: S outh A ustralia , C oober P edy

Cast Pa m e la , Roger and S am uel the cats (as themselves ), S hirley S churmann (M rs Cope ), J oyce D raper (M a v is ), W alter Ryan (M r R eeve), M arie O rr (M rs R eeve), A dam M ay (M a r t in ), A ri S yngeniotis (S teve ), M aria M astoropoulos (M elina ), T oula Y ianni (M elina ' s mother ), C on B abanio tis ( cafe m anag er ).

P rincipal credits Director: JOHN POLSON Producer: A l Clark Executive Producers: A ndrew K night , P eter B eilby Scriptwriters: M ax Da n n , A ndrew K night Director of photography: B rian B reheny Editor: N icholas B eauman Production designer: S teven J ones -E vans Costume design: LOUISE WAKEFIELD

yydventure stories about cats.

Production crew

HOLY SMOKE

Production supervisor: Elizabeth S ymes Casting: A nn Robinson (M ullinars ), A ndy P rior (UK)

Production company: J an Ch apm an P roductions Production: J uly, A ugust , 1998 Location: Funders Ranges , S outh A ustralia , S ydney , I ndia

On- set crew 1st assistant director: P hil J ones

A rt Department

Principal credits

Art director: R ichard H obbs

Director: J ane Cam pio n Producer: J ane C hapm an Scriptwriters: A nna Ca m p io n , J ane Cam pion

Marketing Distribution: UIP, S outhern Star , C hannel 4 PMP

Finance FFC, S outhern Star Group , Channel 4 (UK), PMP (S h o w tim e ), UIP D istributio n , NSWFTO, SAFC Cast

Finance M iram ax Films

Cast Kate W inslet , H arvey K eitel, T im R ogers

L inus Roache (P erry), D anielle Cormack (G race ), I an B liss , Roy B illing , R ebecca H obbs , T erry K enw rick , V ictoria Eagger , Robert M enzies

S ynopsis n experienced American cult buster finds himself in a damaging position when he falls hopelessly in love with his young client.

A

S ynopsis

P erry creates colours for an English paint company. His exuberance for life is matched only by his passion for his wife, Maree. Until one day, a refrigerator falls from a plane and lands on her head, killing her. Haunted by grief and loss and obsessed with the idea that he is a magnet for disaster. Perry embarks on a tour of outback Australia and meets up with Grace, a woman who is as menaced by the world as he is. S iam S u n s e t is an hilarious and romantic adventure about a man's search for perfection in the face of overwhelming catastrophe.

IN A SAVAGE LAND i

\ i

Principal credits i

|

Director: B ill B ennett Producers: B ill B ennett , J ennifer B ennett Writers: B ill B ennett , J ennifer C luff

Marketing i

STRANGE PLANET

Production company: B ill B ennett P roductions Production: J u l y - S eptember 1998 Locations: T robriand I slands , Papua N ew G uin ea , S outh A ustralia Distribution company: BEYOND Films

Production company: IStrange P lanet Films Production: A ugust 1998 Budget: $ 4 m

International sales agent: B eyond I nternational International distributor: H ollywood Partners , B eyond Films

Finance FFC, H ollywood Partners , PM P (S how time A ustralia ), S trand / N ew Oz P roductions , B eyond I nternatio nal , SAFC

P rincipal credits Director: Em m a -K ate CROGHAN Producer: Stavros Kazantzidis Line producer: M aggie Lake Scriptwriters: Em m a -K ate Croghan , S tavros K azantzidis Director of photography: JUSTIN BRICKLE Editor: K en SALLOWS Production designer: A nnie B eauchamp Art director: M ichael Iacono Music: Festival Records

Finance Government funding: FFC, NSW FTO

Marketing Distribution: B eyond

Cast A lice Garner , T om L ong , Felix W illiam so n , Claudia Karvan , N ao m i W atts , H ugo W eaving

S ynopsis O fra n g e P la n e t explores the notion O that it is better to have loved and lost than neverto have loved at all.

Cast i

Rufus S ewell, M artin D onovan , M aya Stange

S ynopsis

¡ ' i ¡ ' i i ' i ¡ j i ¡ | i

S et in the late 1930s, a newly married husband and wife anthropologist team travel to an island group in New Guinea to study the sexual mores of a group of villagers. Their relationship begins to break down when the woman realises her husband is wrongly interpreting the research to further his own academic ambitions. She enlists the help of a pearl trader to travel to another island where she intends to research a village of headhunters, and begins to fall in love with him. By the time she returns to her husband, war has broken out in the Pacific and the Japanese are poised to invade their island.

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

production Executive producers: B runo Charslesworth , A lan Finney Scriptwriter: JlMEOlN Director of photography: JOHN WHEELER Production designer: P enny S outhgate Costume designer: M ichael C hisolm Editor: MICHAEL COLLINS

Production Survey continued LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI P rod uction com pany: B elle RAGAZZE D is trib u tio n : B e y o n d F i l m s ,

1st assistant director: J a m ie CROOKS Make-up/hair: MARGARET STEVENSON Unit publicist: Fiona S earson , DD A

Cast

Cast

C ole Hauser , V in D eisel, Radh a M itchell

J im eoin (F ergus ), A lan M c K ee (W esley ), R obert M organ (C o lin ), C olin H ay (B arry ), J ane H all (A lice ), Catherine A rena (E rica ), N icholas B ell, Greg Ev a n s , Kate Go r m an , G eoff Pa in e , A n ita Cerdic , A nne P helan

V il l a g e R o a d s h o w , S h o w t im e

Principal

credits

Director: K a t e W o o d s Producer: R o b y n KERSHAW Executive producer: T r is t r a m M ia l l Scriptwriter: M e l in a M a r c h e t t a Director of photography: T o b y O l iv e r Editor: M a r t in C o n n o r Production designer: STEPHEN CURTIS Costume designer: M ic h a e l W il k in s o n Composer: A l a n JONES

S ynopsis

S ynopsis

A crippled passenger ship crashes onto an unknown planet The marooned space travellers struggle for survival on this seemingly lifeless sunscorched world. When a titanic eclipse throws the planet into darkness, the world erupts with nocturnal life...and the real battle begins.

osie Alibrandi, 17, searches for identity through a confusing maze of Australian and bi-cultural influences.Jt's a voyage around her mother, grandmother, girlfriends, her first boyfriend and an estranged father.

J

MUGGERS Production companies: CLOCK End Film s & R edman Entertainments Production office: MELBOURNE Distribution: W inchester Film s , P oly G ram Budget: $4 m Production: 31 A ugust - 16 October 1998 Locations: M elbourne

P rincipal

credits

Director: D ean M urphy Producers: N igel Odell , David R edman Executive producers: JOHN WOLSTENHOLME, Gary S m it h , C hris Craib Line producer: D aniel S charf Scriptwriter: R obert B T aylor Director of photography: ROGER Lanser Production designer: PADDY R eardon Editor: PETER CARRODUS Composer: Stephen W P arsons Sound designer: M ike S later Sound recordist: J ohn W ilkinson

P roduction

Featured in Podt-Production BABE: PIG IN THE CITY Production company: K ennedy M iller Distribution company: UNIVERSAL PICTURES Production: S eptember 1997 ...

On- set crew 1st assistant director: R ichard M c Grath Unit publicist: Fiona S earson , DDA

Finance FFC, W inchester Film s , REP Completion bond: First A ustralian Completion B ond Co m pany

Marketing Local distributor: REP Internationals sales agent: W inchester Films

Cast M att Day , J ason B arry

S ynopsis wo medical students become involved in an illicit organ transplant scam.

T

PITCH BLACK Production company: Intrepid Pictures Pty Ltd Distribution company: PolyGram Production: 13/7 - 23/9/98 Locations: Coober Pedy, W arner Roadshow Studios, Gold Coast

P lanning

and

Development

Storyboard artist: PETER P ound

Production

crew

Visual effects: T he N eal S canlan S tudio

Production company: J. M c ElrOY HOLDINGS Budget: S3.53 MILLION Production: MARCH 1998 Locations: B rampton I sland , Ravensw ood , Gold C oast , Q ueensland

P rincipal credits Director: CuDLlPP Producers: Des P ower, J im M c E lroy Scriptwriter: C hrid CuDLlPP

Cast B ryan B row n , A leksandra V ujcic

A

ear Claudia is a romantic comedy about a lonely postman, a desperate hitchhiker, a gifted sculptor, an infatuated pilot, a blind sailor, a street kid, a mistress, a miner, a butcher, two thieves and a dead man. Walter and Claudia crash into the story by plane.

The others arrive in a bag of mail.

FEELING SEXY Budget: S7.26 million Production: commencing m id -M ay Locations: B risbane AND NEAR IPSWICH

A nimals Animal trainers: Karl L ewis M iller , Steve M artin

P rincipal Credits Director: D a v id a A llan Producer: GLENYS Rowe Executive producer: Chris N oonan Scriptwriter: D a vid a A llan

Cast J ames C romwell (Farmer H oggett), M agda S zu ban ski (M rs H oggett), M ickey R ooney

FRESH AIR

H

aving triumphed at the National Sheepdog Trial, Babe returns home a hero, but in his enthusiasm to be at the side of his beloved "boss", the little pig accidentally causes a mishap which leaves Farmer Hoggett in traction confined to bed. With the bank threatening foreclosure, Mrs Hoggett's only hope for saving the farm is to accept an offer for Babe to demonstrate his sheep-herding abilities at an overseas State Fair in exchange for a generous fee. Thus, Babe and Mrs Hoggett set off on a journey that takes them to a far away storybook metropolis, where Babe encounters an incredible assortment of animal friends, experiences the joy and sorrow of life and learns how a kind and steady heart can mend a sorry world

THE CRAIC

V illage Roadshow Ltd Budget: $1.2 m Production: 27 J anuary - M arch 1998 Locations: MELBOURNE, W entworth , B roken H ill , Sydney , G old C oast

Production C rew

Principal C redits

P roduction com pany: FOSTER-GRACIE D is trib u tio n com pany:

Director: T ed E mery Producers: M arc G racie , D avid Foster Line producer: STEVE LUBY

C I N E M A P A P E R S â&#x20AC;˘ A U GU S T 1 998

romantic comedy about a couple marooned on an island.

S ynopsis

D

A rt Department

P rincipal C redits

On- set Crew

DEAR CLAUDIA

Art director: COLIN GlBSON

Director: David Twohy Producers: Tom Engelman, A nthony W inley Executive producers: Ted Field, Scon Kroopf Scriptwriter: David Twohy Director of photography: David Eggby Production designer: Graham 'Grace' W alker Costume designer: A n n a B orghesi Editor: R ick S hain Production manager: S ue M ackay

wo Irish lads find themselves caught up in a bungled IRA mission. Fearing for their lives, they flee to Australia, and end up being chased across the country by the Immigration Department, the SAS, and an Irish "super grass".

T

P rincipal Credits Director: G eorge M iller Producers: G eorge M iller , D oug M itchell, B ill M iller Line producer: B arbara G ibbs Scriptwriters: G eorge M iller , J udy M orris , M ark Lamprell Director of photography: ANDREW L esnie Production designer: R oger Ford Costume designer: N orma M oriceau Editors: J ay Fried kin , M argaret S ixel Composer: N igel W estlake

crew

Production manager: YVONNE COLLINS

Production C rew Production manager: J odie CRAWFORD Fish

Production company: RB FILMS Production office: SYDNEY Production: M ay / J une 1998

Principal Credits Director: N eil M ansfield Producer: Rosemary B light Associate producer: Kylie DU Fresne Scriptwriter: N eil M ansfield Production designer: Gavin B arbey Editor: D any Cooper Underwriter: FACB

Post- production Length 92 MINS Gauge: SUPER 16 m m

Marketing and Finance Network presale: SBS, C hannel 4 (UK), S how time Distribution guarantor: BEYOND FILMS Finance: A ustralian Film Co m m is s io n , SBSI, S how time

even typically funny/sad days in the lives of three aspiring artists - a filmmaker, a painter and a musician who are almost 30 and live, work and rock under the flightpath in the multicultural inner-western suburbs of Sydney.

S

Production: 21/4/98 - 1 7 /6 /9 8 Locations: M elbourne , P arachilna SA, B roken H ill NSW , and R ome , Italy

P rincipal C redits Director: M anuel A lberti Producers: Lynda H ouse , J im S tark Line producer:YvONNE Collins Scriptwriter: MANUEL A lberti Director of photography: GEOFFREY HALL Production designer: CHRISTOPHER KENNEDY Costume designer: KERRI MAZZOCCO Editor: K en SALLOWS

Planning

and

G oldwyn Film s I nternatio nal

Cast Fabrizio B entivoglio (T o m m a s o ), J ohn M oore (S utherland ), D avid N go om bu jarra (W illie ), D avid Franklin (F ather O 'B rien ), R ebecca Frith (S u sa n )

haunting thriller which tells the story of Tommaso, a high-ranking Vatican priest, who is forced by circumstances to question his faith and values.

A

Development

THE MATRIX

Script editor: DUNCAN THOMPSON Casting: A lison B arrett , D in a M ann (A ustralia ), B eatrice K ruger , F.B.I. Casting (I taly ) Extras casting: INESE V ogler Cultural attache: K en S aunders Storyboard artist: H ugh M archant

Production Crew P roduction co -o rd in a to r: S e r e n a G a t t u s o Prod u ctio n secre tary: LOUISE STIRLING Location m anagers: STEPHEN B r e t t ( M e l b o u r n e ), M a s o n C u r t is (C o u n t r y ) Locations a ssis ta n t (Broken H ill): P h il H e n d e r s o n - W il s o n

Unit manager: R ic k K o r n a a t Unit assistant: B r it t K o r n a a t Production runner: B e n L o w e Production accountant: M a n d y C a r t e r Insurer: A O N R is k SERVICES Completion guarantor: F il m F in a n c e s I n c .

Legal services: R o t h W ARREN, B ryce M enzies Travel co-ordinator: T raveltoo Vehicles: S tage & S creen

Camera C rew Focus puller: T erry H owells Clapper-loader: J ude L ovatt Key grip: R ob H ansford Grip: Glenn A rrowsmith Gaffer: Colin W illiam s

On- set Crew 1si assistant director: M onica P earce 2nd assistant director: M im R eady 3rd assistant director: LlSA Ferri Continuity: A nnie WEST Boom operator.MAL H ughes Make-up: A m a n d a R owbottom Hairdresser: Z eljka St an in Stunts co-ordinator: Z ev Eleftheriou David Ngoombujarra's right hand: J ohn M oore Personal trainer (for Fabrizio): A nthony D i C ecco Chaperone (for Duane Moore): P eter D o c k e r

Production company: M atrix Film s Pty Ltd Distribution company: W arner B ros .

Production: 14/3/98 - 24/7/98 Location: SYDNEY

P rincipal Credits Directors: Larry and A ndy W achow ski Producers: J oel S ilver , A ndrew M ason Executive producer: B arrie O sborne Scriptwriters: A ndy AND LARRY W achow ski Director of photography: B ill P ope Production designer: Ow en PATERSON Costume designer: K ym BARRETT Editor: Zach STAENBERG

Production Crew U n it p rod uction m anager: CAROL HUGHES

On- set Crew 1st assistant director: Colin FLETCHER Make-up supervisor: N ikki GOOLEY Unit publicist: Fiona S earson , DDA

Cast K eanu R eeves (T homas " N eo" A nderson ), Laurence Fishburne (M orpheus ), Carrie - A nne M oss , H ugo W eaving , J oe P antoliano he M a trix teW s of a computer hacker in the 22nd century who joins a band of freedom fighters struggling against evil computers that control the Earth. The machines keep their human slaves passive by literally plugging them into The M a tr ix - a virtual reality universe that appears as the 20th century world we know.

T

PAPERBACK HERO Production company: Paperback Film s Pty Ltd Distribution company: B eyond Film s & P olygram Filmed Entertainm ent Pre-production: 5/1/98...

Production: 20/2/98...

Post-production: 6/4/98...

Production house (Rome):

Principal C redits

P a n o r a m a P r o d u c t io n s

Director: A ntony B o w m an Producers: Lance R eynolds & J ohn W inter Co-producer: D a n i Rogers Scriptwriter: A ntony B o w m an Director of photography: David B urr Production designer: J on D ow ding Costume designer: Louise WAKEFIELD Editor: VERONIKA JENET Sound designer: A udio Loc Sound recordist: G reg B urgm ann

Safety officer: T o m C o l t r a in e Unit nurse: T ed GREEN Still photography: A n n a B e r t a l l i , M ari V endrame A gency Unit publicist: Fran LANIGAN Catering: "T w o Can D o ", S a m B athurst (M elbourne ), S teve M arcus (B roken H ill ) Assistant caterer: TlM ORMAN Travel (flights): T raveltoo

A rt Department Art director: A lison Pye Art department co-ordinator: Lucy S parke Art department runner: A dam M cG oldrick Set dresser: COLIN Robertson Props buyer: M arita M ussett Standby props: DEAN S ullivan Vehicle co-ordinator: Laurence H umphries " T ruck "

W ardrobe Costume assistant: D e n is e ( n e e ) P e t r o v ic Costume standby: K e lly F o r e m a n

Post- production Assistant editor: CAROLINE SCOTT Editing rooms: T h e JOINERY Sound post production: S o u n d f ir m Sound editor: G l e n n N e w n h a m Laboratory: ClNEVEX Telecine/rushes transfer: A A V D ig ital P ictures Camera equipment: S am m y s Shooting stock: K odak

P lanning

and

Development

Casting: Faith M artin & ASSOCIATES Extras casting: Lydiard & ROSSI Budgeted by: J ohn W inter

Production C rew Production manager: Rosslyn A bernethy Production co-ordinator: STOTTIE Production secretary: L ouisa K ors Location manager: C hris S trewe Unit manager: D ave S uttor Production runner: A n jii B ryers Production accountant: NADEEN K ingshott Completion guarantor: FACB Legal services: TRESS COCKS & M addox Travel co-ordinator: SHOWTRAVEL

Camera Crew Focus puller: JOHN W areham Key grip: LESTER B ishop Gaffer: Graham Rutherford

On- set C rew

Marketing

1st assistant director: C harles Rotherham 3rd assistant director: M arc A shton Continuity: J enny Q uigley Boom operator: Gary D ixon Make-up: MARGARET STEVENSON Make-up assistant: M aree M c D onald Stunts co-ordinator: DANNY BALDWIN Unit nurse: CONNIE W ebber -R uod Catering: Eleets Catering

International sales agent:

A rt Department

Government A gency Investment Development: A ustralian Film Finance Corporation (FFC)

THE MISSING

Other Finance

Production company: UPSIDE DOWN Film s Pty Ltd Distribution company: ROADSHOW Film D istributors

International financing: H ollywood P artners

61

production Production Survey

d e r in g

, i

T

Construction manager: A ndrew G ardiner Set finisher: B ob D aley

Government A gency Investment Production: FFC & PACIFIC Film AND T elevision C o m m is s io n (PFTC)

Marketing International distributor: B eyond F ilm s Ltd

Cast

1st assistant director: J ohn M artin Make-up supervisor: Cassie H anio n Unit publicist: Fion a S earson

ack, an outback road-train truckie moonlights as a romance novellist.

When the book becomes a best-seller, he must do some fast-talking to convince his long-time friend, Ruby, to pretend to be the writer.

J

Government A gency Investment Development: FFC

Marketing International sales agent: B eyond F ilms

Cast B ryan B row n , H eath L edger, Rose B yrne , D avid Field , S teve V idler , S usie P orter

SNOWDROP Production company: A delphi Films Production: 23 JUNE FOR FIVE WEEKS Finance: P rivate Director: J ulie M oney Producer: M ichael Cook Scriptwriter: J eff T ruman Based on the original screenplay by: T revor S hearston Director of photography: G raeme W ood Editor: J ay Friedkin Production designer: D onna B rown

P roduction

crew

Production manager: L inda S apier

Marketing Domestic Pay-TV rights: S h o w t im e A u s t r a l ia

Cast L ind a C ropper , J eff T r u m a n , A n n a L ise P hillips , S cott M ajo r , W ade Osborne , A bi T ucker

S ynopsis A provocative tale of sexual obsession and lost innocence.

SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS Budget: $800,000

P rincipal C redits Director: P a u l F e n e c h Producers: D a v id W e b s t e r , B r e n d a n Fle tc h er , P a u l F enech

Scriptwriters: B r e n d a n FLETCHER, P aul Fenech Directors of photography: M ike K l ie m Production designer: MADELAINE H etherton Editor: A reito M iles

Production Crew Production co-ordinator: N athan M ayfield Production secretary: N yree S mith Legal services: Red Chip Lawyers — Karl S cott

On- set Crew 1st assistant director: VERA BIFFONE Continuity: Kata r in a K eil Continuity attachment: G illian I soardi Make-up: T rish Falzon

A rt Department Art director: A dam H ead

i I

(4 HOUR MINI SERIES)

Director: P a u l A n d r e w Producer: K a t h S h e lp e r Scriptwriter: P a u l A n d r e w Director of photography: Jo P a r k e r Editor: D a v e D a v id s o n Composer: P a u l M a c Sound recordist: L eo S u l l iv a n

Government A gency Investment

Production company:

SUGAR INC

Pre-pro duction: OCTOBER 1998

)

Production company: T s u k i P t y L t d Production: AUGUST, SEPTEMBER 1998 Location: S y d n e y

i

Principal credits

i

Location: B r is b a n e

Principal credits

(TELEMOVIE)

Director: CLARA CHONG | Producer: E d w e a n a W e n k a r t Assistant producers: J a n n H in g , R osie K ing ham Scriptwriter: C lara C hong Director of photography: G ary W apshott i Production/costume designer: S ally S harpe

F il m a n d T e l e v is io n O ffic e

Production

P rincipal credits Director: SCOTT HARTFORD D a v is Producers: JACKIE O 'S ULLIVAN ,

i

A lan H ardy

Post- production Length: 15 MINUTES Gauge: 35 m m

P roduction designer: B e r n a d e t t e W y n a c k

stylised half-hour documentary which examines the life, work and death of performance artlst/AIDS activist Brenton Heath-Kerr.

A

S ynopsis

crew

U n it p u b licist: F io n a S e a r s o n , D D A

1st a ssis ta n t d ire c to r: J o h n H a r t l e y M a ke -u p /h a ir supervisor: A m a n d a Ro w bo ttom

Make-up/hair supervisor for Ms Bisset: Ed w a r d T ernes

Finance

T elevisio n

Cast G eorge S hevtsov , M arisa P ouw

Costum e desig ner: L is a M e a g h e r

On- set crew

S ynopsis

ugar Inc. is the ultimate international desserts company, with an esteemed reputation for creating "magical" desserts, spanning half a century. Allie is a charming, somehwat wacky, young chef, barely twenty, who longs to join Sugar Inc's hallowed empire. Her chance comes when the company's first job opening in four years is announced.

G o l d e n S q u a r e P ic t u r e s , C o l u m b ia T r i S t a r T e l e v is io n , F il m V ic t o r ia

Production company: B arron T elevision L imited Production office: MELBOURNE Production: 15/6/9825/8/98 Local broadcaster: N etwork T en

C h r is B r a n a g a n

Development

Script editor: G l e n d a H a m b l y

P roduction Crew Production manager: L a u r a M

ay

A lc o c k

On- set C rew Visual f x : R ising $ un P ictures

Cast Fred W hitlock , S im on P alo mares , M olly M cCaffrey, M ichael V eitch , A nthony H a m m e r , R hys M uldoon

S ynopsis riven Crazyfollows the adventures

of the Bourke fam ily-fath er Mick and kids Ned and Danni - as they travel around Australia in their old Chevy wagon. Along the way they see things and meet people that boggle the mind.

Production companies:

Distributor: C o l u m b ia T r i S t a r T e l e v is io n Pr esa le:

J W Film s & Firebrand Films

N e t w o r k T en

Production: 18 & 19 J uly , 1998 Post-production: From 20 J uly

Cast J a c q u e l in e B is s e t , C a m e r o n D a d d o , J e r o m e Eh le r s , S uzi D o u g h e r ty , A l e x a n d r a S c h e p is i

Composer: C e z a r y SKUBISZEWSKI and

TEA PARTY ANIMALS

Marketing

DRIVEN CRAZY

P lanning

crew

Production manager: B elinda G eorge Production assistant: Jo HERINGER Casting co-ordinator: DEBORAH CORNELIUS Food stylist: JACQUI H ing

Associate producer: E l ly B r a d b u r y Scriptwriter: S h a n e B r e n n a n Director of photography: D a v id C o n n e l l Editor: B il l MURPHY

Production

Production:

NSW

A

C r a w f o r d s A u s t r a l ia

Production office: M e l b o u r n e Production: 10/8 - 4/9/98 Location: MELBOURNE

S ynopsis itc h H unt, inspired by a true

event, is the compelling story of the abduction of a young girl whose father and grandmother become the two prime suspects in the case - and who engage each other in sensational counter-allegations.

P rincipal C redits Director: JEFFREY WALKER Producers: Gareth Calverley , R ob B ailey Scriptwriters: J effrey W alker , R ob B ailey Director of photography: B utch S awko Costume designer: D onna W alker Editor: Ray D aley Sound recordist: J ohn W ilkinson

P roduction Crew Insurer: H W W ood (T ony G ib b s )

Camera C rew Camera operator: B u t c h S a w k o Focus puller: G r a n t S w e e t n a m Key grip: J o h n S m it h Gaffer: T o m M o o d y

Short Films RATS AND CATS

On- set C rew

Production company: B ig B r o t h e r F il m s Pre-production: J u l y - A u g u s t 1998 Production: 17/8/98 - 22/8/98 Post-production: OCTOBER 1998

1st assistant director: T o n i RAYNES 2nd assistant director: D e a n F a y Continuity: T ed G r e e n , P a u l K ie ly Boom operator: P h il T a y l o r Safety officer: J o h n R a a e n Still photography: S u z y W OODS

P rincipal credits Director: G il l H u t c h is o n Supervising producer: A n n e S m a l l w o o d Scriptwriter: G il l HUTCHISON Director of photography: PHILIP L u KATELA Editor: S k ye T h o m p s o n Production designer: C a r m e n H a n n a y Sound designer: C h r is G il l e t t e Sound recordist: J o n g - N a m P a r k Script editor: A n n e S m a l l w o o d Production manager: ALICE ADDISON 1st assistant director: A l e n k a H e n r y

A rt Department Standby props: T im D isney , Lachlan S nell

Cast C ollette M ann (B everley), N in a Landis (J a n ), Cassandra M c G rath (S ally )

S ynopsis day in the life of Beverley, the special guest at a tea party where everything goes wrong.

A

NOAH'S ARC

(TELEMOVIE)

P ost- production

1st assistant director: B rendan Fletcher

Film gauge: S uper 16 m m

Cast

Production company: H allm ark Locations: M elbourne , P ort L incoln Production: From late J uly for 12 weeks

Post- production

J on H alpin (M a x ), Paul D enny (J oel), Caroline D unphy (B h a j a ), W ayne P ygram (M r J oe), L uke R obertson

Director: J ohn I rvin Producer: S teve J ones

Cast

\

TRIBE

P ic t u r e s W it c h H u n t P t y L t d

On - set Crew

Film gauge: S uper 16

62

Director: T ony de P asquale Producer: T ony de P asquale Line producer: G eoff C ooper Scriptwriters: JEFF A fiou ni , G reg A fiouni , T ony de P asquale Director of photography: B en N ott Costume designer: A ureole M cA lpine Editor: JEN FlNERAN Sound designer: M ark P idcock Sound recordist: T om S tevenson

1 i

Production company:

Principal C redits

Principal C redits

\

THE BIBLE STORY.

S c a r l e t t P ic t u r e s P t y L t d

Directors: S ophia S cheding , M ichael Carson , D aniel N ettheim , K a r l Z w icky , Colin M ow bray Producers: M argot M c D onald , Paul B arron Executive producers: Paul B arron , J oan P eters Script producer: D avid Rapsey Based on the stories by: P aul J ennings Directors of photography: M ark P ugh , P eter Z akharov Editors: J o h n L e o n a r d , P e te r C a r r o d u s ,

WASTE

NO OTHER DETAILS SUPPLIED, EXCEPT THAT IT IS NOT

Production company: G o l d e n S q u a r e

wo Hands follows the misadventures of Jimmy, an aspiring young hooligan who loses ten thousand gangster dollars and has to pull his first bank job to avoid the bullet.

Production company: DE PASQUALE P roductions Pty Ltd Budget: $300,000 Production office: B risbane Production: 25/5/98 - 13/6/98

1 i

WITCH HUNT

S ynopsis

T

S t e e n b u r g e n , J o h n V o ig h t

THE MAN IN THE IRONY MASK

Principal C redits

Production Crew On- set C rew

F M urray A b r a h a m s , M ary

udrey Hepburn is the pivot of young Kevin's life. Without her, his jobless, directionless life in suburban Brisbane would mean nothing. The perfect escape from his overbearing mother is to grace the local shopping centre in a little black number, hat, handbag and pumps. Why is it only Kevin that fails to see that it is only Breakfast at Michael Hill Jeweller?

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Pre-production: 8/6/98 - 8/7/98 Production: 8/7/98 - 24/7/98 Post-production: 27/7/98 - 4/9/98

Director: G regor J ordan Producer: M arian M acgow an Executive producers: M ark T urnbull , B ryce M enzies , T imothy W hite Scriptwriter: G regor J ordan Director of photography M alcolm M cC ulloch Production designer: Steven J ones -E vans Costume designer: Emily S erensin Editor: L ee S mith Production manager: S am T hompson

S ynopsis

Cast

W rite r/p ro d u c e r: JOCK B l a ir

Documentaries

P rincipal C redits

C lau dia K arvan (R uby ), H ugh J ac km an (J ack ), J eanie D rynan (S uzie ), B ruce V enables (A rtie ), R itchie S inger (R a lph ), C harlie L ittle (E rrol), A ngie M illiken , A ndrew S.G ilbert

P rincipal C redits

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Production company: B lindfold 3 Pty L imited Distribution company: REP Films Production office: S ydney Production: 20/4/98 - 12/6/98

C onstruction Department

Mixed at: S pectrum Films Laboratory: A tlab

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TWO HANDS

Wardrobe supervisor: G raham P urcell Standby wardrobe: H elen M aggs

Post- production

aste Is a comedy about two best mates Max and Joel. Born into a fast food throwaway society and moulded by years of television, Max and Joel are forced to cope with the responsibilities of adulthood.

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he story of a young boy and an old man trapped beneath rubble In a collapsed building. The old man distracts the boy from the hopeless situation by taking him on a journey of the mind.

W ardrobe

M a n ), B e l in d a C l a r k e ( M a n d y )

S ynopsis

B arry J enkin s , Row an W h itt , A usten T ayshus , Robyn L oau , L eah P urcell, Ernie D ingo

S till photography: S e a n ANDERSON

( S l a p p e r ), A n d y M a c D o n a l d ( S m o u l ­

continued Art director: A dam H ead Art department co-ordinator: K atie N ott Art department runner: D ean M cGwyer Art department assistant: C hristine Feld Draftsman: A ndrew H ays Props buyers: Paul H urrell & M ichelle S otheren Standby props: H arry Z ettle Action vehicle co-ordinator: M ark "H arry " W ard

Production designer: L es B in n s Production manager: L e s l e y P a r k e r

P rincipal credits

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

S C A N -E X P R E S S

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A panel o f 12 film reviewerd had rated a delection o f the lateot releaded on a dcale o f 0 to 10, the latter being the optimum rating (a dadh meand not deen).

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iven its debilitatingly-constrained budget, would the National Film & Sound Archive, if forced to choose, preserve Head On or Welcome to Woop Woop?

Obviously not Head On, if one reads only Melbourne newspapers, because every reviewer there preferred Woop Woop to Head On. In absolute contradiction, almost every Harbour-city critic felt the reverse. Triple J’s Peter Castaldi gave a o to Stephan Elliott’s film and a 10 to Ana Kokkinos’, while The Age’s Adrian Martin could only find it in his heart to award the latter a i .

Despite the Melbourne support for the Sydneybased Woop Woop, accepted wisdom already has it that the film is an unredeemable dog, a classic Aussie disaster, the first title on everyone’s lips when a cyni­ cal group decides the current cinema needs a good drubbing. One recent afternoon, the Martin/Molloy radio programme had four people mercilessly tear into Woop Woop, despite none having seen it (as was meekly admitted at the end).

Yet, some wouldn’t mind betting that, when retro­

spectives of Australian cinema are mounted in decades to come, Woop Woop will be one of the first to be selected, a brilliant (if over-hyperactive) look at the hell of modern Australia, where most are too weak to stand up to tyranny and nice people advise the concerned to wait till the horrors have abated through natural causes. As Elliott well knows, the most powerful images in local cinema are of people climbing moun­ tains (cf Walkabout, Sons of Matthew, et al). Woop Woop, set in the pit of the present, tells us why. SM

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When will the magic end?

T o d a y 's film s ...le t a rtis ts tell sto ries

w ith m a g ic . E n h a n c in g w h a t is real.

C re a tin g w h a t o n ly can be im a g in e d ,

A n d p ro je c tin g th e ir v is io n s w ith a p o w e r

no o th e r m e d iu m can m a tc h .

T o m o rro w 's film s ...w ill let a rtis ts '

n a tio n s reach fu rth e r in to th e fu tu re .

Because at Kodak.

never

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M a y 's films have a unique and dig beneath the surface and reveal people's souls. They more resolution, more Film is infinitely manipulative and pl^ble th flexible gatew ays for digital p os|jp D d a y * ^ ^ ^ p T eK m sfs tell stories with magic. Tomorrow's films will let ^ » g i n a t i o n s reach further in p lU e futW £v?eeai^£t,K odak...the magic never ends.

Kodak. The Filmmaker’s Film Maker. © E astm a n K od a k C o m p a n y, 1998.

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