Cinema Papers no. 78 March 1990 (2025)

OCR

MTV BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Jost [CHAIRMAN],

Natalie Miller,[...]AL ASSISTANCE EROM THE AUSTRALIAN
FILM COMMISSION AND FILM VICTORIA

COPYRIGHT I989 MTV PUBLISHING UMITED.

Signed articles represent the views of the
authors and not necessarily that of the editor
and publisher. While every care is taken with
manuscripts and materials supplied to the
magazine, neither the editor nor the publisher
can accept liability for any loss or damage
which may arise. This magazine[...]d in whole or part without the express
permission of the copyright owners. Cinema
Papers is published[...]G FILMVIEWS
MARCH I990 NUMBER 78

3 BRIEFLY: NEWS AND VIEWS

THE CROSSING: Location Report

Andrew L. U[...]rossing

Interview by Andrew L. Urban

I6 ASPECTS OF TECHNOLOGY
The First 100 Years

Dominic Case

20[...]ALL

Interview by Scott Murray

34 BANGKOK HILTON and
A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Ina Bertrand

38 BRITISH DI[...]n the Tale Paul Harris

58 VIDEO RELEASES
Reviews and News
PaulKahna

6'I TECHNICALITIES
Fred Harden

6[...]HIP LISTINGS

INA BERTRAND is a lecturer in Media Studies at LaTrobe University; MARCUS BREEN is
a freelance writer on film; ROLANDO CAPUTO is a lecturer in film at LaTrobe University;
DOMINIC CASE works for Colorfilm; HUNTER CORDAIY is a writer, and a lecturer in
Mass Media at NSW University; FRED HARDEN is a Melbourne film and television
producer specializing in special effects; PAUL HARRIS is a freelance writer on film and
contributor to The Age; PAUL KALINA is the video critic for The Sunday Herald,
Melbourne; BRIAN McFARLANE is principal lecturer in Literature and Cinema Studies at
Chisholm Institute of Technology, Melbourne; ADRIAN MARTIN is a Melbour[...]into film; $ydney—based ANDREW L. URBAN writes for several journals on film;

including Scree[...]

Seymour Chatman in his book, Antonioni or the
Surface of the World, talks about I [re volti as one of
the ‘lost’ films. The negative has been destroyed
and the one known print lies under lock and key
at the Film School in Rome. What chance, then[...]early 1970s, Walerian Borowczyk
was hailed as one of the world's greatest anima-
tors and feature directors (the best according to
Phillip[...]after Blanche, his films be-
came harder to see and his career ventured to-
wards obscurity. Then, in 1984, Borowczyk made
A75 Amandi in Rome. With its glorious and obses-

MARINA PIERO IN WALERIAN BOIlOWCYZK'S[...]DEO STORE.

sive plays oflight, with its rhythmic and inverting
patterns of cutting, this is a dazzling tale oflove at
the time ofOvid. With L ’/lrgentand ElSur, it is one
of the great films of the 1980s. But how is anyone
ever going to see it Australia?

CASE 3: And what ofthe films based on the novels
of the late, great Sicilian author Leonardo Scias-
c[...]ing in the
film based on his penetrating account of the
Moro affair, but it never arrived. What hope of
seeing it now?

The answer to all above dilemmas[...]—see films. These
video stores are a gold mine for Australian cin-
ephiles, but how many are aware of it?

Alerted by Rolando Caputo, I ventured out to
one in inner-suburban Melbourne and began the
search through endless racks of lurid cassette
boxes. If there is a sex scene in[...]eABT’s research has found that viewer
tolerance of advertising has decreased in the two-
year period since advertising time regulations
were lifted. The number of commercials on the
three networks increased by 8.6 per cent, though
the number of programme interruptions re-
mained fairly consist[...]the review, theABT will assess whether
the amount of interruptions to feature films and
drama has increased. Producers and filmmakers
who are upset by such interruptions should make
submissions to the ABT by 5 March.

Of particular interest here is the recent court
case[...]ING TRIBUNAL IS un-

tion protects an author’s (and filmmaker’s rights)
and quite rightly the court ruled that ads inserted
into afilm destroyed the integrity of that film and,
thus, interfered with the maker’s rights. Vane[...]try
which is a Berne signatory, such as Australia and
the U.S. Hopefully there will be a test case here
soon and ads permanently banished from films
and drama.

The approach of French national television is
the ideal: ads appear only at the end of pro
grammes. The claim that people wouldn't watch[...]it has often been alleged that the
ads at the end of the evening news have the
highest rating of anything on French television.
But then, if one had ads the quality of those in
France I

CINEMA PAPERS:
PATRICIA AM[...]ema Papers
announces Patricia Amad‘s leaving us for
Hoyts Media Sales, where she will handle
the Glenn Wheatley account. Patricia had
worked at Cinema Papers for eight years,

beginning as Office Manager and be-
coming the Publisher. She oversaw sev-
eral changes of editorship and was instru-
mental in seeing the magazine through
its financial difficulties ofof a
half—naked schoolgirl removing her lace stock[...]em willing to bend
the odd truth. The video slick for a film called
Dressage claimed it had been produced by French
photographer and filmmaker David Hamilton;
the cassette label ins[...]y $1 to $3 a week, it is really
only one’s time and expecmtions that suffer from
false leads.

But ba[...]ened at the Melbourne Festival in the early
1970s and never seen since. It is a ‘lost’ film, but
there it was, scratched, dubbed and missing the
odd minute. But purists shouldn’tco[...]seeinga classic film in some
form or not at all.

Of course, some may find the whole idea un-
tenable[...]the
images instead, the editing patterns, the use of
sound - all far more important to the cinema than[...]arkened cinema
busily reading words at the bottom of the screen.
It is often so consuming a process th[...]ng told visually can be easily missed.

In Cannes and at other festivals, critics become
used to seeing[...]t be trusted as
much. An interesting verification of this was the
screening in Cannes in 1981 ofMarco Bellocchio’s
Salto nel vuoto with Michel Piccoli and Anouk
Aimee as lovers. Watching without sub—tit[...]ame obvious within minutes
that they were brother and sister in an incestuous
relationship. This could[...]entativeness foreign to normal lovers. How-
ever, for an audience trusting only its ears, they sat
unaw[...]d by the word-
bound American cinema. So, one way of regard-
ing a visit to your local Italian store is as a chal-
lenge, and also a lesson. Anyway, what is the
choice, if one wants to follow the careers of
Borowczyk (and all his films have made it via this
route[...]

SKY TRACKERS (90-min telefeamr[...]e at a space installation
in the outback. Mystery and high-tech adven-
ture follow.

DOCUMENTARIES

IN THE SHADOW OF A GAOL (60 mins)
Pacold. Producer: Ronald Rodger. A study of
the unique social and cultural life that is Dar-
linghurst.

SOLO WOMAN[...]engine plane. This is
her story.

THE TOTAL VALUE OF FFC INVESTMENT WAS
MORE THAN $9.6 MN I ION.

D[...]stline as part ofthe war in
the Pacific. A total of97 raids were carried out,
including the audacious[...]cer: Gary Steer. Mountain peaks pierce
the clouds of New Guinea — islands in a sea of
mist. Deep in the mossy forests of these moun-
tains exists a lost world of ancient animals.
DREYFUS A PORTRAIT (57 mins) C M[...]Margaret Musca. At 10
years ofage. George Dreyfus and his family fled
to Australia from Hitler’s Germany. He began
to study music and was to become a leading mu-
sician and prolific composer.

THE TOTAL VALUE OF THE FFC INVESTMENTS
FORJANUARYWAS 51 MILLION, PAR[...]etter was received from Stephen
Wallace, director of Blood Oath:

D E A R E D I T O R :

In your article by Andrew L. Urban in the last
issue of Cinema Papers, “Scripting Blood Oath”,
there[...]s news to me. The film I di-
rected had a budget of$7 million, which I had to
strictly adhere to. Whe[...]In
this case, both Andrew Urban’s lead article and
his interview with Denis Whitburn and Brian
Williams were checked by them. They did not[...]to conclude that the widely—publicised figure
of $10 million is correct.

That 357 million is most[...]02. As is well known, the FFC, with the
exception of the Trust Fund, does not invest
more than 70 per[...]CATHY ROBINSON has been appointed Chief
Executive of the Australian Film Commission.
Robinson had been acting Chief Executive for
the past six months. Originally from Adelaide,
Ro[...]e in the film
industry, particularly in the area of film culture.
She had been Director, Cultural Activities at the
AFC for more than three years and was formerly
Manager of the Media Resource Centre in Ade-
laide. The Chairman of the AFC, Phillip Adams,
said, “Cathy has been outstanding and the Board
of Commissioners voted unanimously to make
her appoi[...]xecutive] perma-
nent. She will do a splendid job of steering the
AFC through the period of change ahead.”

JOHN MORRIS has been appointed Chief Ex-
ecutive of the Australian Film Finance Corpora-
tion Pty Ltd[...]nuary. Morris
was previously a director, producer and Head of
Production at Film Australia; a producer, Head of
Production and Managing Director of the South
Australian Film Corporation; and, most recently,
a Director of the New South Wales Film and Tele-
vision Office. Morris has also served as a Council
member and Deputy Chairman of the Australian
Film Television and Radio School, as Chairman
of the Australian Education Council’s Enquiry
into children’s television and as an inaugural
member of the Board offor
more than two years and the FFC is central to
resolving those difficultie[...]p Study,
funded by the Australian Film Commission and
compiled by Newspoll. The main, simplified find-
ings are:

— 27% of readers are employed in the film in-
dustry. In[...]loyed in other white-collar
positions. Hence, 78% of readers are white-collar
workers.

— Readers ar[...]young: 67% are aged
between 15-34. In Australia, of those over 15,
42% are aged 15-34.

— 59% of readers are male.

— In the past 12 months, the average reader has
read 5 of 6 issues, showing a loyal base.

—The average r[...]often.

— Readers are relatively heavy viewers of the
ABC and SBS.

— Readers prefer mainstream cinema and go at
least once a month; art-house and Australian
films are also popular.

— Readers are active consumers of goods and

services. In the past year, the proportion of read-
ers doing the following is:

Travelling int[...]ht computer/fax 17

These values are high.

- 87% of readers drink wine; 75% beer; and
75% spirits.

— Only 22% ofreaders smoke (among[...]n contents basically mean readers
would like more of everything. However, one
doubts there is much support for an even smaller
type size. I

AUSTRALIAN FESTIVAL[...]ogramme to date with a
two-month—long programme of Austra-
lian films to be seen at the Centre in 1[...]gramme will encompass a com-
prehensive selection offilms, from archi-
val material to contemporary features
and documentaries.

The Cinema Section of me Pompi-
dou Centre has achieved international
acclaim for its presentation of various
national programmes over the pastyears.
G[...]d few
opportunities to appreciate a diverse
range of Australian films, this prestigious
event should radically alter the percep-
tion of Australian Cinema, not only in
France but[...]

For 60 years we've provided producers
. around the world with quality service ,
~ and the latest available technology. X

E] 35mm, 16mm, color and b8.w processing
El High speed release printing _
El Fast high quality dailies
D Dolby (SR) Sound Mixing and A.D.R.
El Comprehensive International Freight Network
E] Subtitling for any language
El Opticals and titles
_ El Negative Cutting
x El Sound transfers and negatives

D We can be reached at any time of the day
at one of our locations!

COLORFILMDLAB

LOS ANGELES — SY[...]ax: (213) 282 8992 Fax: (02) 550 i530
2121 Avenue of the Stars, 35 Missenden Road,
_22nd Floor[...]

After some years of doing the rounds, Ranald Allan’s script was
picked up by producer Sue Seeary and offered to the Beyond
International Group, which had been reading dozens of scripts in
search of its first feature film. (Beyond had grown to prominence
worldwide, first as producers of the television show Beyond 2000, and
later of an expanded programme catalogue.)

Beyond’s head of film production and development, Al Clark,
chose to go with the proje[...]g direc-
tor, Phil Gerlach, spent fifty per cent of his time on location with an
enthusiasm only equa[...].

Ogilvie stays very close to the actors, coaxes and guides them
privately, never shouts, never gets a[...]lds confidence, the confidence generates effort and
energy.

In the lead roles, the three young actor[...]tle track
record, no instantly recognizable name, and no formal training from
any major acting school.[...]Adelaide-born Robert Mammone had been in Sydney for five
years, where his most satisfying work was w[...]is a universal story, told within the perspective of

3 - CINEMA PAPERS 75

George gives you everythin[...]mes: you want to come up with something yourself, and he says it
before you can. He’s steps ahead. He[...]d by
things, they block them; but he absorbs them and loves.

But what about Sam’s leaving the town? Why did he just up and
go? Mammone replies:

We never actually settled o[...]out knowing why. Hejust had to
go. His perception of what he wanted from life was so different to
ever[...]Asked what it’s like, now that he is, he grins and breaks into
the verse ofof Crowe’s
other great love, music: he began professional life as a musician and

songwriter: “I used songwriting to help prepar[...]r, to help set it down.”

Naturally mischievous and very alert, Crowe hangs on everyword
Ogilv[...]

from us as performers. And you get essence through suffering. Itjust hit
me[...]anielle Spencer, who plays Meg, is equally in awe of Ogilvie’s
abilities:

He’s a genius He has the knack of pushing you to actually feel things,
so, when you[...]in your eyes. He
actually brings the emotions out of you. It makes it easier to get you
where you’re[...]ou don't get a chance to
actually feel things”) and wants to continue:

I’m probably not the right ‘type’ for this role; I'm really a city girl, and
very much of the '80s. So yes, I have to act.

I'm not as innocent as Meg: can’t be, in this day and age And l’ve
travelled a bit with my parents when I was[...]brought up, with strict morals,
yet very natural and down to earth. She is strong willed, with a foul
temper ifpushed. She is independent, and doesn’t need a peer group.

She was a little sh[...]e they had
been close friends. But it grew slowly and naturally — he’s a really lovely
person.

The film was shot mostly injunee and environs last November-
December. The townspeople were most helpful and generous: the
money spent locally was very welcome, and there was a genuine
interestin the process. Nobody complained, even when the town was
effectively shut down for the Anzac Day march, with 350 extras in 33-
degre[...]the crew
manipulated time — both the micro-time of Anzac Day, and macro
time ofthe era. Production designer Igor Nay, and costume designer
Katie Pye, recreated a subtle blend of 1940s, '50s and early ’60s,
which is often seamless with the to[...]he mid 1960s, but its an Australian
country town, and a lot of the fashions and styles are still of the '50s.
Some of the cars are even from the ‘40s. They haven’t[...]bit
longer.

FACING PAGE: DIRECTOR GEORGE OGILVIE AND ACTOR ROBERT MAMMONE,
DURING FILMING IN JUNEE. TH[...]S COUNTRY TOWN.

BELOW: JOHNNY, THE MUTUAL FRIEND OF MEG AND SAM WHO CROSSES

THE LINE AND FALLS IN LOVE WITH MEG. THE CROSSING.

But there[...]cally covered up all the advertis-
ing hoardings, and made it plain and unspecific in place.

Street signs were cut down, and the local hotels
used variously for interiors and exteriors. The
Hollywood Cafe was refurbished, with black—and-
white Hollywood pin-ups on the wall above the
tables, and an aged look of the 19505 drifting into
the ’60s.

Capturing it all on film (Kodak 5247 for exteri-
ors, 5296 for interiors) wasjeff Darling, a laconic,
inventive and respected professional who shot
Ogilvie’s The Place at the Coast and Yahoo Serious’
Young Einstein. He is using black and white and
colour prints mixed in varying percentages, echo-
ing the time span of the film: “As it all takes place
in 24 hours, we begin before dawn when it's all dark
black and of course it ends at night.”

Controlling the colo[...]A similar process was used in
Sophie’: Choice, for the Auschwitz sequences, but for
different reasons and with different results.

The various elements are[...]music (directed
by Martin Armiger), as an intense and emotional
film, both satisfying and achingly real. I

CINEMA PAPERS 78 - 9

George Brent as the murderer. The moment you asked that
question, I had an immediate recall of the girl’s rattling sticks along
a pavement to[...]ven or eight. I remember because I had nightmares for a long time

on MAD ZVIAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME and, afterwards. I also never went to the cinema agai[...]as avery bad

perhaps most notably’ as director of THE SHIRALEE winter. There was a lot of mist and fog around and as I walked past
some English railings Ivividly r[...], in a misty street,

The features, SHORT CHANGED and THE Pmcr the mood and the image return to me-

What was the next thing[...]bout the performing arts?

AT THE COAST, followed and Ogilvie is now The “professional first” was a[...]as at a school where the teachers were very drama and music
conscious. I learnt the piano and was a boy soprano. Then I was

in POSt-P7'0duCt1.[...]ROSSING discovered by the local repertory society and I began to play juvenile
roles in their productio[...]here was no question: Iwas

going to be an actor. And I was for some ten years before I began
directing.

Was thi[...]id return to Australia in 1955, I became a member of the
first Elizabethan Theatre Trust Drama Company[...]d me whether I wanted to direct a play. I said
no and that I was perfectly happy as an actor. But he persisted, sol
chose the most difficult playl could think of to show him that I was
no good at it; it h[...]

I had always been a tremendous movie fan and, in fact, I preferred
going to the cinema than th[...]lovezjust to be able to go into a darkened
cinema and fantasize.

It was George Miller who then approac[...]a while to give in to George’s constant
request for me to direct an episode. As I’ve said, I love m[...]George,
“Can you possibly be on the set with me and tell me where I go
wrong?”, to which he very ge[...]ide.

I knew also Iwas working with a fine group of directors and tech-
nicians who, if I had a question, would answer it; I had a director of
photography in Dean Semler of whom I could ask, “What do I do
here?”

So, life was filled with questions and answers as I went along — it
had to be, conside[...]entire
Australian Senate!

Did you find a repeat of that scenario when Miller then suggested you
to w[...]rom you?

ABOVE: GEORGE OGILVIE. FACING PAGE: MEG AND SAM,
TROUBLED BY A LOVE RE-KINDLED IN THE CROSSIN[...]answer to
it. It never came to that, to summaries and conclusions.

Presumably one aspect was your experience with and understanding
of actors. Can you explain your approach in drawing[...]pontaneous. It is a very difficult skill in terms of art. We
are all spontaneous as we go moment to moment in life, but when
you are on a set, and you’ve had to wait 12 hours to be spontaneous
about a scene that you’ve gone over and over again in rehearsal, it is
a very difficult t[...]eve. It seems to me that everything I do
in terms of workshopping is based on how to become empty and,
therefore, ready to be filled up — the prepar[...]orkshop I did with some directors a few years ago and
one of my first questions was, “Who is scared of actors?” There was a
forest ofarms. That showed a problem in the area ofcommunication
between an actor and director; and if there’s no trust, there will
always be a bar[...]s put the loving into young people,
19 year olds, and he takes that sense of loving very seriously. The
author says that it‘s possible for three 19 year olds to love and to know
that loving can then end in total[...]

PEG [MAY LLOYD). THE CROSSING.

To what extent is passion and that energy specific
to Australian kids, or is it[...]universal idea. But all the actors are
Australian and the sentiments and attitudes are
Australian.

At the same time, it is a very ‘vocal’ film and
not many Australians talk. They generally keep
their problems to themselves. In Paris, you see all
of life being discussed in the local cafes, but not
here. It is a bit of a British overhang, I suspect.

The film is set in the 1960s: is there a specific
reason for that?

Simply to be able to concentrate on what we are
doing and not be interfered with by influences
from outside, such as television. The town has a certain isolation and
when Sam [Robert Mamrnone] comes back after 18 mo[...]an important film in that it gives a deeper View
of the human condition?

Yes. I must answer this ver[...]ve with their parents in this
film is very true, and, when you are dealing with four families, you
have quite a span ofattitudes and reactions. People on the whole are
terrified of change, because it’s mysterious, unnerving, uns[...]an, ifsociety presses a point,
become compromised and end in tragedy. It’s a highly emotional
film.

Is that what attracted you to it?

Yes, and because it has to do with families. I am unmarried myself, but
I have brothers and sisters who are all married. I have come from a
large and warm family, one that supported me in everything I did.
Therefore, the idea of family
has always been very impor-
mm to me.

Do[...]at. My life has been with actors from the word go
and I have never wanted another life.

Do you think t[...]n impact on, or offer something
to, those parents and adolescents who are at that moment in their
lives[...]AT AS HUMAN BEINGS

LOVE IS THE ’STRONGEST’ - AND ALSO THE MOST
ENNOBLING, IF YOU LIKE - THING THAT CAN HAPPEN IN
LIFE. TO REACH THE HEIGHT OF THAT SENSE OF LOVE

IS A FANTASTIC ACHIEVEMENT."

day, but every moment of that day is a critical moment in the life of
somebody in that town. Being Anzac Day, it is highly explosive.
Everything is filled with memories and the thoughts of those who
have passed away. It’s also filled with the thoughts of young people
looking towards the future and wondering if their future iswhat they
see in their parents.

Was that the reason for setting it on Anzac Day?

Oh, very much so. The whole idea of ritual is a wonderfully filmic
thing. The author loves ritual, and so do I.

The dawn service is a serious point in[...]by the emotion. I/Vhen you look at it, it is one of the few
rituals this country has left.

Is there anything special that you do in terms of the way the film looks
or in the way you are shoo[...]amera; Jeff Darling is doing that.
As much asjeff and I planned the film together, I couldn’t do it[...]ruly believe that a film belongs to
the director and the director of photography.

_]eft’s equal understanding of the film pro-
duces what we do.

So, we have a film which is filled with
studies of people and faces: faces seeking,
faces needing, faces wonder[...]ds. Has working with them
been a challenge?

Yes, for all of us. I love workingwith the three young people, bu[...]words, can do what I want.

You have two streams of actors: the experienced and the novice?

That’s right, and to have them both is wonderful because one[...]

the parents and to see them get so much from the experienced
acto[...]] work in the scene with his
mother [Daphne Gray] and to see in his face that sense of adoration
for what that actress is doing. That’s great.

What qualities were you looking for amongst the hundreds of young
actors that you saw?

Well, taking Meg [Danielle Spencer] to begin with: I was looking for
someone who was a secret person, who was difficul[...]what she thought or felt. There had to be a sort of depth
within her, like a deep running feeling. Sh[...]low.
She has been living with this fantastic need for a particular love that
she has. She needed to be[...]In a sense,
I suppose I investigated my own life and wondered what part of me
was Johnny and what part was Sam [Robert Mammone].

johnny has a[...]a Very gentle nature. There is that duality.

As for the other boy, Sam, the best word I have is “quiet”. He has
a stillness inside and is somebodywho has a long way to go, and knows
where that is. But he is also somebody who loved this girl and
discovered, to his surprise, that he could love n[...]. That I find very strong: his humanity, his love of andjoy in
people; the fact that there is never a villain in any film he made.

Does the idea of directing a film which you regard as important
cr[...]rtantfilm, you throw that away. IfI keep thinking
of that while I was making it, the experience would[...]ortance away andjust enjoy each day as it
comes.

And, of course, there is the craft side, the day-to-day w[...]y comes about with great preparation — the same for actors.
Do your homework, do it really well, and then throw it away. You will
find that which work[...]film you are doing now is the most
important one for you?

Oh, yes. It really is like getting on a ship and there’s no land in sight
until you finish the b[...]se exists. I mean, I get a
phone call from Sydney and itwrenches me. I can’t lift my head until
we fi[...]to people, “Don’t ring me.”

Does this sort of interview intrude?

Yes.

So, you are really immersed in the story and the
emotions.

I have to be. Iwas up early this morning, on my
day off, going through what was shot and chang-
ing this and that. It never stops; it can’t stop. I go
throu[...]h such turbulent times
when you question yourself and your own expe-
rience when you are an adolescent.[...]involved in the
right way. I would bejust looking for an effect. I
have to trust my actors to know that[...]you find that draining?

It’s really exhausting and you need a good sleep.
Every day is exhausting.[...]ppen as long as
in the evening you can release it and let it go. But
I don't mean by that that I need d[...], but meditation is. It is
something I believe in and do a lot.

CINEMA PAPERS 78 -13

Is that be[...]we do understand its powers?

We achieve a sense of knowledge.

Have you experienced this sort of passionate love?
Yes.

And do you recall it with pain or with pleasure?

Bot[...]st insane time in life, where nothing else exists and
you ricochet around hitting your head againstwal1[...]realize that you have
experienced some tidal wave of feeling, and you are very grateful for
having had that experience.

How much of the craft intrudes into the art?

I don’t know, really I don’t. Every day of this film is the most
extraordinary mixture of that.

So you can just concentrate on what you do[...]believe
that a film cannot possibly be the work of one man. That’s preten-
tious nonsense.

How im[...]ehow or other

Mind you, I believe in both film and theatre; I can’t separate
them. Take the play I[...]O TOWN ON ANZAC DAY.
WITH NEV, POP (LES FOXCROFT) AND SID (GEORGE WHALEY).
BELOW: SAM MEETS THE ”OLD[...]NG.

Hamilton. It has been touring over Australia for the past 12 months,
and Julie has received incredible mail from people everywhere.
Some have been to see it five times and written to her, “This has
changed my life.”

So, if you really believe in the work you are doing, and the work
is great enough, then itwill change people’slives. And that’s the most
extraordinary — the ultimate — experience.

Do you strive for that in this film?

No, I can’t. I can only mak[...]king day by day. We have Scene 37 to do tomorrow, and
so on. That’s all you can do; you have to throw away everything else.
Obviously, you have time to think and consider and look: that’s when
it becomes technical. You have to distance yourself and ask, “My God,
what did I do with the film toda[...]ere that has
connection with what I did yesterday and will do tomorrow?” That is
a very draining thing that happens at the end ofand you can let your emotions drain
away: that’s wh[...]ORGE OGILVIE

T H E A T R E

1953 Went to England and began acting in repertory theatre

1955 Returned[...]Cherry)

-1958 Began directing at UTR

1960 Left for Europe. Studied mime in Paris withjacques le Coq[...]ediens-Mimes de Paris” with others; made series
of television programmes in Switzerland; invited to make programme
for BBC

1963 Created withjulie Chagrin mime programme for Edinburgh Festival;
later had five-month run in London West End

1963-65 Taught at Central School of Drama, London

1965 Returned to Australia and became associate director of the newly-
formed Melbourne Theatre Company (unde[...]at MTC, winning three Melbourne Critics’
Awards for Best Director of the Year

1972 Appointed artistic director of the newly-constituted South Australian
Theatre Co[...]; The Cakeman (Bondi Pavillion); Dusa, Fish,
Stas andof Notre Dame (AB)

1982 You Can’! Take it with You (STC); revived Lucrezia Borgia and Falstaff
(AO); Death of a Salesman (Nimrod)

1983 Re—directed Don Giova[...]ed Don Giovanni (A0)

1988 Shirley Valentine (STC and touring)

FILM AND TELEVISION

1982 The Dismissal (mini-serie[...]

incorporating Three Arts make-up Centre[...]ourses in Theatrical Arts

Year One:

All aspects of make-up

Art class/design layout presentation
Scu[...]op:

0 Make—up 0 Body Washes 0 Masks
0 Material for Mask Making and
Sculpture 0 Professional Make-up
Brushes ° New Dawn Range of
Cosmetics

F or further information write or
telephone Dawn Swane RADA,
ASMA, Principal and Founder

Three Arts Make-Up Centre

Pty Ltd (Est.[...]698 1070

We are registered with the Departrnent
of Employment, Education and Training,
to offer full fee educational services[...]e:
Two Year Theatrical Arts Certificate
(Stages I and II, 12 months each)

Congratulations to all our past and present
students who are continuing with excel-
lence the high standard in Make-up and
Special Efects for our Film, Television,
Theatre, High Fashion and Art/Sculpture,
plus other related areas of employment for
make-up artists.

Courses for 1990

0 Theatrical Arts

Full Time Course Stage I and II
Film / TV / Theatre / Opera / Ballet /
Special[...]ure/Special Effects

One night per week, designed for
professional / creative / revisionl expanding
existing knowledge

0 Holiday Hobby Course

For schools, amateur theatre or people
thinking of a career in make-up

0 Lecture Demonstration
All aspects of make-up, for schools,
amateur theatre and interested groups.

PRIVATE APPOINTMENT ONLY: Facial
prosthetic and skin camouflage; Remedial
Techniques.

DIRECT LIKENESS: Head sculptures created
in bronze, resin and plaster.

MOTION PICTURE GUARANTORS LTD.

Motion[...]international company
providing completion bonds for more than 300 motion

pictures and television series in North America, Europe,
Australia and New Zealand, with budgets in excess of 350
million dollars. M.P.G.’s Australasian operations have bonded
25 motion pictures with budgets of

The following article

is a revised version of

a paper Dominic Case of
Colmfilm presented for the
31st SMPTE conference in
Los Angeles in late
October 1989.

To some Australian
readers, parts of this
history may be familiar.
But it is a story s[...]ed that it needs
constantly to be

re-researched

and re-told.

ABOVE: snu mom
”SOLDlERS or me caoss" (woo);
AND, FRAME ENLARGEMENT mom
ms TRUE sronr or me

KELLY[...]).

I6 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

IN THE FIRST 100 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN FILM

DOMlNlC (ASE

N 1932, a young ca[...]eel as-
signment with cameraman Frank Hurley, the Antarctic explorer ~ «F - g 5 ,1 _
and Cinesound’s chief cinematographer. The story th[...]ust fix your eyes on the lake. Don’t look away for a
second.”

The assistant stared steadily for about three minutes while
l-Iurley fiddled with the camera. Then Hurley came back and said,
“Now — look straight at me, boy — int[...]yer in the
Australian film industry through many of its leanestyears before the so-called revival
of the 1970s.

But, despite the lean years, filmmaking in Australia has a history as long and rich
as any in the world.

Motion picture film w[...]bay he met Maurice Sestier. Sestier was in Bombay for the
Lumiere company of Paris, and, unable to test and process his film, had reports back
from Paris th[...]by the Lumiere brothers. Barnett saw his chance, and shipped Sestier,
his camera and raw stock back to Sydney.

On the 28 September, t[...]ck at Barnett’s studios, they unspooled 60 feet offilm and tried to dunk
it into a tray of developer. Whatever the pair were like as cameramen, they weren't
much good in the darkroom. Most of the film never got near the developer, and it
was all ruined.

Arthur Peters, the darkroom supervisor, went home and thought the problem
through, and spent the night building a wooden drum big enough to take a full roll
of 35mm film. It worked, and so the first truly indigenous part of Australia's film
industry — the laboratory bus[...]lthough we have their titles, those first scenes of Sydney are lost, but the
National Film and Sound Archive does have some of Barnett and Sestier’s film shot
the following year, 1896, of the Melbourne Cup. Most of the film shows the crowd
and glimpses of Barnett himself arranging celebrities for the camera— the race itself
was too fast for the slow stock to capture.

Four years later, in[...]Melbourne Town Hall.
It was entitled “Soldiers of the Cross”, produced by the Salvation Army under
Herbert Booth — son of the founder of the
Salvation Army — and shot byjoseph Perry.
Its spectacular story of the early Christian
martyrs used more than 200 lantern slides,
sound effects, music and 13 rolls of 35mm
motion-picture film, all mixed together,
and ran more than two-and-a-half hours.

Much of this work was quite original,
and pre—dates similar techniques in Europe
and the U.S. by seve ral years. Unfortunately,
Herber[...]ia the following
year, taking the film with him, and it is now
totally lost.

Filmmaking boomed in Aus[...]else. By 1905, feature

F

LUMIERE FOOTAGE OF
MELBOURNE, C. 1896.

FILMING UNDER
THE AUS[...]

GOODIE MONTGOMERY.

films of 3 or more reels in length were being produced.
In 1906, the five Tait Brothers made a six-reeler, The
Story of the Kelly Gang. Itwas screened with hand colour-
ing, sound effects and a narrator. Only part of one reel
of the film survives today, but the story itself wa[...]more times over the years,

The big bright skies and long summers in Australia
made photography on slow filmstocks easy and most of
the companies boomed. Most photography was out-
doors, and interiors were filmed on sets under
enormous musl[...]n was passed in an attempt to restrict the
number of convict, bushranger and “country bump-
kin” scripts.

Techniques, on the other hand, were quite advanced, and devices such as the
close-up shot were in evidenc[...]ponding work by the
much more well-known American and European filmmakers, such as Griffith and
Hepworth.

The pace didn’t last. By World War I, exhibitors were locking in with the major
American and British distributors. The war itself drastically slowed down produc-
tion, and the stream ofof 1919 is arguably one of the great
classics of the silent era worldwide. .

Other forms were also successfully developed in Australia, and Frank Hurley's
Pearls and Savages, made in 1923 in New Guinea, is a milesto[...]iggest production ever in Australia was released: For the Term 0fHi5
Natu'ralLz' e. Costing 60,000 pounds, it was directed by the American Norman Dawn
and the cameraman was Len Roos. The film was adventurous
in its use of special effects. Dawn specialized in painted glass
mattes, and he used this technique to “rebuild” a ruined[...]ound films had been around since the early days, and the
De Forest Phonofilm Company ofAustralia had[...]ht the popular mood, despite its
very limited use of sound, and within a few weeks cinemas in
Sydney and Melbourne were packed out. Live theatre took a
tumble, and on one Saturday night in Sydney not a single live
stage was open.

Now it was a race to equip theatres for the talkies. But the
cost was high — eleven thousand pounds for one unit. Several
Australians had been experimenting with their own systems,
and, before long, Raymond Allsop had produced the “Rayco-
phone” system, for one thousand seven hundred pounds a
unit. Many of the smaller theatres, unable to afford the
imported equipment, and lacking the expertise to maintain
it, were facing[...]smlled Raycophone, in order to protect the rights of
Vitaphone and the other imported product. However, Rayco-
phone[...]d-on—f1lm became established.

It took a couple of years before a complete sound feature was made in[...]while, there was much experimentation with shorts and newsreel items. When
the Duke ofYork opened the n[...]nberra in 1927, govern-
ment security intervened, and the speech had to be recorded from the official r[...]to be agood thing, as the poor sync between image
and sound was less obvious.

Apart from features, Newsreels have always been a mainstay of Australian
production. Australasian Gazette had b[...]roduction as a weekly
silent newsreel since 1910, and was in fact the worlds longest running silent
new[...]lished similar set-ups in France, Germany, the UK
and the U.S. The silent newsreels disappeared, but ot[...]TUDIO AT
RUSHCU'ITER’S BAY.

THE OPENING TITLES
OF

Almost the entire collection of newsreel material
shot throughout this period by Cinesound and by
Movietone survives today and is in excellent condition;
it forms an unparalleled visual history of our country
for much of its life. The 1978 feature, Neutwont, drarna—
tized the story of the Australian newsreel companies,
incorporating much of the genuine footage of the
19405 and 1950s.

Meanwhile, by 1931 several attempts had b[...]-disc. Various
local systems had also been tried, and all had indiffer-
ent results. One story tells ho[...]radio
engineer from Tasmania arrived at the door of Union
Theatres in Sydney, with the immortal line:[...]idea
that had been around since 1919 in Germany, and
which the American Theodore Case had developed
in[...]eatres took
Smith on. Union’s assistant manager of that time was
Ken Hall. He was enthusiastic about the system, and in
mp, scum, ,,.°Nm AHHUR no time found himself directing a feature with veteran writer andof a classic silent film; its budget, 8,000 pounds.[...]Smith’s glow-lamp recorder was remarkably free of the ground-noise that was a
bugbear for so many of the sound systems then being used. Itwas used on all of the
Cinesound productions and continued to be used through the war
years. In th[...]efront. He developed a portable location
recorder for magnetic film which was smaller, lighter and better than
any other. He obtained licences from both Western Electric and RCA
to use his recorder in conjunction with their[...]h his
company Eftee Films. His enthusiasm, flair for publicity and connec-
tions with the Hollywood system were believed by many to be the
greatest hope for the Australian film industry. But business wasn’t
easy. Distributors were all American or British-owned, and naturally
favoured their own product. A tariff wa[...]ctly,
but it did encourage local release printing of imported product. Itwas
this, more than anything,[...]boratories in business.
Without them, the outlook for film production would have been even
g1oomier.Th[...]ifficulties, the one shining light was Cinesound, and in the period ABOVE: FRANK THRING sEN.. HEAD OF
from 1932 to 1940 Ken Hall directed upwards of 20 features: all but one of them Em‘ F"'”5' ‘‘''°w' "“ ‘"“ ‘°""°
showed a profit for the production company. But they were a brilliant exception DEPARTMENT m 5T K"'°A’ W34‘
and, when Cinesound stopped producing fea-
tures in 1[...]ind the scenes, technical developments
continued. For example, in the 19605 Brisbane
engineer Ronaldjones developed a new system
of film transport, replacing the claw pull-down
and the Maltese cross. This was the rolling loop
system, in which the continuous movement of
film from feed and take-up rolls is transformed
to a static position[...]it had an application,
it might be in the field of medical technology.

5

I3 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

But the paper was seen by the Canadian inventors of Imax. At the time, they were
stymied by the need[...]loop proved to be the
answer.

In the mainstream of film production, with work fairly intermittent and unreli-
able, stability was provided by one studio, Supreme Sound Studios, and a number
of small laboratories, including Supreme’s own lab, and another one called
Filmcraft, owned and managed by Phil Budden.

Supreme was the first l[...]rld War
II. The process was a Cinecolor type. One of the stages of colour development
involved floating the film on the surface of a red dye. At Supreme, this was done in
a 14 foot length of roof guttering. The machine turned out about three thousand
feet per day — mainly of cinema commercials, produced to accompany the Tec[...]first Australian colour feature was made in 1955, and used the new
Gevacolor process. Itwas titled jedd[...]allenge. Chauvel was
shooting in sun temperatures of up to 60 degrees Centigrade in the Northern
Terri[...]had to be sent to Rank Laboratories, in England, for proc-
essing.

The negative was shipped out to the location using a series of ice-boxes lodged
in caves and under rock ledges, and some in native canoes covered in paper bark.
Ice[...]ly, then shipped back along the same relay route, and eventually to the
more temperate climes of the Rank labs for processing.

The results rewarded all the effort, and, for the first time, the incredible richness
of colour of the Northern Territory was shown to the world. Ye[...]tri-colour separations were discovered in London and the
original colours restored.

The first Eastma[...]isterjohn Gorton
introduced government assistance for the industry.

Filmcraft became Colorfilm and, needing to install more colour processing
capacity, designed and built its own machines, rather than face the costs and delays
of importing everything. This seemed like a good idea, and the engineering division
became Filmlab Engineeri[...]t.

In the past few years, Australian filmmakers and technicians have found
recognition that has eluded them for most of this century. The pattern that emerges
is one of a country that has produced far more than its share of great film artists and
technicians. With limited resources, Arthur Smith[...]Hall made pictures that never failed at the box—office. Frank
Hurley excelled at documentary and feature photography for three decades.
Australians are known as innovative, as resourceful, and they don’tgive up easily. But
there is only one[...]stralia has been a constant struggle, with a lack of
capital and with distribution geared almost entirely towards[...]t.
It is an irony that in this worldwide industry of communication, so little is known of
how our part of the industry grew up.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brian Adams and Graeme
Shirley, Australian Film — The
First 80[...]ition,
Currenq' Press, 1989.
Jack Cato, The Story of the
Camera in Australia, Institute of
Australian Photography, 1979.
Eric Reade, The Aus[...]s,
The Macmillan Press, 1985.
Steve Neale, Cinema and
Technology: Image, Sound,
Colaur, BFI Cine[...]

BY FRED HAR[>EN Hmmummm“

a timeline of original

Australian developments in cinema technology, as well as ofAustra-
lian use of overseas equipment and film stocks. Researching the
timeline proved diflicult. American and British developments were
relatively easy to find, but the lack of Australian material, and the
difiiculty in tracing it, was sobering.

Lis[...]hanks to the Australian Film Insti-
tute Research and Information Centre). Most books gave only
passing[...]n writing about the films

themselves.

TIMELINE OF AUSTRALIAN

CINEMA TECHNOLOGY

There are large collections of motion-picture and sound
equipment at the National Museum in Canberra and the Power-
house in Sydney, as well as documents[...]al FilmArchive,
Canberra. As these are catalogued and made accessible, they will
become a vital part of our cinema history (and self-respect). This
article, then, should be taken merely as a basis for more detailed
later work, and hopefully will inspire others to research and write

up new sources.

As the period from the ea[...]als, this project has been split at the
beginning of sound in 1 93 0. A more detailed coverage from then on

will appear in a later issue.

TIMELINE OF TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS
IN EUROPE AND THE U.S.

0...: l .
: §'oej>t)u§J‘_JU‘[...]McMahon set up five Edison Kinetoscopes in Sydney and the
first moving pictures were seen in Australia. When the public tired of the five different 40-
foot peep-show titles, he[...]use by still photographers, one user complaining of the
marks left by the creases around the spool. The Pocket Kodak was introduced in October

1895 and was an instant popular success.

EMILE IIYNAIJ[...]s Aime Augustin Le Prince projected a short
strip of moving pictures in New York. They were taken of
Le Prince’s house in Leeds,- England.

1887 First public performances of Emile Reynaud’s ani-
mated, hand—drawn films[...]projector.

May 1891 First private demonstrations of the Edison-
Dickson Kinetoscope. On 14 April 1894[...]at
the Chicago Wor1d’s Fair. His first sequence of 24 photos
was taken in 1878.

1893 W. Dickson con[...]n to build the “Black
Maria” studio, a timber and tar-paper building that re-
volved on tracks to f[...]gh
its open roof. Dickson was the cinematographer of most
of the early Edison films; the stock was Kodak. (See details
in previous issue of Cinema Papers.)

1895

1895 The Latham family gave a public demonstration of
their projected pictures, which were filmed atfo[...]butions to absorbing the effect on
the fllmstrip of the jerky pulldown and the intermittent
projector movements were a bottom sprocket and the
“Latham loop”. The Lathams were in patent[...]e loop was used by Armat in
Edison’s Vitascope, and in a number of other projectors.

1895 Demonstrations of projected moving pictures in
Germany (Max Skladanowsky with a projector that re-
quired two films and two lenses), and by C. Francis
Jenkins in the U.S. (using a continuously moving film and
revolving lenses).

28 September 1896 Marius Sestier and Walter Barnett opened the first ‘Salon Lumiere[...]e first films around Sydney Harbour
in September and October. The Lumieres must have approved of Sestier’s partner, because
they continued to provide films and film stock. The negative stock was almost certai[...]e material
from the U.S.

31 October 1896 Sestier and Barnett filmed the A.].C. Derby at Flemington, but the earliest
surviving film material is their coverage of the Melbourne Cup a week later. The fragments
pro[...]om
the original negative (P) , they are contrasty and grainy. There is little evidence of the quality
(or the scene of ladies’ alighting from the train) that was desc[...]ent. ”
1897

‘Early’ 1897 Majorjoseph Perry of the Salvation Army Limelight Department purchased a
Lumiere Cinématographe and a collection of films. (In 1900 his equipment included three
Cinématographes.) When audiences tired of the films, the Army began (in October 1897)
shooting its own, processing them in a laboratory and studio in Bourke Street.

1898

February 1898 After travelling the programme to Melbourne and Adelaide, the Salon
Lumiere returned to Sydney. B[...]two weeks later. Sestier travelled back to Paris
and there was an advertisement for his camera and 63 “magnificent” short films. One
source says that John ]. Rouse bought “two Lumiere cameras” and that one was used by
Albert ‘Mons‘j. Perier of Baker & Rouse. Baker started the Austral Plate Co[...]8: Rouse was later bought by Kodak (Australasia) and (son?) Edgar]. Rouse became
chairman of directors at Kodak.

1899

1898-99 Alfred Cord Haddon, the British Anthropologist, filmed and made phonograph
recordings in New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands.

1900

June 1900 Advertisement appeared for “Robert W. Paul’s Animatographe” at the Tivoli.

1900 Impressed by the work of his friend Alfred Haddon, Walter Baldwin Spencer[...]an’s Warwick Trading Company in London a camera and 3000
feet of 35mm negative in twenty 150—foot rolls. In March 1901, he filmed a corroboree and
made phonograph recordings of the songs on a 5-inch diameter wax cylinder machi[...]describes the difficulty in operating the camera and of only being able
to get a sideways view of the small focusing glass, and of using a blank spool for practice. The

1895 August and Louis Lumiere owned a large photo-
graphic materials factory and their projector, whilst not
the first, was really[...]had
seen the Edison Kinetoscope in Paris in 1894, and adopted
the same film and picture width as Edison. But, at first,
they used only one sprocket hole per frame instead of
four, and they reduced the number offrames per second
from[...]e Lumieres’ basic model
was light, hand cranked and, because electricity was not
widely available, used an ether lamp for illumination.
Their first demonstrations were to[...]18 March
1895.

1895 Dickson left Edison in 1895 and with afriend started
the Mutoscope Company, a different kind of peep show
that avoided Edison’s patents by usin[...]1895 Englishman Robert W. Paul described a rack-and-
tank processing system with birchwood frames that held
forty feet of negative.

1896

1896 Melies offered the Lumieres 10,000 francs (U.S.
$2,000 at the time) for a camera. When they refused, he
then made his own[...]Robert W. Paul.
Paul acknowledged that the design of his camera, built
that year, was based on one bui[...]uperimposition, stop—frame substitution, mattes
and other in-camera effects.

1897

17 March 1897 Rector used his Veriscope camera which
used 60mm film for the Corbett-Fitzsimmons boxing
match. Boxing fil[...]tractions in the early
cinema. Artificial lights and multiple camera coverage
became standard.

'I'OPi KINESCOPE ARCADE, 1899. AND, EDISON'S VITASCOPE.
WHICH IAN 50-FOO? LOOPS OF FILM OVKR IOIIINS INSTEAD
OF FROM REEL IO REEL

1900

1900 Robert Paul counted 566 patents for motion-picture
equipment in England, France and Germany alone. The
jenkins-Annat projector design was taken over by Edison
and sold as the Edison Vitascope. Armat’s contribut[...]o allow the intermittent movement
to be absorbed, and a star-wheel sprocket that helped a
quick[...]

13 September 1900 “Soldiers of the Cross" premiered.

1900 Perth photographer De[...]Kinetoscope(?),
projected films from the balcony of the (now) Perth Hotel in Murray Street on to a screen
across the street. The police tried to stop his mix of short films and advertisements, as they
caused crowd problems on the street below. On 25 May 1901, Mr Higgins (one of the three
famous Higgins brothers cinematographers?) of Elizabeth Street, Hobart, was warned by
police for a similar disturbance of the peace with his “Electric Sight Advertisements”.

1900 Newspaper advertisement appeared for Gaumont Cinématographe “for limelight
and electric light: cost 400 pounds will accept 160 pounds. Baker Sc Rouse Sydney.”

1904

1904 Mention made of “colored bio—pictures" being shown in Sydney. Perry had sent
“Soldiers of the Cross” overseas to be hand tinted (at the P[...], chemist Millard Johnson (who
supplied chemicals for photography), and formedjohnson & Gibson. With the purchase
of an “Englishmen’s magic lantern that projected[...]ctionist, before hiring out equipment, projectors and
films. They were billed as the “best bioscopic[...]alia”. With]. & N. Tait, they
made The Stow)‘ of the Kelly Gang in 1906.

1905

April 1905 The Syd[...]lkins (later Sir Hubert) worked as an electrician for a film company
in Sydney. Wilkins became an expert documentary cameraman. In 1912, working for the
(now British) Gaumont Company with his camera on the front of his motor—bike, he took
some ofthe first front[...]film is in the War Museum Canberra), he covered Antarctic expeditions
and was another ofthe cameraman adventurers like Fran[...]08

29 December 1908 The Stadium screened a film of the Johnson-Burns Fight which had
taken place thr[...]en, in 1904, he
purchased a motion-picture camera and began documenting his town. He moved to Sydney
where Cousens Spencer was quick to recognize and employ his talents, as well as those of
his two brothers, Arthur and Tasman, who also became cinematographers. The Higgins
brothers’ credits include many of the Spencer features and newsreels, and others over the
next thirty years.

1909

January[...]910

October 1910 Englishman Alan Williamson, son of James Williamson (who made the
Williamson movie c[...]rganized Spencer’s darkroom on the fourth floor of the

22 o CINEMA PAPERS 78

York. The system used[...]ieres revealed their giant 70—by-53-foot
screen for the Paris Exposition offor Edison’s Kinetoscope, Cinephor pro-
jection lenses and Raytar 8: Baltar camera lenses.

OF THE KELLY GANG, I906.

"'lI1j1lll\\\

_a-

CINEMATOGRAPHER IRNESY HIGGINS HOLDS UP HIS FIAMI
FOR DRYING FILM.

1907

1907 Donald]. Bell, a projectionist, and Albert Howell, a
draughtsman and mechanic for a projector—parts manu-
facturer, formed the Be[...]The Haunted Hotel caused a
sensation with its use of a stop-motion animation se-
quence, among its oth[...]ison films in 1905 had
some animated title cards and Blackton had made a film
in 1906 called Humorous Phases afFumLy Faces which used
blackboard and cut-out animation.

1907 Eastman Kodak still domi[...]ded its Blue Label, which was about 1/2 the
speed of Kodak (20 to 25 ASA at that time), and Violet
label, which was about the same speed as K[...]Pathe bought the English film manufacturer Blair
and began a process of re-cycling all the developed stock
it could get, stripping off the emulsion and re-coating. At
this time, Agfa was manufac[...]

1911 Most of the eight features made this year for Amalgamated Pictures in Melbourne
were photographed by Orrie Perry, son of joseph Perry. Orrie and brother Reg worked
from a courtyard studio behindjohnson and Gibson’s oxygen and boracic manufacturing
factory in St.Kilda. The brothers did all the processing, titling and editing.

1911 Arthur Higgins, then nineteen year[...], photographed Francis Birtles’ bicycle
journey for Across Australia with Francis Birtles.

September[...]ushcutter's Bay. The eventwas significant enough for the
Premier of NSW to open the complex; film coverage was scree[...]Australia Calls included an elaborate model shot of the attack on Sydney
by the “Asiatics”. Cardboard planes swooped down wires over a large scale model of Sydney,
creating, when intercut with actual Sydney locations, “a sea of fire where tower and spire
come tumbling down”.

1913 Frank Hurley made his 4000-foot documentary, Home of the Blizzard, of Douglas
Mawson’s Antarctic expedition. Hurley became famous for his actuality filming and still
photographs. His 1917 film, In the Grip of Polar Ice, of the two—year Shackleton expedition,
is his most famous. Hurley had to dive into the interior of the ice—trapped ship to retrieve
his film negative. It was developed in the tent and dried over Primus stoves. He had to leave
his movie camera behind and destroy “four fifths” of his glass plates. The film neg was saved
because it was part of a 20,000—pounds advance for the film rights that helped fund the
expedition.

Arriving safely in London at the start of World War I, I-Iurley reported to Australia
House and was made an official war photographer. One report of Hurley’s carrying the
movie camera at the front lines said it was some new type of machine gun.

Hurley took pictures of Ross and Keith Smith from the wing of their plane on their first
England-to-Australia[...]aphed underwater scenes on the Great
Barrier reef and, in 1929, returned to the Antarctic with Sir Douglas Mawson. Hejoined
Cinesound in 1936 and was again an official war photographer in 1939. In 1941, he received
the OBE.

July 1913 W._]. Lincoln and Godfrey Cass formed Lincoln-Cass Films and produced eight
features in a small, glass-roofed[...]7-8 Pathé introduced its stencil-tinting service for
film.

1908 The Williamson slow-motion, hand-cra[...]over a light box; at eight
drawings photographed for two frames each, it was true
fluid animation.

1[...]ss,
by photographing alternate frames through red and
green filters then projecting them with a revolv[...]tion.

1911

1911 Charles Urban produced a record of the crowning
of George V in G. A. Smith's Kinemacolor.

E __ .[...]phers preferred 50mm or
longer.

1912 First sales of Williamson hand-cranked box camera,
with internal magazine, single lens and internal 400-foot
magazine.

1913

1913 Leon Gaum[...]ion
processes. It was slower, physically unstable and expen-
sive.

THE PAT‘!-IE COLOR PRI[...]

October 1914 Cameraman Ber[...]hip taking the First
Expeditionary Force to Egypt and Gallipoli. He was to extensively cover the war at home.

1917

1917 Australasian Gazette used the animation of Harryjulius in a series of propaganda
conscription films. Animation sequenc[...]ntioned as early as 1912.

FILM PROJECTOR TYPICAL OF THOSE USED IN THE EARLY THE WILUAMSON MOVIE CAMII[...]ISON'5 KINEYOPHONE, WHICH ATTEMPTED T0 LINK IMAGE AND SOUND.

1923

1923 Frank Hurley hand-coloured every frame of Pearls and Savages for his overseas lecture
tour.

24 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

1914

1914 Earl Hurd’s patent lodged for the use and process
of cel(luloid) in animation.

1915

1915 Max Fliescher awarded patent for first rotoscope
projector.

1918

1918 Bell 8: Ho[...]released. Most
editing had been done by scraping and cementing by
hand, pressing the film (even negat[...]ction print.

1920

1920 A resin—backed version of the Eastman ortho stock
called “X-back” was introduced for the colder East Coast
filming conditions to help[...]ased was a pre-tinted base print
stock in a range of colours (blue for night, gold for sunset,
red for fires, etc.).

1920(?) Introduction of Kodak Reversal stock.

1920 First Moviola.

1921[...]on film system Tri-Ergon re-
leased (the “work of three”:joseph Engel,joseph Massole
and Hans Vogt).

1922 The two—colour Technicolor pr[...]similar
double-thickness print to avoid the need of special pro-

jection methods. It was expensive and the colour was

often called “a one-and-a-half colour process”.

1923

1923 Bell 8: How[...]hand-held
35mm camera, with a 200—foot magazine and clockwork
motor.

1924

1924 Moviola Midge[...]

1925 Freelance cameramen Claude Carter and Ray Vaughan established Filmcraft Labo-
ratories and began to process U.S. Fox New: issues until Fox M[...]was
formed in 1929. Vaughan was sent to the U.S. for training in sound newsreels.

1926

1926 Norman 0. Dawn, independent producer, cameraman and director, started filming
For the Term of his Natural Life. Dawn was well known in Hollywood for the pioneering of
special-effects techniques — miniatures, mattes and glass shots — and he used them all in the
movie. His cameraman was[...]7

1927 The Sydney Capitol theatre was the first of the ‘atmospheric’ auditoriums to use
projected stars and drifting clouds on the roof of the cinema.

1928

29 December 1928 Sydney premiere of The jazz Singer at the Union Theatres’ Lyceum. By
March 1936, Australia’s 1334 cinemas were all wired for sound, and the travelling picture
shows brought sound to man[...]ectric sound system cost
10,000 pounds to install and the contract included a weekly service charge bound for ten
years. Australian engineers designed their ow[...]od with a.n American sound engineer Paul I-lance, and Australia's first Movietone

sound truck.

2 November 1929 The first Australian issue of Fox Movietone News was released, featuring a
speech by Prime Minister Scullin.

1930

June 1930 Premiere of the first Australian Talkies Newsreel, initiated by Bill Lyall of Union
Theatres Melbourne. This used a sound-on—[...]rocess intro-
duced. This allowed mass production of a single dye-im-
bibition print. The three—stri[...]ng it Vitaphone. It was later
abandoned in favour of Western Electric‘s sound<>n-film
process in 19[...]possibility. He
worked loosely with Earl Sponable and Theodore Case,
and each developed their own sound cameras, De Forest[...]adopt the
Case & Sponable sound-on—film system and renamed it
Movietone. It became Fox Movietone in[...]DE CISMM CONTACY PRINYER, IUILY IY CLARRY
THOMSON OF KINGAIOY, C.‘I9Z|0.

THE PROJECTION ROOM OF YHE HOYTS REGENT, IRISIANI, WHICH WAS EOUIPPED FOR
SOUND ON FILM AND DISC. 1930.

CINEMA PAPERS 78 - 25

CKENZI E '3

x

‘ DEN), AND HI

Return Home[...]

But people who haven’t act[...]m don’t know about how
to move, how to react to and work with a camera. I found this on a lot of
the cinematographyl have done. On Pnsoner of StPetersl7urg, for example,
Katya Teichman was a very experienced theatre actor, but she hadn’t
done film before and didn’t have the technical experience. On a per-
formance level, theatre people tend to go too large and it takes a while
for them to settle down and discover what works well on film. They have
to learn about eye-lines and what you can do in front of a camera, like
the difference between a close-up and a wider shot, what you have to do
to make the per[...]o to Swinburne or the Australian
Film, Television and Radio School, Argall finally opted for Sydney:

I was there for three years and made
one film, D0gFood, which I really like.
It is one of the few films where I felt I'd
achieved what I h[...]by the
fact that [later producer] john Cruth-
ers and I used to watch a lot of Bresson
and Ozu films.

Unfortunately, the Film School
hated my film. They hated the way I
made it and didn ’ twant to know about
it. But I was still very happy with it.

”I HAVE ALWAYS
BEEN CRITICAL OF
THE CLICHED,
STEREOTYPED WAY
AUSSIES ARE
PORTRAYE[...]is work less than enthusiastically
received: many of staff at the AFT RS,
for example, didn’t want Jane
Campion’s Peel comp[...]they thought it was incompetent.

UNDERSTANDING
OF AUSTRALIAN
WORKING-CLASS

And there is this other guy, Mick pEop|_E/I

Clarke, whose films were dramatically

some of the best the Film School has

ever produced. But[...]don’t know — because he had a very
hard time of it.

The School can be so bureaucratic. At the ti[...]udents. It has changed a lot since then,
however, and I have been impressed by a lot of the stuff that has come
out ofit. And the fact remains that a lot of good people go to the Film
School; it is where I[...]After the AFT RS, Argall came back to Melbourne and worked as

28 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

a sound editor, before moving into the then new field of rock music
clips.

There were quite a few independent filmmakers around, and they
tended to slip in and out doing them. There was Richard Lowenstein,
Andrew de Groot,_]ohn Hillcoat, Paul Goldman and Evan English, all
outof Swinburne and all working for absolute peanuts. I don't know how
many of them are still doing clips. I’m certainly not. Maybe the feeling

is mutual — me and the record companies.

In 1982, Argall made anoth[...]julie, julie ..., about a girl
who has left home and is riding around Australia on a motorbike.

We didn’t have funding for that, so it was a matter of getting people
together who were prepared to work for $100 a week. It was only a two-
week shoot and I used some of the money we’d made out of rock clips.

I really enjoyed doing that film, but nothing really came of it. It is

very hard to do anything with shorts.

At the same time, Argall had begun shooting features for some
of Australia’s leading independent directors.

I d[...]e a learning experience. They
wanted people to go and work with professionals, but, from my point of

view, the best way to get experience was to go out and shoot 60 to 70 rolls
of stock.

I have kept doing Ian’s films over the years: Plains Of Heaven in 1982,
Wrong World in 1984 and Prisoner of St Petersburglast year. I also did Tender
Hooks for Mary Callaghan. I was in a great position, becaus[...]really wanted to do. From a cinematographic point of view, they

were quite challenging.

Argall also worked extensively as an editor, cutting some of the
Pringle features and also Brian McKenzie ’s With Love to thePersonNext
to Me. “Editing is a fantastic grounding, and

Return Home is the story of one man’s coming to terms with his past
and the responsibility and rewards of family love. Noel (Dennis
Coard), in his late thi[...]ho returns home one summer to the Adelaide suburb of his
childhood. There, he stays with his elder brother, Steve (Frankiej.
Holden), wifejudy (Micki Camilleii) and their two children. Steve
runs a garage in ashopping centre that is going backwards financially
in the age of American franchises and a dearth of customer service.
Steve is a gifted car mechanic with a real love for his job, but it is
becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Both he and the
ideals he stands for are on borrowed time.

Argall sets up this tale - of the negative forces of progress held
tentatively atbayby one man's inherent goodness—as a metaphor for
Australian society today. Values are changing in the face of altering
consumer demand: local shopping centres are being replaced by
impersonal supermarkets and awasteland of drive-in food and video
marts.

These ‘generations’ of Australian consumerism and service are
linked with generations of ‘family’. Argall begins his film with a brief
scene of Noel,]udy and Steve in their late teens, when the local pa-
per[...][Rachel Rains] ) , Steve is his strug-
gling boss and Noel the emigre who left family and home. But Noel
soon senses within himself emotional changes set off by the eco-
nomic and social changes around him. And when he returns to his
Melbourne office, the once[...]e
made.

Simply but effectively shot (Argall cuts and tracks only when he
really needs to), with a subtle and affecting screenplay, and an
understated level of performance rare in Australian film, Return
Home is deserving of every bit of praise it will undoubtedly receive.
That is not t[...]the middle, some scenes drift a fraction too
much and there is the odd gratuitous moment — but the fl[...]me is a significant achievement.

Before leaving for overseas, and, as it would later turn out, a visit
to the Berli[...]with his former Brinsley Road film
teacher.

One of the unI.1sI.ml aspects of Return Home is that you have written
a first film[...]self. The Wild Strawberry-

FACING PAGE: STEVE AND JUDY (MICKI CAMILLERI) WORRY OVER

THE ACCOUNTS AS FINANCIAL PRESSURES THREATEN CLOSURE OF THEIR GARAGE.

BELOW LEFT: MELBOURNE INSURANCE BR[...]IN ADELAIDE: JUDY, STEVE, CLARE (GYPSY LOCKWOOD)

AND WALLY (RYAN RAWLINGS]. RETURN HOME

like concept of a man’s returning home and being affected by all the
changes is generally associated with directors of an older age group,
ones who have perhaps reached[...]n their lives.

[Laughs] Maybe Iwill go backwards and do kids’ films when I get old!

When I first w[...]even older.
Maybe that came from observing a lot of people in that age group
who had reached the point of not knowing where to go with their
lives. I felt[...]middle, between the young petrol-head
apprentice and the older two brothers.

I had metsome people who’d run a little service station in Bumie,
Tasmania, and the stories they told were very colourful. That i[...]gh the setting is. However, I did go back
to them for more research, to find out how they actually operated,
what sort of pressures they were under and so on.

Your film can be read as a metaphor of economic and social changes
within Australia. Most pointed is[...]ney, he just wants to stay in business. He
stands for a work ethic that has been largely eroded by prog[...]nnot be stopped. Itjust
rolls along, taking a lot of people in its stride. In the years to come,
people will probably look back and say, “Gee, I miss that little garage
tha[...]

You do, however, end on a note of 0ptin1ism,which is unusual in that

most films about the negative effects of progress end on a sour note,
as if believing it m[...]zes thatwhat he is doing in life
has limitations, and that he could apply some of what he knows to
help his brother. You do not know what will come ofit, but Noel has
made the step to try and do something, no matter how little, that
might actually affect people for the better. And because it is with
people he feels close to, it i[...]lly big insurance deals in Melbourne.

So, I went for an optimistic suggestion at the end, hoping that[...]her aspect that remains quite subtle is the sense of generations
passing. The film opens when Gary was[...]des his bike
past the garage.

That stuffis touch and go, and again is really hard to get right. Itwas
one ofse[...]is on Return Home?

Yes, we had nearly four weeks of rehearsals, which is quite a lot. I
really wouldn[...]get rather frustrated if they don’t have enough of the
director's time. If they do get a lot of it in rehearsals and pre-
production, most of their questions will get answered.

To what exten[...]ne. They are the
moments you really want to keep, and some of the stuff you previ-
ously thought essential can[...]PAPERS 78

A good example is the scene where Noel and Gary are sitting on
the beach, looking out to sea[...]a kid trapped in this big country town, Adelaide, and he's
interested in this guywho is more worldly. Noel has come from where
Gary is now and achieved something, even if that path isn’t one[...]aving Adelaide, Noel hasn’tbeen
able to adjust, and he can see in Gary some of the things he is facing.

As originally scripted, that scene had a lot of stuff that on the
surface told you what the chara[...]scene I extended is where
Gary goes to see Wendy and they talk on the verandah. That had
stayed pretty[...]wearing?” Gary has put on too much after-shave, and
he replies, “Oh, it’s one ofDad's.” She say[...]a little, which
works really nicely. I'm not one for extending scenes unnecessarily,
but it had always[...]it is
beautifully resolved.

There are all sorts of things you should look at in trying to get[...]

BELOW: STEVE AND GARY AT WORK. RETURN HOME.

It is, on the whole, a precisely acted film. You detail aspects of
Australian behaviour without ever slipping into ocker caricature.

I have always been critical of the cliched, stereotyped way Aussies are
portraye[...]on’t know ifit comes from the television soaps, and
it is actually found most often in our films.

M[...]h as people think; after all, it is the
directors and actors who interpret the script.

During rehearsa[...]Home slipped into
that ocker style. The swearing, for instance, wasjust incredible. Un-
fortunately, I didn't pulled it back early enough, and during filming
I had quite afew problems with the “bloody"s and the “mate "s — “How
ya bloody going mate?”, and that sort of thing. It sounds okay on the
street, but not when[...]lm.

In many Australian films, the language reeks of affectation, as if the
middle-class director is a[...]f you have been through the private-school
system and university, you can easily gain a narrow view of the
working classes. It is not as if such directors are not broad-minded,
it isjust that their understanding of others is sometimes limited by
their upbringing.[...]film in Adelaide certainly made it a lot easier for me,
because that is where I went after leaving school. I got a car, hotted
it up and did all those sort of things. Although I had been making
films, they w[...]life. I went there because I wanted to have
a car and do those sort of things.

Why is Adelaide the hot-rod capital of the universe?

I really don’t know, but it sure[...]aide, with
those wide open roads, it almost feels and looks like L. A.

I first went to Adelaide in th[...]ejust as they
always were. It is a wonderful sort of time warp. You can go back to
a fruitjuice bar in an arcade that you remember from 20 years ago,
and itis still there. Maybe it is not run by the same[...]ed the layout. It is like one
generation grows up and the next follows. Look at the obsession with
Elvis and spray-on pants, and ripple—soled shoes. It is still there. Quite
in[...]We stayed out
at Glenelg, where we were filming, and there were cars continually
going by doing all the things that are in the script. That was great for
the actors, because they felt and understood the integrity the script
had.

Your editor is Ken Sallows, one of the under-appreciated talents in
the Australian i[...]al scenes, butl always had trouble with directors and produc-
ers actually getting the whole down to a[...]me is a carefully structured fil.m, both overall and within
scenes. Did you go onto the set knowing pr[...]en two characters were just talking to each other and
there was not a lot of movement.

It is terrific to be able to go on to[...]ithout that knowledge, people can find eye-lines and things like
that Very frustrating.

CINEMA[...]

Generally we designed the two shots we were going to use, and
choreographed them specifically. Quite often in[...]a two-shot where one person was in the foreground and
another in the background, then someone would wal[...]in frame. To cover ourselves, we would do a point-of-view
cut-away or a close-up.

Mandy Walker, the director of photography, is very good on that
stuff. She know[...]e on everything else that is going on.

With some of the dramatic scenes, when two people are talking[...]isjust wonderful; you can really pick the moments and stretch
them. Take for example the scene with Gary and Wendy on the
porch. We did a two-shot for the opening and the ending, but the rest
is all close-ups. It is[...]You can maximize the whole performance from
each of the actors.

There are several brief montages in the film, generally of two or
three shots, which set up the next scene. This is a technique Ozu uses
and which Paul Schrader paid homage to in American Gi[...]tages were very hard to get right. We spent a lot
of time shooting them. Mandy and I went out on our weekends off
and shot what we could, like the kidsjumping off the pier.

Which is one of the most moving images of 1980s Australian cinema.

That's great, because that is exactly what we wanted to get out of it.
It’s wonderful when you get a shot that works.

The opening of your film is like an industrialized version of the
beginning of The Year My Voice Broke, with the combination of
classical music and the evoking of a time past.

The placing ofthe music was really tricky. Originally itwas a pop song
from the era, and for a lot of people it worked well. But it set up ex-
pectations of a teen pic, which the film isn’t. Audiences ma[...]own.

32 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

if

ABOVE: BROTHERS, AND FAMILY FOUND: NOEL AND STEVE IN RETURN HOME.

I then thought of the Dvorak [Symphony No. 9] and I think it
helped give the impression ofits being[...]ith the sound mix, too, when the realistic sounds of the
carpark are faded in for a few seconds.

We wanted that slightly subjective aspect to the soundtrack. I like to
isolate sounds and play with them, bringing them up and down.

Dean Gawen, who did the sound recording and also mixed the
film, did a really good job on that. Overall, and especially given the
difficulties, the sound department did a greatjob.

Which raises the question of the film’s very small budget [$350,000,
from th[...]good. I think the tag oflow budget is
really bad, andand the crew agreed
to work under the conditions, whi[...]had time to
do what we wanted to do.

Also, Mandy and I didn’t want a hand-held, graining look, but
one that was really clean and sharp. That decision greatly helped the
overall look of the film.

There is very little camera movement in the film.

I do not use a lot of tracking, but, when I do, it is good to have a ni[...]Iwanted to move the camera. We then
hired a grip for those days. It was the same when we were doing th[...]doing that, butwe managed to get the extra
people for it.

Most of the films I have done have been with small crews. In
Europe, of course, they make their 35mm features with small crews.
But out here we have the Hollywood attitude of big crews. On Return
Home, we probably were a bit short in the art department, and we
didn’t have continuity or make-up, except for one day, when we had
to make the character[...]

I

Bank of Melbourne

cuts the co st
of personal banking

or Professional People

The Personal Current Account

0 you work all hours and
Saturdays to meet your
deadlines? Are you sick of bank
charges, bank hours and lack of
bank service?

Then you should open a Personal
Current Account at the Bank of
Melbourne, and discover a more
professional approach to costs,
service and hours.

I Free cheques, no fees.
I Earnup to 1355[...]Personal Current
Account, visit your nearest Bank
of Melbourne branch. Or call

522 7500

‘Also late[...]e branches. Saturday morning most
branches.

Head Office: 52 Collins Street, Melbourne, 3000.

fluflo ’

Bank of Melbourne cuts the cost of banking

BANK 40945

BANGKOK HILTON

and

A low; WAY mom HOME:
BARLOW AND CHAMBERS

BY INA

It was inevitable that these tw[...]ralians facing the death penalty in an Asian gaol for

drug running), but writer Terry Hayes made the c[...]t by stating in an interview that his inspiration for the

story of BANGKOK HILTON (Ken Cameron, 1989) was his dismay

at the dramatic dqiciencies in the story of A LONG War FROM

Hows: BARLOWAND CHAMBERS (Ierry[...]how are you ever going to get audience sympathy

for a couple of guys who are drug runners?”

- CINEMA PAPERS 73

ABOVE: BARBARA BARLOW (JULIE CHRISTIE)
IN FRONT OF AN IMAGE OF HER SON, KEVIN (JOHN POLSON).

JERRY LANDON’S A LONG WAY FROM HOME:
BARLOW AND CHAMBERS.

BERTRAND

ERTAINLY, Hayes was right to suggest that the key to the
dramatic structure of both narratives is the guilt/ inno-
cence of the main characters, but the comparison between
them is rather more complex than Hayes suggests, and
deserves some more detailed examination.

To some[...]yes answers his own question, with the
characters of Mandy (]oy Smithers) and Billy (Noah Taylor) in
Bangkok Hilton. Both are technically guilty, but neither is entirely re-
sponsible for his or her actions. The drug-dependence of their
mother ensured that Mandy was born addicted and Billy mentally
retarded. Feeding her habit is, then, not entirely voluntary or self-
indulgent for Mandy: she cannot be simply condemned for her
weakness. Neither can Billy. His simple-minded cheerfulness led
him to insist on carrying Mandy’s bag for her, so it is he who is caught
‘red-handed’, and is technically the guiltier of the two.

Added to the plea of ‘diminished responsibility’ is the sheer
likeableness of the characters, and the sympathy evoked by the
strength of the bond between them. Mandy’s love for Billy is one of
the reasons for her breaking the law in the first place (she was going
to use the money to pay for a trip on an ocean-liner, his highest
ambition), and it leads her to take great risks to protect him while
they are in jail and to bargain
with her captors, offering her
life for his. Viewers, therefore,
are completely upon their side
as the horror of the execution
scene unfolds.

The writer of A Long Way
from Home, William Kerby, did
not have[...]s, to play
upon the emotions to gain the
sympathy of an audience.
Through the press reports,
both of the trial and of the
efforts of Barbara Barlow to
achieve a reduction of the sen-
tence, the Australian public
knew the end of the story before the series opened. Constrained (at
least to some extent) not only by the ‘facts’ of ‘history’, but by the
public’s knowledge of these ‘facts’, the most Kerby could do[...]

The second strategywas to sh[...]rlfriend had not had an abortion against his will
and left him shattered by her betrayal. Chambers was[...]he death ofhis innocent girlfriend in an accident for which he feels
responsible. The suffering of each is clearly presented (there is no
attempt to suggest, for instance, that Chambers’ grief is anything but
real and very painful), but the difference in these two stories also
contributes to the apportioning of sympathy between them: again,
Barlow is an innocent victim ofthe perf1dyofothers,while Chambers
is suffering for his own stupidity.

The third strategy was to introduce an aspect of moral growth
into the character of Barlow, while at the same time denying such
change to Chambers. So Kevin Barlow, who till almost the end of the
story had been shown as weak, easily-led and amoral rather than
immoral, undergoes in prison a[...]igh moral principle,
rejecting his mother's offer of poison as a way to cheat the hangman
on the grounds that itis his own problem which he must face himself,
and learning to pray (just as Chambers refuses that comfort).

Finally, racism became a strategy for extracting sympathy from at
least western audienc[...]uilty, they do not deserve to suffer at the
hands of Asian legal systems, with their odd courtroom procedures,
inhuman treatment of prisoners in gaols and barbaric penalties.

Clearly, all of the above are narrativestrategies, with no necessary
connection to the ‘facts’ of‘history’.2 These strategies however, even
at[...]e they are constantly undermined in the interests of other
threads of a narrative which cannot make up its mind whether[...]e her son’s life, or a polemic about the rights of westerners

caught in Asian justice systems.

LEF[...]BELOW: BARBARA VISITS
KEVIN IN A MALAYSIAN GAOL. AND, KEVIN
BARLOW, A GUARD AND GEOFFREY
CHAMBERS (HUGO WEAVING) IN A LONG
WAY FROM HOME.

Take the question of Barlow’s guilt, for instance. The ‘police
story’ aspect of the narrative always admits that Barlow did what he
was accused of— in fact, in the opening episode the viewers ac[...]to the last.

In the book which was ghostwritten for the real Barbara Barlow3,
a story is told which e[...]o collect
drugs, but he did not meet the courier, and was on his way home
again, completely ignorant of the drugs hidden in the new suitcase
by his casua[...]does provide Barbara Barlow with a justification
for her insistence on her son’s innocence. T[...]

There is[...]]. In john Bryson’s book, the ultimate question of the guilt
of the Chamberlains is left open, despite the overwhelming weight
of circumstantial evidence which leads a reader inex[...]however,
visualizes Lindy Chamberlain’s version of the story and, once the
viewer has seen the dingo leave the tent, the rest of the film is almost
superfluous: at this point,[...]whodunit’, it shifts
from being a mystery story and becomes instead a story of the wilful
persecution of innocence.

Dramatic subtlety is lost along with[...]is
reduced to a simple confrontation between good and evil. This is not
necessarily a bad thing, as in[...]blem is rather with the denial by the filmmakers
and by most of the critics that this is what they are actually d[...]w, rather than with realistic drama.

In the case of A Long Way from Home, the moral confusion leads
not simply to a shift of register, but rather to unresolved contradic-
tio[...]It need not have been this way. True, the guilt of Barlow and
Chambers prevents them from ever being any more than, at best,
flawed heroes. And yes, by making their guilt so obvious, Kerby pre-
vents the character of Barbara Barlow from functioning as a clear
moral centre of the narrative. But despite all this, there is sti[...]ve available: the debate around the legal
aspects of the story. And it need not have had the racist overtones
which i[...]Once the narrative has elected to depict Barlow and Chambers
as guilty, and to leave the viewer in no doubt of that, then the focus
of dramatic interest inevitably shifts to the process of capture, trial
and punishment. There were a number of possible routes through
this area. The differences between national criminal codes, and the
problems of the rights of foreign nationals within the legal system -
the courts and gaols - of another country, are real problems. Equally
significant are questions of the possibility of buying justice: Barlow

36 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

in[...]reak if he can raise the money. But the
ultimate, and most important, question is
capital punishment, and specifically the
death penalty for drug running.

It is at this point that the mini-[...]o an emotional
morass — dwelling on the horrors of the
physical process of hanging and on the
family’s pain — instead ofconfronting head-
on these important moral and social issues.

Is society everjustified in clai[...]is it to
apply to? Is it intended as a punishment for
the guilty party or as a deterrent to others?
And is it an effective deterrent anyway?

How can cri[...]ow far are the drug couriers — the lowest
ranks of the drugs industry — being made to act as scapegoats for
society’s inability to dealwith those who employ them as couriers and
make the really big money out of the traffic?

To on[...]nley Kramer, 1967) has been frequently criticized for
painting a sanitized picture of racism, by depicting the prospective
son-in-law as Sidney Poitier — charming, handsome, welleducated
and with a good income in a respected profession. But[...]parents-in-law with some other excuse than racism for
their reluctance to accept him into the family. I[...]Kidman] in Bangkok Hilton), or to create sympathy
for the guilty through diminished responsibility (Mandy and Billy),
is to allow the viewers an out on the moral issue: in these cases, the
penalty is obviously unjust, and the viewers can come away feeling
morally outrage[...]carriage
ofjustice; it does not approach the core of the problem: the moral
justification for such a penalty in the first place. Of course, it would
have taken an expertwriter (orwr[...]ith this
issue without alienating a large section of the audience. So many
Australians are fiercely committed to the support of capital punish-
ment, or have so little sympathy with drugs that in the case of drug
runners, they are willing to suspend their s[...]equal to
this challenge.

So, the dramatic impact of Bangkok Hilton is a result, not only of
technical effectiveness (the skill of director, actors and technicians)
but also of the fact that Hayes knew what he was doing: const[...]melodrama around the myth ofpersecuted innocence. And
he did it well.

Unlike other narrative forms, the goal of the family melodrama
is not necessarily the establishment of a heterosexual couple —
certainly not in this c[...]Kat’s parents allow themselves to be
separated, and Arkie (]erome Ehlers) turns out to be a con mer-[...]Instead, the narrative aims at the
reconstruction of the damaged family, allowing the reconciliation of
Hal Stanton (Denholm Elliott) with his brother after a break ofmore
than twenty years, and the final reunion ofHal and Kat as father and
daughter. This resolution of family crisis is even less ambivalent than
in some of the other Kennedy Miller stories, including TheDirtwater
Dynasty and Vietnam.

Myths explain the world to us. They not[...]ening — the gods are
smiling, or they are angry and must be placated by a sacrifice. In
Bangkok Hilton, the primary myth was that of persecuted innocence:
the gods demanded a certain amount of sacrifice, but allowed the
final restoration of justice, both through Kat's escape and through
the arrest of Arkie Regan.

The audience had seen this (family melodrama) form and these
myths (of persecuted innocence) many times. They were also[...]ly through other
representations (including film and television representations),
with the aspects of the real world that were woven through the story
— a world of drugs, of easy travel for westerners into Asia, of sexual

FACING PAGE, TOP: BEFORE THE EXECUTION:

GEOFFREY AND KEVIN. A LONG WAY FROM HOME.

FACING PAGE, BELOW: KATRINA STANTON (NICOLE KIDMAN) IS TAKEN
TO LUM JAU GAOL AND, KATRINA WITH, UNKNOWN TO HER,

HER FATHER, HAL STANTON (DENHOLM ELLIOTT). BANGKOK HILTON.
BELOW: KATRINA AND THE DECEITFUL ARKIE REGAN

(JEROME EHLERS). BANGKOK HILTON.

l.
‘t

3.
‘i 5‘.
predation. History and myth fit comfortably together.

A Long Wayfrom Home deals with these myths and these realities
too, but less expertly, failing t[...]But, most significant, itfails to take
advantage ofand the economic and social ‘base of the drugs

traffic. Terry Hayes hasn’t done this either. I wonder who of our
current crop ofwriters might be game to tackl[...]programme, about its relation to the ‘truth’ of
the events upon which it is based.

5. Barbara Barlow (as told to Isobette Gidley and Richard Shears), A Lang
Wayfrom Home: a Mo[...]

1-TERA CAREER as a painter and maker of obdu—
rately esoteric short films, British dir[...]e Dmughtsman 3 Contract.
The stanchless loquacity of its dialogue and the exhilarating musical
soundtrack worked in tandem with the flow of enigmatic visual im-
ages to keep up an attack on its audience which was both seductive
and minatory. Not, one might have thought, the stuffo[...]way has gone on to make four more features:
A led and Two Noughts, The Belly of an Architect, Drowning by Numbers
and The Cook, the Thief: his Wife and Her lover. It is a production record
more usually[...]art-house
brigade.

The Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her Loveris, according to Greena-
way: a melodra[...]t is a love story between the Wife [Helen Mirren] of the Thief
[Michael Gambon] and Her Lover [Alan Howard]. The Cook
[Richard Bohrin[...]1616] ofa dining party that is
hung on its walls and after whom the Thief and his gang model
themselves. The cuisine is cosmopolitan French, the action is set in
the 1980s and the restaurant could be situated in any large cit[...]urope or North America.”

Although it is a rich and complex film, The Cook, the Thicfi His Wife
and Her Lover is also your most accessible. How do yo[...]very recognizably a Greenaway film: the same sort of
metaphorical language, the same sort of exterior characteristics

38 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

which make you feel as if you’re always watching a film and not doing
anything else. It’s not a slice of life, not a window on the world; it is
certainly[...]ion, more emotive association
between an audience and a screen. There are many reasons for that.
Basically, my cinema likes to address the fact that the only legitimate
relationship between a film and its audience does not have to be an
emotional one. I started life off as a painter and I have always been
very aware that when you stand in front of a painting you do not
emote. You don’t fall aro[...]or in laughter, crying your
eyes out orjumping up and down in anger. It is a different sort of
approach, one much more to do with contemplation, with form and
surface as well as with content. I have always tried to get those sorts
of relationships into my cinema.

I have always enjoyed those artefacts which make me work, not
only in terms of the cinema but also novel-writing, painting and all
the other arts. I likewise believe that audie[...]wood influence. So, I have always used all sorts of
distancing devices- quite obvious things like no use of close-ups, very
little editing, a concern with static frames and complex soundtracks,
and so on. All those characteristics are still presen[...]Thief, butwhat has happened is I have legitimized for myselfa much
stronger emotional use of the content in terms of the melodrama,
the acting, the violence and the sexual passion. I have allowed these
to well up through the other concerns to make a film which a lot of
people have found contacts them in the traditiona[...]exists in Great
Britain under Mrs Thatcher is one of incredible sense of self-interest
and greed. Society is beginning to worry entirely about the price of
everything and the value of nothing, and there is a way in which The
Cook, the Thie[...]

However, I don’t wish the film to be s[...]as well as in terms oflate-1980s British politics and social conditions,
which have much wider overtone[...]ablishing so firmly the connection between
eating and sexuality, which is one of the film’: central motifs?

That is, of course, an old connection. On a really basic level, and in
Darwinian terms, the reproduction facilities of the human body, and
also presumably of the human spirit, have very much come from the
digestive tract, as an anatomical examination of the facts will indi-
cate. As well, sex and the hunger for food are, in a peculiarly
metaphorical way, intim[...]very physical one. It is based on a large series of
ideas, one of the most important being a concern for Jacobean
English drama, the drama that came direc[...]PERS 78

sometimes regarded as being on the edges of our experience.
Western literature and cinema use at times extreme situations to
throw l[...]ny more: a small plane goes down in what’s
left of the Amazonian forest, the pilot eats the passenge[...]s a peripheral event. We have no doubt some sense of
frisson of horror at the idea, but it is forgotten quickly. And, by and
large, the State and religion no longer penalize cannibals.

What I wanted to do was take that situation and use it both
literally, for the ending of the film, and metaphorically. Imagine
there is a huge mouth at the back of the screen into which everything
is being pushed. Also consider the idea that all of us are very small
children, exploring the world w[...]s. There is a way in
which the ultimate obscenity of the consumer society, when we have
eaten up everything, is that we turn and eat one another.

Of course, that idea is used with great irony. After all, the
concepts of this film are absolutely preposterous, although nothing
is really impossible or improbable, except perhaps for the ending. I
don’t mean the actual cannibalism, the putting of meat into the
mouth, but Albert Spica’s[...]

NUMBER 13 ( JULY 1977]

Louis Malle, Pau[...]l Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald
Richie, obituary of Hitchcock, NZ film
industry, Grendel Grendel Gre[...]ry, Phil Noyce, Joan Fontaine, Tonv
Williams, law and insurance, For Eart.

NUMBER 39 (AUGUST 1982)

Helen Morse, Rich[...]nger,
Norwegian cinema, National Film
Archive, We Of The Neirer Never.

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER 1982)

Henr[...]es, Ray Barrett, My
Dinner With Andre, The Return Of
Captain Invincible.

NUMBER 41 (DECEMBER 1982)

I[...]r
Tammer, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins,
The Tear Of Living Dangerourlv.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH 1983)

Mel[...], Simon Wincer, Susan
Lambert, a personal history of Cinema
Papers, Street K ids.

NUMBER 46 (JULY 198[...]News, film
advertising, Dou’t Call Me Girlie, For
Love Alone, Double Sculls.

NUMBER 53 (SEPTEMBER[...]ector Crawford, Emir Kusturica,
New Zealand film and television, Return
To Eden.

NUMBER 54 (NOVEMBER[...], John
Boorman, Menahem Golan, rock videos,
Will: And Burlze, The Great Boo/zie
R0l7l7£’7‘_V, The[...], production
barometer, film finance, The Story Of
The Kelly Gang.

NUMBER 63 (MAY 1987)

Gillian Ar[...]NOVEMBER 1937)
Australian Screen\\/Titers, Cinema and
China, James Bond, James Clayden,
Video, De Laure[...]pecial Cannes issue, film composers,

sex, death and family films, Vincent Ward,
Luigi Acquisto, Davi[...]track, Young Einrtein, Shout, The
Last Temptation of Chrirt, Salt Saliva
Sperm and Sweat

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

NUMBER 124 WINTER 1985
Films for Workers, Merata Mita, Len Lye,
Marleen Gorris, Da[...]king a Film
Production Overseas, Richard Chatawav
and Michael Cusack

NUMBER 132 WINTER 1987
Censorship[...]ar, Jerzy Domaradzki,
Hong Kong Cinema, The Films of Chris
Marker, David Noakes, The Devil in the
Fles[...]l Attraction

NUMBER 136 WINTER 1988

Film Theory and Architecture, Victor
Burgin, Horace Ove, Style Form and
History in Australian Mini Series, Blue
Velvet, S[...]ER 137 SPRING 1988

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

NUMBER 72 (MARCH 1989)

Char[...]urner’s Celia, Fellini’s
La dolce vita, Women and Westerns

NUMBER 73 (MAY 1989)

Cannes Issue, Phi[...]he Teen Movie,
Animated, Eden: Lost, Mary Lambert and

Pet Sematary, Scorsese and Schrader, Ed

Pressman, Sweetie, Batman, Lover Bo[...]Georgia

NUMBER 76 (NOVEMBER 1939)

Simon Wincer and Qnigley Down Under,
Kennedy Miller, Terry Hayes,[...]on, John Duigan, Flirting,

Romero, Dennis Hopper and Kiefcr

Sutherland, Boulevard Films / Frank
Howson, Ron Cobb, Ixland, Sex Lie: and
Videotape, Baried Alive, Blind Fury, Pari:

By N[...]Y 1990)
John Farrow, Blood Oath, Dennis

Whitburn and Brian Williams, Don ‘
MeLennan and Breakaway, “Crocodile”

Dundee overseas. I

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f=—’I$* in Australia. Edited by Scott Murray, and with exten-
sively researched articles by several of Australia’s leading writers
on film and television, such as Kate Sands, Women oftlae Wave;
Ross Gibson, Formative Landscapes; Debi Enker, Cross-over and
Collaboration: Kennedy Miller, Scott Murray, Geor[...]urray, Terry Hayes‘, Graeme Turner, Mixing Fact and Fiction;
Michael Leigh, Cariouser and Curiouser; Adrian Martin,

Nurturing the Next Wave.

The Back of Beyond Catalogue is extensively illustrated with
more than 130 photographs, indexed, and has full credit listings

for some 80 films.

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deals wi[...]tially as personalities, with psychological cause and effect.
I am very concerned to not only do that,[...]floorboards creak, indicates volume.”

literary and metaphorical, is also about extremes of human behav-
iour. For example, a small boy is tortured by being forced[...]to his mouth; there’s the grand guignol gesture of the fork
that misses the woman’s mouth and goes into her cheek; and there’s
the very strong beginning of the film when the man is forced to cat
dog shit. There is also the suggestion that the apogee of sexual
pleasure, in the conversations between the Wife and the Cook, is
associated with fellatio. So constantly there are references to the
mouth and its being fed with all sorts of objects, and not necessarily
with those that are nourishing.[...]acobean
drama is the connection between sexuality and danger. Is this some-
thing of which you are conscious?

Yes, indeed. In The Coo[...]s especially concerned with the
great physicality of things._]acobean drama is very physical: the body
is at the centre, an object which bleeds and has bile, spit, vomit, shit
and semen. The body is seen very much as an image of an alimentary
canal wrapped around with flesh.

Most cinema, and certainly the dominant American cinema,
deals wit[...]tially as personalities, with psychological
cause and eflect. I am very concerned to not only do that,[...]very carefully in these big, fixed empty spaces of the restaurant, the
kitchen, and so on.

There are several reasons for this interest in the physicality of
these creatures. There have been 2000 years of image-making, and
the centre of that image-making has always been the human figu[...]deal with personalities, it deals with figures. For
example, one of the central images of all European paintings is the

bloodied, naked, very physical body of Christ. I want to get those sorts
of physicalities into my cinema practice.

There is a contrast between, on the one hand, the sheer beauties of
colour, lighting and composition, and, on the other, the ferocious
ugliness of much of the story.

Again, that is a characteristic of all my cinema. There are lots of ways
I could discuss that. Maybe the most banal i[...]d body which is covered in an extraordinary
gloss of elaborate clothing, feathered hats and that sort of thing. It
is as though there is an attempt to try and hide the horror, the
despair, the sense of violence and lust that’s contained only just
underneath. The very title of the film indicates the mediaeval
parable or fable, as does the very moral ending. And the four
characters are set up to be easily representative of certain vices and
certain virtues.

There is also the way in which I use colour coding to draw
attention to the artificiality of the subject. The film opens with
curtains and closes with curtains, as if saying, “You are about to watch
a performance.”

One of the amazing characteristics of cinema is you can every
now and again be sucked completely into the illusion, but[...]EL GAMBON), mums (swan srewuu), CORY (cwum HINDS) AND
warm (noosn srswnr). ABOVE: INSIDE THE 'I’HlEF'[...]TING IN THE ncxonouun. ms COOK, ms THIEF, ms WIFE AND HER LOVER.

really use devices. Forand entertaining. Even though you are
watching actors[...]metaphorical sense which undermines the illusion and
makes you realize you are sitting in a dark space, watching a beam of
light project shadows on a screen.

I have often been accused by those people who do not like my
cinema, and there’s a great many ofthem, ofover-concerning[...]ests are much more to do with the
European cinema of ideas, which is quite prepared, maybe arro-
gantly, to take on ‘big’ ideas. And these ideas, which follow through
from TheDraughtmank Contract, and, indeed, from before, are to do
with the questions of immortality and mortality.

Most cinema has basically two subject matters: sex and death. In
the 19805 and ’90s, we think we have some knowledge ofand con[...]h. All my films
address that situation, in terms of irony and black humour. Some-
times they are facetious, som[...]nother subject matter, which is a very local one, and which
makes my films very much a part ofthe latt[...]munificent, amazing,
varied place. The surfaces of my films, from The Draughlman 3
Contract onwards, are very baroque. They use every device I can think
of to indicate the richness and munificence of the world, but always
with ~ and again I'm often accused of this — the central characters
behaving in a mis[...]it up. The Cook, the Thiejis just another example
of that.

To go back to the colour coding and the Wife’s costume changes, is
the notion of the singing boy also a distancing device? It come[...]ealed by the track through the kitchen.

Exactly. And there are many other devices like that thr[...]

That duality, between form and content, will always be part of my
filrnmaking. But it is something which can be[...], which
can put people off with elitist knowledge and intellectual exhibition-
ism.

Your features are beautifully composed and lit. What sort of working

relationship do you have with your superb director of photography,
Sacha Vieny?

Sacha, who has workedwith me since A Zed and Two Noughts, is about
75 years old. He has a long[...]ople likejean Cocteau. Probably he is most famous for having
worked with Alain Resnais, whose movies I regard as the most impor-
tant of European cinema. But Sacha has also worked with L[...]rnous
cinematic experience.

Sacha is very modest and retiring, and would certainly shun any
sort ofpublic celebration. He puts an enormous amount of imagina-
tion and excitement into his work. His English is not absolutely
amazing and my French is even worse, but we do seem to be abl[...]collaborators in the art depart-
ment, Ben van Os and Jan Roelfd. We have made three features
together, and are about to embark on another. They have this
tr[...]e made very cheaply. The Cook, the Thief was made for
just over a million pounds, which is extraordinar[...]various European sources. Then, through all sorts of
cleverness and devices, he is able to make that money stretch so that
we can make the very full, professional-looking and rich movies that
you see on the screen.

Have all[...]ract was a collaboration between the
British Film Institute and the newly opened Channel 4. And every-
thing that I have done since has been very generously helped and
aided by Channel 4 — except, thatis, for The Cook, the Thief They drew
the line on that one. After the first reading of the script, they gotvery
overexcited and said they couldn’t possibly make a movie like t[...]in the European tradition
which relates to Bunuel and Pasolini, of films which take risks, which
try deliberately, and I hope not sensationally, because that’s cheap,[...]be aired. It is very adult cinema.

The violence, for example, is notrelated, I hope, to theAmerican
sense of violence. By and large, that is a very irresponsible, tomato
ketch[...]lence, where the characters get up the next frame
and walk off. The violence in my films has a sense of responsibility.
All ofus know how appalling violence is; it must be shunned at every
step. Of course, my approach can be misunderstood, and some

people have accused me of being as gratuitous as Rambo. I strenu-
ously den[...]m that sets out to shock, but with moral
sanction for doing so. At the same time, it ravishes the senses. That
makes it a provocative and exciting experience.

Quite. Responses are relative to thatvery thing; there’s asense of the
stretch mark to it.

Of course, the entire film could have been made wit[...]much more to the realist milieu, without the use of ravishing
cinematic language. Such a film, of course, would be completely
different.

There is in my film a concern for picture making, for the
formality and the artificiality of it, which energizes what is happening
on the screen. This may be a little unusual in tenns of the world
cinema, but gives it an extra sort of savagery, an extra strength; it
moves the whole air away from your transport cafe into some more
grandiose and grandiloquent style of image-making, which again
refers to that use of European painting.

And which is here embodied in the character of Albert Spica. But why
did you want to make Spica a figure of such undiluted evil? Surelyyou
risk alienating an[...]e a presence at the
centre.

This is the pleasure of evil, and goes right back to Shakespearean
drama. When Laur[...]he made
that terrible, evil character peculiarly and dangerously attractive.
Somehow we admire the evil.

It happens time and time again. We have clichés like, “love to
hate”. _].R. Ewing in Dallas, for example, virtually made that pro-
gramme, because[...]his could not happen. Here is a Fascistic, sexist and
mean-minded man, who tortures children and bullies women. All of
us have come across people we feel are like this. They are extremely
dangerous people, and ultimately must be emasculated and de-
stroyed. Not thatI think they should be killed, but there should be

ways and means whereby we can combat this evil.

Does the feeling between the Wife and the Lover represent for you
the one great positive in a nightmarish world?

The love affair does energize and organize everything else that
happens in the film; even those appalling things towards the end of
the film. But their affair is regarded in a very[...]c, undeodorized, un-Hollywood approach. The facts of the
case are obvious: it is a very unsentimental[...]as a sexual affair, rather than a romance.

Yes, and travels toward something much more valuable. Nonethe-

BOTTOM LEFT, FACING PAGE: THE WIFE [HELEN MIRREN) AND HER HUSBAND, THE THIEF.
LEFT: THE THIEF EXPERIMENTS WITH A NEW CULINARY SENSATION. BELOW: THE THIEF AND
THE LOVER (ALAN HOWARD). THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER.

less, there is no soft-focus feel to[...]fair which, while obviously flour-
ishing, rises and falls in the space of four or five days.

There are all sorts of ironies as well: a man who’s supposed to be
pas[...]iple. He
is the one who invites the diner to come and sit at the meal table, the
same way a film direc[...]s you
the menu, suggests what's to be eaten today and, ultimately, provides
the stage for the actors — and the privacy of the kitchen for the lovers.
He ultimately agrees to the Wife’s[...]to offer the denouement,
the final organization, of the film.

The Cook is also the figure which doesn’t take too strong a moral
position. In the early part of the film, he could make arrangements
to create trouble for the appalling Thief and for the restaurant, but

he doesn’t. He observes, constantlywatching and occasionally nudg-
ing the characters into certain sorts of situations.

He is also keen on his art.

Indeed, which again is reflective of this particular film director. The
Cook is a perfectionist, a man who tries to find, in latter speeches of
course, a metaphorical parallel between what he does as a cook and
a philosophical examination of his particular art relative to every-
thing else. When he describes the ways and means in which the food
is cooked, he goes on talking about black being representative of
this, and so on.

The most enigmatic character is Grace [Li[...]uggest with her?

She is rather strange. In terms of the written script, Grace had a much

bigger part but, to make a film that is only two hours long, some of
her lines have been cut.

CONTINUED ON PAG[...]

BY NEIL

HE RELEASE last year of The Lonely Passion of judith
Heame (1988) is a good occasion to take stock of
one of the most enigmatic careers of post-war Brit-
ish cinema, that of directorjack Clayton.
Thirty years ago, after the international success of Room at the Top
(1959), he was being widely credited with bringing realism, the
working class and even sex to the British screen. Twenty years ago,[...]ng him off, along
with David Lean, as the epitome of academic impersonality in screen
direction. Since[...]by (1974), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) and
judith Heame— and has become one of those curiosities of British
cinema, like Thorold Dickinson or Lindsay Anderson, whose career
has never had any real continuity and who has never really seemed
to belong. Perhaps this rootlessness and frustration was what at-
tracted him to Judith He[...]start...”, says the heroine near the beginning of the film. It could be
Clayton himself talking, r[...]’s absence.
Sarris might have been contemptuous of Clayton’s gifts, but he
does fulfil one of Sarris’ basic criteria of a good director: namely,
someone who has made a f[...]n movies, I think only one is the classic he aims for— Thelnnocents
(1961) — but if the others fall[...]ave cult movie
status: The Pumpkin Eater (1964) , for pumping Antonioniesque angst
into the pallid cheeks of English domestic melodrama; Something
Wicked for reviving the terror of early Disney; Our Mother’s House for
its belatedly bizarre attempt at a
British Forbidden Games (children’s
fascination with the rituals of
death). Of The Great Gatsby, lwill
only recall at this stage[...]If Sarris
could not grant Clayton the acco-
lade of auteur, Williams was happy
to describe him as an[...]s have been
based on reputable or classic novels, and his attitude to adaptation
has been similar to that of john Huston (for whom he worked as
associate producer on Moulin Rouge and Beat the Devil): a belief that
the trick is to le[...]inctive style, or to suggest that there is a lack of recurring
preoccupations in his work. But if the[...]ed, his main originality is in the idiosyn-
crasy of his borrowings, fromjean Cocteau to George Steven[...]ayton was never cut out to be the Angry
Young Man of the British cinema — for a start he was balding, pushing
40, and had been working quite happily in the industry si[...]the film struck a contemporary nerve ofrebellion
and iconoclasm was entirely accidental. “I don’t[...]ionable”, Clayton was soon saying. “Try to be and you are usually
out ofdate before you start.” Ironically, Room at the Topmade him very
fashionable for the only time in his career, but it is also the film of his
that has dated most badly. For all the fuss that was made at the time
over the love scenes between Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret,
itwas never that sexy, even in comparison with the fleshiness of Fifties
Hammer horror, which was then acquiring a[...]om (1960) , which was being made around that time and was
to be greeted by the British press with unadu[...]im-
provement on a tenth-rate novel,
the portrait of the working-class
hero,joe Lampton, was scarcely
authentic enough to cause D.H.
Lawrence any twinges of envy,
and Laurence Harvey’s strangu-
lated performance was soon to
be upstaged by the raw convic-
tion of Albert Finney in Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning ( 1 960) .
Also some of the direction — like
the dissolve from the shot of a
key to a love scene, or the mo-

I am not one of those who sneer at Clayton’s film of Gatsby,
although it is badly flawed. It is oppressively decorated and conveys
the affluence ofthe period much better than its energy. For once, his
giftwith actresses deserts him: Mia Far[...]te American story: Gatsby is not only a precursor of Charles
Foster Kane (a wealthy unhappy personification of the promise and
betrayal of the American Dream), of Rick in Casa-
blanca (a mysterious, possibly murderous past, an in-

(who would have been the ideal director for a film of
Gatsby). Ibom at the Top had the equivalent themes and
even narrative events of the Stevens film: the attraction
of rich girl and poor boy, the death of the golden-
hearted woman, the cost of love and the eroticism of
money. Equally striking was the similarity of styles.
Clayton deployed two of Stevens’ most pronounced
stylistic characteristics: the use of counterpoint on the
soundtrack (for example, the way Lampton’s wedding
celebration[...]an overheard
conversation about Alice’s death); and, particularly,
the use of the dissolve, a relatively uncommon device

Visually and aurally,
one can pick up traces of
the Clayton signature:
the use of dissolves; a
fascination with hands;
[...] a Truffaut-like love
of the photographic effects
of candlelight; significant

use of pictures and

extinguishable romanticism) but even of Coppola
himself (dreams of money and success, achieved not
through bootlegging in his[...]n-
ticizing the Mafia). But the fastidious frost of Clay-
ton’s cool English temperament turns it all to stone.
Yet the selection of Clayton as director was not a
foolish one and certainly made more sense at the time
than the selection of other English directors for
classic American subjects, like J. Lee Thompson for
Huckleberry Finn (1974) orjohn Schlesinger for Day of
the Locust (1975). I have mentioned the class theme
that relates it to Room at the Top and gains some power

these days which has become Clayton’s main visual
signature — for purposes of mood and atmosphere,
and for the melting of past and present, or vice versa,
into a continuum of felt time.

Around the time of Room at the Top, however, a
fellow filmmaker was[...]as an affair with Lampton only to be pushed aside for
material ambition) is the aspect of the film that stands up best today,
yet much of the credit for it should also go to the director. Signoret
certa[...]weight around,
“knew exactly what he wanted” and what he wanted was “true and

portraits; an amplification
of sound at moments

of high drama.

here from the contrasting photographic texture de-
vised for the Gatsby-Daisy romance and the Myrtle-
Tom subplot, which is its grim flips[...]s about
“living too long with a single dream” and the quality
of the dream and the fate ofthe dreamer is a constant
thread in Cl[...]ms. Characters either sacrifice
their dreams out of ambition or greed, like Lampton
or Daisy, or fulfil their deepest dreams and then have ‘to confront
their worst nightmares, as in Something Wicked This Way Comes. The
timid librarian of Something Wicked is sneered at by Mr Dark for
“dreaming other men’s dreams”: i.e., immersing himself in books
rather than in life, and which now sees him drowning in a sea of
regrets. The faithful wife in The Pumpkin Eateris accused of “living in
a dream world”when she is horrifi[...]nd’s
supposed infidelity. Characters like her, and like Gatsby, and the

CINEMA PAPERS 78 o 45

Visually, the most stunning moment of disillusionment in his
work probably occurs in 0u[...]nklin) becomes an unwitting voyeur, her
adoration of her ‘father’ is shattered and the screen is suffused with
a hazy shade of sensual scarlet. This fascination with innocence and
experience might explain Clayton’s capacity for conjuring remark-
able performances from children[...]he
Pumpkin Eater, Something Wicked This Way Comes and, especially, The
Innocents. “I adore working wi[...]ar brought out the best in
Clayton. The ambiguity and suggestiveness of Henryjames’ ghost
story, The Turn of the Screw, where the horror is conveyed through
p[...]S 78

challenge to the filmmaker’s imagination and
Clayton rises to it magnificently, in a style that
seems partly inspired by the haunted poetry of
Beauty and the Beast (1946) by Cocteau. The
ghosts are solid[...]e that bespeaks
unutterable sadness. The evidence of their visi-
tations is limited to a single tantal[...]s reading, the story becomes
a trenchant critique of Victorian attitudes, in

which the preservation of ‘innocence’ (in this
case, an authoritarian protection of children

from sexual knowledge) is the product of a
repression so severe thatit could be twisted into

hysteria and hallucination. In a particularly telling touch, C[...]these visions. It is a brilliantly effective way of being at

once faithful to the spirit of jamesian ambiguity whilst at the same

time inter[...]than simply illustrating the text.

No other film of his is constantly on that level but nearly all of
them contain great things. In spite of the curiously misogynistic
Harold Pinter screenplay for ThePumpkin Eater— as if he were intent
on playi[...]ne Bancroft) , as in the very Carol Reed-like use of animal imagery
to underline her fear of human nature, makes this one of Bn'tain’s
finest ‘woman’s pictures’. Gats[...]— Clayton is
very good at sweaty arguments — and some concisely eloquent
images, like the dissolve[...]eeing eyes to the
broken, blood-stained headlamps of Gatsby’s car. Something Wicked
cannot make the[...]o Spielberg when it
comes to swallowing that kind of familial sentimentality — and]on-

JACK

In fact, the overall impression one has from a cursory survey of
Clayton’s films is the sense of an unusually interesting cineaste at
work. It mig[...]ossible
to offer a structuralist/auteunst diagram of Clayton’s career to refute
accusations of impersonality. Thematically there are the motifs of
frustrated passion, feminine feeling, ghostly visitation, children,
dream, the coalescence of past and present, and an undercurrent of
religious hysteria that is particularly marked in The Innocents, Our
Mother’s House and judith Heame, but is also briefly felt in ThePumpkin
Eater (when the heroine is visited, at a moment of crisis, by a religious
fanatic). Visually and aurally, one can pick up traces of the Clayton
signature: the use of dissolves; a fascination with hands, that are
either clenched in tension or reaching for contact; a Truffaut-like
love of the photographic effects of candlelight; significant use of
pictures and portraits; an amplification of sound at moments of high
drama and a pervasive use of echoes and whispers (the children in
both The Innocents, and Something Wicked are picked on by their
respective spinster teachers for being ‘whisperers’). The conjunc-
tion of these elements across a wide variety of material adds up to a
very distinctive world.

Why then has his career been such a faltering aflair? Part of it has
to do, of course, with a national film industry seemingly incapable of

FACING PAGE: TOP: FLORA (PAMELA FRANKLIN) IS WAT[...]). THE INNOCENTS. LOWER LEFT: JAKE (PETER FINCHI

AND JO ARMITAGE (ANNE BANCROFT). THE PUMPKIN EATER. L[...]5 OUAYLE (YOOTHA JOYCE), POINTS ACCUSINGLY AT ONE
OF HIS CHILDREN IN OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE. THIS PAGE, TOP: DAISY (MIA FARROW) AND
GATSBY (ROBERT REDFIORD) IN THE GREAT GATSBY. AND, BELOW: MAGGIE SMITH

AS JUDITH HEARNE AND BOB HOSKINS AS JAMES MADDEN

IN THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE.

sustaining continuity. Also Clayt[...]ds
with a popular cinema dedicated to the pursuit of happiness. His
films invariably end on a melanch[...]d. Only Something Wicked contrives a happy
ending and it is so embarrassed and awkward about the whole thing
that it almost topp[...]re narrative structure. There has never
been much of a sense of play in Clayton’s cinema — an inability to
relax is his main failing as a director — and none of his films comes
over simply as entertainment. Philip French once said of Robert
Rossen that “here was a director, one felt, who would rather be dull
than frivolous — and frequently was”, and one might apply that, with
modifications, to Cla[...]less than his due from the critics, I think much of
that stems from bad timing. He came into directing movies at a time
in the 1960s when his kind of well-crafted literary cinema was going
out of style. He has never looked like catching up with the cinema of
the present day. Contemporaries like Karel Reisz,_]ohn Schlesinger
and Tony Richardson have made strenuous efforts to mo[...]has seemed to insist: “Can’t repeat
the past? Of course you can!” Like many of his characters, he has
waited for the past to catch up with him, to come into align[...]idering the reception given to The Lonely Passion of
judith Heame as a welcome return of the intelligently scripted, well-
made, inter—relationship sort of movie, maybe his time at last, and
deservedly, has come.

JACK CLAYTON FILMOGRAPIIY[...]ng Wicked this Way Comes. 1988 The Lonely Passion
of Judith Hearne.

CINEMA PAPERS 78 - 47

AND WORST

Dirty

Dozen

A PANEL OF FILM REVIEWERS HAS RATED TWELVE OF THE LATEST
RELEASES ON A SCALE OF I TO I0, THE LATTER BEING THE OPTIMUM
RATING (A D[...]-
BOURNE); PETER THOMPSON (SUNDAY, NINE NETWORK); AND EVAN
WILLIAMS (THE AUSTRALIAN, SYDNEY).

'f1_ _ _[...]A PAPERS 78

BACK TO THE FUTURE II CASUALTIES OF WAR
ROBERT ZEMECKIS BRIAN DE PALMA

Bill Collins[...]an Williams — Evan Williams 4
BLACK RAIN CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
RIDLEY Scorr WOODY ALLEN

Bil[...]

Peter Thompson

Evan Williams

SEA OF LOVE

HAROLD BECKER

Bill Collins
Sandra Hall

Pa[...]kerk
Tom Ryan

Peter Thompson

Evan Williams

WAR OF THE ROSES

DANNY DE VITO

Bill Collins
Sandra Hal[...]ictory at Sea — reissue - Rodgers CD $29.99
War and peace 0 Rota CD $29.99
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 0 Martinez CD $26.99
Parenthood - Newma[...]I Harvey CD $26.99
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife
and Her Lover ' Nyman CD $26.99
Do the Right Thing 0 Lee CD $29.99
The Chase 0 Barry CD $29.99
A Zed and Two Noughts 0 Nyman CD $29.99
Verfigo re-issue 0[...]ation has
been established to provide new impetus for the
production of Australian feature films, television
dramas and documentaries. In 1989-90 the FFC
will aim to underpin production of approximately
$100 million.

The FFC has offices in Sydney and
Melbourne. Investment executives in each office are
available to discuss proposals for funding.

The FFC welcomes funding proposals from the

industry. Guidelines and application forms are
available at the Sydney and Melbourne offices.

err
7 V
I

THE AUSTRAL[...]

ABOVE: LOLA (KYLIE MINOGUE)[...]INQUENT5:
”ASPIRING TO A VERY UNINVENTIVE LEVEL OF
‘NORMAL’ FILMMAKING". FACING PAGE: LOLA
AND BROWNIE (CHARLIE SCHLATTER)

50 - CINEMA PAPERS 7[...]S

ADRIAN MARTIN

OMETHING in the pre—publicity for The
sDelinquent5 kept suggesting to me that I
should hire Grease from the video shop as

homework and preparation before the main event.
Perhaps it was the hintofKylie Minogue on a path

similar to that of another beloved Aussie lass,
Olivia Newton-john. For here, in the tantalizing
spread of available pictures, was Kylie, debuting
in a film[...]to be a knowing ‘vehicle’ (an apt expression)
for Kylie, driving her from one florid movie-
image[...]oom-
ing in the picture, her great character name of
Lola activating memories ofLola Lola in The Blue[...]vie title, The Delinquents, with
its connotations of rebellion, lawlessness, vice,
craziness — promising a summation of the original
teen movies (Altman made a film of the same
name in 1957) andfor ‘indiscretions’ we never see.
(Unless, that i[...]sin to catch the flu, which
Lola is often guilty of in the film.) Nor is there
much teen rebellion pa[...]ntial riot in a girl’s prison dorm to the
sound of “Be Bop A Lula” - beyond which the
fi[...]

At a certain point, however —when Lola is put

in the charge of her repressive aunt — the film
changes its stance, and suddenly wants to start
investing its positivity in Lola’s assertions of her
romantic idealism and sexual intensity. Yet the
film is unable, or unw[...]-
ested in ‘settling down‘ than in being fast and
free. And as for the sex scenes — despite all the
‘heat’ whi[...]ssures us is being generated in these
three brief and perfunctory trysts — the most
arousing thing in The Delinquents is doubtless the
sight and sound of Lola talking about how much
she enjoys sex. And, whether teen movie or
womanls melodrama, mere talk is simply not
enough — a bit of good old mise-en-scene energy is
sorely required.[...]elinquents is a weakly directed, weakly scripted,
and thus insubstantial Australian film - which is,
sadly, nothing new for mainstream Australian
films. In the context of a film industry which (at
least at the professional training and conference
levels) throttles inane scriptwriting and filmmak-
ing prescriptions like ‘don’t say i[...]exception, it ‘says’ rather than ‘shows’,
and never to good effect — my favourite piece of
over-earnest, over-explicative dialogue occurs
wh[...], scenes that go
nowhere (like the prison riot), and minor charac-
ters who have no clear thematic function in the
overall sense of the piece (just what is the role of
the couple Mavis [Desiree Smith] and Lyle [Todd
Boyce] beyond, respectively, dying and disap-
pearing so that Lola can be an instant Mum?).
The film lacks a sense of structure, symmetry,
rhythm, form, and it is full of those laboured
colloquial touches — ‘literary[...]The lack ofconventional, nonnative filmmak-
ing (and scriptwriting) virtues shouldn’t always
immedia[...]ight be, even inad-
vertently, something stranger and more interest-
ing going on in the absence of the achievement of
such ‘rules’. The Delinquents, however, is ju[...]iled films, aspiring to a very uninventive
level of ‘normal’ filmmaking, whichjust progres-
sive[...]the kind that one is often left asking at the
end of ‘commercially’ minded Australian films.
Questions like:

— Why did David Bowie pull out of his (much
advertised) involvement with the soundt[...]e-
matic, stylistic, etc.), if any, was envisaged for
them?

— Had anyone involved in the making of this
film seen Stromboli before deciding to whack a
poster of it up on the set? Do small (but often
cruc[...]

filmrnaking and marketing. It is generally

taken for granted that major newspapers,
radio and television interviews, complemented
by advertisem[...]to pay to see the film in question.

In the case of Do the Right Thing, some of the
most remarkable aspects of the film have involved
its marketing, rising from the subject matter and
the way it is treated on the screen.

But Do the Right Thinghas had the rare pleas-
ure of surpassing that market place activity and
moving into a controversy zone that challenges
the lazy conventions of media publicity.

But then again, as Americans ar[...]s is an issues film — which isjust another way of
safely packaging it for the middle section of the
great consuming audience.

“Fight the power[...]to (repeatedly) lay over the small suburban
world of Bed-Stuy he has created for Do the Right
Thing, it is time to take note. But we are already
taking notice, because our filmjoumalists, for the
most part, have told us that this is no ordinary
film.

Indeed, it is not It is undoubtedly one of the
strongest, mostidiosyncratic films to achiev[...]c, but most films do not lead audiences
into one of the major contradictions confronting
the era. That contradiction is between the claim
for racially based independence in a system that
cann[...]. In other words, American blacks
want to be free of the racist constraints of Amer-
ica, while enjoying all the benefits of the liberal
dreams to which they aspire.

What do[...]d do when race, ethnicity

52 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

and nationality begin to assert themselves like
mushr[...]nterna-
tionally that herald potentially exciting and/ or
dark times ahead for the planet. They are move-
ments which suggest th[...]ethnic groups
can develop the economic, cultural andof
Basques to control their own destiny, while Franco
scrapped that right as one of his first reactionary
moves after his coup.)

Black Americans are in the mood for nation-
hood and statehood. They are making waves that
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King jun. could
have only dreamed a[...]are laying claim to the intellec-
tual territory of their radical parents, who wanted
independent social, cultural and economic lives
for their children, free of the constraints imposed
by racistwhites. They are[...]hin
or outside the existing white American system of
capitalism; or will it even be a capitalist syste[...]ction, but, to the people living at
the lower end of the American system, it is indeed
a complicated and complex issue (using “com-
plex” here in its correct Freudian sense, where
the conscious and sub-conscious worlds create
unresolvable tensions[...]ften be violently
expressed).

This is the beauty of Do the Right Thing. It
tackles the problem of black politics within the
context of black history and white antipathy to-
wards blacks. It prods the subconscious of white
paranoia about black revolt, and refuses to re-
solve the puzzle that the opinions of Malcolm X
and Martin Luther Kingjun. presented.

It is fascinat[...]e, stutterer to continu-
ally present photographs of Malcolm X and King.
Named Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith), he
parades through the film with his snapshots of the
two black leaders, keen to sell them to whomever
will pay. His colorations and decorations of the
photographs are a telling subtext of the uncertain
relevance of these men in the late 1980s, suggest-
ing thatyou make your own interpretation of your
history.

Selling and making money is a significant
sideline of the film as well. Economic independ-
ence has been an important debate among black
American intellectuals for many years. It began as
far back as the turn of the century when BookerT.
Washington argued that, “Brains, property and
character will settle the question of civil rights ...",
while W. E. B. du Bois saw political power for
blacks as being essential, regardless of how itwas
achieved.‘ It is still a healthy deba[...]d around Mookie
(Spike Lee) , who spends his days and nights deliv-
ering pizzas, calling to black brot[...]k. It doesn’t seem
much, but it is an important and disturbing trend
suggesting that work will solve the race problems
presented in this film.

l/Vhile much of the publicity for the film con-
centrated on its attempt to explain the racism of
America and the problems faced by minorities, I
do not believ[...]successful in digging into the rich
social psyche of its audiences to be bothered with
simplistic read[...]olden haired,
white boy” like Steven Soderbergh for Sex, Lies,
and Videotape?

Comments like these raise the racist spectre,
but, in fact, merely express the frustration of

AND ML (PAUL BENJAMIN) IN SPIKE LEE’§ DO THE RIGHT
THING: “A FILM THAT BRAVELY ENTERS INTO THE HONEST
LOGIC OF THE CONTRADICTION FACING ALL
PROGRESSIVE AMERICAN[...]e they make a film that mixes in the
top league. Of course, the mistake is with Lee. He
does not need[...]s idio-
syncrasy is his appeal.

The idiosyncrasy of Do the Right Thingis quite
incredible. There are risks taken here that could
be used as examples of bad filmmaking in first-
year film-school courses. The stage scenes and
static sets, the incredible absence of method act-
ing, the full—facial lighting, the[...]ted
dialogue: it all suggests a healthy disregard forfor Spike Lee,
no suspension of belief and its ensuing seduction
into narrative dream scapes and fast fictions.

Technically, the film stumbles and rolls like
the aged drunkard Da Mayor (Ossie Davi[...]not to allow any indulgence — herein is the nub of
the difference between Do the Right Thing, Sex,
Lies, and Videotape and other conventional films.
Spike Lee keeps his au[...]ead Hollywood/conventional narrative
film theory and practice) drives the audience into
the back of its own sleepy brain to dream its
fictions.

Spi[...]formances, such
as that by the three men in front of the matt red
wall and their vaguely relevant, but deliberate,
conversation; much of the silent action by Radio
Raheem (Bill Nunn) until he speaks; and the

cinema-uerite camera work, such as that in the
bedroom and in the home with Mookie’s girl
friend Tina (Ros[...]tional, feature-film
construction.

This mixture of styles makes the film awk-
ward, often difficul[...]n-
cratic. Indeed, its appeal is in its treatment of the
material not the characters, although the Ita[...]to America,
Harlem Nights) takes black characters and makes
them parodies of the mass market’s experience of
blacks, Lee carefully avoids such easy strategies[...]tal treatments— to throw up as
many conflicting and contradictory messages on
the screen as it is possible to do while maintaining
the unsteady momentum of the film. When the
momentum finally takes us into the climax, in a
frenzy of fire bombing that leaves the viewer
breathless at its rapidity and conviction, there is a
sense that Lee has conclud[...]rdered by police in front
ofa mostly black crowd, and Mookie (who, as the
good boy, finally breaks out[...]makes the move that brings about the destruction
of Sal’s Pizza and his income. He returns to the
shop the next morning for his wages and there is
Sal with enough money to overpay Mookie.[...]will not resile from his
belief that, regardless of what happens, the con-
tradiction will remain: bl[...]ought

out by the American free-enterprise system and
almost nothing will be gained.

This is perhaps too rational areading of Do the
Right Thing Two viewings of the film, however,
convinced me that it is an in[...]tructed with love by Lee who sees the immen-
sity of the problem for black Americans with
exceptional clarity. His rat[...]ple, nor will his appeal
to the two major streams of black American his-
tory, as evidenced in the statements by Martin
Luther King jun. and Malcolm X that close the
film.

It is unfortunat[...]a film that bravely
enters into the honest logic of the contradiction
facing all progressive American[...]idly elevating him to a position along-
side some of the great black American intellectu-
als and activists. It is a position that accurately
reflects reality for many people around the world
and that is a major accomplishment.

1. Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm and Blues, 1966,

pages 4-5.
2. Quoted in “Do the Right Thing”, Entertainment Guide

(supplement of The Age).

DO THE RIGHT THING Directed by: Spike[...]ducer: Jon Kilik. Screenplay: Spike Lee. Director of
photography: Ernest Dickerson. Sound: Skip Lievsa[...]sie Perez (Tina) , Paul Benjamin
(ML). A 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks Production.

Distributor: UIP. l[...]YSS

JIM SCHEMBRI

0 WHAT WENT WRONG with the end of The
S/lbyss? How couldjames Cameron, director

of such consummate action films as The Ter-
minator and Aliens, drop the ball just as he was
going for the touchdown? How could a film that,
for 95 per cent ofits running time, is everything
one[...]eaving two similarly themed
cousins Deep Star Six and Leviathan way behind)
turn into a pseudo—mystical parable with a mushy
mish mash of images torn living and breathing
from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010, Close Encmmters
of the Third Kind, ET. the Extraterrestrial and even
Splash?

The answer is simple: the film was too eager
for an answer. After spinning a great yarn and
setting up a fabulous mystique about an underwa-[...]t these creatures were, he
gives us their address and a guided tour of the
neighbourhood.

The/lbyss, like most g[...]

Most of Deepcore’s crew enthusiastically
approve (after[...], is not so pleased,
partly because he is worried for his crew but
mainly because his estranged wife, L[...]trantonio), who designed the rig, is
coming along for the ride.

It is from this narrative nucleus that[...]Aliens: while explor-
ing his favourite dramatic and moral themes, he
turns in a ripping good action film, as well as
indulging his obvious and very deep love of tech-
nical hardware. Indeed, while the film unques-
tionably — and primarily — pursues Cameron’s
philosophy that humans are at their best as indi-
viduals and at their worst as organizations, it is
also an emotional and visual thrill. Like Aliens and
The Terminator, Cameron has brilliantly split the
difference between technical showmanship, ki-
netic pacing and dramatic involvement.

Cameron has openly admitte[...]hereas in Alienshe had a film about the strength
of the maternal instinct, as Ripley (Sigourney

54 -[...]aver) fought with the
multi-dentured Mother
Alien for the custody ofa
little girl, in The Abyss he
makes a clear statement
about the importance of
marriage, though he
wisely opts for humour
and action rather than
sentimentality in impart-
ing this.

After Bud and Lind-
sey have their first con-
frontation, Bud deposits
his wedding ring into the
septic blue depths of the
toilet only to retrieve it
seconds later. Shortly af-
ter, the ring saves his life
during one of the most
compelling segments of
the film when the hull of
the rig is breached and
sea water cascades in. As
Bud hurries for a pres-
sure door to escape the
rising tide, itqu[...]wedding ring
keeping his hand from
being crushed and ena-
bling him to call for help.
Later, when Bud is plum-
meting into the ab[...]omfortably
alongside politically hip anti-nuclear and anti-
cold war themes, suggesting that being cons[...]necessarily mean being Right wing
(a great topic for dinner parties, this).

The anti-nuclear and anti—cold war themes -
so appropriate in this age ofglasnost and nuclear
disarmament — are beautifully embodied in the
character of Lt Coffey (Michael Biehn), who is
going ga ga bec[...]is devotion to nuking the alien
underwater colony and his anti-Soviet paranoia
are purely the results of mental dysfunction.

More dramatically enticing,[...]elicit from the characters. Wide-eyed expressions
of wonder and warmth deliberately jar and un-
dercut the very adult, no-nonsense world of deep-
sea drilling they inhabit. After ‘Big Guy’ panics
during the exploration of the damaged sub and
encounters one of the NTIs, he goes into a coma.
When he emerges, t[...]ly, when Lindsey runs into a large
NTI, her sense of scientific duty is suspended as
she examines itw[...]aves that her professional instincts kick back
in and she tries (unsuccessfully) to photograph it.

But[...]tries to convince Bud that the NTIs are friendly
and wise and want to help, she sounds like a
Disney character and he responds with astringent
disbelief and concern that she might be losing
her marbles.

Th[...]ist aspect to The
Abyss — as there is in Aliens and The Terminator-
that deserves special note, but for which Cameron
has not been given due credit. Came[...]ton played the reluctant hero in The Termi-
nator and Sigourney Weaver showed brains and
physical resilience in Aliens, which also features
female combat marines - state-of—the-art hard-
ware. In The Abyss, Cameron again has a strong,
intelligent female lead in the character of Lind-
sey, as well as an oil rig crew which inclu[...]a clerk.

No apology or explanation is ever made for
these characters, they are simply part of the dra-
matic tapestry. And as these are films which have
been very successf[...]an $200 million), Cameron is surely re-
sponsible for a major breakthrough in smashing
sex stereotypes and opening up audiences to a
new way of thinking about females on the main-
stream screen. Surely one doesn’t have to wait for
Marleen Gorris to make an art-house statement
bef[...]ground has been bro-
ken.

The technical mastery of the film serves the
soundest backhander to the video generation so
far. As more and more so called “big screen ” films
seem to be shot with their video release in mind
— Indiana jones and the Last Crusade being a prime
recent example: it[...]mpelling production setpieces.

About 40 per cent of the film was actually shot
underwater with Camer[...]from inside a diving helmet.
Special microphones and lighting rigs had to be
developed, as well as special submersible vehicles.
The matching of miniatures and live-action foot-
age is almost impeccable and the major special-
effects sequence, where an ali[...]ke Aliens. In fact, Cameron says he was conscious
ofof the abyss to destroy the NTI colony, Bud goes
down, disarms it and then, with only minutes of
oxygen left, lies there waiting to die. However,[...]come to visit. It is here
thatCameron could have, and should have, ended
the film. Instead, he goes on to pay homage to the
finale of Close Encounters and 2001 as the fluores-
cent tinkerbells take Bud’s hand and show him
around the house.

So what was Cameron’s intention? “I knew I
wanted to meet and see the creatures”, he says: “I
wanted to fol[...]I did want to establish the very tenuous
toehold of communication between man and this
other species. I wanted to go further[...]

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You have to follow your own sense of what’s right.
What I have found is you certainly can't please
everybody. For every person that felt it was too
concrete, there were t_hose who felt it remains too
opaque and enigmatic.
I definitelywanted to have the philosophical resolu-
tion that we, collectively, have beenjudged and not
foundwanting, Lhatwe’ve been judged and found to
be worthy of being met in our world, on our turf.
Perhaps the[...]original or distinctive. Hence, with a shortfall of
ideas, Cameron ploughs ahead and echoes every
film in the past 20 years that has dealt with a
similar theme. It is a prime example of overreach-
ing: in trying to achieve something mystical and
mythical, he fell short and simply came up with
something mundane. A major pi[...]le Anne Hurd. Screenplay: James Cameron. Director
of photography: Mikael Salomon. Sound designer: Blak[...]canvas with the symb-
olic struggle between good and evil super-heroes.
Instead, it represents a cinema of interiors — hotel
rooms, bars, clubs — and characters who live out
their lives in the smoky light between dusk and
dawn. It is a world, often, of brief encounters, shy
confessions of ambition or regret at talent wasted
in the land w[...]ntial dry. Films such as these become por-
traits of a society of minor characters, constructed
from small gestures and shifting emotions, stories
which re-define the h[...]e a nobility about them because they
give a sense of worth to the unfashionable and or-
dinary while allowing enormous scope for quirky
behaviour and humour. A short list of notable
examples would include Fat City, Five Easy Pieces
and The King of Marvin Gardens, to which writer-
director Steve K[...]Baker
Boys, should be added.

The credit sequence of The Fabulous Baker
Boys has all the codes which e[...]bout the inevitable connection between per-
sonal and city life. Outside is the city at dusk;
inside, a woman and man are in bed. The man
(]eff Bridges) gets up and starts dressing. “Will I

JACK BAKER (JEFF BRIDGES) AND THE NEWLY-FOUND SULTRY
SINGER, SUSIE DIAMOND (MIC[...]she asks. “No”, he replies. This is
the first and last time. A brief encounter of two
strangers in a room. He then walks out into t[...]empty tables
than customers. This will be a film of glances,
melancholy chords, a recording of the spaces and
silences between people.

The Fabulous Baker Boys of the film’s title are
two brothers,]ack and Frank, played byjeff and
Beau Bridges. They have been playing piano
together for 30 years, and while “Fabulous" has
more wishful thinking than[...]t. If
their act is not scintillating, the casting of the
brothers Bridges is inspired; though this is[...]screen, the rapport be-
tween them brings a depth and tension to the
tired musical platitudes of the piano act they take
from lounge to lounge. Ho[...]they
play “The Girl from Ipaneema” or “All of Me”
before the words feel hollow, and fabulous falls
into predictability?

Frank, the o[...]ng force
in the act, though by now he has settled for
playing to near-empty lounges on low wages, has
a wife, kids and a mortgage. His professionalism

The magnitude of this change for the broth-
ers is only matched by the traumas of auditioning
singers worse than themselves, as seen in the
montage of truly appalling renditions of songs
from “Candy Man” to “My Way“. The entrance
and subsequent successful audition of Susie Dia-
mond (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the one pr[...]amera slowly closes in to alternating
cIose—ups of Frank andjack to show their recogni-
tion of her vamp-like talent. It is a crucial scene
because the two brothers will now become a part
ofa threesome and much of the film rests on how
difficult that adjustment[...].

As the relationship between the brothers
waxes and wanes, Susie Diamond will be trans
formed from th[...]hat Susie
Diamond (even the name is a combination of
soft- and hard—precious) is a force, and a presence
to be admired. There is even a referen[...]en Pfeiffer pro-
duces a sultry voice reminiscent of Monroe’s (“l0
cents a Dance” being a

good[...]oe also had a
naive innocence which
was the basis for many
of her characters in
films such as The Seven
Year Itch and The Mix-
fits. Susie is the oppo-
site of Sugar Kane:
when asked at the audi-
tion if she h[...]peri-
ence, she replies that
she was once on call for
an escort agency. Susie
has already been
around the block and
The Fabulous Baker Boys
is about Susie’s obtain-
ing some measure of
class and a glittering

sort of purity, whereas
Monroe’s films were
very much about the
tarnishing and despoil-
ing of her childlike
wonder at the world.
Susie quickly[...]eir
climb to success on the
circuit. Her strength of
character in these
scenes relies largely on
Pfeiffer’s screen pres-
ence and her timing
which balances Jeff
Bridges’ still b[...]nes, is concerned, tellingjack, “I hear
trouble and its name starts with S.” This theme is
well utilized by director Steve Kloves for comic
sequences which allow Pfeiffer to be more than a
voice and a face as she eventually teasesjack into
bed. It[...]edit that he allows the
story to follow the logic of the characters created
up to this point and resists the temptation of a nar-
rative that heads for the safety of a soft romance
in club-land. Their affair cannot[...]e by
this stage neither Susie nor_]ack is capable of the
feelings required and the ‘team’, only recently
merged, begins to scatter.

With Susie moving off into the world of cat
foodjingles (‘”There’s always another g[...]rontations. They confess to
being cowards in life and whores to the business.
Their act descends all th[...]t
effort to be honest about his musical ambitions
andand, as they circle each other
on the street like cau[...]e Fabulous Baker Boys were never in the big
time, and the film relies more on nuance and
subtle messages between characters than simple
answers to the complexities of life.

THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS Directed by: Steve[...]ydney Pollack. Screenplay: Steve Kloves. Director of
photography: Michael Ballhaus. Sound: Stephan Von[...]IN THE TALE is a home-grown po-

litical satire, and one which announces it-

self in the press material as concerning
itself with“how the full force of the male-domi-
nated world of power tries to manipulate the life
and career of one woman and how she turns the
table on them".

Screenwriter Patrick Edgeworth (Boswell for
the Defence) deliberately uses caricatured charac[...]ious telling points in his fable
about the nature of political power, backroom
party machinations and male sexism.

Diane Lane (Diane Craig) is the newly elected
and naive backbencher, formerly a trade—union
official, who enters parliament after winning the
seat of Black Stump in a by-election. With a sense
of heady idealism, she ascends the corridors of
power and navigates a treacherous political mine-
field, c[...]g the way.

Not surprising, given the jaunty tone of the
piece, she eventually becomes Australia’s f[...]rried lover,
Barry Robbins (Gary Day), a corrupt (and chain-
smoking) Minister for Health and the schemings
of seedy media magnate, Roger Monroe (Edwin
Hodgeman), a Rupert Murdoch sound-and-look-
alike character, basically your standard me[...]t the
federal capital, the film uneasily settles for a
broad comedy style that lacks any real bite or
venom with most of the characters trading quips
that would seem more at home in the shorthand
vocabulary of television sitcoms.

Director Eugene Schlusser, a former actor
and theatre director with extensive television ex-
pe[...]tical arena.
The soundtrack suggests the presence of dozens
of people, but the recurring image is limited to
the[...]ermittently amusing, A Sting In The Tale,
amiable and relaxed in tone, lacks any real sense
of passion or commitment to its subject matter,
and seems content to straddle a dated twilight
zone, which is perched uneasily between broad
farce and glum earnestness.

A STING IN THE TALE Directed b[...]losimo. Screenplay: Pau'ick Edge-
worth. Director of photography: Nicholas Sherman.
Sound: Michael Pip[...]n
Goulding (Wilson Sinclair), Gary Bishop (Leader of the
Opposition) ,joanneCooper (Barrnaid) .[...]

A CASE OF HONOR

Director: Eddie Romero. Producers: D. Howa[...]twriterszjohn Trayne, William
Hellinger. Director of photography: josé Batac jun.
Editor: Toto Nativi[...]Produced by International Film
Management, A Case of Honor is described as an
action-packed adventure story in the tradition of
Rambo and Uncommon Valour.

DEAR CARDHOLDER

Director: Bill[...]l Bennett. Script-
writer: Bill Bennett. Director of photography: Tony
Vfilson. Editor: Denise Hunter[...]rm to survey the destruction wreaked by
the thugs of an industry board that Aggie has
refused to join.

Hec, a timid and dreamy taxation clerk, is an
unlikely but stalwart kindred spirit. His life is the
stuff of an absurdist comedy. A taxation clerk
instructed by his anally retentive boss (a brief and
funny performance by satirist Patrick Cook) to
reduce the government's trade deficit, he dreams
of escaping from his humdrumjob by developing
a computer programme. (The failure of a previ-
ous project, an ioniser that unfortunately triggers
car alarms, sets the tone for his grand dream.) He
applies for a bank loan, but fast finds himself in a
downward spiral of applying for more and more
credit to pay off his escalating debts.

Wri[...]RS 78

5,;

PAUL KALINA

previous A Street to Die and Backlash, the spirit of
rebellion is tempered by a light-hearted comic
to[...]un-
derstates nor overstates the situations, many of
which, comic as they may be, do not betray the
hu[...]imperceptibly, Bennett
moves from caustic satire of institutions and
bureaucracies to touching drama in which the
effe[...]realizes that she has lost everything
she fought for, and when Hec’s daughter jo is
taken to live in a home after he finds it impossible
to provide for her.

GLASS

Director: Chris Kennedy. Producers:[...]is Kennedy. Scriptwriter: Chris Kennedy. Director of
photography: Pieter de Vries. Editor: James Bradl[...]Unpreviewed, Glass is described as “a thriller and
a mystery of distortions and reflections, about
friendship, flowers and shards of glass, and the
illusions created by grease paint a haunting,
stylized tale of escape”.

The story evolves around Richard Vickery,
whose chain of retirement homes has made him
a millionaire. The[...]oposal to build
a casino, coupled with the murder of Richard’s
secretary, marks a turning point in the life of the
old-fashioned and sentimental man.

His wife, however, has already[...]des to sell
the corporation, she enlists the help of her lover,
Peter Breen, a sharp lawyer who has al[...]_]an Tyrell. Scriptwriter: Craig Cronin. Director
of photography: Martin McGrath. Editor: Pippa Ander-[...]in exotic places. Things aren't looking too good
for Lawson after he returns from a trip, realizes
that his safari days are numbered and that his
adulterous wife is scheming with his greedy pub-
lisher to take control of his considerable wealth.
His faithful servant, Ma[...]er his menopausal grief. Meanwhile, Lawson
learns of an organization, Cryonics Corporation,
that freezes corpses for revitalization in the fu-
ture. He is now ready to embark on his greatest
adventure ever.

Originally made for television under the title
Pigs Can Fly, the film is a messy and abortive
attemptatwildly over—the—top comedy. While parts
of this hit-or-miss endeavour work better than
others, it too often relies on tired jokes and
lumbering situations, an under-written screen-

KANSAS

Director: David Ste[...]Litto. Script-
writer: Spencer Eastman. Director of photography: David
Eggby. Editor: Robert Barrere.[...], Matt Dillon (Doyle
Kennedy), Leslie Hope.

Wade and Doyle rob a bank and, while hiding the
stash, witness an accident in w[...]-
pears. As the search to find both the criminal and
the hero intensifies, so too do the tensions be-
tween Wade and Doyle, whose anger is ignited
when he begins to suspect that Wade has hidden
the money and will not give it to him.

Unfortunately, Kansas is a fairly lack-lustre,
unengaging and hackneyed melodrama about
the stigmatizing of two teenagers, one of whom is
clearly destined to suffer, the other to[...]dly absolve
him from his part in robbing the bank and a
house (he digs $20 from his pocket and leaves it
in the kitchen — what a guy!). The characteriza-
tions of the good and bad apples are shallow and
one-dimensional, a situation exacerbated by the
unimaginative casting of Dillon and McCarthy.
Directed by David Stevens (A Town Like Alice,
Always Afternoon) and photographed by David
Eggby, the film features one of the worst filmed
climaxes of all time.

, OTHER RELEASES

BACKROADS

Director:[...]r: Phil Noyce. Scriptwriter:
Phil Noyce. Director of photography: Russell Boyd. Dis-
tributor: Home Ci[...]oley, Bill
Hunter, Julie McGregor.

Incisive view of racism told through the story of
Gary, a young Aboriginal, andjack, a white man,
who steal a car and set off for Gary’s home in the
outback wilderness. Celebrated feature debut of
Phil Noyce, who also produced and co-wrote the
film.

CELIA

Director: Ann Turner.[...]mo-
thyW'hite. Scriptwriter: Ann Turner. Director of photog-
raphy: Geoffrey Simpson. Editor: Ken Sall[...]Longley ,
Maryanne Fahey .

The political, social and familial life of Australia
in the late 1950s is reflected through the winsome
eyes of 12-year-old Celia. Feature film debut of

Ann Turner, which was reviewed in Cinema Papers,[...]Raymond Carver.

JUDY DAVIS, WHO STARS AS NINA AND GEORGIA, IN BEN LEWlN’S GEORGIA.

Director of photography: Ellery Ryan. Editor: Ken Sal-
lows.[...]s admira-
bly treated in this short film written and directed
byjohn Ruane. Set on a farm where two couples
spend a strange and eerie night together, the film
is a mannered and detailed study of transition,
social values and relationships. The tense atmos-
phere is punctuat[...]ng perform-
ances byjulie Forsythe, Neil Melville and a pea-
cock.

A FORTUNATE LIFE

Directors: Marcus[...]lso, based on the novel by
Albert Facey. Director of photography: Peter Levy. Edi-
tors: Richard Hindl[...]Yet another release from the ‘back catalogue’ of
television mini-series. The complete 1985, four-

part mini-series of Bert Facey’s novel sells for
$59.95.

POSTER DETAIL, WITH TOM SELLECK (AS PHILLIP BLACKWOOD)
AND PAULINA PORIZKOVA (NINA). BRUCE BERE5FORD'5 AMERI[...], based on the novel by
Charles Dickens. Director of photography: Peter Hen-
dry. Editors: Tony Kavana[...]986) loosely based on the Abel
Magwitch character of Dickens’ novel Great Expec-
tatians. The premis[...]stralia, tracing his life until he made
a fortune and returned to England.

HER ALIBI

Director: Bruce[...]Barish. Script-
writer: Charles Peters. Director of photography: Freddie

Francis. Editor: Anne Gours[...]a Porizkova (Nina), William Daniels.

Lightweight and frothy romantic comedy about
an author of pulp crime novels who finds his life
closely mir[...]invents after saving a Romanian beauty, arraigned
for murder, by providing her with an alibi.

This rel[...]omance was directed
by Australian Bruce Beresford and photographed
by veteran Freddie Francis.

AN INDE[...]ased on the novel by Colleen
McCullough. Director of photography: Ernest Clark.
Editor: Philip[...]

This 1985 film adaptation of Colleen Mc-
Cullough‘s best-seller is released for sell-through

at $29.95.

PHILIPPINES, MY PHILIPP[...]. Producers: Chris Nash, Maree
Delofski. Director of photography: john Whitteron.
Distributor: Home Ci[...]ch strips away the carefully
fostered media image of Cory Aquino, and criti-
cally questions the motives of allies like Australia
and the U.S., while they pursue their own inter-
ests[...]s. Reviewed in Cinema Pa.-
[Iers,july 1989.

SONS OF STEEL

Director: Gary Keady. Producerzjames Michael Vernon.
Scriptwriter: Gary Keady. Director of photography: jo-

are now available.[...]“GET THE PICTURE”

This publication updates and expands “Australian Film Data”,
first released in 1988, and contains comprehensive industry
statistics, annual production listings and articles on produc-
tion and marketing plus other valuable information presented
in an easy to understand and convenient manner.

Order now and find out how many people went to the cinema
in 19[...]anyAusn‘alian films were released inAustra-
lia and overseas, details on home video, the top mini-series
broadcast, and information on the short films and documen-
tary components of the industry. Price $17.00

“NON-THEATRICAL DIS[...]designed to explain the way
this market operates and to assist Australian producers in
identifying the most appropriate non-theatrical distributor for
their programmes. It details over 50 distributors working in
this area and the best methods by which to approach them.[...]TO THE AUSTRA-
LIAN FILM COMNEISSION) WITH NUMBH1 OF TITLES AND RETURN
ADDRESS CLEARLY STATED, AND MAIL TO:

AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION
G P 0 Box 39[...]save the
world from an impending nuclear disaster and
the shackles of a fascist Government. Punk and
heavy metal come together in this pastiche of
comic—books, high-voltage rock clips, and envi-
ronmentally /socially-aware consciousness.[...]Herzog (additional dialogue: Bob
Ellis). Director of photography: jorg Schmidt-Reitwein.
Editor: Beatt[...]boriginal tribes come into conflictwith the
laws of modern Australia when a large company
tries to mi[...]l-
intentioned but completely misguided treatment
of Aboriginal Land Rights fails to do justice to the
controversial issues, and sees German director
Werner Herzog wallowing in what is a hopeless
mess of unimaginative imagery, cliched charac-
ters, confused narration and tedious direction.

WITCHES AND FAGGOTS - DYKES AND POOITERS

Director: ‘One in Seven’ Collective[...]. Distributor: Home
Cinema Group.

An examination of the individual and collective
oppression of homosexuals in Australia today
against the backdrop of such oppression through-
out history. The 45-minute documentary grew
out of a videotape of a gay liberation protest in
Sydney in 1978, the first of a series of clashes over
two years between homosexuals and police in
which 184 arrests were made.

WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD

Director: Ned Lander. Producers: Ned La[...]Scriptwriters: Ned Lander, Graeme Issac. Director
of photography: Louis Irving. Editor: john Scott. Di[...]Cinema Group.

Two days on the road with members of Aboriginal
bands No Fixed Address and Us Mob. Playing
themselves, the musicians ‘act’ out incidentsfrom
their lives and offer glimpses into their lives OE-
stage. Although the performers’ depiction of
these ‘real—life‘ incidents tends to be stilted and
awkward, the film bristles with casual humour
and moving insights into racism, prejudice and
the ‘two laws’ of Australian society. I

SPECIALISTS TO THE FILM IN[...]brochures posters I/yers display advertising
pre and post production

CAMPAIGNS INCLUDE

KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN 0 DOGS IN SPACE
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT 0 GEORGIA
BETTY BLUE 0 SEX, UES AND VIDEOTAPE
THE MUSIC TEACHER 0 MEPHISTO
SLAVES OF NEW YORK 0 MYSTERY TRAIN
CAMILLE CIAUDEL 0[...]

The housings are made from 15-
25mm perspex and are tested to 35
metres. The video cameras come
complete with power on / off, record
on/off, two handles and a dome
port for wide-angle converter lenses.
An average price for a Video 8 or
VI-ISC, camera with rear—mounted
v[...]toria

3419. Ph: (053) 922294.

LONG-TERM STORAGE of videotapes,
film and computer tapes is a balanc-
ing act for most production compa-
nies. They need access to the mate-

rial and usually are paying a pre-
mium price for the storage space.
There are now companies in most
cities addressing the problem and
the latest is Comcopy in Melbourne,
which has formed a separate com-
pany called Safe Tape and Film.
According to Guy Howell, who runs
the compa[...]all—or-
nothing approach to the archive
problem and built a sophisticated
fire-proof facility with dust-free air
conditioning and an humidity con-
trolled environment with 24-hour
monitored security. All tapes are
computer logged and catalogued.

The approach seems to have
impressed a number of advertising
agencies, including George Patter-
sons, and HSV 7 and GTV 9 Mel-
bourne. GTV 9 has Safe Tape and
Film handling its news footage stock
library on a commission basis and
expect that the return should go a
long way to defraying the storage
cost. For more details, call Guy
Howell on (03) 696 6219.

ONE or THE DEMO REELS that has
been much copied and spread

around the commercials producers
is from[...]b time-lapse 35mm photogra-
phy that matches some of the best in
Koyaanasquatsi. He uses a motion-
control head that allows him to pan
and move during the exposures.
Some of the transitions to nightskies
with stars visible are beautiiul and
top cinematography.

COMMUNICATOR VIDEO has now
j[...]ation company, Digital
Arts, to form Digital Arts and Televi-
sion Pty Ltd. Andrew Carroll men-
tioned[...]hich will be
used to further enhance the research
and developmentof their transputer-
based animation system, and to
continue work on their muItj—axis
motion con[...]oEFIce was in the
U.S. discussing the development of
an interactive animated computer
system for a science museum in Sili-
con Valley (which is re[...]el). It looks as if
Adelaide is becoming a centre for
high—tech film and effects (look for a
future piece on Adelaide's Fright
company, whic[...]E LEFT: MURRAY WILLS’ UNDERWATER CAMERA HOUSING FOR A ROLEX (OWNER PETER
MCDOUGAL). BELOW: THE SONY V[...]0 (MP8 VANS 0 UNIT VEHICLES 0 TRACKING VEHICLES

FOR THE SUPPLY OF ALL

FILM PRODUCTION TRANSPORT

CONTACT DA[...]

Ring Nichola Wharton
STEADI SYSTEMS PTY LTD
405[...]LUABLE MATERIAL CAN BE STORED IN A TOTALLY
SECURE AND CLIMATICALLY CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT

111 T[...]

garded French film magazine, POSITIF, and, of recent, its Editor-in-Chief.

A prolific author,[...]n,

Francesco Rosi,_]ohn Boorman, Stanley Kubrick and ferry Schatzberg. He has also

directed a number of fascinating documentary portraits of filmmakers: PORTRAIT or

A 60 PER CENT PERFECT M[...]FRANCESCO Rosi,
CHRONICLE or A DEATH FORETOLD; ; and his most recent, ELIA K4zAN, 0lfI‘SH)ER.

The f[...]in English, took place in Rome on the occa-

sion of a homage-retrospective-colloquim on the cinema of Elia Kazan, organized by

the Italian film magazine, FILMCRITICA, as part of their “Maestri del Cinema ” award

events. Ciment was present to screen his film on Kazan, and to chair papers and dis-

BOOKS

While a number of your books have appeared in
English editions - su[...]on Kazan, Conver-
sations with Lasey,]ohn Boorman and Stanlq Kubrick
- many have not. Can you speak abo[...]t in
translation?

There is one titled Conquerors of a New World,
which is a collection of essays on the American
cinema. It has three secti[...]h von
Stroheim, josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder and
so forth. The second section deals with auteunsm[...]ing mainly with relation-
ships between directors and producers, directors
and writers. There is a piece on Howard Hawks
and scriptwriting, and another on Orson Welles’
Citizen Kane and the Herman Mankiewicz contro
versy. The third sec[...]big piece on Our Daily Bread,
considered in light of the Western genre and its
mythology, and also on Terrence Mallick's Days
Of Heaven.

A second book is Passport to Hollywood, which
is a series of interviews with six directors. It again
takes up the theme of people who have gone to
work in Hollywood. The book deals with three
older directors and three of the younger genera-
tion. The older directors arejoseph Mankiewicz,
Billy Wilder and john Huston, whom I don’t
consider as typical Hollywood directors in the
sense of ajohn Ford, Minnelli, Hawks or a Walsh.
These directors are either of European origin,
like Billy Wilder, an East-Coast[...]e younger direc-
tors - Milos Fonnan, Wim Wenders and Roman
Polanski - are Europeans who have made film[...]is a rather particular book. It is a
combination of essays and interviews very much
like the Boorman and the Kubrick books, but its
particular emphasis is the relationship between
photography and cinema, since Schatzberg was a

MICHEL CIMENT,[...]otographer in the 19605. Half the book
is made up of quite beautiful stills of his photo-
graphic work and the rest a study of his work. It
was published in 1982 but is now inc[...]The book
deals with his six first films: Puzzle of a Downfall
Child, Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow, Dandy, theAll
American Girl, The Seduction of George Tynan and
Honeysuckle Rose

Also not in English are my Francesco Rosi
book and the one I published last year on the
Greek director, Théo Angelopolus. It is co-au-
thored and deals with Angelopolus’ nine features
to that t[...]rk reveals a cross-fertilization between
European and American cinema. In some cases,
this is through d[...]mselves cul-
turally transported - Losey, Kubrick and Boorman
seem the most obvious examples. Is it an[...]ued?

It was not something I was really conscious of at
the time, but was much more intuitive. It was
more just liking their films and enjoying the
complexity of their work. What I like about all
these directors[...]It is how to make ideas

that shape images, which for me is the supreme
goal of art.

That's the first thing. Then, some years ago,
a friend of mine said to me over lunch just what
you said a m[...]y true that I was interested in a
particular kind of filmmaker. All my books are
actually about people who are between two cul-
tures. For example, Kubrick is an American jew
who emigrated to England. He has a kind of
European sophistication, yet is aware of his Ameri-
can origins. joseph Losey was a WASP,[...]rican from the mid-West, a Communist
who, because of the blacklist, came to work in
England, where he[...]theless, he was very much an Ameri-
can director, and his films are American in many
ways. With john B[...]gions,
two cultures.

My first really long piece of writing was a
booklet which now is included in Conquerors of a
New World. It was an 80—page study of Erich von
Stroheim which I wrote when I was 29 years old.
Von Stroheim is, of course, another example of
what we are talking about. So, from the begin-
ni[...]mes down to the fact that
my father was Hungarian and jewish, and my
mother French and Catholic. Probably I'm inter-
ested in impurity. I don’t believe in purity. I’m
afraid of purity. I think purity is ideological and
dangerous, whether it be the purity of Commu-
I1lSlTl, the purity of Nazism, of race or of nation.
I’m attracted by mixtures.

Within this sphere of cross-cultural influence,
Francesco Rosi, to who[...]apolitan, a man from the
South, who lives in Rome and is very much like a

CINEMA PAPERS 78 - 63

Mankiewicz is perhaps the most intelligent
director I have met. He has an extraordinary wit
and dialectical mind. But he was an old man, and
we thought there was no way to get him out onto
t[...]el Cimfifg

*5

./__

2%.-

CIMEN‘I”S STUDY OF ITALIAN DIRECTOR FRANCESCO ROSI, AND TWO FILM BOOKS BY MICHEL CIMENT AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH.

and very emotional — after all, man is a combina-
t[...]ause
his early films, like La Sfida, I Magliari and Mani
sulla Cittd (Hands over the City), are highly influ-
enced by Kazan and Warner Bros. He is obviously
a man who has a strong sense of dynamics and
action combined with his highly artistic culture.
He was a pupil of Visconti and worked with
Antonioni. So he combined his kind of strong
American action film with a highly intell[...]s which is very diiTer-
ent to the liberal school of Richard Brooks and
even Kazan.

THE DOCIIMENTARIES

The BillyWilder film was made in 1979, and itwas
quite successful - it was selected for Cannes. So I
thought of following that up with one on Kazan.

During the film, Kazan talks about being an
outsider - culturally and artistically - so we thought
itwould make a nice[...]front, the Actors Studio, his home in the
country and his house in New York. It was quite a
technical feat and the contributions of the cam-
eraman and the editor were of paramount impor-
tance.

The Mankiewicz film is[...]not edit down in length
because Mankiewicz speaks for twenty minutes at
a go. In that regard, the Kazan is much more of a

64 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

and talks fantastically well. Thus, the form of the
film came out of the person,just as in architecture
where form fol[...]form.

SURREALISM

The publication some years ago of Robert
Benayoun’s The Look of Buster Keaton was among
other things a remarkable reminder of Posihfs as-
sociation with surrealism. Could you make men-

tion of some of the other editorial members and
their Links to surrealism?

I was once the head of a film book series, which
has now closed down, thatincluded 12 or 13 titles.
One of these was a book on aesthetics by Gerard
Legrand[...]be a
remarkable book. In the last 15 or so years of
Andre Breton’s life, say between 1950 and ’66,
Legrand was one of Bret0n’s most important
collaborators. He wrote[...]agic. Legrand, who is now sixty, has been
writing for Positif for 25 years.

Ado Kyrou was a Greek partisan during the
civil war and fought in the Communist ranks. He
was an exile in Paris and became in the ’50s one
of the most important spokesmen for Pasitzf He
was a close friend of Bunuel’s. Kyrou wrote two
books in French, one ofand joined Positij then. Robert

Benayoun you have al[...]s from
what I have said that there is a component of the
magazine which is strongly a part of surrealism.

I'm not a surrealist, and a lot ofpeople on the
magazine are not surrealists. I would say that
today the influence of surrealism is less prevalent,
but it was very str[...], films like Peteflbbetson, Murnau’s
Nosferatu and all the dream aspects of cinema - all
the things Breton liked in the cinem[...]OD REVISITED:
HAWKS AIID wusil

In the heady days of French auteur ism, many
claims were made vis-a-vis the classical Holly-
wood directors. With the passing of time, do you
have revisionist thoughts about those directors,
Hawks and Walsh for example?

The case of Walsh is very interesting. I think the
average output of Hawks is superior to the aver-
age output of Walsh. Hawks is more obviously an
auteur than Walsh. Nevertheless, if you judge a
director on the level of achievement, that is by the
top of his work, not the average, then Walsh is the
grea[...]Heat, Gentleman jim, Objective
Burma, The Bowery and Pursued. For me, these
films have a sense of exhilaration, a poetic dimen-
sion which I find[...]more French than Walsh. In Walsh there is
a kind of romanticism, a kind of lyricism, in an
expanding universe. Whereas Hawks is more in a
garden, Walsh is in the jungle.

For those reasons, one could well understand

Rohmer[...]tainly is an undervalued direc-
tor. In the 19305 and ’40s, he was an extraordinary
director.[...]

As for the silent cinema, though I haven’t
seen many of his films, there is a tremendous
director in Clarence Badger. He certainly de-
serves to be reconsidered for films like Hands Up,
It and others. These films are quite brilliant.

This m[...]years. He made six
tremendous films between 1940 and ’44 and was
already highly considered and praised in Amer-
ica. French critics didn’t fee[...]lot had been written already. There
was no sense of discovering or re-discovering him.
Also, when the young critical journals like Positif
and Cahiers du Cinema started publication in the
earl[...]films.

AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

What is your opinion of what you have seen of the
Australian cinema? Are there any Australian d[...]ainly. I do appreciate Fred Schepisi. I like
some of his films very much, such as The Devil’:
Playground and The Chant of jimmie Blacksmith, and
even the recentfilms like Roxanne, which I thought
was avery talented rendition of CyrannadeBergerac.

I think Peter Weir is very go[...]especially his
earlier films like The Last Wave and Picnic at Hang-
ing Rock - Gallipoli, less so.

I[...]ch the film by Scott Murray,
Devil in the Flesh, and Backlash by Bill Bennett.

Certainly I also like[...]iller,just as I have reservations about A Fistful of
Dollars. But then Leone's Once Upon a Time in the[...]ofEastwich, too. Miller is a
very talented man.

Of course,_[ane Campion is absolutely terri-
fic. Her short films and Sweetie are stupendous. In
fact, Sweetie was for me the most original film in
Cannes last year, although I also liked Steven
Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape. But if Wim
Wenders [president of the Cannes jury] had
wanted to be really original[...]re to Wenders than
Sweetie.

Well, it’s too bad for Wenders. It shows his limita-
tions.

But you are an admirer of Wenders.

Yes, he is a terrific director. But di[...]But to conclude on Campion: in the world
cinema of the 19805, she is one of the few really
inspiring filmmakers. She makes you believe that
in cinema there are still new and surprising things
to come. Most films today are merely repetitions
of things seen before, done less well.

CLOCKWISE FR[...]E LAST WAVE; SCOTT MURRAY’S
DEVIL IN THE FLESH; AND BILL BENNETVS BACKLASH.
BELOW: JANE CAMPIO[...]

POSITIF AND ,
cunsns nu cnumn

Pasitif and Cahiers du Cinénuz have long been
regarded as Fr[...]ion with Posify‘,
could you give us an overview of the differences
that have historically marked the[...]istorical period. The diiferences
between Positzf and Cahiers today are very differ-
ent from those in 1968, andand
simple being a film buff. But in the ’50s, tho[...]lways been a highly cine—literate
country, most of the press dealt with the cinema
in a political or[...]strong in French criticism.
They had 25 per cent of the vote, and a lot of in-
tellectuals were Comrnunist Their approach to
art was highly ideological and they totally de-
spised, with very few exceptions[...]cin-
ema. Those few exceptions were social films and

BELOW: THE AUGUST 1961 CAHIER5 DU CINEMA, AND THE
FAMOUS "NOUVELLE VAGUE” ISSUE OF DECEMBER 1962.

CAI-IIERS

DU CINE

. m-’_\[t,[...]CINEMA PAPERS 78

Charlie Chaplin’s — things of that nature. Most
Hollywood entertainment was considered ugly,
evil escapism — opium for the masses.

On the other hand, the Right-wing, b[...]ritics looked down upon it from the stand—point
of French high culture, as opposed to American
popular culture.

Now Positzf and Cahiers had something in
common in that they took[...]nto
consideration. They loved Westerns, thrillers and
things like that. They spoke about them in highly[...]which made people on the

extreme Left indignant and provoked laughter
on the Right.

Then came the very big split at the end of the
19505. In part, there had already been an ide[...]itical, which
can mean conservative or Rightwing. And it is not
to be denied that Cahizrs was rather Right wing.
But rarely did it deal with the content of films.
They would see films which were antj-Commu-
nist, like Samuel Fuller’s, and not deal at all with
the issues.

Also, Cahiers did not deal, as Positzf did, with
the censorship of films. Truffaut had a famous
phrase: “Censorship exists only for cowards.”

Anyway, that‘s what he pretended. This, of course,
was a totally irresponsible position to t[...]ship was very strong in France at the time.
A lot of films were banned, like Alain Resnais
films, and certain films could not be made. So,
there were points of divergence between the
magazines from early on.

An other area of disagreement was auteur
politics. Positifi say,[...]ector,
would like his films all the way through. For them,
there was no way that Robert Aldrich could[...]rested in genre
criticism. They appreciated a lot of musical come-
dies that Cahiers was not keen on,[...]oy a film even ifit were a great film be-
cause of the contributions of many people and
not automatically the creation of one auteur

Cahierswas much more formalist: they paid at-
tention to the way a film was directed andand Hawks, whereas
Positzf favoured Minnelli and Huston. With Ital-
ian cinema, Cahiers favoured R[...]lzf
preferred Antonioni. The first special issue of a
magazine on Antonioni outside of Italy was pub-
lished by Positzf

As well, Positi[...]t, a Christian; Eric Rohmer was a
devout Catholic and Cahiers’ tastes were Catholic.
Positzf, on the other hand, was more surrealist
oriented. A lot of people at Positzfwere members
of the surrealist group and they naturally fa-
voured Bunuel. He was anti-cle[...]-estab-
lishment, his cinema dealt with the power of
dream.

I could go on, but those were the basic o[...]he magazines in the 505.

Now in the early 1960s, for the first four or
five years, there were not so[...]u-17

00705175 1989

liked some films by Chabrol and loved everything
by Resnais. But Resnais was not part of the New
Wave.

Positij” s reaction towards the[...]ly
there at that time, so I’m not really a part of that.
I came to Positifin 1964, when the New Wave[...]mmon between the two magazines in
the first part of the '60s. That is, both magazines
were very much part of the discovery of the ‘New
Waves’ happening internationally. Both Positzf
and Cahiers defended new Brazilian, Czech, Pol-
ish, Hungarian, British, and Japanese cinema. I
myself interviewed a lot of the same people Cain'-
ers was interviewing, such as Glauber Rocha, Ber-
tolucci and jerzy Skolimowski. So, there was a
common interes[...]es; Cahimless so.
The New Wave were making films and the Ameri-
can cinema became an economic en-
emy.[...]ing took place, Positzf, which had been
Left wing and remained Left wing and
was very much part of the movement,
never went overboard. We were not
M[...]very strangely
became, first, orthodox Communist and
then Maoist. They began to throw over-
board the whole of cinema. They loved
only some Maoist films of Godard and
jean-Marie Straub. If you look at the
issues of the time, Cahiers almost didn’t
speak of cinema any more, they were
talking about Maoism and theory. Cain'-
erx went from the Right, through t[...]what they were doing was Left
wing; it was a kind of perversion of the
Left. So, for a number of years, say from
the late ’60s to the mid '70s,[...]t. It was a
time when Positif started to discover and

ROBERT KRAMER : ROUTE ONE
IJAMDIIQUE
APRES LA GI[...]:
IIQERGIE DES MINOMTES

FAR LEFT: THE SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER
‘I965 ISSUES OF POSITIF.

RIGHT: DECEMBER 1988 AND

OCTOBER 1989.

BELOW: CAHIERS DU CINEMA AS IT IS[...]Francis
Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Brian de Palma and
Terrence Mallick. You cannot find a trace ofthese
directors in the pages of Cahiers, which ignored
absolutely this cinema. Th[...]rested in cinema. Politics was
always interesting for us, but in illuminating the
films, not substituting itself for them.

Then, in the late ’70s and early '80s, the dif-
ferences between the magazin[...]cause Cahiers re-discov-
ered the American cinema and began to talk
about directors they had previously[...]ears, Cahim
seemed to want to become more popular and
produce a ‘magazine’ more than a ‘review’. In
France, there is a difference between a review and
a magazine. A magazine is more like Studio or
Pre[...]narrower
market. Positzf has a 10,000 circulation and we
have decided to keep that circulation. We don’t
want to go mainstream and sell 100,000 copies be-
cause we think that as soon as you print 100,000
copies you must sell 100,000, and in order to sell
100,000 copies there are things[...]re,
subject matter is influenced by circulation. For
instance, in the last issue of Positzfwe had a South
Korean film on the cover, whereas Cahiers is
putting Batman and things like. Strangely, Cahim
is now much more Ho[...]films.

That, roughly speaking, is the evolution of
the two magazines. I

Dl|RAS:l'AlT0lIl0|.|[...]

There is something poised and invulnerable about Grace.

Given Spica’s sexist[...]from what we have observed from his constant use of
scatological imagery, his foul language and his appalling attitude
towards women, but also in[...]realize that his sexuality
is decidedly peculiar and adolescent.

The set is brilliant designed and used. Did you see its juxtaposition
of rooms and alleyway as having symbolic importance? What, for in-
stance, did you want to imply by the changing of colours as the
characters move from one room to another?

There has been in all my films a concern for the way in which I am
the author of the product. I have total control of the plot and the
characters. I can invent 50 characters or onl[...]e
heroine in the first act, or wait till the end of the film.

I have also always looked for other disciplines, other universal
structures. In Drowning by Numbers, there is a number structure; in A
Zed and Two Noughts an alphabet one; whereas The Draughtm[...]went up to Picasso, who was painting a landscape, and asked,
“I./Vhy are you painting the sky red?” Picasso rather facetiously replied
that he had run out of blue paint.

Given the break-up ofcolour and content, colour became free to
do anything. Large[...]ve,
pretty. In Venetian art, there is the example of painters like Titian
and Georgiani where colour became almost the sole organizing
principle. Those sorts of potentials seem to have been lost. Iwant to
bring[...]gravity —it is fundamental
to architecture — and, ironically, the man meets his death by falling.[...]e whole be white. But it is where the lovers
meet for the first time and it represents heaven for them. A great
irony is that even in the hellish c[...]presumably
associate toilets — with defecation and micturation — it takes a very
opposite colour,[...]arily white.

Then you move into the main fulcrum of the film, which is the
red, carnivorous, blood-covered, violent area of the restaurant.

Now, because of an optic phenomenon, when white comes on
the screen after the dark red of the kitchen, it acts very strongly on
the retina.[...]hite
toilet.

68 - CINEMA PAPERS 78

We have blue for the carpark, which represents the outside
world, the world away from food, the world of dustbins and dogs and
polar regions, if you like. Then we move through into green, the
colour of safe ty, the colour of the metaphorical jungle from which all
the food of the world ultimately comes. I think green is the colour for
safety on trafiic lights all the way throughout[...]represented, in maybe a minor way, are
the yellow of the children’s hospital, which represents the yolk of an
egg, the colour of maternity, the colour of children in some senses,
and the gold of the book depository, which is for the golden age of
literature, the colour of spines, pages, gold leaf and so on.

So, each area has its own colour associat[...]must be the carpark. ” In a way, it is a device
for reminding an audience that these are artificial[...]the way the camera moves fluidly past the rooms, and
the way compositions tend to be rather stately. I[...]on that there is a positive delight in
this. Alot of people of course find ituncomfortable and theydescribe
me as being a constipatory filmmake[...]an to have
complete control over the organization of every single part of this
discipline. This has to do with my own tempe[...]n; they are concerned with the
classical ordering of the world. Some of my early films are about list-
making, catalogues and encyclopedias. My framing is deliberately
related to the Renaissance sense of a framed space, an organized
space, a space which is deliberately selected in order to make use of
composition.

There is also awayin which the camera moves in an objective way.
Although there is movement, and it does glide Very gracefully
through the various[...]behave
like a voyeur, darting about. It does not, for example, follow charac-
ters. If an actor disappe[...]hat you are a painter as well as a filmmaker.
One of these activities is solitary and the other intensely collabora-
tive. What kind of different rewards and demands does each of these
offer you?

Sometimes I feel as though I’[...]someone educated as a filmmaker would not. A lot of editors, for
example, throw their arms up in horror at some of the editing devices
I use, like crossing the line. I deliberately make these massive cuts of
180°, because, if you look in one direction and then completely
change direction, you would in fact see the camera as it were in the
real world.

This sort of risk-taking in all departments obviously throws the
conventional filmmaker, who feels that there are rules and regula-
tions that should be followed. I am const[...]stic to those rules, but rather from the position
of outsider asking, “Are these rules and conventions really neces-
sary?” I’m not a di[...]tter understood, if
people applied the aesthetics of painting to them. A great delight is
a concern for surface, in using two—dimensional organizations of
objects across the screen as though they are three dimensional, a
concern for the way in which objects shine, for the difference in
textures. The restaurant, for example, is red, but it is many different
types of red and they all interact, balancing one another.

This concern for surface, by and large, is not understand, is not

As a painter, you must have an eye for colour and composition. What
sort of transfer is there of this facultywhen you come to work for the
screen? Do the roles of painter and filmmaker feed into each other?

There are ironie[...]ibed as being very literary. That is also a curse of
English painting. We do not produce, never have produced, great
painters, other than maybe Constable, Turner and Francis Bacon.
Everybody else seems to want to te[...]s about the world.

On the whole, my painting was and still is very literary, but that
is useful for me in terms of filmmaking. Cinema is a narrative form
and uses literary devices, so I feel quite at home. My scripts are
extremely full and detailed. They describe all the concerns we’ve[...]conversation, as well as others, such as the use of flowers,
which are absolutely impossible to manage.

For me, the most enjoyable parts of filmmaking are considering
the idea, writing the script and then getting the film back into the
editing room[...]again after the bit in the
middle, where an army of nearly 300 people all add their pieces to the
total film. Of course, their contribution is absolutely essentia[...]when the film gets furthest away from me. A lot of the
time you’re not a film director at all, but a chaperon, an organizer of
events, a psychologist It can be a very frustrati[...]ng period.
But, I’m getting better at that now, and I’m actually enjoying that
process a lot more.

You are one of those filmmakers whose films look as if theyknow and
care about other art forms. How important are these to you and your
films?

Films are only a very recent entrant in the 2000-year continuum of
the arts. That continuum is safe because, even if[...]over the world, people will still go on painting
and making images, recording a philosophical point of view of the
visual world. And if cinema entirely evaporated from the world
tomorrow, it would be a cause of some regret and sadness, but it
would not in any way stop my pers[...]o on
being a painter or a writer.

So, I am aware of the ephemerality of the film medium. However
sophisticated we regard[...]has come up a thousand times before in
painting, and people have found solutions for them over and over
again. If these solutions had not been succe[...]other people have done to see what we can utilize and
make valuable in our current situation. I want to be part of that
tradition which, without embarrassment, can[...]ompari-
sons between Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Michelangelo’s Sistine
Chapel, between Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin and Rembrandt’s
“NightWatch”. There is an easy dialogue that can be utilized in terms
of language, etc., between cinema and the rest of European culture.

When you talk about wanting to feel part of a tradition, do you feel
you have anything in com[...]mmakers, past or
present? One thinks particularly of Michael Powell, whose films, like
yours, mix the beautiful with the dangerous and disturbing.

The Michael Powell connection has been made many times recently
in critical appreciations of English cinema. People have actually
gone so far as to say, and I’m deeply flattered, that I’m his natural s[...]ve been other filmmakers in Britain like
the two of us.

Powell was very much outside the general trend and inclination
of the British cinema - I say “was” because he i[...]king
films. That is basically to do with realism and the documentary
tradition, seen in the work of people likejohn Grierson and Caval-

canti. Adapting ideas taken from Italian neo-realism, that then
became the British cinematic style of the 1960s, typified by the films
of_]ohn Schlesinger and Lindsay Anderson.

That documentary tradition the[...]evision,
where it remains very strong today. Most of the work supported
recently by Channel 4 is part of that tradition, films like Letter to
Brahnev and My Beautiful Laundrette. It is a concern for a so-called
naturalistic, realistic view and is often associated with the class
structure of politics. I often find it frustratingly parochia[...]annot ever be realized. You put a camera
anywhere and immediately you change the circumstances, however
much you try and organize its ‘disappearance’ from the scene.[...]any people involved in the collaborative activity of filmmak-
ing, so many filters, that naturalism and realism get pushed further
and further back.

It is interesting to look again at those supposedly realist films of
the 19605; today, they look extraordinarily artificial. The same is true
of 19th-Century novel writing. Zola, for one, pretended to be ex-
traordinarily realistic,[...]don’t seem at all real now.

Most ofmy concerns for the cinema are to do with the European
model, which readily uses metaphor, allegory and other story-telling
methods with a considerable amount of freedom. It could be de-
scribed as the cinema of ideas.

Which makes the success of a fascinating, difficult, allusive film like
The[...]ad made something like 30 movies before
that, all of them with recondite, academic concerns,. They had their
camp following, and some won prizes at the Melbourne and Sydney
film festivals. And with The Draughtmank Contract, I thought I was
ma[...]980s have been somehow suggested at the
beginning and the end by two of my films. The Draughtman’s Contract
is an introduction to the xsthetics which were very much a concern
of early ’80s, whereas The Cook, the Thiefindicates the concerns and
anxieties in Britain at the end of the decade.

It is interesting that The Cook, the[...]en in the top five at the box—office in London for
about eight weeks, and has earned more money than The Last
Emperor. It h[...]ecords everywhere — in France,
Germany, Holland and Belgium — and is about to open in Italy and
America, where there is tremendous advance excite[...]re are people throwing coke bottles at the screen
and threatening to burn down the cinemas; women are r[...]vomit. This is extraordinary, excitable behaviour for
this comparatively modest little film to engender.

Greenaway always referred to the film as “The Cook and the Thief“.

PETER GREENAWAY: FILMOGRAPHY AS DI[...]l
Cities. 1969 Intervals. 1971 Erosion. 1973 H is for House. 1975 Windows;
Water; Water Wrackets. 1976[...]alk through H; Vertical Features Remake. 1981 Act of God; Zandra
Rhodes. I983 Four American Composers.[...]he Draughtman’s Contract (108
mins). 1986 A Zed and Two Noughts (112 mins). 1987 The Belly of an
Architect (105 mins). 1988 Drowning by Numbers (118 mins). 1989 The
Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (126 mins).

CINEMA PAPERS 78 - 69

BACKSTR[...]with a leg-

end ofjazz begins a life-long dream for a

young boy in the outback. Years later, he
jour[...]iot, Tahir

Cambis, Alex Menglet.
Synopsis: Eddie and Mick are out—o£work

teenagers. They become involved with a

70 ~ CINEMA PAPERS 78

S U R

V

E Y 8

gang of would-be mercenaries who are
heading forAfrica. W[...]Picknett

Art director Michelle Milgate
Planning and Development

Casting

Extras casting
Production C[...]hn
Hargreaves (Michael).

Synopsis: An assortment of old friends
converge at an isolated farm house to
await the birth of a baby. An irreverent
comedy of errors.

FEATURES
PRODUCTION

DEATH IN BRUNSWICK[...]Thumpston

Prod. designer Chris Kennedy
Planning and Development

Casting Greg Apps
Casting cons. Liz[...]uggles to main-
tain his dignity amidst brutality and
squalor. He sees a chance of escape when
he meets the voluptuous Sophie, but a[...]k
Grant), Paul Goddard (Bobby).

Synopsis: A tale of real estate and revenge
set in the ominous inner—city of the imagi-

nation.
THE MAGIC RIDDLE

Prod. co. Y[...]sis: An enchanting story which
borrows characters and events from popu-
lar fairy tales and weaves them into one
charming and suspenseful tale of love,

mystery and mirth.

THE RETURNING

Prod. company

Matte Box

Pre~production 2/l/90 - 29/1/90
Production[...]elle Spencer.

Synopsis: A romantic drama.

DEPTH OF FEELING

Producer

Phillip Emmanuel

[No details supplied]

FATHER
[See previous issue for details]

FLIRTING
Prod. company Kennedy Miller

Director John Duigan
[See issue 76 for details]

THE GOLDEN BRAID
Prod. company Illumina[...]Synopsis: :\ post-war story oi love, mar-
riage and friendship, begun during the
occupation ofJapan, and set in 19505 and
’60s Victoria. Here the cultural shift and
new pressures force three people through
inevitab[...]details supplied.

BLOOD OATH
[See previous issue for details]

BLOODMOON

[See previous issue for details]

THE CROSSING
Prod. co. Beyond Internati[...]rton
Ben Osmo
Stewart Young
Jennie Tate

Planning and Development

Script editor
Casting consultants

A[...]Ian Cregan
Peter Chua

Paul Cleveland

Planning and Development

Casting officer
Casting assist
Resea[...]gner Igor Nay
Costume designer Katie Pye
Planning and Development
Casting Faith Martin

Producti[...]

A KINK IN TPIE PICASSO
[See previous issue for details]

MARK CLARK VAN ARK
Prod. company Cascad[...]nje Bos

Prod. designer
Costume designer
Planning and Development
Casting consultants Liz Mullinar
Cast[...]en-year-old Danny Clark
buys an old Jaguar to try and impress
beaut_ifulJoannaJohnson. The car blows
up[...]an intricate plan to set things right.

N0 CAUSE FOR ALARM
[See previous issue for details]

QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER
[See previous issue for details]

THE SHER MOUNTAIN MYSTERY

Prod. compan[...]he Sher
Mountains. They become caught~up in a
web of mystery and intrigue that involves
their entire family and a mysterious figure

from the past.

STRANGERS
P[...]nise Haratzis

Prod designer Derek Mills
Planning and Development

Script editor Stephanie McCarthy

Ca[...]ell

Zev Eleftheriou
Craig “Skeet” Booth
Food for Film

Stunts coord.
Safety officer
Still photogra[...]eant), John
Clayton (Agent).

Synopsis: The story of an ambitious young
stockbroker who, after[...]

TILL THERE WAS YOU

Prod. company
Dist. c[...]eorge Liddle
David Rowe

Tony Meillandt

Planning and Development

Casting

Casting consultants

Extras[...]ard-win-
ning children’s author Paul Jennings.

For details of the following see
previous issue:
AUSTRALIA DAN C119
THE SILICON IMPERATIVE

AUSTRALIAN FILM,

TELEVISION AND RADIO
SCHOOL

THE LAST NEWSREEL

Prod. company[...]erill.

Synopsis: A short film about love, memory
and isolation.

RETREAT
Prod. company AFT RS
Pre-prod[...]inda Kruger
Luigi Pittorino
Paul Neeson

Planning and Development

Casting consultants
Shooting sched.[...]merican jazz
musician, comes to Vanuatu in search of
his brother and finds murder, intrigue
and romance - it’s ajungle out there.

For details of the following see previous
issues.

BREAKAWY
STRANGERS
WENDY CRACKED A WALNUT

For details of the following see previous
issue:
BOMB SQUAD
ELVI[...]AUL JENNINGS

Prod. comopany Education Shop
(Min. of Education, Vic.)

Director Lily Steiner
Producer[...]y (Mable), Patrick F alzon
(Johnny), ex-Cinesound and -Movietone
staff and the people of Australia.

Synopsis: The LastNewrre2lis a short black-
and-white film that celebrates Operation
Newsreel and is a fitting finale to the

Newsreel era.

A PA[...]nopsis: A film about travelling — about
outward and inwardjourneys. Briefly two
people’s paths cross.

See previous issue for details of:
JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME

RIVOLTELLA
KOALAS

Prod. compa[...]

Synopsis: Koala: is a humorous and dra-
matic look at the hidden side of koalas
which reveals some very interesting and
unusual behaviour. Using footage never
before see[...]ns (Squeaky
the Robot).

Synopsis: The adventures of a group of
toys that come to life in a child’s bedroom
when their owner is asleep. Aimed at 2 — 6
year olds.

For details of the following see previous
issue:
AIR FORCE MYTHS[...]-
cerns that people may have about the
operations of the Sheriff's office, and
encourages men and women to consider
a career as a Field or Special[...]educate people in
strategies to halt degradation of river
managements.

SHOWING A LI'I'I'LE RESTRAINT[...]ent restraints
needed by different-aged children, and
suggests how to keep them amused on
long, boring[...]l first-time offenders, which outlines
procedures of the court to help them
form a realistic expectation of what will
happen during their case.

DRINK DRIVIN[...]]

Synopsis: Gino Tagiatelli explains the
dangers of drink driving to a young man
who thinks he knows everything about it.

FOOD AND WINE IN MELBOURNE
Prod. company Broadstone

Direc[...]nopsis: Designed to promote Mel-
bourne as a city of taste and style, as
evidenced in its restaurants and wineries,

GRASS FED BEEF
Prod. company The Film[...]ng all
aspects from farm production, process-
ing and packaging to local and export
distribution.

ME AND MY BIG MOUTH
Prod. co. Tupicoff and Hubbard

Director Louise Hubbard
Producer Dennis[...]auges 16mm, Betacam

Synopsis: VVhat is our mouth for andwhat

are each of the teeth designed for? An
entertaining look at our mouths for pri-
mary—school children.

MELBOURNE DAWN TO D[...]s city,
as evidenced in its architecture, fashion
and entertainment.

THEIRLIVESlNOURHAN'DS

Director M[...]pre-school children have in
copingwith traffic, and suggests strategies
for parents and teachers to help children.

POST-PRODUCTION

FRES[...]is: A video demonstrating the cor-
rect procedure of dental care for the dis-
abled.

MELBOURNE — THE BIG EVENT

Dir[...]c»
signed to promote Melbourne as a vital
centre of arts and culture.

PROCESS OF GROWTH

Diorector [Not given]
Producer Grant Gast[...]corporate video profiling
V1ctoria’s potential for international in-
vestors focusing on the food-processing
industry.

NSW FILM AND
TELEVISION OFFICE

BETWEEN THE LINES
Prod. compan[...]Length 16 mins
Gauge Betacam

Synopsis: A series of eight videos pro-
duced as a learning resource for adults
with low literacy levels. They are intended
to break down feelings of isolation and
raise awareness of the availability of liter-
acy tuition.

BURWOOD BEACH OCEAN
OUTFALL[...]10.5 mins
Gauge BVU

Synopsis: An archival record of the con-
struction of the project.

CLEAN WATER, CLEAN SAND
Prod. compa[...]s
Gauge BVU

Synopsis: Illustrates the activities of the
Hunter Water Board (NSW) to preserve

clean water and clean sand for the people
of the Hunter Valley.

FROM STOP TO SLOW

Prod. company EVS
Sponsoring body Roads and Traffic

Authority
Director Brian Faull
Producer[...]4 ruins
Gauge Betacam

Synopsis: Designed as part of a training
package for trainee traffic controllers.
Traffic controllers are responsible for the
flow of traffic through, or around, road-
works conducted by the Roads and Traftic
Audaority of New South Wales.