Cinema Papers no. 94 August 1993 (2025)

OCR

COVER: HARVEY KEITEL
AS MI-"I WHITE IN
QUENTIN TARANTINO'S
RESERVOIR DOGS

PLU S COMING OF AGE FILMS I FILM FESTIVALS
AUSTRALIA'S FIRST FILMS I REVIEWS I TECHNIICALITIES

Fees

on your Personal Banking

I No Transaction Fees, regardless of
how many transactlons you make.

I Earn good interest.

I Receive a free VISA Card* or Bank
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I Bank on Saturday from 9 to 12

(most branches). On Weekdays
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* Our cards are debit not c ' cards. You only spend the money in
your account. Government ' 5 apply to all transactions.

Bank of Melbourne cuts the cost of banking

Head Office: 52 Collins S[...]

COII1’IIl‘I’S

3 BRIEFLY
4 PAUL COX: SELF-PORTRAIT OF AN EX[...],,,,,,(,,A,,,,,,(,,m,,,‘ 18 MICHAEL JENKINS: ‘THE HEART BREAK KID’
.‘f#::J.'SJ:?;.”1';%::f:5:[...]BY PAT GILLESPIE
22 46TH CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
E D I 'r 0 R REPORT BY JAN EPSTEIN
Scott Murray
28 STEV[...]49
LEGAL Apv|5ER DELUSION ROSE LUCAS
Dan PBBFCB THE HEARTBREAK K/D PAT GILLESPIE
Holding Redlich, Sol[...]urray, Philippe Mora
REPORT BY CHRIS BERRY

D E S I G N
Marius Foley, Ian Robertson 54
D , 5 K P R[...]LES REVIEWED BY MARGARET SMITH
Witchtype ‘WELL, I HEARD IT ON THE RADIO AND I SAW IT ON THE TELEVISION...

P R I N 1. I N G REVIEWED BY DAVID HOLLINSWORTH AND KAREN JENN[...]SENTENT|OUS SEVEN

WITH FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM THE
AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION
AND FILM VICTORIA

©[...]BLISHING LIMITED A.C.N. 006 258 699 c o u ' _ . D I ' ° . 8
Signed articles represent the views of the authors
and not necessarily that of the editor and publisher. CHRIS BERRY is a lecturer at LaTrobe University; BARRY DICKINS is a playwright[...]twriter; ANNA DZENIS is a tutor in Cinema Studies at LaTrobe University, Melbourne;
matenms 5”°"“ed 1° the magazine’ "either me edm" JAN EPSTEIN is the film reviewer for The Melbourne Report; PAT GILLESPIE is a freelance writer;

nor the publisher can accept liability for any loss or

d[...]be DAVID HOLLINSWORTH teaches Aboriginal Studies at the University of South Australia;
W I .

reproduced in whole or part without the express IVAN I-IUTCHINSON is the film reviewer for the HeraId»Sun, Melbourne; KAREN JENNINGS teaches
permission of the copyright 0Wnef5- Cinema Panels I5 Communication Studies at the University of South Australia; GREG KERR is a caf[...]lm historian; ROSE LUCAS is a lecturer in English at Monash University;

MTV Publishing Limited. 43 Ch[...]3) 429 5511. Fax (03) 427 9255 ANDREW L. URBAN is the Australian correspondent for Moving Pictures International;

Telex AA 30625 RAYMOND YOUNIS is a lecturer at the University of Sydney and a passionate love[...]

‘The Salute of the Jugger’

Dear Editor

The Salute of the Jugger certainly has its own
slightly dotty integrity and I'm glad that someone
has come out and said something positive about it
at last [Scott Murray, in “Second Glance”, Cinem[...]ted] were
shattered and people found it very hard to deal with
the harshness, the lack of glamour and the bleak
poetic vision. I was there at the Sydney premiere
and can testify that we were stunned mullets and
fairly hostile. Even people who worked on the film
walked away in a state of shock.

Nevertheless, the film does have abiding quali-
ties. The scenery, the music, the costumes and the
sets, although incidental, are strong and flavour-
ful. The casting of the leads is interesting and
quirky. The vision of a world winding down into
entropy is sustained and believable. The film has
its own quite unmistakable flavour — g[...]something else. It
is openly violent and presents the violence realis-
tically. The world it creates is at the end of its tether
physically and morally.

David Peoples refuses to compromise his story
and soften it in any way. Th[...]ince Blade Runner, and his commitment
and that of the cast shows on screen.

Where the film is weak is in the casting of some
minor parts and in the simple nuts and bolts of
direction. This is a story that asks for a director with
a feel for the epic. Peoples has just found such a
director in C[...]surprise, surely, that in his own first exercise at
direction he couldn't quite rise to the occasion.

But the movie’s bad reception seems strange
and excessi[...]. Critics exhibited an
antipathy that went beyond the norm. They com-
peted to find ways of expressing their detestation.
Why was there so much hostility? (They have seen
the future and they hate it?)

As Scott Murray says, now that David Peoples
has moved up in the Hollywood pecking order
people will give this film a second look. Maybe this
time they’ll have the courage to acknowledge that
it’s not the film itself but its uncompromising vision
of a fu[...]Scott Murray comments
It is certainly encouraging to know this film has

another dedicated fan out the[...]ied reputation as a failure may be waning.

Where I would beg to differ with Ms Marshall,
however, is over the standard of Peoples’ direc-
tion. Having seen a[...]there is little doubt in this
writer's mind that The Salute of the Juggeris one
of the best directed. Five viewings have done
nothing to undermine that belief; in fact, one could
list many scenes which are so well crafted they
ought to be used in Australian classes on film
technique.[...]Kidda
(Joan Chen) is tested out for membership of the
team, the camera dramatically tracking in counter
parallel to the energetic side movements of the
chain-wielding Young Gar (Vincent Phillip
D’Onofrio). This is crisp, energizing filmmaking at
its best.

‘Black Man’: Houses’

Dear Edito[...]Man’s Houses [Cinema Papers, No. 93, pp.
42-3] to the thesis that this documentary suffers
from a tendency to revert to "essentialist notions of
race", Karl Quinn then resorts to misquoting the
narration in order to prove his point.

Recalling my final narration as[...]matter of heart, not of
logic", he concludes that the film prefers “to leave
racial identity in the hands of innate, interior blood
links rather than moving to an understanding of
race [...] as a social constr[...]fact, Quinn has turned my narration around.
What I actually say is: “some people still want to
argue, but identity is a matter of theto do
with the colour of the skin.”

Far from “baulking at the largest gate”, Black
Man’s Houses firmly challenges biological notions
of racial identity. Given that the reviewer has a
video copy and can easily double c[...]culty hearing because he’d already
decided that I had it wrong.

Furthermore, he refers to “cultural discontinu-
ity” as evidence that c[...]-
where for their sense of belonging. This is not the
whole picture. If it were, then they might as well be
in it for the money, as conventional white racism
insists they are.

The truth is that, although Tasmanian Aborigi-
nal cu[...]hty assault, continuity
has been retained through the kinship system and
oral traditions. And before l’m accused of reverting
to “blood links” again, let's be clear that kins[...]lly evolving and
adapting. Indeed, lt’s ability to do so puts more

mean-minded cultures in Australia to shame.
Steve Thomas
Co-producer-director

Karl Quinn replies
I have seen Black Man’s Houses twice: once on a

friend’s VCR (I do not own one) and once at the
cinema. On both occasions, the line which I have
apparently misquoted came across to me and
others as I have rendered it (the operative distinc-
tion — between the words “but” and “that” — is
aurally fine but contextually substantial). For the
misquote, I apologize to Mr Thomas.

However, my argument is not dependent on
one line of narration alone; it relates to an unspo-
ken tension that imbues thethe kinship
system and oral traditions”, which contradicts the
statements by many in the film that they didn’t even
know about their Abo[...]insultingly, Mr Thomas’ letter subtly
attempts to drag my argument into the sphere of
“conventional white racism". My support goes out
to the subjects of Black Man’s Houses, whom I
believe have a valid case. However, I do not think
that a refusal to address the issue of racial identity
in all its complexity and political contradictoriness
is likely to help that case at all.

I I °
Mr Newman, again
Dear Editor
In this age of si[...]s, must .

have come as something of a revelation to Mr.
Newman.

However, not only is this pedantry wrong, but
Martin also misrepresents me. I did not "fault"
Science Fiction: The Aurum Film Encyclopedia for
“lacking female contributors” per se. I suggested
that editor Phil Hardy should have at least included
some women critics or SF authors in the revised
and expanded section devoted to the critics’ top
ten. Mick Broderick

THE LEAVING
OI-‘ DEBRA SHARP

Debra Sharp, who has been the adminis-
trative manager of Cinema Papers for
the past three years, has left for new
pastures. The staff of Cinema Papers
and the MTV Board of Directors wish her
the best for the future.

The Australian Film Television and Radio School turns 20

August 1993 sees the twentieth birthday of the
Australian Film Television & Radio School.

In the late 1960s, a group of people began
lobbying for[...]rime Minister John Gorton of a three-
tiered plan to support the creation of a local film
industry.

The bill to establish the Australian Film and
Television School was passed unanimously under
the new Whitlam government and given assent on
August 31, 1973.

The first students had already begun theirtrain—
ing in January 1973 as part of the one-year Interim
Training Scheme, under the direction of Professor
Jerzy Toeplitz. This first[...], Phillip Noyce, Chris Noonan and
Graham Shirley. The first full-time students to
undertake the three-year course entered in 1975.

in 1988, the School finally moved into its per-
manent home, an $18.5m purpose-built building,
with state-of-the-art studios and equipment.

To meet its charter as a national film-training
institution, the AFTRS has developed a number of
innovative courses and training schemes which
respond to the specific training needs of media
professionals throughout Australia and the Pacific
region.

To celebrate its birthday, the AFTFiS has or-
ganized a number of special events this year,
including the Sit-Com Forum in March, the recent
international Cinematography Forum and a r[...]for August.

some highlights

and achievements:

I Since 1973, 444 students have graduated from
the full-time film and television courses. There
have been 138 graduates from the full-time radio
courses which began in 1982. More[...]short courses have been run in all states through
the Industry Program, with almost 27000 partici-
pants.

I An employment survey of graduates conducted
in 19[...]t 86% of all graduates were
employed full-time in the film and broadcasting
industries. All radio graduates found employment

CORRIGENDIIM

In the last issue of Cinema Papers (No.
93, May 1993), Miro BiIbrough’s name
was incorrectly spelt on the contents
page for her interview with Jane Campion.
She was also incorrectly credited for the
interview with Tracey Moffatt. The latter
interview was actually conducted by John
Conomos and Raffaele Caputo.

Cinema Papers apologizes to Bilb-
rough and Conomos. As for Caputo, he’s
credited for so much anyway that he can
afford to miss a credit once in a while.

within one mon[...]g a period of recession, it was found
that 90% of the previous year’s graduates had still
been able to find employment.

I AFTRS graduates Jane Campion and Laurie
Mclnnes were the first Australians to be awarded
the prestigious Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at
the Cannes Film Festival in consecutive years.
Jane Campion is the first Australian to have four
films accepted into the Cannes Festival, three of
which were produced while she was an AFTRS
student, and the first woman and Australian to win
the Palme d’Or this year for The Piano.

I The first public screening of student productions
was held at the Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-operative
cinema in August 1976. Since then, the graduate
screenings have become an annual and nat[...]Australia and
watched by more than 5000 people.

I The AFTRS hosted the 21st Biennial Congress
of CILECT (Le Centre Inter[...]ember countries were involved in discus-
sions on the themes television training and training
for the developing world.

I AFTRS Educational Media has produced a large
numb[...]l
distribution network with distributors based in the
U.S., Asia and France.

I The first AFTRS course designed specifically for
Abor[...]n 1975. Numerous courses
have been run since then to meet the training
needs ofAboriginal broadcasters. When Aborigine-
owned lmparja Television was awarded a licence,
the AFTRS conducted a training course in manag-
ing a[...]board members
and senior staff in Alice Springs. The School has
also devised a three-year curriculum for radio and
television broadcasters at lmparja.

I The first training programme in film and televi-
sion[...]during International Women’s Year. Since then,
the Industry Program has run many courses de-
signed to meet the mediatraining needs of women.

I In 1984, the AFTRS began the On-the-Job
Training Scheme for women. A world innovation,
the scheme enabled 31 women with some existing
media experience to move into more technical
areas of the industry Since 1987, the AFTRS has
run the Industry Training Fund for Women to en-
able experienced women to move into key techni-
cal and creative positions.

I Following a request from the ASEAN-Australia
Forum in Penang in October 1982,[...]production course forfive ASEAN
member countries. The success of this course led
to further courses being organized in Sydney and
oth[...]o been
run by AFTRS staff in Papua New Guinea and the
South,Pacific. I

MELBOURNE FILM FESTIVAL 3

31st SHORT FILM AW[...]erimental: Damsel Jam (Sarah Miles,
UK), Rules of the Road (Su Friedrich, U.S.)
Fiction: Shooting to Stardom (Kieron J.
Walsh, Ireland-UK)
Documentary[...]Baldwin, U.S.)

Animation: A Saucer of Water for the Birds
(Anne Shenfield, Australia), Midriffini
(Sabrina Schmid, Australia)

Best Science Film (ANZAS-CSIRO): The
Northern Lights (Alan Booth, Canada), On
the Eighth Day: Making Babies Perfect
(Gwynne Basen,[...]suals): Mr Electric
(Stuart McDonald, Australia)

The Festival also announced a
non-short award for:

Best Exploration of the Human Experi-
ence (Australian Psychological Soci[...]'s
Houses and Just Desserts (Monica
Pellizzari).

The first three awards were sponsored by the
Dendy Cinema, the Animation Award by
Yoram Gross Studios and the EAC Award by
the Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW.

CINEMA[...]

Exile

Exile is set in the 19th Century. A young
man, Peter (Aden Young), is banished
to an island for stealing a few sheep.
There he lives, “fighting the demons of
his past and the ghosts of his present”,
until the arrival of a young woman,
Mary (Beth Champion). When the God-
fearing citizens of the mainland learn of
their life together, they demand the two
be married.

The film is based on Priest Island, a
novel by the little—known Scottish writer
E. L. Grant Watson. It was shot on the
largely deserted Freycinet Peninsula on
the east coast of Tasmania, where Cox
was interviewed while in production.

The location obviously plays an impor-
tant part in Exile. How did you find it?

I had always wanted to shoot on Maria Island. We sent four people
in a little plane to do some looking around, but nothing was really
achieved. Then, a week or two later, I drove into Cove’s Bay. I
chartered a boat and went to Schouten Island. I had this idea that
the film should be shot on a real island. But, although it was very
beautiful and unspoiled, I compared the island with the fact that it
was so easy to film everything on the coast and make it look like an
island. So, I went back and this fisherman then took me to a few
other places. Suddenly, I knew the Cove’s Bay location was spot on.

The novel is actually set in Scotland, where the story really
happened last century. In fact, ther[...]ual Priest Island near
Scotland. Because of that, I felt the film had to have something of
that feeling within Australia. I found it on this coast in Tasmania,
which has such an ancient quality.

I also discovered this bay was a favourite gathering ground for
the Aborigines. There are rock carvings that look like they were
done by the sea, but I’m sure they’re Aboriginal. They used to come
here, partly because the weather was very mild. It is a very sacred,
holy place and one of the last paradises on earth. You never find
anything on the beach: it’s very clear and clean. Put your hook in the
ocean and a fish comes out. It’s like it used to be.

Did you discover the book a long time ago?

No. Somebody had written a script based on Grant Watson’s novel
and given it to me about three years ago. I didn’t take to it at all and
put it aside. But theThe Nun and the Bandit, which I read and
found very fascinating.

These things tend to hit you at a time in your life when you are
ready for something else. Most of my films had been set in small
rooms and I was ready to get out of that claustrophobia. I needed
to breathe. That is how The Nun and the Bandit happened. Later
on, the daughter then sent me some more of her father’s books, and
one was called Priest Island.

I read them all because I found his descriptions of landscape as
striking as the way Patrick White writes about the land. It is quite
spectacular when people can really explain the landscape to you, the
clouds and the sea.

Ithen went on a holiday, which doesn’t often happen, to this little
island in Greece. I had Priest Island with me and read it again. Ithen
sat down and spent the next seven or eight days writing a script. I

6 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

worked very hard from Very early in the morning to late at night. It

never really changed after that.

Back in Australia it was, of course, the same old story. The FFC
didn’t select it for the Film Fund. When I later saw the films that
came out of that Fund, I was really upset once again. It was all very
silly because the FFC totally misread and misunderstood the script.
In the end, we got the money together with the FF C’s help, but only
half the money I actually needed.

In what way was the script misunderstood?

Most of the scenes in the script involve a description of the land, the
atmosphere of the sea, the way the sky is creating the atmosphere,
and how that directs what people say. The real protagonists are the
sea and the land, and it’s very hard for people with little imagination
to read this sort of thing.

So, there is a lyrical-poetic quality to the story and setting.

It is more metaphysical, because in the book there is a ghost. The
ghost comes and talks to this exiled man and teaches him, which is
a very old—fashioned concept.

While I was writing the script, I thought, “Well, they make films
in Hollywood ca[...]hich nobody
believes and everybody enjoys.” So, I decided to make the ghost
[Norman Kaye] very real. He is like a frien[...]very now and then suddenly pops up or
disappears. The ghost also orchestrates things so that Peter travels.
We are so addicted to the flesh, to this life, that we never see the
universe and how small we are. So the ghost orchestrates for a
woman from the village, Mary [Beth Champion], to come and live
with Peter, which is not really in the book.

People in Hollywood get away with the most extraordinary

nonsense, so I thought I felt I could certainly do it and still keep it
very real.

So, while you question a lot of the things Hollywood does, you also
use its poetic or artistic licence?

Yes, and even more so because Ithe story asked for them.

There was difficulty in the beginning making it all clear, and none
of us act[...]ng on. But it all fell
beautifully into place and the actors contributed enormously.

dimension. As I grow older, I believe less and less in religion, but I
become more and more religious.

Religious or spiritual?
It is basically the same thing.
Can you elaborate on these other elements?

Again, the most important aspect is the comment on society. We are
very spoilt people. We have everything and everybody has enough
to eat, yet we are worried about totally the wrong priorities.

I saw this programme once where young people were a[...]them came up

LEFT: PETER (ADEN YOUNG) IS EXILED TO AN ISLAND FOR HIS CRIME.
BELOW: THE GHOST (NORMAN KAYE) WHO COMES TO VISIT PETER. PAUL (0X’S EXILE.

with the most hideous answers. Until I was 35 or 40, I never even
questioned whether there was money in[...]Exile is about how society gives people totally the wrong values.
Though set in the last century, there were so many parallels with
t[...]orced away from society for stealing a few sheep. The
people on the mainland want to hang him, but, because he is so
young, he is sent to this island. He suddenly has to go back to the
earth and survive for himself. Only later does he realize he is in

paradise.

When the people on the mainland realize that not only is he
surviving, but living with Mary and having a child, the priest talks
to his friend and says, “Every time on a clear day you can see part
of the island looming in the distance, most of us feel ashamed.” Ah,
the lunacy of that righteous society! If they could only accept the
lesson of what happens on the island, where there are none of the
rules. They have just one another and nature, and[...]we are on, or they blossom away
from it all.

In the end, Peter doesn’t marry Mary in the name of God, but in
the name of the land and the spirits. In this respect, it is a very
beautiful, romantic story. It is also a very telling story about the way
we are going.

Being then the devil’s advocate, why is the FFC putting money into.
a film which, while not i[...]western
society in general, has nothing specific to say about Australia?

Why does the Film Finance Corporation put money into films like
Turtle Beach and all the other unbelievable, ridiculous movies that
cost $5 to $10 million to $15 million and are not even released?
What has Turtle B each to do with Australia? What has Green Card
to do with Australia? What a scandalous thing that was putting
money into Green Card.

$0, on this level, I can’t even answer the question. I make films
for people, not for Australians or anybody else in particular.

At the same time, I’m much more proud of Australia than most
Australians, even though I’m not Australian. I’m still working here,
when I would have gone overseas years ago, if I’d been sensible in
terms of work. What is Austr[...]re Australian films? It is
ludicrous thinking and I have no concept of it.

I once had a bad fight at Cannes when I said I was a Victorian
filmmaker and not an Australian f[...]s and
Kim Williams‘ got very angry with me, but I thought there was some
value in it because Film Victoria was the only corporation which
had continuously supported me. I couldn’t say that about the
Australian Film Commission or any of the other bodies because they
have either completely ignored me or reluctantly allowed me to
continue}

I’m very Australian in my convictions and in my b[...]talent here. Isabelle
Huppert and Irene Papas are the only people I’ve ever worked with
outside of all this.

Is the story of Exile in any way symbolic of your positi[...]e highly respected by filmmakers and
audiences in the U.S. and Europe than you are in Australia. Does
t[...]eart and soul, even every portrait and
picture of the landscape you do as a photographer, is a self—portrait.
You can’t help it, because that is all you have to give.

Of course, I would never have taken the story of Exile so strongly
unless I had seen so many frightening parallels. But, on a larger scale,
I think anybody who thinks, struggles, feels and continuously
questions is an exile.

I also live in a country that is not my own. I can’t go back to my
own country, so I don’t know where I am. I have no home.

1. At the time, Phillip Adams was Chairman of the Australian Film Commis-
sion, while Kim Williams was its Chief Executive.

2. For the record, it should be noted that all of Cox’s dr[...]FFC investment, apart from Film Victoria
support. The AFC financially backed Cactus and majority funded Golden
Braid ( 1991), while the FFC has the majority investmentinA Woman’s Tale
(1991), The Nun and the Bandit and Exile.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 . 1

In Exile, the question of where it is set doesn’t arise. Was that a
conscious decision to make the film universal?

Yes, because it’s not relevant.

Look at America, where they have this false sense of nationalism
and patriotism. At the time of the Gulf War, there was a crazy law
in Pennsylvania w[...]for a hat, even if you came from somewhere
else. Why is it that when patriots have something to defend they
become the aggressors?

I’m very glad all that by—passed me totally, be[...]act of aggression. You can love your country, and the Greeks
have a marvellous saying, “Wherever I travel, Greece warms me.”
That’s good enough. The Greeks don’t have that aggression. They
don’t[...]that. Yet they are very
proud of being Greek, and I love them for that.

On the other hand, when an American travels somewhere, he
puts up a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and goes to eat at Pizza
Hut. Americans cannot possibly understand t[...]f political action?

Yes. If you make films about the human condition, it’s an extremely
political act. It is against the very act of filmmaking itself, because
that is ab[...]d about burns on seats. Film is
like a product on the shelves in the supermarket. It won’t be bought
if it makes people feel uneasy, or if it doesn’t make the false shine
even more shiny.

It’s a very political act to make my films and get away with it.
There are quite a few of my films that are in the black, otherwise I
could never go on.

Also, don’t forget I make them very cheaply, and I work
extremely hard. There is a lot of opposition to this.

Most of the people who have invested in my films, during the
10BA period and all that, very easily come back and invest again
because I don’t disappoint them. If people put money into a film that
loses money, and another one makes money, then I will give them
their money back. That is how I’ve been able to keep going.

At what point does the filmmaking process most satisfy you?

8 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

At what time does life most satisfy you? You can nev[...]ser? Does practice make
perfect?

No, it’s like the sea: it comes in waves. The tides come in
and they go. Sometimes you have moments of energy you
can’t keep up and have to let go. You have to wait for the
next wave, for a film you can do.

When do you fe[...]ting gives moments of great satisfaction. Even if I
don’t do the actual editing myself, I am always there.

With editing, you know what you have and can model
it, make something up. I think of it like a sculptor making
a sculpture. I love it very much and spend much more time
now in post-production. I never did that before.

What about in the finished product: is there a moment when you can
objectively stand back and look at it?

Only years later can you do that properly.

Have you looked at any of your previous work lately?

No. Films are really like children. They go out into the world: some
go to boarding school and you lose contact; others come back and
you talk to them. But, no, I can never sit through them again. It’s
finished; it’s over.

In another way, though, I am haunted by them. They haven’t
died. Most other films seem to die, but mine travel all the time and
keep selling and screening. I even have to employ people to keep
looking after them, which was never the idea.

At what point do you feel most connected to the film?

During the making I am very attached. I will travel with it until death
do us part. It’s madness, and dangerous. I also drive people to the
very edge, myself first.

Is that Weakness your one fault?

No, I am riddled with faults. Sometimes I think it’s an essential
quality, though it’s[...]film for too long because you sleep very little; the film
becomes too important. It’s the one chance that you have.

You have a rich[...]

I don’t call it a career, I call it a curse. I’ve never made a career out
of filmmaking, it just happened to me. I really never set out with
dreams like that; it just happened.

But, yes, these are the best years because I have done away with
a lot of shit. If you don’t have to compromise, it’s easy to let
something go to your head. So, it’s very important to travel through
all the ego nonsense and be yourself. I travelled through that a few
years ago. Now it doesn’t matter any more. I don’t need the world.
I live a very secluded life.

These are very fine years for me. I feel I’m getting closer to a level
of sufficient concentration to do it properly. I think Exile will be
quite fine. It’s a Very nea[...]-composed film. Whether it will be popular or hit the mark, I
don’t know. It will take time, but it will be all right. I never felt this
confident about any of my other films. 0

The Nun and the Bandit

The Nun and the Bandit, also based a novel by E. L. Grant Watson,
is the story of Michael Shanley and his brothers, who ar[...]ing nun, Sister Lucy (Gosia
Dobrowolska), refuses to abandon her charge.

Shot last year around Maldon and Bacchus Marsh, the film is

indicative of Cox’s increasingly austere style of filmmaking.
Cox was interviewed about the film two days before the film’s

Australian premiere at the Melbourne Film Festival.

Apart from the aspects of landscape, what appealed to you about
the novel?

I don’t like Watson’s stories that much — the[...]descriptions of landscape, and how people relate to it, are great.
Very few people really belong to or understand the land. To really
belong, you must be able to describe what you see.

I find a lot ofAustralian films set in the country show nothing but
red dust, which doesn’t appeal to me. Australia is a wild country
with an incredibl[...]mirrored
in our films. There is just this one flat, dusty image of a few sheep
being rounded up and a red sun hanging low. The Australia I know
is very different from that and I have always been looking for a
vehicle to describe that.

In The Nun and the Bandit, I wanted the landscape to be a stage.
In Exile, the landscape is the protagonist; it motivates people. The
first is a so—called religious film, while the latter is much more
metaphysical.

In Australia, The Nun and the Bandit won’t be appreciated on
any level. That’s why I don’t want to have anything to do with a
release. I’ve had enough shit thrown at me here. It’s not only this
film, but most of m[...]oman’s Tale was a big success
everywhere around the world and ran for a long time, except in
Melbourn[...]like that in this country. It’s another reason
to escape to the landscape at times.

Many Australian films which depict a vast, barren landscape are
exploring the idea of a culture that needs to be invented upon this
emptiness. The Nun and the Bandit explores the idea of a culture
already there within the landscape, which it tries to draw out.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 9

That’s so if you’re sensitive to this environment. White man came
here, stomped around as if he owned the earth, destroying anything
that is clear. If we are all taught to have a very good look at a tree
when we are young, we will never destroy it later on or treat it with
disrespect.

The actual culture imported here was very destructive. Most of
this country was rainforest. But the wood was not even used; it was
just burned. I don’t understand why.

Tasmania, for example, is really Deliverance country in a way —
beautiful, stunning country. But the most common sight on the road
is a truck loaded with trees going to a pulp mill so that toilet paper
can be made for the Japanese. The trees are not being used to build
anything.

The actual wastage is unbelievable, and these trucks thunder
across the island day and night, killing everything in their way.

How did you approach the religious aspect of The Nun and the
Bandit in relation to the landscape, because the person most
identified with the bush is the bandit, Michael Shanley [Chris

Haywood] P

No, it’s the nun. For the bandit, the landscape is just there to be used
and abused. Of course, it has also shaped him, but he has never
learnt to appreciate it. It is only later on that he starts to see things
differently.

There is a class element established between Sister Lucy [Gosia
Dobrowolska] and the rich townfolk, which makes one favour
Michael. He is more easily identified with the landscape.

The exterior landscape, not the interior landscape.

In the book, there are many more things happening: Aborigines
come into the story, the woman becomes pregnant, they go to court
and it flashes back to the nunnery all sorts of things. I stripped it
as bare as I could. I wanted it to be a pure story between two people.
Of course, in[...]ema, it was not a very good decision, even
though I know that the film is very neatly crafted.

There are other layers in the nun that one will discover later on;
it takes time. I know a lot of people won’t be able to digest it, or even
see it as an Australian film. But I think it’s a very Australian film.

10 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

The film begins with Michael
Shanley and essentially follows
him as the central character, but
Sister Lucy’s voice-over shifts this
balance. Does this relate to what
you were saying about the inte-
rior landscape?

Yes. It also continues a c[...]totally ridiculous.
But, in a metaphysical sense, I
think it is very important that we
should all hav[...]we feel
God is. Nuns do this so dramati-
cally.

I didn’t have this in the film at
first but, when I had to go to
Turkey, I visited a great mosque
there. A woman who must have
been a nun was standing next to
me and talking loudly to God in
some weird language. I suddenly
realized the nun should be talk-
ing to God.

This, of course, will be totally misunderst[...]religious background. If you are really committed to
religion you will hate the film, because it is being basically against
religion.

Given her captors are such inept bandits, why doesn’t Sister Lucy
simply run away?

Because she is totally conditioned to being passive. There is a type
of fatalism in all this that I find appalling. Don’t forget, the film is
set before the war and things have changed dramatically since. But
this is the way it was. I remember from my own family that nuns are
trained to be passive.

I had an aunt who was a nun and an uncle who was a Benedictine
monk. I also had another uncle who was a bandit!

Is I\/Iichael Shanley redeemed in the end?

Yes, but he has never been given or receive[...]ciety doesn’t allow that,
and it will always be the same. The only thing you learn from history
is that the same things happen over and over again. Michael will not
be redeemed unless we change. And you have to destroy everything
before you can build anything[...]on old
foundations. Yet, that’s what we do all the time, because we are too
scared, too insecure.

This is what the hopelessness of his character is about. He is
tou[...]lizes that there is human goodness
there. That is the very message if we see beyond the surface and not
just say, “Oh, he is a bit of a[...]tle bit of attention and time, suddenly they come to life.
Everybody has that potential, even a man th[...]nd greedy.
It is not his fault: he is conditioned to be bad, whereas the nun is
conditioned to be good. She is probably much more evil than he is.

Does the nun change then?

Absolutely, on the exterior. Her interior is a conditioned ty[...]

enjoyable perverse brilli[...]Palma’s
“Scarface”, Luchino Visconti’s
“The Damned”, and Adrian Lyne’s
“9‘/2 w[...]

IIAFFAELE CAPIl'I'O

THEY
ALL SAY WE'RE YOUNG
AND STILL DON'T KNOW,
WE wON'T FIND OUT
UNTIL we GROW.

SONNY & CHER

magine the last scene of a

film in which a budding

young m[...]ome lonely

country setting. His point
of View of the surroundings is from a vantage point. He
has a clear view of everything on the horizon, and at
times seems as though he can reach out even further. He
is at the end of an initiation journey in which, plunged
th[...]ence, he lost his
greatest, most passionate love. The loss precipitates the
gain, the experience draws him closer to manhood, and
now the world before him has opened up to take him in.
This is something like the ending to Robert Mulligan’s
Summer of ’42 (1971), and it’s the prototypical image
of a coming—of-age.

If memory serves well, in the 19805 the notion of a
coming-of—age had its use, politically, with the sparks of
an economic turn—a—round (or was it sporting tri-
umph? ), as both a description of the nation’s character,
and as promise of better things to come for the whole
nation. Culturally, it had more currency as a descrip-
tion fot the film industry of 19705 and early ’80s.
Perhaps this is good reason why Australian films that
dealt with very part[...]

Yet generally the coming-of-age notion seems to get the
best battery power from films battling the conflicts of new
sexual mores emerging out of the dying days of good old
times. Australian cinema h[...]and it might be worthwhile schematizing
a few of the preoccupations, especially given that three
Australian films of late — Love in Limbo (David Elfick), The
Heartbreak Kid (Michael Jenkins) and the soon—to—be—
released The Nostradamm Kid (Bob Ellis) — in one way or
another have been labelled coming-of-age films.

At close inspection, the intriguing aspect of a coming-of-
age theme is that the films never quite turn out the way they
are supposed to turn out. There is something profoundly
naive and rather tiresome about the whole notion of discov-
ering a new horizon when[...]th a woman, usually much older, pushes him closer
to manhood. It’s something akin to the clinical suburban
world filled with robins that results from the nightmare
encounters between Jeffrey (Kyle MacLac[...]86), though David
Lynch’s vision is a parody of the expectations of adult life
awaiting Jeffrey after[...]ilms with a coming—of-age theme have a tendency to
start off sex-obsessed and move progressively toward keep-
ing the libido in check, or keeping it socially acceptable. The
strongest counter—attack to this stymied perspective comes
from the 195 Os and the unlikely camp of Jerry Lewis,
perhaps because Lewis’ films never seem to begin at the
beginning, but at the end.

In a film like The Ladies’ Man (1961), when the newly-graduated
Herbert H. Heebert witnesses the heart shattering event of his
college sweetheart in the arms of another man, his baroque display
of pain in gripping his heart and staggering back to his parents is a
form of awakening — but an awa[...]A! ”

It makes sense that Lewis be brought into the framework. First,
because the 195 Os and ’60s is generally the period most favoured by
coming—of-age pics. Lov[...]ample, spent a good deal
of energy in duplicating the gaudy, colour—saturated look that is
reminiscent of many Jerry Lewis-Frank Tashlin movies of the late
195 0s and early ’60s. Elfick even pays added tribute by throwing in
a few clips from Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It (1956).

Second, and more important, Lewis exemplifies the type offigure
the protagonist of a coming-of-age film definitely wants to leave
behind. As Raymond Durgnat once wrote, “Jerry Lewis films are
about how difficult it is to build yourself into a reasonable,
adaptable person.” By the end of The Ladies’ Man, just when
Herbert scraps through h[...]once
harmless pooch illogically transformed into the MGM lion, and a
token of the character’s repressed libido.

In this respect, apart from owing its period look to Lewis and
Tashlin, Love in Limbo cannot yield any further comparison. The

14 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

central point of concern is that Lewis (or Tashlin) isn’t looking back
at the period; he is a part of it. Lewis can be sentimen[...]of doing.

Nostalgia brings Love in Limbo closer to American Graffiti
(1973), in that the use of 19505 artefacts and “Colour by Deluxe”
production design makes a play for the period’s supposed mood of
innocence. But Love in Limbo plays it straight down the line. Ken
(Craig Adams) is a sex-obsessed teenage[...]and sister’s girlfriend, and has an adept
hand at sketching the female form. His turning—point experience
with a mature woman in an excursion to a whorehouse in Kalgoorlie
has only put into practice what he already knows in his mind.

The world of teenager Ken and the desire to lose his virginity is
completely insulated. By the end of Love in Limbo, Ken is merely
an innocent adult, just as he was an innocent teenager (that is to say,
a virgin) at the start of the film. His excursion to the brothel has only
made him ready to be paired off for marriage to a nice, virginal
Greek girl. The experience and its consequences remain uncon-
nected to any idea of a change in social and sexual mores.

The film’s guiding principle is really that[...]

What makes the loss of innocence (psychologically as well as
phy[...]lievable in a film like American Grafitti is that the
innocence of the period is also about to end, for just around the
corner are events like Vietnam, student unrest and the civil rights

movement.

Like Love in Limbo, Bob Ellis’ The Nostradamus Kid also takes
us back to the 19505 and ’60s period, but it is melancholy rather
than celebratory nostalgia, and does better at interweaving personal
obsessions with events of the wider world. The film isolates a
formative moment in the life of Ken Elkin (Noah Taylor) at a
Seventh Day Adventist camp in the late ’50s, and then invests the
psychological imprint of those days into Elkin’s life at Sydney
University in the ’60s with the backdrop of Cuban missile crisis.

Ellis’ Ken,[...]g and
hungry for knowledge, and it grates against the teachings of the
Seventh Day Adventists. At the religious camp, his head is filled with
strong beliefs in the end of the world. After an encounter with a
heretic, Elkin is convinced of the arrival of the apocalypse at camp’s
end, and fears his love for the pastor’s daughter will never be
consummated.

Of course, the world does not end, but his experience has left a
psychological mark he will carry into the future. While at Univer-
sity, still very much sex-crazed, he falls in love with the virginal

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: DOROTHY (JENNIFER O'NEILL) AND HERMIE (GAR[...]PAUL (KEITH SMITH) IN

SCOTT MURRAY’S DEVIL IN THE FLESH.

Jennie O’Brien (Miranda Otto), the daughter of a highly—successful
newspaper man — and again encounters the end of the world in the
form of the Cuban missile crisis.

This time with absolute belief that the end is nigh, Elkin
convinces Jennie to flee with him to the mountains in her father’s
stolen Jaguar. At one point in their flight to safety, the couple pause
at a look-out of the lights of Sydney, and, while they gaze down, Ken
projects a vision of the bomb going off and a mushroom cloud
engulfing the city. But, of course, once again the end of the world
is postponed. They return to Sydney and it’s the beginning of the end
for Ken: he must face a court order by Jennie[...]t companion, McAllister (Jack Campbell).
It seems the good times are over and Ken has to grow up.

It is no accident that Ellis cast Noah Taylor as the lead, for Taylor
comes encoded from his role as the misfit Danny Embling in both
of John Duigan’s The Year My Voice Broke (1988) and Flirting
(1991)

Indeed, the respective characters of The Nostradamus Kid and
The Year My Voice Broke bare much resemblance[...]

incurable misfits and always will be. The code for making their way
in the world is not whether the world will take them in, but whether
they will take in the world. This is a code which is the repressed
menace to the coming—of—age idea, and brings The Nostradamus Kid
a lot closer to the sensibility of Lewis.

The last sequence of the film flashes forward twenty or more
years from the apocalyptic events of 1 962. Ken has obviously gr[...]laywright. While
one of his plays is being staged at the Opera House, he spies Jennie
and McAllister from University seated in the audience, now married
and enjoying a better life. On the same evening, Ken happens to
come across friends from his Adventists days. Disillusioned with the
church, his friends are in Sydney catching up on the things denied to
them in their youth. As Ken later gazes over at the lights of Sydney
from the Opera House, everyone seems to be a lot older and wiser,
but suddenly he projects the vision of an atomic mushroom cloud
going up over the city. Ken Elkin, and Danny Embling, never really
grow up to be fully integrated into the world; they preserve and carry
about them the obsessions of their childhood.

The Nostradamus Kid and The Year My Voice Broke are of a type
that only appears to be oriented around the classical movement of
a coming—of—age film. A[...]ld be seen
from a similar perspective is Devil in the Flesh (1986), Scott
Murray’s graceful adaptatio[...]Radiguet’s novel, Le
Diable au Corps}

Devil in the Flesh is set during World War II among the middle-
class of rural Australia. It tells of a p[...]schoolboy approaching manhood. Marthe is daughter to
a French immigrant family, and married to an Italian who has been
interned for the duration of the war. The affaire between Marthe
and Paul begins after she and her family seek the assistance of Paul’s
father in having her husband released.

But to see Devil only as a coming—of—age film is to pigeon-hole the
film too easily, and not to appreciate the restrained, minute and
unexpected emotional and psychological changes of the central
character. As their affaire progresses, much to the displeasure of
Paul’s parents, his response is[...]hat matters is his
moments with Marthe.

While on the one hand Paul’s affaire with Marthe awakens a
degree of independence, on the other his world is shrinking, and
stifling of his own emotions. For instance, when Marthe is to visit
her husband, Ermanno (Luciano Martucci), in the internrnent
camp, Paul reacts by picking up anoth[...]m paranoid jealousy but, curiously, there is
also the sense of a predatory impulse. There appears to be a private
resolution of selfish conquest on his face, and he seems destined to
become an emotional cripple.

Thus, if teetering on the point of emotional impotence, one can
imagine Paul as perhaps belonging to that lost generation of men of,
say, Michelangelo[...]hopeless
longing for what they will never have.

The H eartbrea/e Kid is worlds apart from the style of Devil in the
Flesh, but has similar ingredients for a classica[...]student,
and a set of familial characters hostile to their relationship. That she
is a teacher and he[...]e theme is typically about awakening knowledge of the world.

But The H eartbrea/2 Kid reverses the expectations of a ‘teacher’
introducing a novice to the adult world. The reason teacher becomes
student is essentially because the relationship is not played against
the backdrop of an innocent period about to foreclose. The film,
instead, pitches its story deep among the working—class, ethnic
community, and hits at living under the values of the old world,
particularly for women.

Christina (Claudia Karvan) is 22 years old and starts out in the
film with her future already mapped out for her. She is looking down
the barrel of marriage to Dimitri (Steve Bastoni), an upwardly-
mobile Greek—Australian, which means an end to her career, kids
and a house across the street from her parents. This all changes when
she takes to the flirtatious charm of her 17-year-old problem-
stu[...]s (Alex Dimitriades).

It’s interesting that by the end of the film Nick is still basically the
same kid. His sense of obligation to old values, social barriers, or
what is right or wrong, have not as yet fully emerged. He only seems
to know what he wants, and has an uncanny ability to understand
Christina’s thoughts. Prior to any sense of sexual awakening, Nick
already has a freedom which comes from youth.

Christina, on the other hand, could only hope for such freedom.
As a consequence of her relationship with Nick, she must face the
stigma of crossing a professional and social barrier, and disgrace in
the eyes of her family and fiancé. But for Christina, who basically
lived under the shadow by her father and where her destiny was not
of her own making, the relationship gives her a new perspective on
her l[...]onfidence in making her own decisions. She
leaves the school, moves out of home, leaving behind the values of
the old world, and decides to travel and further her education.

Like the vantage point usually reserved for young men, Christina
is at a point in her life where she seems able to reach further than the
horizon. From this perspective,The Heartbreak Kid is still conven-
tional material. But, like Devil in the Flesh, it is an evolution of the

traditional coming—of—age film by being vitally concerned with the.

position of women and by foregrounding its ethnicity.

Devil in the Flesh does this, too, by discussing the interment of
Italians here during the war and the repatriation of POWs that
followed. It links this with the emergence of a new Australia, one less
bound by the repressive English values of the pre-war years (which
colour Paul’s world).

In the bitter-sweet final scene, Paul visits Marthe and[...]w released, and sees his and Marthe’s child for the first time.
Contrary to any expectation of a revengeful Italian husband,[...]understanding of Paul’s suffering and
sensitive to his wife’s feelings and needs. One realizes how[...]nglo-
Celtic notions of puritanism and patriarchy to a more European
equality, openness and warmth. This seems to mirror the important
changes that began in Australia at the time and continue to this day.

In that sense, Devil in the Flesh is not a coming—of—age film set in
a pe[...]It is not a film of nostalgia but of beginnings. I

1. Declaration: Scott Murray is the editor of Cinema Papers.

Greek teacher, Ch[...]of
age difference and teacher responsibility, but the restrictive-
ness of some aspects of Greek culture and the racism endemic
to Australian society. Based on a stage play by Richard Barrett,
the film was directed by Michael Jenkins, best known for his
ground-breaking work in the television series, SCALES or Jus'rIcE
and THE LEAVING or LIVERPOOL. His other theatrical featur[...]a degree in English and Philosophy, Jenkins went to the ABC, where
he worked as a journalist for a couple of years, including in the Canberra press
gallery. He then did “a very enterprising 12-week production course” at the ABC,
which led to work as a first and second assistant during the early days of television

drama. Becoming involved in scriptwriting and editing eventually led to ditacting
52 episodes of Bellbird.[...]Jenkins: Those were the days of full—on, multi—camera treatment for drama. The
single camera technique hadn’t emerged by then. My whole training was in the
electronic area on shows like Bellbird and Certai[...]scipline in terms
of planning. After all, you had to execute and edit the entirety of a drama
programme in one or two days. You had to know every shot you wanted and the
battle was to keep some flexibility with the actors. It was very much a planning-
oriented introduction to filmmaking.

How would you describe your directing style today?

I’m very free with actors and like to think on my feet a lot. Iwork
very closely with the DOP, but above all I like to work with the
actors in the rehearsal process. To some degree, I allow the
shooting style to evolve from that.

One thing l’ve grown into these days is a shooting style that
doesn’t dictate to the actors, or to me, what can be done. lt’s
very easy to let the mechanics of the shoot take over, which
often results in a technic[...]licity or
truth about it. Everybody, particularly the actors, become
slaves to the process.

The most exciting thing I find about filmmaking is the extent
to which you can take a piece of material and[...]

Nowadays, I am less obsessed with the visual technicalities, as in
getting lots of pret[...]ng style is quite
evident in Scales ofjustice and The Leaving of Liverpool.

How much improvisation is there in The Heartbreak Kid?

Quite a lot, actually. Some scenes we actually wrote in the rehearsal
room, while many others we modified quite strongly.

The script had undergone many drafts, but we felt tha[...]reas it could still work better. Richard Barrett, the writer of the
stage play and the co-writer of the screenplay, and I were present
quite a bit during the rehearsals.

The transition from stage play to film can be difficult, but there is
no evidence of that in The Heartbreak Kid?

It can be difficult and I don’t think we arrived at our end result easily.
We ended up doing six or seven drafts and the various parties
involved had lots of criticisms and suggestions. The script only
became an entity unto itself, and the stage play receded into the
distance, when we weren’t afraid to change anything.

The interesting thing is that Richard Barrett, who originated the
material, enjoyed the process of changing things. He didn’t feel a
need to hang onto old material.

Can you give a few examples of changes you made?

In the stage play, the romance between Christina and Nick is limited
to holding hands on a park bench. The film goes a degree further
than that.
It has a se[...]as. For instance, we introduced a new history for the
boy’s family and we developed his schoolboy obsession with soccer.

As for Christina, the relationship with her husband—to-be wasn’t
really analyzed in the stage play, and her whole family background
was never really entered into in the same way.

You spoke earlier about the shooting style and how you tried to
create a feeling of vibrancy and energy, which is particularly
noticeable in the schoolyard scenes involving soccer confrontations.

Since Scales of]:/tstice and The Leaving of Liverpool, one of the
things that marks my work is a certain amount of[...]of using a hand—held camera. Scales was one of the first things in
Australian television to really go heavily down that road.

20 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

LEFT: EVDOKIA (DORIS YOUNANEI AND CHRISTINA AT THE
WEDDING BOUTIQUE. THE HEARTBREAK KID.

The schoolyard scenes in Heartbreak
are very much an example, in a fairly
action-orientated way, of what I was say-
ing earlier, where we created the sequence
and only then worked out how to photo-
graph it. We very rarely set up a shot and
said, “Okay, you have to throw this punch
here because the camera is here.”

The good thing about this approach is
that you can photograph action with one,
two, three or four cameras. In the
schoolyard, we were squirting off film into
two or three cameras at a time. This is a
good way to work on a tight Australian
schedule because you can get a lot of
vitality and excitement happening. If you
laboriously work shot to/shot and set
things up, like a puppeteer, you can lose that richness, especially on
the ridiculously, stupidly, short schedules that we h[...]s, but they were five—day weeks. And on none of the
days were we in a budgetary position to shoot any kind of extensive
overtime.

But that c[...]rating as well. You can still be
adventurous with the actors and achieve the schedule.

Do you storyboard?

Yes. I think the two things are compatible. Storyboards give you a[...]chorage point, which is what we would have
tended to do on Heartbreak. It does also depend on the DOP that
you work with. Nino [Martinetti] likes to think on his feet a lot.

In the previous piece I did, The Leaving of Liverpool, I spent a
week locked in a room with Steve Windon, a Sydney—based DOP,
the production designer, the first assistant, the camera operator and
the sketch artist. It was quite democratic in that we all felt free to pull
apart a scene and make suggestions about key visual ideas.

The whole point of the planning process is to create freedom for
those few shooting days that y[...]ou
cannot explore any kind of boundaries, such as the kind of
improvisation you see in a lot of modern American cinema. You get
the feeling that a lot is happening that was never written down on
a typewriter, which is exciting for audiences to relate to. That is
where my interest lies — much more than in visual technicalities. I
don’t care about them to be perfectly honest.

How much time did you spend with the actors on The Heartbreak
Kid prior to shooting?

We had three weeks. Six weeks would have been a lot, lot better as
we still had heaps to do after three weeks.

As a side issue, the film looks at multi-culturalism and the racism
sometimes associated with that.

We didn’t want to make a film about the multi—racial question or
drag out issues about ethnics — we just wanted those things to be
there. We didn’t want the film to be self-conscious about its multi-
cultural component.

I don’t think Christina’s plight only applies to someone of a
specific ethnic background. It is about anyone getting themself
committed too young to a course in life before having explored one’s
own abilities. Without making the bloody thing sound too pomp-

ous, the film is about personal freedom.

In the boy’s case, it is a fairly classic situation of growing up. I
quite like the social context that his life is pinned to. He is a kid with
a single parent, a boy who has[...]onfidence through his relationship with
Christina to know that, if he wants something, he can do it.

What other themes were you interested in exploring?

I suppose the film is about danger and promise —— danger because the
young kid and the teacher become involved in something which
crosse[...]hips and her
career. They also both very much run thethe risk of disgrace in her own family. Nick,
too, co[...]them, because they actually like this teacher and the
effect of this affaire is that she is driven away from school.

The promise aspect is that it is not a dead—end street. There is the
promise of sexual excitement and personal exploration for both.

VVhat do you consider to be the most interesting aspect of your
work: writing or[...]into filmmaking, as far as writing goes,
has been to be involved in the creation of scripts. In a few cases, that
has involved co-writing.

On Heartbreak, Richard and I worked on and off for two years
on various drafts. But I much prefer directing.

How do you feel about crossing the line between television and
cinema?

On televisio[...]ducer, director and writer might
set aside a year to develop a thing before it becomes a reality, but[...]is
adapting a terrific book, you can’t do it.

I think a lot of times our films are not wise enough or informed
enough. It is a bit catch-22. I could turn around and say Australian
writers, producers and directors don’t get enough funding to do that
sort of thing, but finally that is not the answer. You can only look
at what is. I don’t think we do enough work. If we are to come up
with strong films, then we need to do more research. By “strong”
I don’t mean it has to be social—realist material; you can call Strict[...]ong.

What future projects are lined up?

Ben and I are working on a film. It is at script stage and I’m writing
it. It is about civil rights, set in Australia and the strongest subject
matter I’ve come across in quite a while, if we get it right. It is a very
hard—edged piece of mate[...]f society that has
very few rights left and is in the most dire straits.

The screenplay will be ready in the next few months. It is not a
high—budget idea, but that’s all I can say about it at the moment.

1. Daydream Believer (Kathy Mueller, 1992) was produced by Ben Gannon.
Michael Jenkins was the script editor.

B E N G A N N O N
Producer of ‘The Heartbreak Kid‘

Not all producer-director rela[...]chael Jenkins on
a number of films.

Touch wood, I have never fallen out with a director I’ve
worked with. This is the third time I have worked with
Mike, on Sweet Talker, Daydream Believer‘ and Tbe
Heartbreak Kid. I have a tremendous respect for directors
and I don’t want to be one myself. A lot of producers want
to be directors, which can cause a lot of friction. I don’t
enjoy being on the set all the time. I’m too impatient.

Apparently, the Nine Network has shown interest in a
series based on The Heartbreak Kid.

We’re having conversations with Nine. It has bought the
film and is very enthusiastic about it.

We’ve put a proposal to Nine for taking the basic setting
of the film of a blue—collar, very multi—cultural high—school.
We are trying to present a contemporary Australia which
is not a B[...]lly Hollywood version, but
actually real and true to our country in the 1990s. We
would take the endless storylines that can flow from that.
It won’t be a soap. It will be more along the lines of a Hill
Street Blues, with a bit of hard edge and realism to it.

Initially, we would do 13 one—hour programmes. Michael
would probably direct the first one and would be part of the
overall script supervisory unit. We would bring in other
writers and directors.

It’s early days and I wouldn’t make too much out of it,
but certainly[...]g and working on it as a future
project.

What is the marketing plan for Tbe Heartbreak Kid?

The film is targeted two ways. We’ve test screened it with
questionnaires and we know quite a lot about how the film
plays. It plays extremely well to females 12 to 45, which is
a very wide audience. The male audience is not quite so
wide. The target audience is male and female 12 to 45. The
first thrust of the campaign is to them.

The second thrust is to the older female audience.
Females seem to relate very strongly to the journey Christina
takes. Obviously, there is the “spunk factor” of Nick, but
the fact that Christina actually goes through this li[...]uth screenings
with soccer clubs and Greek clubs. The screenplay is being
published by Currency Press,[...]iple M, etc.

Polygram got involved very early in the piece and we’ve
put together a soundtrack which[...]orded and it owns. We’ve spent
a lot of time on the music. Polygram is putting out two
singles and a soundtrack album, separate to the Village
Roadshow campaign.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 .

21

Compared to past years, thethe Grand Prix du Jury for FarAway, So
Close. — and no dazzling talents unearthed from among the new directors. Tran Anh
Hung’s The Smell of Green Papaya which won the Camera d’Or was much admired, but it
failed to elicit from delegates the same excited buzz that hailed such films as Jim[...]ranger Than Paradise (1 984), Patricia Rozema’s I've Heard the Mermaids

$inging(1987) or Jocelyn Moorhou[...]

Several factors contributed to this being
a flatter Festival than previously. For the
first time in many years at Cannes, there
was no dominant American presence to be
felt, feared and envied by the Europeans.
The object of the traditional trans-Atlantic
love—hate relationship didn’t come to the
party.

This was visibly apparent during the
first week when, with the exception of the
opening night, the crowds milling on La
Croisette around the giant staircase leading
to the Grand Theatre Lumiere were notice-

ably thinner than in previous years. Only in
thethe numbers swell to past levels, cresting
again for the appearance of Michael Doug-
las, the star of Joel Schumacher’s Falling
Down, and the extravaganza of the closing
ceremony.

Cannes thrives on its symbiosis with
Hollywood. Ever since the French recog-
nized the importance of film as an export
Commodity and gra[...]Cannes has de-
pended on big name American actors to
generate the glamour and publicity that still
makes Cannes, despite the inroads of other
festivals, the world’s premiere film event,
second only in media exposure to the Acad-
emy Awards.

Hence, when the news broke that there
would be a dearth of American films at
Cannes this year, because the studios were
not willing or able to complete their quota
of summer blockbusters in ti[...]was
rife.

Festival director Gilles Jacob hit out at
the studios for what he called “poor plan-
ning”, while the studio heads, who have
been pushing Cannes for so[...]DAUGHTER
FLORA (ANNA PAGUIN) IN JANE (AMPION’S THE PIANO.
ABOVE LEFT: MART! (GABRIELLE ANWAR).

ABEL[...]NE TURNER). RENNY HARLIN'S
CUFFMANGER.

change in the Festival date to later in the
year, repeated their complaint about hav-
ing to rush to get films ready by May which
are often not released in the U.S. until the
fall, or even Christmas.

Consternation amongst the Cannes or-
ganizers was further compounded by the
absence of films from big name American
auteurs s[...]Scorsese — all direc-
tors with films rumoured to be near com-
pletion at the time, whose names alone can
be guaranteed to give Cannes gloss.

It is not clear why Hollywood chose or
was forced this year to be a “party—pooper”.
Certainly it is hard to resist the notion that
the global recession has made the funding
of mega—productions (such as Steven
Spielberg’s]urassic Par/e) much harder and
that the ballooning costs of film production
and distribution have further widened the
gap between the supply of funds and the
ability to deliver the finished product.

Added to these difficulties, the progres-
sive consolidation of the studios and their
distribution networks has made film pro-
duction even more difficult for the Ameri-
can independents.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 23

Film marketing[...]ological advances in marketing and
financing, and the speed with which finan-
cial transactions occur,[...]m as in everything
else. Faced with this reality, the Cannes
administration will need to fight harder to
maintain Cannes’ pre-eminence in the face
of competition from other markets, rapid
changes in technology, and the growing
popularity of other festivals such as Ber[...]e effect of fewer American films be-
ing screened at Cannes this year was the
highlighting of offerings from other coun-
tries. Of the films in competition for the
Palme d’Or, for example, four each came
from France and the UK, three each from

24 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

Australia, Italy and the U.S., and one each
from China, Russia, Taiwan, Haiti, Ger-
many and South Africa.

On the surface this looked exciting, as if
other national film cultures were preparing
to displace American dominance. But
Cannes is no longer the litmus test it used to
be. For instance, the Melbourne Film Festi-
val, which picks the eyes from the major
festivals around the world, including
Cannes, in some ways is more representa-
tive of the world picture, and this year the
Melbourne Festival featured an exciting
mix of new films from Mexico, Asia, Iran,
South America and Canada. The screening,
too, of many good independent films from
the U.S. is a reminder of the persistent
energy of the American film industry.

On the other hand, this doesn’t negate
the trends that were observable at Cannes
this year: a strong resurgence of filmmaking
in England, and the clear emergence of a
vigorous film culture in Asia that is poised
to take advantage of China’s version of
market socialism. Given their prominence
in Competition, the French, Australian and
Italian films were generally disappointing.

Theto the Festival.
Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil play
middle—aged siblings who are forced to
confront complex feelings for each other as
they come to grips with the mental and
physical decline of their mother. Although

the roles were expressly written for them by.

the director, Deneuve is miscast and never
looks comfortable or convincing, while
Auteuil is too likeable to be dangerous, and
lacks credibility as a neuro—[...]one of three young
people who drift in and out of the film
meaninglessly. The fault lies with the unde-
veloped script and Téchiné’s limp direction
which fails to give the film cohesion. Martha
Villalonga’s realistic portrait of the sib-
lings’ earthy, dignified mother is the film’s
saving grace.

Things couldn’t have been more differ-
ent the following day with the premiere of
Mike Leigh’s Naked. This is the British
director’s best and most mature film to
date. It’s also his bleakest. Previous M[...]

they are all misfits battling to cope with the
world. Na/zed is altogether more integrated
and i[...]we take
for granted in a Mike Leigh film — and the
shift in gear is virtuosic and exhilarating.
The film begins with the protagonist,
Johnny (played brilliantly by David[...]nsian garb, and so
is his misogyny. In many ways, the creation
of this character is Mike Leigh’s master-
piece (although much of the credit, accord-
ing to Leigh, should go to Thewlis, who
also won the Cannes Best Actor award for
his performance). It[...]not surprising, that Leigh’s Na/zed
was subject to hostility from many at Cannes
who, in the presence this year at the Festival
of many successful women film directors[...]that inveterate misogynist
Peter Greenaway whose The Baby ofMacon
features amongst other excesses not only a
debasing and ugly birth but the serial rape
of a virgin by over 200 men, and Pupi[...]th historicity that it needs enliven-
ing through the drowning of a young witch
and the public quartering of a man.

Naked was the first of the English films
at Cannes to make an impact, and coupled
with the pleasure induced by Stephen Frears’
working-class romp, The Snapper, which
opened La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, a
high point was reached early in the Festival
against which most films in the first week
were measured and found wanting. In the
main Competition, two films from Italy
had merit,[...]ani’s
Fiorile and Ricky Tognazzi’s La Scorta
(The B odyguards), as did Takeshi Kitano’s
Sonatine[...]nfil’s E Pericoloso Sporgersi
(Don’t Lean Out the Window, Rumania),

FACING PAGE: LEFT: D-FENS (MICHAEL DOUGLAS) IN
JOEL S(HUMA(HER’S FALLING DOWN. RIGHT: THE BABY
(NILS DORANDO) AND THE DAUGHTER (JULIA ORMOND)

IN PETER GREENAWAY’S THE BABY OF MACON.

THIS PAGE: LEFT: PAOLO AND VITTOR[...]JESSE BRADFORD) IN

STEVEN SODERBERGH’$ KING OF THE Hill.

Ildiko Szabo’s Child Murders (Hungary)
a[...]aradise (U.S.)
in Quinzaine. But it was not until the screen-
ing of Jane Campion’s The Piano (followed
swiftly by Chen Kaige’s equally impressive
Farewell to My Concuhine) that the Festi-
val really sprang to life.

Campion’s unorthodox vision and the
powerful eroticism of her film struck a
chord with everyone at Cannes. Even be-
fore the Festival began, Campion was tipped
to win the Palme d’Or by those who had
seen previews in Paris and London, and
there was the danger that response to The
Piano would be coloured by expectations,
and that the reality would prove an anti-
climax. That this was far from the case is a
further tribute to the film, which was hailed
at the press conference, immediately after
its first screening, as a masterpiece.

In contrast to the evident delight of the
film’s Australian producer, Jan Chapman,
who understandably found the reaction
“thrilling”, Campion’s response to the ac-
claim was low-key and matter-of-fact.
“Cannes is such a strange environment to
be thrown into ” , she said later at the Carlton,
the ritziest of Cannes’ wedding-cake hotels.
“It’s not real. You don’t want to take it too

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 25

The Piano (not unlike Mike Leigh’s
Naked) represent[...]off—beat narrative, fresh vision
and a capacity to ravish the eyes with
startlingly beautiful images.

The drama evokes the brooding, roman-
tic novels of the Bronte sisters. Ada (Holly
Hunter), a mute woman, arrives on the
beach in New Zealand in 1852 with her
young daughter (Anna Paquin) to enter
into an arranged marriage with a man (Sam
Neill) she has never met. When her new
husband forces her to leave her beloved
piano on the beach, an act of petty tyranny
that Ada cannot forgive, he sets in place a
train of events that almost leads to tragedy.

The American Holly Hunter, stripped to
the essentials with rigid costumes, no make-
up, no d[...]ons, gives
a miraculous performance which won her
the Cannes Best Actress award. Harvey
Keitel is just as commanding as the illiterate
neighbour, Baines, who takes the piano
into his own home and uses it as an erotic
ploy in a strange barter arrangement. Keitel
is so totally at home in his new persona
(which includes a nude scene that is at odds
with his customary tough—guy roles) that he
throws Neill’s performance into the shade.

The Piano eclipsed lesser films as well.
Alexandre Kh[...]CINEMA PAPERS 94

who commits a series of crimes to finance
the escape from a prison camp of a woman
who in the end rejects him, is a case in point.
It is too heavy and oblique to succeed as
either dream or political allegory, wh[...]ility in more ways
than one.

Similarly difficult to watch, especially
for those who remember Wings of Desire as
one of the great films of the 1980s, is Wim
Wenders’ Far Away, So Close]. Set[...]lin, this interminably long se-
quel — in which the second angel Cassiel
(Otto Sandor) becomes human — attempts
to recapture the magic of the first film but
finishes up as a failed parody which even
threatens to diminish the impact and poetry
of the original. The impenetrable storyline
has uncomfortable parallels, too, with the
wandering confusion which eventually
made watching Until the End of the World
(1991) such a chore. Nevertheless, Louis
Malle and his Cannes Jury thought suffi-
ciently well of it to award it the Grand Jury
prize.

On the other hand, Alain Cavalier’s
Libera Me (France), which won the OCIC
Ecumenical Jury Prize, is a strangely pas-
sionless indictment of totalitarianism that
is mesmerizing to watch for the austere
purity of its images. The narrative consists
of brief scenes filmed against neutral interi-
ors which snapshot the torture and execu~
tion of citizens living in a society much like
our own. The bloodless, expressionless ac-
tion unspools entir[...]ient sounds. Too
cryptic and too xsthetic perhaps to make
any profound statements about human

rights, Libera Me nonetheless demands a
response from the viewer, as the film’s title
implies.

Lauded by some, and thou[...]fthe Hill (U.S.). It is a saga set in St
Louis in the 19305, adapted for the screen
by Soderbergh from the memoirs of A. E.
Hotchner, about the coming of age of a 12-
year—old boy growing up during the depres-
sion in the 19305.

Most disappointing from the Australian
point of View were the films of the young
Australians, Laurie Mclnnes, Stephan Elliot[...]lent, but Mclnnes and Moffatt
still have some Way to go in marshalling
skills, Mclnnes in scriptvvriti[...]isually compelling, but this isn’t suffi-
cient to sustain interest. Her story is so
interior and locked into mystery that it
virtually doesn’t exist for the viewer, who is
forced to remain outside the film’s emo-
tionally charged atmosphere in cons[...]actors like Norman Kaye and Bill
Hunter are made to seem gratuitous.

Moffatt’s Bedevil is more pro[...]e, her style is eclectic
and fragmentary, ranging at will
from her ‘Queensland gothic’ to a
more naturalistic approach with
injections of h[...]lp) and is
dogged by stilted acting which is
hard to pass off as style. Night
Cries: A Rural Tragedy ([...]its style but because it had struc-
ture. One has the feeling with Be-
dez/il that the three—in-one project
was too ambitious.

Stepha[...]l. Cer-
tainly his film aroused strong feel-
ings at Cannes.

Frauds is bold and cheerful, a
sp[...]

On a more optimistic note, Excursion to
the Bridge of Friendship, the debut short
film of Christina Andreef, another Ne[...]gard, is a delight.
Polished and quirky, it tells the story of
Nadezdhda Ivanova, a Bulgarian folksinger
who writes a letter to a strange woman in
Sydney, requesting sponsorship so that she
can bring her ancient songs to a new land.
Filmed in black and white and billed[...]le characters and a situation
known only too well to most of us.

Farewelling five filmmakers off to Cannes
is a little like sending a contingent of swim-
mers to the Olympics: everyone wants re-
sults and there is h[...]ntment if
they falter. This is cultural cringe of the
worst kind because it blames the artist who,
on the contrary, should be commended for
foraying into n[...]matic ex-
pression. Such cultural cringe condemns
the artist and constrains the critic. It also
raises the question of the nature of funding
by state and federal bodies, an[...]with
scriptwriting and production.

Gilles Jacob, the director of the Cannes
Festival who makes the final selection as to
which films screen at Cannes, stands by his
judgement and sees the 1993 Australian
entries as representing a second generation
of filmmakers led by Campion, whom he
believes to be one of the five best directors
in the world. In his office in the Palais, he
assessed the strengths of each young direc-
tor making debut films this year, and com-
pared the five films and the sections in
which they are screened to the ascending
staircase which is the festival’s logo and a
model of its structure. “It’s like a scale”, he
says. “You have the first step, which is
short. Then the next one, Un Certain Re-
gard, which is more experimental. Then the
Competition. Then, hopefully, the prize!”
He mentions how proud the Cannes Festi-
val is of Campion, “ because she[...]ke-
speare’s play which
should direct audiences
to Shakespeare (as well
as the box office)
through the sheer vital-
ity of his production and
the performances of
his stellar cast, was
screened in the latter
part of the Festival, as
was Ken Loach’s Rain-
ingStones (UK). Loach,
whose Riff—Ra/ff won
accolades at Cannes last
year, was awarded the
Cannes Jury Prize for
Raining Stones this year
and richly deserved to
do so. Far more subtle
than his fellow social
rea[...]For overall excel-
lence, Asian films dominated the Festival
quietly: Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of
Green Papaya (Vietnam-France); Lan
Fengzheng’s The Blue Kite (Hong Kong-
China), which screened in Quinzaine; Hou
Hsiao—Hsien’s The Puppetmaster (Taiwan),
a slow—moving, superlative film which de-
servedly won the secondjury Prize awarded
this year; and Chen Kaige’s magnificent
Farewell to my Concuhine (Hong Kong-
China), which shared the Palme d’Or this
year, a decision disputed by no[...]d on Lilian Li’s popular novel, Chen
Kaige with the help of his three principal
actors, Gong Li, Zhan[...]ears of Chinese history, begin-
ning in 1925 with the rigorous, cruel train-
ing of two young boys, Xiaolou and Dieyi,
for the Peking Opera, and ending with the
turbulent political and social changes
wrought upon China by the Cultural Revo-
lution in the 19705. The heart of the film,
however, is the enduring love of Dieyi for
Xiaolou, and how Dieyi comes to identify
with the tragic royal concubine, Yuji, in the
opera farewell, bringing him to stardom
opposite Xiaolou as her master.

At the press conference, Chen, flanked
by his Hong Kong producer, Madame Hsu
Feng, and Leslie Cheung, who plays the
androgynously beautiful artist Dieyi, Chen

ABOVE: (HEN KAIGE’S BAWANG HIE JI
(FAREWELL TO MY CONCUBINE).

said that he and his generation of filmmak-
ers began making films that broke with the
cinema of the past, “ because we were fed up
with propaganda films”. Earlier at a lunch-
eon, he was open about the covert means he
employed to introduce the forbidden theme
of homosexuality into his film. While the
Chinese people are becoming more open-
minded, th[...]ehaviour. Rather, they
must be treated subtly. “I see this film as
being a passport to making other films
about terrible times”, he said.

As filmmaking costs continue to rise and
the global market further dissolves the bor-
ders between nations, China is ready to
become a dominant force in international
filmmaking by coupling its Vast market and
resources with the enterprise of Taiwan,
which is starved of a market to expand into.
Hong Kong’s future is allied to both. This
makes Asia and the Pacific Rim a prime
target for expansion. All the evidence from
Cannes and elsewhere shows that interna-
tional co—productions are the way of the
future. In this light, the public wrangling
over the nationality of The Piano indicates
a need to come to grips with changes in the
international film culture. .

CINEMA P[...]

The film is the first feature for writer-director Quentin

Tarant[...]hat is a magnetic ensemble of characters. Heading the
cast as Mr White is Martin Scorsese regular Harvey Keitel.
The others include Tim Roth as Mr Orange, Michael Madsen
as the psychotic Mr Blonde, Eddie Bunker as Mr Blue,
Tar[...]er things, he discusses his
character Mr Pink and the making of the film.

What made you become an actor?

I never really analyzed the reason. Acting was just something I
fantasized about when I was a kid. Then, after I saw Dog Day
Afternoon [Sidney Lumet, 1975] and the performances of John
Cazale and Al Pacino, I decided that was the type of acting I wanted
to do.

To me, there is a lot of comedy in Dog Day Afternoon, yet it
wasn’t a comedy. I loved the intensity of the characters and the
realness of the whole film, including the look of it. It was based on
a true incident, and, in fact, the true incident was even more bizarre
than the movie. They couldn’t put everything in the movie; they had
to trim the real detail.

I love the energy of what it was about, and the acting I think is
just incredible.

30 . CINEMA PAPERS 94[...]re any acting influences from Dog Day Afternoon?

I’ll tell you the person I’m very influenced by is John Cassavetes, not
only as an actor, but especially by his own films and the acting in
them. He has a great face, and he gets[...]rformances out of actors, like in Faces, Shadows, The
Killing of a Chinese Bookie and A Woman Under the Inflnencel.

And, of course, there is Martin Sco[...]Harvey Keitel.

What is your acting background?

I started out doing stand-up comedy when I was around 20 years
old, but I only did that for about 2 years. I then started doing some
experimental theatre on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, and I
hooked up with another actor—writer, Martin Boone. We wrote and
performed our own theatre pieces.

Perhaps the first time you were seen in film by Australian au[...]Crossing and Barton Fink. Character actors often get stuck
in a particular grove, but that is quite an odd mix of films.

I’ve been really lucky. I fell in with a good group of people, and was
lucky enough to get some good parts. A lot of them have been small
but memorable characters. I like being a character actor.

Was one of those f[...]or you?

Parting Glances is still my favourite of the parts I’ve played. That
came very early in my career, so it was a turning point. It took a
while to get a part as complex as that character, and Ithink I’ve done
that now with Reservoir Dogs and another film called In the Soup
[Alexander Rockwell, 1992].

In between Parting Glances and these two films, I did a lot of
smaller parts, or just characters that you see for a little bit but who
make an impression. At the same time, you really didn’t learn a lot
about[...]ng played such a

1 Faces (1986), Shadows (1960), The Killing ofa Chinese Bookie (1976) and
A Woman Under the Influence (1974).

good part early in my career, I was a little spoilt. But things definitely
changed with Reservoir Dogs and In the Soup, which I did back to
back.

In the Soup is about a young filmmaker trying to get his first
feature financed and he hooks up with a[...]and thief. But this man is such a
character that the filmmakeflearns a lot about life through him. The
filmmaker doesn’t end up making the movie; it’s really a kind of love
_story between these guys.

How did you get cast in Reservoir Dogs as Mr Pink?

I auditioned for it after I got the script from my agent. Quentin had
known of my work, and we had talked on the phone. Then Harvey
Keitel paid for Quentin and the producer, Laurence Bender, to come
to New York because they couldn’t afford to and Harvey wanted
them to see some New York actors. I just auditioned like every other
actor did.

Harvey had casting approval, but I didn’t know Harvey at all
before Reservoir Dogs.

The characters of ReservoirDogs are played with full-on energy. At
the same time, because they’re strangers to each other, they have to
play off one another without any prior knowledge. Did Tarantino
give the cast any special briefing on playing those roles[...]re we talked about a lot
of things. It was one of the best rehearsal periods I’ve ever gone
through. It was very thorough and we really explored every aspect
of the script. We even rehearsed scenes that weren’t w[...]little
improvisations.

There’s a good deal of the scenes that look improvised, like the scene
between lVIr Pink and Nb White, when White is clicking his fingers
while trying to light a cigarette.

We actually didn’t improviz[...]s through improvization.
We did embellish some of the scenes, though, where we came
up with pieces of business. For instance, that scene in the
bathroom was totally scripted, but with the cigarette thing I
think I added a line when he says, “Have a smoke” , and I say,
“I quit!” That came out of the situation, but 95 per cent of
the film was scripted.

It doesn’t really matter because what you see of me is the
character. I feel like it wasn’t me coming up with little lines,

it was the character.

ReservoirDogs has been talked about quite a bit as quoting
a few films and directors from the 195 0s and ’60s. Did
Tarantino sit the cast down in front of a video monitor and
say, “This is what I want!”?

No, not at all. I had seen Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing
[195 6], which ReservoirDogs is reminiscent of. But Quentin

didn’t tell us to watch anything. We just rehearsed it on our own and
he didn’t say he was going to try to make it like something else.

You’ve worked wit[...]first
film?

He is as experienced as anybody else I’ve worked with. I really feel
directing is in his blood. He has been waiting his whole life to do this
film. Tim Roth used to say, “Quentin has been directing this movie
in his head for 29 years.” I wouldn’t say he knew exactly what he
was doing every step of the way, but even the most experienced
directors don’t know that, either. I think he had a good attitude
towards the film. I liked his kind of energy.

Quentin is very focused. Even a lot of the camera work was
scripted, as far as knowing when characters are to be off—screen and
when the camera stays on one character. He wrote that kind of
material and that was the way it was shot. Some people had
suggested that he should cover scenes, and he would say, “No, I
would never use it. I don’t want to see Mr Pink in this scene. I want
to do a close dolly on Mr White’s face.” This is what happens in the
last scene, for example. It’s one take as I\/Ir White crawls over to the
ramp and cradles Mr Orange’s head.

1\/Ir Pink is a fairly comical character, but he also has to suddenly
switch over into a dramatic mode?

I didn’t see it as a switch. If the audience finds him funny, that’s fine,
and if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. The point is Iwasn’t playing Mr Pink
for laughs.

From the first time reading the script, I was very aware of the
humour in it, but as an actor playing that character I couldn’t really
go for laughs. And Quentin didn’t direct us to go for any laughs. We
all knew this stuff was funny, but we just tried to make it as real as
possible. The humour comes out of something that is very real. In
that way, you also get laughs that we didn’t know were in it, and
people laugh at different stuff.

An example would be the torture scene between Mr Blonde and
the cop. It always has some people walking out and other people
laughing. How do you decide how to play that scene? You can’t play

CINEMA[...]

Quite a few of the characters are paired off in terms of loyalty — Mr
White and Mr Orange obviously, and I\/Ir Blonde and Nice Guy
Eddie — but Mr Pink isn’t. He is something of a loner and that’s why
he is a survivor.

I never really thought about it. I don’t think he is a loner. He doesn’t
have much emotional input for anyone else, because he didn’t have
the same experience the others share with each other. Maybe he
could have if he had escaped with Mr White, for instance. But I
know what you mean, because I think that Mr White was drawn to
Tim Roth’s character even before they got into trouble together. I
just think Mr Pink was very careful. He was told not to get to know
these other guys, and he takes his job very seriously.

So, I don’t think he is a loner. He is the most professional and
that’s why he is a survivor.

Do you think Mr Pink is a primary contender for being the informer,
even though we see the flashback of him shooting it out with the

police, because in the pre-credit sequence the business about tipping
marks l\/Ir Pink’s difference from the others?

When I first read the script I didn’t suspect him as the informer. The
only time that came up for me was in the scene with Harvey Keitel
when he asks me how I escaped the police ambush. At one point in
rehearsal, it occurred to me that he was asking that question out of
suspicion. That was the only time for me.

The reason Reservoir Dogs is controversial is obviously because of
the violence, particularly in the torture scene. How do you feel about
the whole violence debate?

I don’t View stories as simply violent stories. I want to do good
scripts, good movies, and if they have violence in them then that’s
what is part of the story.

32 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

Personally, I don’t like movies where there is a
fight scene every five minutes, and I don’t particu-
larly like the Arnold Schwarzenegger films. I thought
The Terminator [James Cameron, 1984] was very
violent, whereas I don’t think Reservoir Dogs is
excessively violent. The Violence in Reservoir Dogs
is very real and very[...]ion. But it is not even as graphic
as some movies I see.

To me, the violence in it is justified because of
who these guys were. I didn’t really have a problem
with it, although I squirmed when I first read the
script. And I remember when I saw the torture scene
I could hardly watch it. \,

You’ve been quoted a[...]makes you
feel every blow.” Can you elaborate?

I think as an audience member you do feel the
violence, whereas in some movies audiences are
kind of desensitized to it and don’t realize how
much violence there is[...][Chris Colombus, 1990]. That’s prob-
ably what I meant.

I think we made a good movie that is different from[...]now. It’s a smart film. You don’t really have to work
hard to watch it, but it does require something from the audience
other than passively sitting back and just watching. You do think
about it after the movie is over. It is a character film and that is what
I really like about it. I’m proud to have been a part of it.

It’s a small—budget[...]l. Do you believe it may make studios re-appraise the way films
are made these days?

I don’t think so. It didn’t get nominated for any Academy Awards,
and wasn’t a huge box—office hit. So, I don’t think it is going to affect
the way movies are made by the studios, or the stories that are told.
I hoped it would, but I don’t think so.

In the after—glow of ReservoirDogs, what is next for Steve BuscemiP

Right now, I am doing a studio film called Airhead with Michael
Lehman and a couple of others. I’ve also written a feature that I want
to direct.

I’ve also made a short film which I’ve been trying to get into the
festival circuit. It’s titled What Happened to Pete? I submitted it to
the Sydney and Melbourne film festivals, but I don’t know what
happened to it. I haven’t heard.

The feature is called Trees’ Lounge, which is the name of a bar
in Long Island. It’s about this g[...]There are a lot of characters in it and explores the
incestuous nature of a small community that doesn’t really have a
lot to offer some people. If they don’t getthe closed community.

I’m trying to raise the money for it right now. I was hoping to
shoot it this summer, but it didn’t happen, so hopefully I’ll be able
to shoot it next spring. 0

SHO_WC__ASE LNEMA"

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equacy of our cinema chronicles in their introduction to The

the output of the documentary sector of the industry has always

L01’lg continues outstripped feature film production, and is the backbone of the film

industry; but documentaries, like the proverbial iceberg, have re-

exploration into the myths and mamcled submerged, awaiting their chromcler, Whether verbal or
Vlsua .

fictions 5u1»-rounding the All too often, cinema studies have exclusively concentrated on

post—190O fictional films. ;The myths surrounding “Soldiers of the
Cross” (1900) and The Story ofthe Kelly Gang (1906) are retold
with pro[...]Australian documentary achievements are ignored. The implication

introduction of the

mowng picture to Australia‘ is that these two fictional productions were the only creative output

of a barren period. The "reality is almost the opposite.

By listing all of Australia’s earliest films, the documentary
character of our pioneering industry[...]d or wrongly identified in
our archives, awaiting the rediscovery that this data will assist.
Three ‘[...]BLINKERED PERSPECTIVE

Many cinema histories fail to recognize the creative evolution of
editing and story—telling[...]re-length” productions by 1897, a decade
before the advent of fictional features.

Our first view of[...]Sydney during September 1897.3 It is a record of the Corbett-
Fitzsimmons boxing match at Carson City, Nevada, shot on 17

Frame enlafgemen[...]ation. Cinematic techniques
soon overtook it.

In the many long films taken of Queen Victoria’s Diamo[...]ts
were applied. R. W: ‘Paul used three cameras at various points along
the procession, with editing in-camera to eliminate static moments,
and then intercut the negatives to provide a comprehensive view.
The coverage also saw the birth of the camera ‘pan’, as Paul built a
special Worm-drive head for his tripod to allow it to follow action.5
These elements of visual syntax a[...]f economic imperative, economizing on film usage. The
British film historian Stephen Bottomore’s article, “Shots in the
Dark”, in Sight and Sound (Summer 1988) used this example to
demonstrate narrative construction in news films[...]win S. Porter’s Great Train Robbery (190,3).‘ The same
elements of narrative form can be fou[...]

FORGOTTEN DOCUMENTARIES

Of the Australian documentary producers working in the 18905,
only Marius Sestier receives consistent coverage in the standard

histories. Other pioneers are equally worthy of a place in the roll of

honour.

Alfred Haddon shot the world’s first in-situ anthropological
research[...]ptember 1898.7 These
survive. Fred Wills produced the world’s first governmental films in
Queensland during 1899 — the first Australian multi—shot films
exhibiting editing techniquef‘ These also survive.

The Austral Underworld (1900) and Under Southern Skie[...]e major feature-length documentary productions of the
Salvation Army’s Limelight Department, both lon[...]ry tracing Australia’s history from exploration to fed-
eration, survive today?

Newspaper reports and the surviving films provide conclusive
proof of our i[...]In that role, local producers gravitated towards the
news coverage and documentaries which didn’t re[...]ertise in that field.
Audiences were attracted by the novelty of seeing themselves and
their familiar surroundings on the screen. It helped to span the vast
distances across our continent. Bush residents could view sporting
events and parades in the major cities via film. Industries and tourist
attractions from remote corners of the country could be seen
Australia—wide. Histories which only trace the development of
Australian fictional film have ent[...]d of Australian history, their value equates with the product of
our first printing; press, or with the first Australian photographs.
Originally viewed a[...]these films are
of steadily increasing value with the passing of time. No represen-
tation of colonial[...]iven by our earliest movies.

BONDS OF EMPIRE

In the 18905, Australia was a remote collection of British colonies,
a cultural backwater embracing the new nationalist feelings which
led to federation in 1901. Our four million European colonists were
isolated from the events and the arts of their distant homelands.
Actuality and news films provided them with a window on the hub
of their cultural life.

Like most of our colonial trade, the bulk of film imports came to
us from Britain and Europe, where non-fiction fil[...]oured than in America. Raymond Fielding’s book, The Ameri-
can Neu/sreel, speculates on the reason for this trans-Atlantic
difference and concludes:

American film producers were inclined to favour theatrical fare over
journalistic fare. In contrast to the French producers, the first
American filmmakers tended to bring subjects to the studio rather
than to take the camera to the subject, a practice which understand-
ably favour[...]ulation rather than naturalistic docu-
mentation The early Edison and Biograph [American] cameras
were the size of steamer trunks and could not by any stretch of the
imagination be considered portable. The French Lumiere camera, on
the other hand, was much smaller and was easily carried from
location to location [...] The news film content that resulted was as
much the consequence of technological imperative as of art[...]American
films, but by late 1896 they surrendered to the market dominance
of British and French imports. This situation persisted until World
War I and the rise of Hollywood. The popularity of European film
was partly due to the Australian impact of the Lumiere and R. W.
Paul projectors which were used to show them, and partly due to
audience familiarity with the geographic locations they exhibited.

Our non-fiction film consumption was encouraged by the British
film magnate, Charles Urban (1 867-1942),[...]ding Company” produced a sizeable proportion of
the films and projectors used in Australia after 1 897. As late as 1 91 0
Urban was quoted as saying:;

With the life and scenery of the world, in every land upon which the
sun shines, waiting to be recorded [...] time spent in finding wa[...]

(A) Lady Brassey (in white dress)
approaches the horse, Newhavcn,
trying to complete the ribbon
ceremony.

(B) The horse shies, dragging Lady
Brassey, holding the ribbon, out of the
frame, to the left.

While film copyright records confirm that the American industry
turned almost completely to fictional film production by 1907”,
documentari[...]their appeal in France, Britain and Aus-
tralia. The Pathé company introduced regular weekly newsreel
services to those three countries before similar production w[...]ght apparatus”. In mid-1897,
Gunn became one of the first large-scale
exhibitors and importers of mot[...]Gunn’s First Movie
Projector, 1897, was fitted to the
bottom stage of a “tri—unial” lantern
slide projector. The device could project
dissolving slides as well as[...]36 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

C) As dignitaries rush to Lady Brassey’s
aid, all action moves out of frame. The
camera stops.

(D) The camera has panned slightly to
the left in a second set-up, the horse
now being paraded with its ribbon in
front[...]se race or a Royal pageant. Venues
devoted solely to the exhibition of film were limited to the major
cities, and generally didn’t survive after 1898, when the medium’s
early novelty declined. Specialized ci[...]especially welcome as an entertainment medium in the
Australian bush, where it had no great competitio[...]Portable and inexpensive, it_ brought city
scenes to country halls on an increasingly regular basis as the 19th
Century drew to a close. Contrary to the popular image of the
“picture show man” in a horse-drawn waggon, the itinerant
exhibitor of the 1890s generally travelled by rail or by coastal
steamer.” He stopped for a few days in each town, the duration
dependent on regional population and his show’s popularity. In this
way, the exhibitor simultaneously was the distributor in this
pioneering period.

A particularly well—established Melbourne film pioneer was the
“lanternist and limelight apparatus importer” Alexander Gunn,
with a shop and office at 242 Little Collins Street. He established a
reput[...]entertainments from 1889,
adding motion pictures to his repertoire in mid-1 897.” His services
were available to clubs and organizations who hired him to bring his
portable projection plant to venues right across Victoria. Eventu-
ally, his c[...]e a leading cinema advertising concern,
producing the familiar slides which precede film showsr today.[...]father’s difficulties in importing films
during the 1 8905:

In the early times, Mr. Gunn had to buy all his films from London
from such makers as[...]U.
A.] Williamson. We would receive a list giving the names of the
various films, the length and a [telegraphic] code word attached to
each.

My father had to put on his thinking cap and pick from one to six
films on their titles only, and then cable the code word to London and
chance his luck, also his money. The film cost 2/- per foot in those
days and the total amount had to be cabled to London at the time of
ordering, and we sat back for six weeks or so [awaiting their arrival] .
The hiring of films was unthought of then.“

When film had to be imported without the opportunity of a
preview, the more predictable usefulness of a local pro[...]

(1) ARRIVAL OF TRAIN AT HILL PLATFORM, FLEMINGTON

(A) The train moves in. A sole
policeman in white helmet waits to
scrutinize the crowd.

(B) Train halts. passengers reach
through the doors to grab handles and
open carriage. Another train shunts in
the distance.

it a better investment. It could also generate desirable local newspa-
per publicity for the exhibitor. Naturally, Gunn became an early
exhibitor of local film, though he doesn’t seem to have produced
these subjects himself.”

The difficulty of importing film directly from England eased in
the later 1 8905 when several local photographic ware[...]all had Australian
representation by 1899. Two of the larger Australian dealers
retailing their films were I-Iarrington’s Limited and Baker SC Rouse.
Both h[...]phic Review respectively. Before 1903, these were the principal
Australian information sources for cine[...]ange. New and used films were often advertised in
the classified sections of both magazines. Researchers should note
that these classifieds were removed from the New South Wales State
Library copies before binding, but the Mitchell Library sets are
intact. They document the sources from which Australian cinema
developed.

THE ExHIBIToR's CREATIVE ROLE

Most of the early projectors, particularly the Lumiere machines,
could not accept films exceedin[...]bjects were mostly sold in 100-foot reels through the 18905, and
were only available “joined” or in greater lengths by special order.
The sequencing of film programmes at this stage was the prerogative
of the exhibitor, rather than the producer.

Initially film programmes aimed at a maximum of variety, with
as little similarity b[...]nute—l0ng films as possi-
ble.” In Australia, the earliest programme to progress into some
sense of continuity was probably the Sydney premiere of Sestier’s
“tableaux” of the 1896 Melbourne Cup, which placed the various
scenes into a rough chronological order, presenting the series as an
integrated group.” The practice was not maintained, and subse-
quent showings reverted to isolated segments of the coverage being
sandwiched with unrelated subjects.

This “sandwich-programme” principle only began to evolve in
Australia after coverage of Queen Victoria’s Diamond jubilee
(1 897) proved the profit potential of single-subject film shows. By
then, cinema’s initial novelty was on the decline. Film was increas-
ingly shot on specific[...]bitors often
assembled films of similar character to form a narrative thread,
frequently illustrating[...]des) on a single subject, then as films were shot to link existing
films into a narrative sequence, and finally as an entire narrative was
shot and sequenced by the producer.

(2) CUP WINNER ”NEWHAVEN”,
TRA[...], *——_=.:=.:.'..,-.'*.:ns§_
"‘5°,"“’I‘.yl5.—‘_'»3B‘ '

'5 grater. 24[...]n’s Melbourne shop, early 1898. Gunn was one of the first picture exhibitors
locally offering his outfits for hire, and one of the most active Australian film exhibitors
of his period.

In the past, researchers have found reviews of these single-subject
programmes, and leaped to the conclusion that they’re fully-fledged
feature films. A classic example is the mythology surrounding
“Soldiers of the Cross”. This was Herbert Booth’s Salvation Ar[...]d short film inserts
by various makers, including the Salvation Army._ After Booth’s
biographer, F. C[...]s being a “feature film” in
his 1928 book“, the myth became an Australian icon through
unquestioning repetition. Thethe 18905, theThe survival
rate of films made before the advent of film libraries and exchanges
is consequ[...]than one might expect.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 37

W. I-Iickenbotham leads the horse around in
circles before the camera, apparently outside the

(1) CROWDS NEAR THE GRAND STAND,
MELBOURNE CUP

(A) Barnett (lower[...]woman.

(2) ARRIVAL OF GOVERNOR BRASSEY AND
SUITE AT FLEMINGTON RACECOURSE

(a) Governor Brassey approaches. Police
cordon in white helmets at left.

(B) Brassey throws an icy glance at
Sestiet’s camera before moving off.

(3) BRINGING OUT THE HORSES

(A) Bamett indicates the camera to
bystanders.

(B) Barnett gets blocked off by a horse,
then glances sheepishly at camera over
the horse’s rump.

We therefore publish the following filmographies and producer
biographies in the hope that more of Australia’s earliest films wi[...]uccessive instal-
ments will progressively record the output of our industry’s pioneer-
ing period.

MARIUS SESTIER FILMOGRAPHY

The activities of this Lumiere company cameraman, who[...]previous instalment. All of his films were of 60 to 75 feet in length,
providing about a minute’s s[...]Advertised film titles were
not of fixed wording at this stage, being more often in the nature of
a content description. I have tried to use the most commonly
encountered title of each, or the most unambiguous brief descrip-
tion possible. Fr[...]ers Alighting from Paddle Steamer “Brighton ” at Manly
W/harf, on a Sunday Afternoon (probably sho[...]94

Premiere 27 October 1896, first mentioned in The Sydney
Morning Herald, 28 October 1896, p. 8. No surviving print is
known.

(2) Running of the VRC Derby, Flemington (shot 3 1 October
1 896).
A film of the Derby race itself is doubtful, but South Australi[...]mber 1896, p. 8, advertises “living tableaux of
the Derby and Melbourne Cup”, so this film is a possibility. No
further detail has been located, so that the making of the film and
its content must remain matters for conjecture.

(3) Derby Day: The Betting Ring (shot 31 October 1896).
Premiere 28[...]is known.

(4) Lady Brassey Awarding Blue Ribbon to “Newhaven”, Derby
Winner (shot 31 October 1896).
Premiere 24 November 1896, first mentioned in The Sydney
Morning Herald, 24 November 1896, p. 2.
The Bulletin (Sydney), 5 December 1896, p. 8, describes the
film’s recording “the spectacle of Lady Brassey trying to rope in
Newhaven with the blue ribbon, and that animal striving to
dodge her, and bobbing at times right out of the picture, then
backing into it again”. Of the actual event at Flemington, The
Age, 2 November 1896, p. 5, states: “Newhaven was promptly
brought back to the judge’s box after his win for ornamentation
with the Derby blue ribbon [...] On two attempts made by Lady
Brassey to throw the decoration over his neck he started away,
but the third effort was successful.” Nothing similar to this
incident occurred after the Melbourne Cup, so this is certainly a
Derby film,[...]ere negative, first held by A. J.
Perier, matches the above description exactly. Frame enlarge-
ments from W.) Foster Stubbs’ 8mm print of the negative, made
in 1 95 1, are reproduced here. This would appear to be the oldest
surviving Australian film. The print has been released in the
National Film 8C Sound Archive (NFSA) video, Federation Films
(1991).
NB: A similar film of the ribbon presentation was shot in 1897,

Typical mo[...]MPLETE. . 7%)!"

Qipematogrfiphq Outfit,

M

’4i\\

COMPRISING‘
I Cinematographe Comp|ete."Banks & Greaves." (from[...]Electric Lamp and Connections

List of Films for the Cinemat.ographe:——

“2 AM." - — - - (Comic) Feeding the Pelicans - - New
London Bridge New The Gallery Girls -

Engineer's Shop _- - _ New Execu[...]apanese Fan Dance - - (Colored) (Colored)
Sandow, the itrosg Man — N The English Derby Race -

The Strand, on on - - ew Chinese Laundr - - — (Comic
Boating Party at Brighton Beach, New Burlesque Highfimd Fling - )
The Boxing Cats - — ~ New Burlesque of ‘lrilby - (Colored) New
a.(Scene from the Milk \\‘hite Flag‘! 3 Rescue by Fire Brigade ~ -

b_,( ” ,_ U __ H )E Henley Regatta - -

Arrival at the Train . . C°“"F'8.“‘ ' .' ‘

Afternoon T[...]others more or less efl'ectn'e.

Oxford Crew on the lhames New
Complete Lime-light Apparatus. compris[...]Stands

400 Day Bills

ZIIIC Block for Posters.

THE WHOLE COMPLETE AS A GOING CONCERN.
FULLEST[...]

description renders this unlikely. FINISH 0 F THE MEL B 0 U R N E C U P RA C E
(5 ) Arrival of Train at Hill Platform, Flemington (shot 3 November _ _ _[...]n.

Premiere 24 November 1896, first mentioned in The Sydney
Morning Herald, 24 November 1896, p. 2. Lu[...]tralie).

About 300 passengers depart a Cup train at Flemington station,
while another train leaves the station simultaneously. The print
has been released in the NFSA video, Living Melbourne (1988).

(6) Crowds Near the Grand Stand, Melbourne Cup (shot 3 Novem-
ber 1 896).
Premiere 19 November 1896, first mentioned in The Age
(Melbourne), 16 November 1 896, p. Lumiere c[...]omenaders, mostly upper-class folk, move about on the lawns
with sunshade umbrellas and suits, the Flemington grandstand
at the rear. Walter Barnett appears three times. According to
Ballarat Star, 1 9 April 1 897, “the view on the lawn at Flemington
enables one to recognise Mrs. Brough, the well—known actress.”

Brough is also mentione[...]Courier report of this
film, 10 May 1 897, p. 6. The print has been released in the NFSA
video, Living Melbourne.

(7) Arrival of Governor Brassey and Suite at Flemington (shot 3
November 1896).
Premiere 19 November 1896, first mentioned in The Age, 16
November 1896, p. 6. Lumiere catalogue nu[...]riages stop and passengers alight,
moving towards the camera. Victorian Governor Lord Brassey
leads the group past the camera at close range, followed by
Admiral Bridge, Western[...]South Wales Governor), Lord and Lady Magheramore, I-Ion. T.
A. Brassey, Lady Idina Brassey, Lord Rich[...]s Darley. Members of

(C) Barnett tells people to wave (D) Barnett stands back to give clear
their hats. view of finish.

_ _ _ _ (E) Barnett glances at camera to check (F) Crowd moves off to collect
the public close in on the rear of the group as they pass. The print that all went well_ winnings.
has been released in the NFSA video, Living Melbourne.
(8) Afternoon Tea Under the Awning, Flemington (shot 3 Novem-
ber 1896)- Aust[...]el-
Premiere 24 November 1896, first mentioned in Thethe Hurdle Race, Cup Day (shot 3 November 1 896). Lum[...]ws
Premiere 24 November 1 896, first mentioned in The Sydney horses moving through the crowd near the grandstand, with the
MorningHerald, 24 November 1896, p. 2. No surviving print is camera looking over the heads of men in the foreground. It is
known, curious that this film was not repatriated to Australia with the
(10) Weighing out For the Cup (Shot 3 November 1896)_ others of the 1896 Melbourne Cup in 1969. An effort should be

Premiere 24 November 1896 first mentioned in The Sydney made to retrieve it’ NO Copy exists in Australia‘

Mo[...]ember 1896, p. 2. Lumiere catalogue (12) SW“ 0/(thethe camera in 19 June 1 897, p. 2. Not in Lumiere cat[...]alawn in front of agentlemen’slavatory, with As the only reference to this film is the one cited above, the
spectators milling about. Horses pass from right to left, with men advertised item may be the product of exaggeration or wishful
in suits on their backs, on their way to the weighing scales, out thinking, or perhaps this is another description of the foregoing
of frame. Walter Barnett parades flagrantly in front of the camera item. The existence of this film awaits conformation from further
for some time, pointing at the camera and obstructing the horses. research.
The Print has been released in the NFSA Video: Living M31‘ (13) Finish of the Melbourne Cup Race (shot 3 November 1896).
(70?47’"€- Premiere 24 November 1896, first mentioned in The Sydney

(11) Bringing Out the Horses (shot 3 November 1896). Morning Herald, 24[...]gue
Premiere 24 November 1896, first mentioned in The Sydney number 422 (Melbourne, les courses: La Course).
Morning Herald, 24 November 1896, p. 2. Probably the same m

f'lm is advertised under the name The Saddling Paddock for its C O N T I N U E S O N P A G E 6 2
I 7 3

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 39

I am a Keon Park man. I was born there and obviously will die there.
Keon Park is the most obscene spot on the earth. It has an old squash
court, the old Bostik glue factory, hundreds of lost heroin—addicted
geography teachers who can’t get any work, a couple of depressing
cricket pitches[...]e left in them, and one writer.
Me.

Keon Park is the ultimate white man’s happy hunting ground.
You[...]s or not bad
scripts for imaginary movies. Still, I love Keon Park. It has given me
bite. It has taught me hatred. I have been able to defend myself in
the performing arts in Australia by reverting to type: a Keon Park
thug.

All of my writing, in a[...]ven, seen through a crack in Everyman’s
window. I write about what’s up with us, like going to the dentist,
as I did in 1970, and getting a rough quote on getting my jaw
removed. I write about my grandmother’s funeral service, a[...]eople, even more about drunks and homeless folks. I
write about what lollies sacked posties suck on the red rattler to
Boot Hill, Box Hill, Bedlam and Paradise, which i[...]bottle picker-
upper simultaneously, and wherever I have travelled I have written
spontaneous poems about people hanging out for someone to speak
with in dusty bus stops. I have been a school teacher, an English
Keon Park one. I am an actor and dental student. I mow lawns for
three bucks, night or day.

For twenty-five years I have acted in my own stage plays, like The
Rotten Teet/9 Show, on at La Mama Theatre and later on at The
Pram Factory. I have written lots of stage plays. Mostly they have
to do with loneliness because I am happy and lonely simultaneously,
like all Keon Park men who would kill for a potato cake. I come from
a vanishing breed of bush poets who’v[...]ution,
heard trucks, loved chaos; in other words, the city.

About eight years ago I met Brian McKenzie, the documentary
tennis player. But the will, his will, is Geelong Cement. Once it is
set, “that’s chocolates”, as we used to say when men swore and
women were handy when the plough horse broke down.

I remember meeting Brian. He had a little editing r[...]edifice in Brunswick St, Fitzroy. He stared me in the
eyes when I arrived, looking just like two burnt sultanas. Here is a
man who never rests, I thought. Here is a pilgrim who loves the

40 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

people. And he does. Brian was editing his masterpiece, I ’ll Be Home
for Christmas, and wanted to know where I thought it went on a bit.

I told him I’m a dickhead who can hardly understand TV Week.
He nodded, and we looked at his film on the rented editing machine.
I have lived as a tramp; that boozy woozy lost life is known to me.
For those who’ve not seen I ’ll Be Home for Christmas, you ought
to get your head read. Sad, it is the quintessence of sad. Funny, it is
funnier than the grave. I know those homeless men in the park
behind The Children’s Hospital. Brian’s film is the longest hour of
the longest night. It cries; you watch.

Brian believed for some reason that I understood film, that I
could offer some suggestions for cuts and give him technical advice.
I have devoured all film, and have written lots of scripts, perhaps the
best—known being A W/omcm’s Tale, co—created with Paul Cox. That
movie tells the tale of Sheila Florance, dying. It’s a comedy. And it’s
sadder than living all your life in Albert Park. I don’t know anything
about anything. I have an instinct for wistfulness, that’s all.

That’s because I’m a dreamer. I’m sad for a living. And I’m a
millionaire. Somehow or other I can write. There’s no school for it,
apart from[...]d Malaysian cobber of
Cox, and Brian McKenzie and I started writing this movie about a
Muslim boy who[...]cote, from what
heaven he calls “Our Town” in the steaming cauldron that is
Malaysia. We started wr[...]s and tribulations, in Northcote.

Santhana Naidu I first met hanging around the pingpong table
at Illumination Films, a shop that sells dreams inst[...]e deserted hot pant—suit
old mum has a baby boy at the age of 45, and they all become
frustrated filmmak[...]gle baby in Albert Park is a film-
maker addicted to flat white coffee.

Santhana has worked hard and long[...]p
with his crazy tantrums, such as beating babies at pingpong one
second after they arrive by caesarian method in the editing room.
Sonny, as we call him, is perfectly[...]a Lumpur. He dreams of his birthplace, and smells
The Durian Tree fruit, he recalls lopping twelve—foot tigers and he
sees, on his side, in his sleep, the portrait of his mother and father
smiling in a kind of mythical jungle.

I have written some movies with Paul Cox, the only man in the
arts to smoke so much you can’t see him at the writing desk; just a
column of revolting German pipe smoke is all you can relate to. He
is old—fashioned and brilliant, and he is possessed of a beautiful
laugh, and I love him, and he works too much and will die, I hope
not, one day of everything related to movie—making. It’s too hard,
he said to me once, even though he beat me 21-19 at pingpong, only
after an argument, and the stark fact that his serve, the final one, the
flick one, hit a bit of cake crumb on my side of the net, and spun off,
leaving him victorious and mor[...]an ever.

Paul Cox is brave, and there’s an end to it. He also treats me well,
and that’s never really happened before. Sonny and I started to make
friends, even though once he jokingly strangled me among the gent’s
runner piles at Melbourne Sports Depot. I was going to put him into
the cops, but he didn’t mean it, so I didn’t. Sonny is a nice guy who
also smokes too much. So do I.

NUMBER I (JANUARY I974):

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

NUMBER 2 (APRIL I974):

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

NUMBER 3 (JULY 1974):

Richar[...]Papadopolous,
Willis O’Brien, William Friedkin, The
True Story Of Eskimo Nell.

NUMBER IO (SEPT/OCT I976)

Nagisa Oshima, Philippe Mora, Krzysztof
Zanu[...]Marco
Belloochio, gay cinema.

NUMBER II (JANUARY I977)

Emile De Antonio, Jill Robb, Samuel Z.
Arkoff, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The
Picture Show Man.

NUMBER I2 (APRIL I977)

Ken Loach, Tom Haydon, Donald
Sutherland, Be[...]o Tosi, John
Dankworth, John Scott, Days Of Hope,
The Getting Of Wisdom.

NUMBER I3 ( JULY I977)

Louis Malle, Paul Cox, John Power,
Jeanine S[...]s, Bernardo
Bertolucci, In Search OfAnna.

NUMBER I4 (OCTOBER I977)

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

NUMBER I5 (JANUARY I978)

Tom Cowan, Truffaut, John Faulkner,
Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri
Lankan film, Chant Ofjimmie Black-
smith.

NUMBER I6 ( APRII.-JUNE I978)
Gunnel Lindblom, John Duigan, Steven
Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa
Pro/ect, Swedish cinema, Dawnl, Patrick.

NUMBER I7 (AUG/SEPT I978)

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

NUMBER I8 (OCT/NOV I978)
John Lamond, Sonia Borg, Alain Tanner,
Indian cinema, Dimhoola, Cathy’s Child.

NUMBER I9 (JAN/FEB I979)

Antony Ginnane, Stanley Hawes, Jeremy
Thomas[...]documentaries, Blue Fin.

NUMBER 20 (MARCH-APRIL I979)
Ken Cameron, Claude Lelouch, Jim
Sharman, French film, My Brilliant
Career.

NUMBER 22 (JULY/AUG I979)
Bruce Petty, Luciana Arrighi, Albie
Thoms, Stax, Alison’s Birthday

NUMBER 24 (DEC/JAN I980)

Brian Trenchard—Smith, Ian Holmes,
Arthur[...]iman, Chain Reaction,
Stir.

NUMBER 26 (APRIL/MAY I980)
Charles H. Joffe, Jerome Hellman,
Malcolm Smi[...]nalism,

Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, Water
Under The Bridge.

NUMBER 27 (JUNE-JULY I980)
Randal Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald
Richie,[...]ry, Grendel Grendel Grendel.

NUMBER 28 (AUG/SEPT II980)

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

NUMBER 36 (FEBRUARY I982)

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

NUMBER 37 (APRIL I982)

Stephen MacLean, Jacki Weaver, Carlos
Saura,[...]ov, women in drama,
Monkey Grip.

NUMBER 38 (JUNE I982)

Geoff Burrowes, George Miller,

James Ivory,[...], law and insurance, Far
East.

NUMBER 39 (AUGUST I982)

Helen Morse, Richard Mason,

Arija Breien, D[...]r, Norwegian cinema, National
Film Archive, We Of The Never Never.

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER I982)

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

iii ‘.03

my man[...]nu is -«mum
Maw“ «nuance
um um: uuvo

NUMBER 4I (DECEMBER I982)

Igor Auzins, Paul Schrader, Peter
Tammer, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins,
The Year OfLiving Dangerously.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH I983)
Mel Gibson, John Waters, Ian Pringle,
Agnes Varda, copyright, Strikehound,
The Man From Snowy River.

NUMBER 43 (MAY/JUNE I983)

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

NUMBER 44-45 (APRIL I984)

David Stevens, Simon Wincer, Susan
Lambert,[...]y of Cinema
Papers, Street Kids.

NUMBER 46 (JULY I984)

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

NUMBER 47 (AUGUST I984)
Richard Lowenstein, Wim Wenders,
David Bradbu[...]h Hudson, Robbery Under Arms.

NUMBER 48 (OCT/NOV I984)

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

NUMBER 49 (DECEMBER I984)

Alain Resnais, Brian McKenzie, Angela
Punch[...], horror films, Niel Lynne.

NUMBER 50 (FEB/MARCH I985)
Stephen Wallace, Ian Pringle, Walerian
Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti,
Brian May, The Last Bastion, Bliss.

NUMBER SI (MAY I985)

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

NUMBER 52 (JULY I935)

John Schlesinger, Gillian Armstrong, Alan
Pa[...]rawford, Emir Kusturica,
N.Z. film and TV, Return To Eden.

NUMBER 54 (NOVEMBER I985)
Graeme Clifford, Bob Weis, John
Boorman, Menahem Golan, rock videos,
Wills And Burke, The Great Bookie
Robbery, The Lancaster Miller Affair.

NUMBER 55 (JANUARY I986)

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

NUMBER 56 (MARCH I986)

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

NUMBER 58 (JULY I986)

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

NUMBER 59 (SEPTEMBER I986)
Robert Altman, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka,
Agnes Varda, The AFI Awards, The
Movers.

NUMBER 60 (NOVEMBER 1986)
Australian Tel[...]tch Cinema,
Movies By Microchip, Otello.

NUMBER 6I (JANUARY I987)

Alex Cox, Roman Polanski, Philippe
Mora, Mar[...]ia, Dogs In Space, Howling III.

NUMBER 62 (MARCH I987)
Screen Violence, David Lynch, Cary
Grant, ASSA conference, production

barometer, film finance, The Story Of
The Kelly Gang.

NUMBER 63 (MAY I987)

Gillian Armstrong, Antony Ginnane,
Chris Haywood, Elmore Leonard, Troy
Kennedy Martin, The Sacrifice, Land-
slides, Pee Wee’s Big Adventu[...], Chartbusters, Insatiable.

NUMBER 65 (SEPTEMBER I987)

Angela Carter, Wim Wenders, Jean—Pierre
Go[...]Awards, Poor
Man’s Orange.

NUMBER 66 (NOVEMBER I987)
Australian Screenwriters, Cinema and
China, James Bond, James Clayden,
Video, De Laurentiis, New World, The
Navigator, Who’s That Girl.

NUMBER 67 (JANUARY I938)

John Duigan, George Miller, Jim
Jarmusch, So[...]n
in film, shooting in 70mm, filmmaking
in Ghana, The Year My Voice Broke,
Send A Gorilla.

NUMBER as (MARCH 1933)

Martha Ansar[...]Calm, Franco Nero,
Jane Campion, Ian Pringle’s The Prisoner
ofSt. Petersburg, Frank Pierson, Pay TV.

NUMBER 74 (JULY 1939)
The Delinquents, Australians in Hollywood,
Chinese Ci[...]play.

NUMBER 75 (SEPTEMBER 1989)

Sally Bongers, The Teen Movie,
Animated, Edens Lost, Mary Lambert
an[...]seas.

NUMBER 78 (MARCH 1990)

George Ogilvie’s The Crossing, Ray Argall’s
Return Home, Peter Greenaway and The
Cook...etc, Michel Ciment, Bangkok Hilton
and Bar[...]Pringle Isabelle Eberhardt, Jane
Campion An Angel At My Table,
Martin Scorsese Goodfellas,

Alan J. Pa[...]ent

NUMBER 82 (MARCH 1991)

Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather
Part III, Barbet Schroeder Reversal of[...]rbucci obituary.

NUMBER 33 (MAY 1991)

Australia at Cannes, Gillian Armstrong:
The Last Days at Chez Nous, Joathan
Demme: The Silence of the Lambs, Flynn,
Dead To The World, Marke Joffe’s
Spotswood, Anthony Hopkins[...]n: Terminator 2:]udgment
Day, Dennis O’Rourl<e: The Good
Woman ofBangkok, Susan Dermody:

Breathing U[...]992)
Overview of Australian film: Romper
Stomper, The Nostradamus Kid,
Greenkeeping, Eightball; plus Ka[...], Steven Spielberg
and Hook, George Negus filming Thethe Anvil, Kathy Mueller’s Daydream
Believer, Wim Wenders’ Until the End of
the World, Satyajit Ray.

NUMBER 89 (AUGUST 1992)

Fu[...]te.

NUMBER 90 (OCTOBER 1992)

Gillian Armstrong: The Lasst Days of
Chez Nous, Ridley Scott: 1492: Conq[...]ustralian Cinema, John
Franl<enheimer’s Year of the Gun.

NUMBER 91 (JANUARY 1993)

Clint Fastwood an[...]ss Misconduct; David
Elfick’s Love in Limbo, On The Beach,
Australia’s First Films.

NUMBER 92 (APR[...]s Oil; Megan
Simpson and Alex; Jean—Jacques’s The
Lover, Women in film and television.
Australia’[...]s Part 2.

NUMBER 93 (MAY 1993)

Australian films at Cannes, Jane Campion
and The Piano, Laurie Mclnnes’ Broken
Highway, Tracey M[...]AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION

LIMITED NUMBER of the beautifully designed
catalogues especially prepared for the 1988
season of Australian film and television at the
T UCLA film and television archive in the U.S.
are now available for sale in Australia. Edi[...]lm and televi-
sion, such as Kate Sands, Women of the Wave; Ross
Gibson, Formative Landscapes; Debi Enk[...]Curiouser and Curiouser; Adrian Martin, Nurturing
the Next Wave.
The Back of Beyond Catalogue is lavishly illus[...]

CINEMA PAPERS SUBSCRIPTION ””ERN“i°NAl RA”-5
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CINEMA PAPERS Issue nos[...]NE HOME _____ WORK
Cheques should be made payable to: Enclosed is my cheque for $
MTV PUBLISHING LIMITED or please debit my
. BANKCARD i I MASTERCARD I I VISACARD
and mailed to:
MTV Publishing Limited,
43 Charles Street[...]

For four years I lived in Northcote, in Separation
Street, where an old man, a Scotsman, got run over
by the Mooney Valley trots bus one night, at the
tender age of 93, with two bottles of Invalid Sto[...]dies, in that awful,
choking, polluted hell-hole, I made only one friend,
one acquaintance, in all th[...]rped Indian Jazz Records stuck, crammed hard
into the arseholes of white, stale Italian bread on
bizarre display in the window. Never was there a
mixed goods business remotely like Said’s.

One of the most heartrending evenings I have
endured is the memorable occasion when I ’ll Be
Home for Christmas was screened to an audience

/

\§&\\‘.\\$\ \\

of admirers and drunkards, current homeless chaps
and social workers at The State Film Centre, at the
arse-end of Parliament House, several years back.
Brian asked me to make a speech about homeless-
ness, Which I did. I am good at homelessness and I
never shut up, soI did it, with relish. Iturned on the
old hobo charisma.

It is long, the film, and upsetting, unsettling and
funny, straig[...]orrowing speeches in it. Cinéma 1/érité
behind The Children’s Hospital. It is the best of its kind, and the fact
that it has never been shown on telly is a disgrace.

I made what I estimated to be a not bad ad—libbed speech about
the spontaneous kindness of strangers, the wit of them, the way
society sneers at them (us) and I got a round of genuinely—feIt
applause (I assumed), but the big booboo I made was telling all the
men there:

Look, you chaps, don’t fuck off after the film of Brian’s. My wife
and brother have brought stacks of alcohol. ‘I think there’s three
dozen bottles of beer left,[...]there’s plenty of smokes, so stick around after the tearjerker and
we’ll have a proper grog—on.

Little was I to know that every man there had taken the pledge.
They were all in AA. And all hanging out. That was one of the
biggest oversights of my life, I suppose. Anyway, on to Malaysia.

The Malaysian film is based on Sonny Naidu’s life, when he
arrived in Melbourne in the swinging 19605, jet—lagged and Mus-
lim—eyed, tired and over—excited. His brother, who was studying at
Melbourne Uni, made Sonny a giant T—B-one, Sonny’s first go at
What we call “Home Cooked Proper”, and he leapt into the meat
with due interest, only to vomit. In Seramban, Sonny had never
come across a giant lump of Aussie meat. The poor bastard was
extra crook.

Stone Age Coffeesh[...]Of A STORY IN MAlAY5|A.

Sonny has always wanted to write about the cultural hiccup
between his hometown and that leap into the Keon Park world.
Melbourne must have seemed very strange to him as a young pupil
of life, commerce and intellectual life. Melbourne is strange no
matter how you look at it.

Brian’s skills with millions of micro-cassette tapes and collecting
strange wisps of random anyone, his love of battlers and knowledge
of the human condition; Sonny’s Seramban past and his interest in
that which is true, dislocated and all the films he has helped make
for his friend Paul Cox,[...]tle wins
and losses for little people —we wrote the Malaysian story using our
dislocated selves, tapes, hoarse all-night talkings, the remembrance
of thongs past, as I tramped for ten days through the steaming
jungles of Malaysia in a pair of $1 bright blue ones. The toe—things
have had it now.

Ahmat, a young Muslim, helps out at his father Rashid’s coffee
stall, in what we call affectionately “our town”, something of a play
on the Thornton Wilder. His dad wants Ahmat to become a brain
surgeon. He sends his boy off tothe strange
Said Tawadros, his uncle, who runs the weird milkbar.

The first night there, rolling out his prayer mat to face Mecca, he
faces Froot Loops. Prays to them. It is a rites-of-passage play, and[...]

DELUSION; THE HEARTBREAK KID;
LOVE IN LIMBO; ORLANDO; THE REFRACTING GLASSES;
RICH IN LOVE; AND WIND

DELUS[...]AS

oad movies have always been an opport-
Runity to take thingstothe limit. Everything is
in transit,[...]rt landscapes in clouds of
dust; cop cars take up the challenge, but usually
get left behind in these dubious trails of glory;
and[...]mselves in a marginal
territory so different from the security of home
and town, seem to be either looking for some-
thing new and/or they’re on the run from some-
thing old.

Most particularly, the road movie has func-
tioned as the quest narrative of the automobile
era. Prophets of old may have wandered out into
the isolation of the wilderness to lose a sense of
themselves in the known world and to find some
new kind of vision or inspiration. The road movie
has speeded up the pace and it has thrown in a
range ofvisual, aural and intellectual stimulants,
but it still basically tells the same story: taking a
turning off the main road of life may mean run-
ning the risk of losing the plot altogether, but it
also contains the possibility of new directions.
Most of all, it’s a lot of fun, especially if you
survive the particular kind of rite of passage it
offers.

Ne[...]aert’s Delusion has it
both ways: it follows in the tried-and-true narra-
tive tradition of the road movie, yet also throws
in a few spoofs and h[...]siness, Mirage XT, is
going under, causing George to take his first
unexpected turning. He embezzles vast sums of
money and heads off with the cash in the boot of
his Volvo, with the aim of setting the business up
again in Reno, that city of fast deals. However,
this means being catapulted out of the secure
world of penthouse, girlfriend and spa-bat[...]iantly blue sky now so unavoidably
reminiscent of the desert extremis of The/ma &
Louise (Fiidley Scott, 1991). Starkly beauti[...]potentially threatening,
this landscape turns out to be only a thin circum-
stantial and moral crust away from danger and
hitherto unimagined behaviours.

The hermetically—sealed environment of the
Volvo and the sealed surface of the road itself
are both literally and metaphorically broken when
George swerves off the bitumen to help a couple
whose car has crashed in the scrub. When he
offers a lift to the seemingly hapless pair, Patti
(Jennifer Flubin),[...]erything
changes. If George had gone a
little off the straight and narrow
track by escaping to Reno with
his stolen thousands, his — and
the film’s — entire plot becomes
hijacked by the erratic counter-
demands of Chevy the hitman.

Colpaert playfullyinfusesthe
genre of the thriller/road movie
with an echo of Alfred
Hitchc[...]960). In
that more consistently serious
thriller, the relatively “minor”
crime of theft is also paralleled
to the more heinous crime of
murder. The lack of moral fibre
exhibited by Marion Crane
(Janet Leigh) in taking a large
sum of money, and attempting
to escape with it across the
desert and over the “state line”
to her boyfriend, is contrasted
by the narrative with the exces-
sive madness. or complete loss
ofself—co[...]and, in Colpaert'sfilm, Chevy-
are what it means to have
crossed that “line” of control
and socia[...]e’s
"crime” initially seems leagues
away from the kind of violent,
ruthless underworld inhabited
by[...]innocent, first by
repenting and then by becoming the helpless
victimofNorman,Georgelives ontosymbiotically
inhabit more and more of the moral no-man's
land with Chevy.

There are moments of significant tension in
the course of the seemingly pointless driving
through the desert, as the two men battle for
control. (Patti stays largely[...]etically, as he edges him towards a clear-
ing in the bushes, and Larry, the washed-up,
has—been crook, is forced to recognizethe valid-
ity of this law of the underworld which he himself
first taught to Chevy.

A PUBLICITY SHOT OF JENNIFER RUBIN (AS PA[...]LPAERT’S DELUSION.

However, Colpaert continues to tease audi-
ence expectations of the thriller/road movie
genre. Loud melodramatic chords ironically an-
nounce the "significant" moment when Patti's
pet lizard, Joh[...]im she thought
he was her man whom she lost “in the revolu-
tion”. “Which revo|ution?", hollers George as he
clings on to her Mad Max—style machine; “The
sexual revolution", she replies.

Also, when Patti threatens to leave Chevy,
Colpaert has them replay a piece of[...]n Kane’s sec-
ond wife walks out on him. “You can't do this to
me”, Chevy demands. “Oh, so it's you it’s being
done to”, Patti returns, thus signalling both the
overweening egotism that masks Chevy’s i[...]

The character of Patti, who is certainly a
visually lustrous addition to the scene, also serves
as a form of critique on the macho competitive-
ness and violence of Chevy and[...]-ego versions of each other. On one level,
she is the conventional door-mat, the gangster’s
moll, who is tacitly complicit with[...]dornment in his grubby world when she
is not just the “tenderloin” there for his sexual
pleasure. O[...]el, she is disconcert-
ingly disengaged from both the violence and the
tenderness of Chevy's world. As she tells George,
she’s not on anyone's side: “|’m in it for myself.”
if anything, her deepest feelings seem to be
evoked by Johnny, the lizard, the weeniest of the
film's phallic symbols.

in the final scene, which mocks the heroic
shoot-outs of the Western narrative, George
and Chevy stand locked[...]ion with each
other, and their selfish desire for the ill-gotten
cash which lies between them like a bait. Patti’s
departure at this point might be read as callous-
ness on her part: is she as ruthless as them,
because she abandons them to each other? Or,
rather, does her departure indicate quite a major
rejection on the film’s part of the now foolish
aggression played out by the male characters?
By walking out — or actually b[...]arry’s ute — and especially by leaving behind
the snare of the stolen money which had led
George to this “Death Valley” showdown in the
first place, Patti indicates a rejection ofthe en[...]and villains, of greed and vio-
lence, and leaves the boys to fight it out between
themselves.

lt‘s a nice,[...],
and certainly it offers a little more hope than the
desperate careening off the cliff by Thelma
(Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon).
Perhaps it's the only way to really get away with
a road movie these days without looking too
passé. Colpaert gives us some of the excite-
ment of the chase, the glittering gruesomeness
of the gangster world, and the "finding the tatty
truth about yourself through the experience of
crossing boundaries" routine, while[...]tributor: Broadstone. 35mm. 100 mins. U.S. 1992.

THE HEARTBREAK KID

PAT GILLESPIE

B reaking away from family and cultural ties to

pursue independence is the key theme in
The Heartbreak Kid. Based on the stage play of
the same name, this warm, multi-layered com-
ing-of-age film explores the lives of an Anglo-
Greek school teacher and a stu[...]Christina (Claudia
Karvan) has divided loyalties to the views ex-
pressed by her traditional Greek parents, hus-
band-to—be and the school where she teaches,
which are at loggerheads with her own progres-
sive beliefs. This is economically expressed in
the film’s opening scenes, where the viewer
takes a glimpse at Christina’s family, assembled
to celebrate her engagement. Her parents, com-
fortably well-to-do, have thrown a swanky party
for their only daughter, evidenced by the well-
dressed crowd, the abundance of champagne,
and the line of expensive cars decorating the
driveway and streets. The engagement has all
the trappings of being a perfect affair, except for
Christina’s uneasy smile. The viewer gets the
feeling the trappings and brouhaha have over-
whelmed her; sh[...]everyone has taken as a
fair accompli. Faced with the embarrassment of
backing out, which would mean disgracing her
family, Christina takes the easy path and resigns
herself to a typical Greek marriage. It is only
when Christi[...]she develops con-
fidence and emotional strength to break away
from smothering family ties.

Nick, in the meantime, comes froth the oppo-
site end of the Greek social scale. Raised by a
single parent, wh[...]is a
working-class Greek who presents a challenge
to Christina, who sees his potential and is frus-
tr[...]rest in Christina is ignited when she lobbies
for the official acceptance of a school soccer
team that Nick has attempted to establish.

Both Nick and Christina have
an ideal[...]streak
which lands both in conflict. in
fighting to establish Nick’s soccer
team, Christinafinds herself ‘play-
ing mother’, at first with the staff
and then later in cajoling Nick’s
father (Nico Lathouris), an ex-
soccer star, to coach the team.

Nick is attracted to Christina
on two levels: she is the mother
he does not have, which earths
his stormy[...]youthfulness and energy
inspires Christina; he is the an-
tithesis of Dimitri (Steve Bastoni),
herfianc[...]it will be okay
provided no one knows, she takes the plunge,
rationalizing it as one last, wild stand[...]and reinforced by her
fiance"s view of himself as the decision-maker
who expects her to be the obliging wife. At first,
she views her relationship with Nick in the same
light: it is okay to an affaire on the condition she
marries her husband.

On the other hand, while Nick understands
what love is,[...]ities.

Their first sexual encounter is conducted at
her girlfriend's flat, whose walls are lined with
masks. The masks not only represent deception
but signify th[...]g love and coming
of age, Christina and Nick have to remove their
masks. In Christina’s case, that m[...]home. In Nick’s case, it means
applying himself to his studies and his second
love, soccer, so that he can prove to his father
his love and worth.

No love is withou[...]away they em-
brace a new set of risks and fears. The film ends
on an up, but ambiguous, note: whether[...]certain, but their
relationship has enabled each to break free of
conditional love and seek their own niche in the
world.

Through the use of multi-camera set ups and
hand—held camera techniques, director Michael
Jenkins has imbued The Heartbreak Kid with
spirit and vitality, exampled[...]and a ball haphazardly veer-
ing left and right, the action literally spills either

CHRISTINA (CLAUDIA KARVAN) AND NICK (ALEX DIMITRIADES)
MICHAEL JENKINS’ THE HEARTBREAK KID.

CINEMA PAPERS 94 - 43

In terms of its portrayal of ethnics, The Heart-
break Kidcontinues to build on the breakthrough
style of Wogs Outof Workand Acropoli[...]ncrasies. A great deal of attention
has been paid to developing the stage charac-
ters and plot for the film medium, to prevent it
appearing stilted and stagey. The script radiates
good humour, which, rather than mitigate the
film’s dramatic scenes, lends a personable feel.

THE HEARTBREAK KID Directed by Michael Jenkins.
Produ[...]riters: Richard Barrett, MichaelJenkins. Based
on the play by Richard Barrett. Director of photogra-
ph[...]i), Doris Younane
(Evdokia), George Vidalis (Vasi|i), Louise Mandylor
(Eleni), William Mclnnes (South[...]ove In Limbo is a

beautifully—designed film is to point to both
its greatest strength and its greatest weakness,
for it is surely one of the best recent examples of
the triumph of style over substance. Ostensibly
a rit[...]ory in which young Ken
Riddle (Craig Adams) makes the transition from
boyhood to manhood in a Kalgoorlie brothel, the
film is probably more fruitfully understood as a

celebration of the emergent prosperity and
changing morality of post[...]n
a modest and modern house in Perth. Obsessed
by the mysterious world of sex, Ken channels his
fascination for the female form into a lucrative
sideline by copying the figures from his mother’s
dress—making patterns, disrobing them and then
selling the pornographic cartoons to his equally
eager schoolmates. When he is sprung in the act
(of selling) and expelled, Ken decides to chuck
in school in favour of a job at the clothing factory
owned by his uncle, Bert Bollinger (Bill Young).

The workplace seems a far more liberated
zone than the schoolyard, but Ken’s mother
nonetheless feels it necessary for her son to
receive the old birds-and—bees lecture from the
closest thing he seems to have to a father, his
hapless uncle. The scene is one of the best in
the film, with the flow of information rapidly
changing direction as Ken patiently explains
concepts like “climax” to his intrigued and obvi-
ously uninformed uncle, while his aunt patiently
waits outside the door wondering how on earth
something which takes so little time to do can
take so long to explain.

Back at the factory, Ken becomes friends
with smooth—talking Max Wiseman (Martin
Sacks), the quintessential salesman and some-
thing ofa ladie[...]less polished, but no less successful,
version of the homme fatale. When Barry buys a
battered old Holden, Ken sees the chance to
make a move on his sister's best friend, Maisie
([...]y into taking
ivy as his partner on a double-date to the drive-
in. Of course, lvy doesn’t want a bar of Barry,
and Maisie isn’t too keen on Ken, so the Riddle
kids are left together in the front seat of the car
while Maisie and Barryjitterbug to the rock—and—

ELAINE (KATE HALL) AND KEN RIDDLE[...]4 . CINEMA PAPERS 94

roll movie, before retiring to the back seat of the
Holden for a marathon petting session.

Clearly, then, Ken’s desire and attempts to
lose his virginity are what provide the narrative
steam of Love in Limbo, and he is a sympathetic
and familiar-enough character to engage our
interests adequately to care about how, when
and with whom it will finally happen. But despite
the perpetual fantasizing tothe film. Only one scene really seems
to capture the feeling adequately—that in which
Ken helps his mother to remove a dress on
which the zipper has become stuck, and is thus
briefly confronted with the sight of his topless,
suddenly eroticized, mother. Tension seems an
essential element in the successful rendering of
teenage male frustration, and a vital ingredient
in the realization of the comic potential of the
scenario. Films like The Summer of ’42(Robert
Mulligan, 1971), and even those of the ilk of
Porky’s (Bob Clark, 1981), manage to milk that
tension for, respectively, nostalgic or[...]as somewhat bloodless —
though not colourless.

The design ofthe film is staggeringly opulent,
with reds, yellows and blues screaming for at-
tention in the ultra-modern 1950s house, furni-
ture and objet d'art designs, as well as in the
Australian landscape through which Ken, Barry
and[...]mate, Arthur (Russell
Crowe), travel on their way to finally do the
“beast—with-two-backs” in a Kalgoorlie brothel.
At times, this design is used to comic effect (as
in the above-mentioned birds-and—bees scene
which takes place amidst the minimalist but
over-designed “nowness” ofthe wealthy Bollinger
living room), at others to pure aesthetic effect (as
when the boys pull up to an outback gas station
where the bowsers, the corrugated iron, the red
earth and the Shell logo all add up to an image
somewhere between a Russell Drysdale pai[...]ojo petrol advertisement).

Whateverthe intention at any given moment,
the visual style of the film is joyous and atten-
tion-holding throughout[...]ques-
tion, “What for’?", because it is easy to dismiss
this ultimately lightweight adventure as a post-
modern exercise of the most superficial kind: all
pastiche and no perspective. And while the film
is enjoyable enough, one can't help but wonder
why it was made (then again, one occasionally
reminds[...]ance, is necessarily interesting: a
single mother at a time when to be such was
relatively uncommon; determined to seek a ca-
reer at a time when to do such was relatively
unusual; sexually active when to be so was to
risk the wrath of the moralists.

Of course, what Gwen represents is very
probably not so much a departure from the
reality of the female experience in the 19505 as
it is a departure from the televisual and filmic
representation of that experience. This applies
equally to other elements in the film — such as

the admission of the existence of prostitution,
and the presence of migrants as both integrated
and non—integrated members of the community
—and might be reason enough to conjecture that
Eifick has actually dressed a fairly sophisticated
revisionary agenda in the clothes of lightweight
entertainment.

in the unlikely event that that is the case, the
question of veracity arises. Robert Drewe noted
in his Who Weekly review that anyone who
actually grew up in Perth in the 1950s may
quibble with some of the details of Elfick’s film.
Being a child of the 1970s, I am in no position to
comment upon whether or not the film gets this
right. I can only note that Elfick’s vision of the
1950s as a time and a culture on the brink of a
consumer and sexual revolution seems to ar-
ticulate what so many of the teen and rock-and-
roll films of the era could only intimate. It is as if
Love in Limbo were a 1950s film that had some-
how been allowed to break the code of silence
that surrounded those areas that[...]ewis biopic, Great
Balls of Fire! (1989), and — to stretch a point —
David Lynch's Blue Velvet(1986). But with nei-
ther the intrinsic biographical interest of the
former nor the graphic subterranean nastiness
of the latter, Love in Limbo can’t quite break out
of the never—never land of accurate, but fairly
pointl[...]for 400
years? What would you learn? And what

of the mysteries of gender, death and history?
These are the types of questions that Sally
Potter, the director of Orlando, is interested in.
The novel by Virginia Woolf (upon which this film
is[...]it does deal with such ques-
tions, is not quite the sort of book that would give
satisfactory or authoritative answers to these.
Indeed, the tensions that are generated be-
tween book and sc[...].

Woolf’s novel, it must be said, was intended
to be an exploration of androgyny, of ambiguous
or shifting persona within a personality. (In thethe idea of the double in the
films of Tarkovsky.) The novel was supposed to
provide a portrait of Vita Sackville-West. Though
Woolf had set herself the serious objective of
transforming “biography” as a genre, the novel
was also intended to give her some fun, to
satirize, in a good—humoured way, the self-im-
portance and pomposity of the male sex, of
men’s alleged preoccupation with facts, logic,
evidence and the cold light of reason — all of
which, it seems,[...](It is a pity that distinctions which would
seem to be commonsensical were not drawn
between the life of a single person and the lives
of many others who cannot be encapsulated in
stereotype, oversimplification or caricature.)

The major problem for Potter, one would
think, in adapting the novel to the screen is the
claim that this may well be one of Woolf’s most
superficial books — a claim that is reinforced by
the fact that it was preceded by two master-
pieces, Mrs Da/loway and To the Lighthouse,
and succeeded by two not inconsiderable works,
The Waves and Between the Acts. And the film
itself may be open to just the same sort of
criticism. But more of this later.

The plot is intriguing. Orlando (Tilda Swinton)
is, f[...]ies. As a man, he is given property by
a queen on the condition that he never
“withers” or grows ol[...]ugh not nearly
as successfully as Orlando does in the novel, is
sent to Asia as an ambassador, is wooed by a
smitten arch[...]else? — transmogrifies into a
woman and returns to merry England where he
becomes a victim of salon[...]-
ing quite a deal of possessions and discovering
the importance of self, soul and an overriding
sense of individual resolve.

The film is cunningly structured in accord
with one of the most memorable of Elizabethan
metaphors, the Seven Ages of Man. The first
age is called “Death" and, not surprising[...]ough Orlando becomes a man of
property and means. The second age is called
“Love”, and again there[...]. Shakespeare’s Othello
is glimpsed and clearly the killing of Desdemona
is intended to foreshadow the recurrent motif of
“withering” and the mutability of a way of life.
(This point is reinforced vividly in the image of a
dead woman with a basket of fruit frozen be-
neath a transparent layer of ice.) The title of this
section is also ironic since one of the salient
symmetries is introduced here: the treachery of
both the male and the female.

From love, Orlando proceeds to dabble in
poetry and diplomacy in the next two sections,
called "Poetry" and “Politics”. But public life
cannot assuage the pain of failed love and con-
stant solitude, so, before the re-entry into soci-
ety and the emergence of the fifth age, a
sea—change occurs. Unfortunately,[...]us
as men but no less unhappy or unfulfilled.

In the sixth age, “Sex”, despite the film's
insistence on the point that masculine and femi-
nine are just diff[...]umber of
differences are in fact suggested. Here, the
masculine is unfettered, attractive as well as
re[...]h abstract notions
such as “liberty” and with the pursuit of grand
universals, whereas the feminine is concerned
with personal identity and the unities of the self.

In the final age, “Birth”, Orlando is left with a
child and her progression, if that is what it is
supposed to be, is codified in a text which is a
product ofthe ‘heart’ ratherthan, one presumes,
a product of the mind. But this text is also
something that emerge[...]ureslives thathavesurpassedthetumultuous
world of the great wars. We must, it seems,
imagine this Sisyphus happy.

Overall, the film is both intriguing and attrac-
tive. Admittedly, the view of marriage which it
betrays towards the end is somewhat simplistic
and wilful, and not quite as fair-minded as the
view in the novel is. The humourof the book, too,
has not translated particularly well, the sharp-
ness of Woolf’s satirical thrusts against the writ-
ing of biography through her appropr[...]

ORLANDO Directed by Sally Potter[...]Laurie Borg.
Scriptwriter: Sally Potter. Based on the book by Vir-
ginia Woolf. Directorof photography:[...]ndo), Billy Zane
(shelmerdine), Lothaire Bluteau (The Khan), John
Wood (Archduke Harry), Charlotte Vala[...](Nick/publisher), Quentin Crisp
(Queen Elizabeth I), Peter Eyre (Mr Pope), Thom
Hoffman (William of[...]lm-Mikado
Film-Rio Film-Sigma co-production, with the partici-
pation of British Screen. Australian dis[...]ANT MALERNIK IN 1953 (LEON TEAGUE). DAVID PERRY'S THE REFRACTING GLASSES.

46 . CINEMA PAPERS 94

THE REFRACTING GLASSES

ANNA DZENIS

I really started to get interested in making films
when, would you believe it, i saw Ken G. Hall
making Smithy in 1946. In some la[...]giant 35mm camera and people with
yellow make up. I was like a boy watching over
the fence and l was fascinated. The other thing
that happened round the same time was I went
to pick up my young sister at a birthday party and
the parents were showing the little kids Ballet
me’-canique[1924] by Ferdina[...]ause
these kids were always interested in ballet. The
fact that I was drawn to these two differentthings
may explain the way my work has always gone.
— David Perry‘

Through the same act by which he spins lan-
guage out of hims[...]into it,
and every language draws a circle around the
people to which it belongs, a circle that can only
be transcended in so far as one at the same time
enters another one.

— Wilhelm Von Hu[...]rtist-
filmmaker David Perry, a leading figure in the
vanguard of Australian experimental film pro-
duction.

A visual and aural diary, The Refracting
G/asses is woven around the meditations and
journeys of the fictional character-artist—film-
maker, Constan[...]ue) begins his creative
working life in Sydney in the early
1950s. Like most artists, he is
obsessed by many things. He is
particularly compelled bythe art
of the early 20th Century and of
the Bolsheviks.

These fascinations motivate
and even[...]rsonal and creative life: Con-
stant’s quest is to understand
the complex and difficult rela-
tionship that exists[...]etics and politics. Indeed,
his character becomes the em-
bodiment of that dilemma. But
the more he interrogates his
motives and purpose, the less
he understands. He travels to
New York to view early cubist
paintings that he really admires,
and later to Russia, the penulti-
mate pilgrimage in search of his
heroes — the artists of the Flus-
sian Flevo|ution—onlyto be dev-
astated by the contemporary
social decay of this once great
revolutionary culture. Though his
art leads him to politics, his trav-
els lead him from revolutionary
romanticism, perhaps even en-
lightenment, to revolutionary dis-
illusionment.

To construct his argument,
Perry plundered his own life, art

and artistic concerns as subject matter for the
film. in fact, Perry's own compelling portraits of
the Bolsheviks, which are featured throughout
the film, are what the film was initially based on.
Perry also plays the mature Malernik and pro-
vides the reflective and inquiring voice of his
character.

Despite the complexity of the story and is-
sues involved, Perry is not without[...]d it has
been suggested that all his paintings of the
Bolsheviks also look like him. On the other hand,
this is really atthe heart of the film. To the extent
that these elements are present the film can be
said to be autobiographical. What becomes ap-
parent in its telling, however, is that the idea of
the centred subject and, by implication, the self
of autobiography, is increasingly thrown into
question — refracted, one could say —just as the
complex relationship between art and politics in
the late 20th Centuryfinally collapses into ques-
tio[...].

These concerns are most clearly articulated
in the form of a dialogue. The fiction of Constant
Malernik confronts the fact of David Perry with
questions about artistic[...]ical poetics. Constant himself
vacillates between the voice of the pragmatist
searching for tangible answers to his artistic
questions, and the voice of the philosopher who
is entertained by the arguments and enjoys the
quest. There are also other voices. There is the
Voice of God (Taylor Owens) whom Perry has
likened to the Australian film industry.3 This is a
female voice[...]ntinually challenges Malernik: “Who cares
about the Bolsheviks?”, she says; “People just
want a good story.” There is also the voice of her
producer, who curtails the debate and just wants
to hurry these people along. As Constant
searches and quests to know, he encounters
others with experiences and longings to re-
count. Voices multiply, intersect, support and
contradict each other.

The richest, most poetic, densely—allusive
site of refraction lie in the fascinating and com-
plex images. The film is a collage of forms and
styles. Photograph[...]ng, commenting and providing
ironic counterpoints to each other. These im-
ages, forms and examples ar[...]reens writing texts that have just
been spoken or the questions that are being
asked; the artist with his camera; the projector
with its light beaming at us afterthe film has run
through. Many of these surfaces are further
overlaid with the play of light and shadow, of
wind-blown leaves and branches, flickering, os-
cillating like the cinematic apparatus itself.

in part, the film is a homage to these beloved
objects — the materials of creation — and their
admired creators. These are the sources of
inspiration and meaning, the beginning of the

Just as Cubism[...],
and Russian Constructivism was characterized
by the linking together of disparate elements,
Refractin[...]hese revolutionary art movements
are so essential to Malernik’s vision, his sense
of self, they are also about the dissolution of self,
of meaning no longer being c[...]nik’s (and
Perry's) dilemma, therefore, becomes the prob-
lem of the subject: that is, how is the artist to
reconcile subjective artistic vision within a pol[...]st, searching forthreads,
links, patterns, pieces to the puzzles he has
created, increasingly his obsessions, the ob-
jects of his attention, the sources of his interro-
gations, his encounters, become further
complicated.

Exactly half way through the film, Malernik is
on a train, a young man with a movie camera. It
is 1953. He is intrigued by the significance ofthis
date. Malernik reflects thatthis is the year “Stalin
died. Tatlln died [and] Picasso did a very bad
portrait of Stalin.” Through the train window we
see flickering images from the past. Any journey
inevitably involves one in the crossing of bounda-
ries. On this train he meets a man, like himself,
who never existed. He meets the subject of the
infamous literary hoax: Ern Malley (lain
Gardiner[...]ter they considered crude
and uneducated, who was to have left school at
fifteen and someone whom they believed could
neve[...]ered so scandalous, is now seen by
some as one of the first moments of post-mod-
ernist practice.

On t[...]is given a figure, a face and a voice.
He speaks to Malernik. He recites his poems.
Once again, there[...]us tension between
fact and fiction. Perry claims to feel a strong
sense of identification with this n[...]lly trained artist. (Perry apparently left school
at fifteen.)

However, there is something even more im-

portant about Ern MalIey’s presence. The fact
that Perry brings to life something that was only
ever imagined or dreamed about is a testament
to the power of the wsthetic-creative act. Perry
paid $10,000 to Pavel Kyral, a Czech animator
living in Sydney, to animate Tatlin’s Monument
to. the Third international into being. This mas-
sive in[...]sequence, Tatlin’s man-
powered flying machine, the Letatlin, is also
animated into life, flying across the frames of
celluloid, bringing into reality a long[...].
These are some ofthe most wondrous sequences
in the film — the poetic transcendence of artistic
endeavour. The impossible becomes possible.

But something else changes when Malernik
and Lydia (Lydia Fegan) travel to Russia. For
Constant, this is a journey from the artefact to
theThe style changes
from the poetic to the diaristic, and we begin to
watch something reminiscent of a personal trav-
elogue. For a while the story even becomes
Lydia’s as she spends time w[...]hin a community, within a
history. When Lydia has to return to Australia,
leaving Malernik alone in Russia, the story be-
comes his once more. Only now he seems to
have lost his way. He drives through Russian
stre[...]longer
exists, or maybe never existed. He visits the site
of his imaginary construction of Tatlin’s monu-
ment to the Third International. He has become
a mute in a de[...]some-
thing he seems no longer certain of.

Among the last images of the film, we see
Malernik standing next to a Russian boy who
offers him a cake. He seems lost. The words he
speaks are of the beliefs and commitments of
others,almost as ifhis[...]i||a‘s passion forfairness and equality, and
of the kindness and warmth of Lydia’s [Russian]
family in spite of all the difficulties.

This is a subtle, humble ending to a film of
true inventiveness, of breadth of style[...]g grown out of
images, ratherthan text. And it is the power and
poetry of these images that remain with the
viewer, while eagerly awaiting David Perry's
next[...]dorno, Prisms.
3 Cantri//'s Filmnotes, No. 69/70

THE REFRACTING GLASSES Directed by David
Perry. Produ[...]mas (Constant
Malernik as a child), Taylor Owyns (The Voice of

God), Lydia Fegan (Lydia), Alla Karihal[...]1993.

RICH IN LOVE

GREG KERR

narrative preface at the beginning of Rich in
ALove points toacontemporary[...]draws its main characters into cathartic
change. The film itself, by Australian director
Bruce Beresfo[...]ow for-
mula—offering that has been shunted off the
same Hollywood production wagon responsible
for D[...]89). Despite a few
redeeming qualities, mostly in the acting depart-
ment, it appears short on passion and inspira-
tion, and big on predictability.

Based on the novel byJosephine Humphreys,
the film traipses its way through a crisis in the
Odom family, whose home is set on the water-
front in South Carolina. It begins interes[...]Albert Finney), arriving home from a fishing trip
to find Helen (Jill Clayburgh), his wife of 27
years, gone. A note signed by her has been
intercepted by the pair's teenage daughter,
Lucille (Kathryn Erbe), re-written, then handed
to her father. The viewer has reason to believe
the road ahead will be an eventful one as Warren
enlists Lucille on a series of whim-driven
searches for the wife.

The early tension slackens, however, as
Warren resigns himself to his loss and retreats
into a type of nostalgic sleepwalk, oblivious of
the fact that Lucille has made major sacrifices to
help him. What we are left with is a story that
focuses on the complexities of relationships
where, forthe first time in his life, the patriarchal
Warren is forced to look at his young daughter
(and, later on, an older daugh[...]ren’s transition from self—satisfied husband to
gormless brooderthen, ultimately, new—age man
o[...]nded ofthe highly-esteemed Finney.
Forone, he had to swap his classic Shakespear-
ean inflection for t[...]awl, which, after a time, becomes an impedi-
ment to meaningful emotional exchange be-
tween himself a[...]her years.
In fact, Finney and Erbe barely manage to hold
the picture together until the much—needed ar-
rival of an older daughter, Rae[...]Billy McQueen (Kyle
MacLachlan), about a third of the way through.

The screenplay by Alfred Uhry (who won an
Academy Awa[...]re-
hashes a thing or two about relationships and
the fragility ofthe human condition, but does not
conjure up enough dramatic tonic to make this
fairly commonplace family dilemma as riveting
as it might have been. Even with the arrival of
new, essentially-disparate char[...]

The tone of the film remains fairly subdued,
except for a few mom[...]it's gone and
you're a blank page”, says Warren at one point.

In style and content, the picture bears simi-
larities to Carl Schu|tz’s Australian drama Trav-
elling North (1987), which portrays the
relationship between an elderly man (Leo
McKern) and a younger divorcee (Julia Blake).
Both films are set on the waterfront and deal
intrinsically with the fabric of emotional ties, but,
for mine, Travelli[...]fully
observed simplicity, forges far deeper into the
realm offading hope, mortality, and the inherent
restlessness and tenacity of the human spirit.

The oddly-titled Rich in Love rolls along with
a kind[...]might say,
does life — without really attaining the sense of
catharsis to which it constantly alludes. It would
be reasonable to expect this moment has ar-
rived when the passive, pasty—looking Helen
surfaces forthe firsttime more than an hour into
the piece. Yet, for all the build—up, Helen’s return
is so anti-climacticthat it would have been better
to leave Jill C|ayburgh’s part on the cutting room
floor. (Clayburgh’s character is n[...]er, in one breath,
stating that “We [Warren and I] drew love to its
conclusion", and in another, “That’s why I love
him”.)

Clayburgh is merely a token piece in a cast
that has too little demanded of it. Suzy Amis is
the only performerwhofills hercharacter’s shoes
with real depth and substance as the pregnant
and temperamental Rae.

Trueto Josephine[...]a where rambling
houses, big trees and water fill the canvas, but
are inconsequential props on the screen. The
film could have done more to capture the es-
sence of its locale in greater depth as both[...]PAPERS 94

counterpoint and a contributing agent to the
drama, in the way Paul Schrader’s culturally
surreal New Orleans reflects the innerturmoil of
the characters in Cat People (1982).

Beresford’s r[...]y pleasing eye,
but he and his director are prone to framing
bridges and tankers passing across the offing,
as if to remind the viewer that this movie is
supposed to be about impending change and
new directions.

Despite being able to resist some visual
references to his homeland, Beresford’s strong
narrative stamp is conspicuously absent, which
to many observers would be a disappointment
after the tautness of his work on Black Ffobe
(1992) and Dr[...], Rhody Poole (Alfre Woodard),
whose contribution to the story is effectively
zero.

The incidental score by the late Georges
Delerue is easy to listen to and serves as an
appropriately benign backdrop, b[...]ement (such as “We Been
Loving You Too Long" in the nightclub scene).

Fiich in Love is good to look at and easy to
listen to, but fails to lift the spirit or mind. If it is
remembered for anything at all, it should be the
following (now very fashionable) epilogue: “A
chapter of ordinariness out of the book of life.”

RICH IN LOVE Directed by Bruce[...]Gary Daigler. Scriptwriter: Alfred
Uhry. Based on the novel by Josephine Humphreys.
Director of photogr[...]Cup races,
L and on a book, Comeback: My Race for the
America's Cup, by former America’s Cup cap-
tain Dennis Conner, Windexplores the theme of
winning and losing, using the emotional tug-of-
war between career and love as parallel narra-
tives.

Wind charts the course of a young American
skipper, Will Parker ([...]with sailing
partner, Kate Bass (Jennifer Grey), to pursue his
ambition to win the America’s Cup.

The film is divided into several chapters,
each a self—contained fable complete with moral.
At the beginning, Kate, an aggressive career-
minded woman, forsakes her career to follow
Will, who is singled out by mentor Morgan Weld
(Cliff Robertson) to skipper the trial horse in
preparation for the America’s Cup challenge.
This situation makes comment about the nature
of "conditional love”—while Kate has ‘conceded’
to help Will achieve his dream, it is not without
‘payment’ — Kate is to be included on the old boy
team.

Although Kate is aware that Will is being
baptized into the ‘‘world's oldest boys’ club”, she
is confident he will not succumb to the system.
Her cockiness and confidence is shattered[...]fessional
and emotional threat — she challenges the old
boy system with her sailing prowess, and she
puts an emotional wedge between Will and the
boys. Will is informed by one of the syndicate
men that it is unprofessional to include his girl-
friend as crew, but his argumen[...]that he has been
appointed starting tactician on the defence. The
scene) highlights the double standards: on one
hand, Will views Kate’[...]ng gesture of her love and devotion, but is
quick to ditch this view when his career is on the
line. Kate learns how selfish and weak—willed
Will is; embittered by this new knowledge, she
leaves Will to start a new life.

In the second chapter of the film, a parallel is
made between losing in love ([...]a mark during an
America's Cup final which costs the American
syndicate the race. Up till now, Will has been
very confident of success. He is humiliated by
the loss, and learns that one must pay a price for
every action, in his case the loss is double-
edged — all his training and efforts have not paid
off, and in the process he has sacrificed his love.
Like Kate, he finds himself no longer needed by
the syndicate and, depressed, embarks on a
journey to find her.

The key difference between the first and
second chapters is the observation made about
Kate and Will. Kate is perceived as the stronger,
more aggressive and survival-oriented of the
two, while Will is seen as being more passive
and unconfident. in many respects, he sheds
Kate to prove his manhood and show his inde-

In the third chapter, Will learns how inde-
pendent Kate is, which only makes him more
determined to woo her back. Kate and her new
love interest, Joe Heiser (Stellan Skarsgard),
test gliders at an isolated airfield. Like Will, Kate
has thrown[...]ery successful. She has become aloof
and resigned to her life until Will reappears. Will
and Joe discuss plans to win backthe Cup. Kate
initially greets the idea with scepticism and hos-
tility, but Will’s change of attitude coaxes her on
side. in this chapter, the parallels between love
and career continue. Will is faced with a dual
task: to win back his love and to regain the Cup.
But in order to do this he must not compromise
his principles; his love of sailing and his desire to
win must not dominate and usurp his life.

To succeed he has to battle with the estab-
lishment. Faced with lack of funds and a d[...]e and Joe, but earns her stripes with her gift
of the gab and her contacts. Abigail is caught
between being won over by Will’s determination
and the lure of taking the Cup and finally proving
to her father her worth. The film raises some
cliched but often true viewpoint[...],
greed causes downfall, never let pride stand in
the way of apology, and, the old chestnut, love
conquers all.

Salvaged by som[...]ing se-
quences, Wind is an overly ambitious look at
one of the worlds most expensive sports and
the price individuals pay to win the America's
Cup. Its portrayal of the Australian competition
as (pardon the image) sinking below the belt to
win the Cup is sure to offend some Aussie
patriots. The schmaltzy
ending undercuts the
film’s cynical commen-
tary about the nature of
the sport and its effect
on relationships, liken-
ing the film to a Mills &
Boon romance setonthe
high seas.

WIND[...]W NIODINEJ AND KATE BASS (JENNIFER
GREY). CARROLL I!ALLARD’S WIND.

The 42nd Melbourne International Film Festival
wishes to thank its supporters, sponsors and audiences

for[...]ic. Branch)
Bennetts Lane Q Brown Brothers Wines

The Melbourne office
Cathay Pacific 0 Cha Chas Bar& R[...]tralia
Cinevex r2 Coles MyerPty. Ltd. a CSIRO or Hertz I03
Holding Redlich [2 Kingsgrove Apartments 0 KinoCinemas I
Kodak Q Lemac G LinkTe|ecommunicalions Q Lumiére[...]ndon Street
South Melbourne, Vic 3205
PO Box 404

Phone: (03) 279 3400
Toll Free: (008) 33 8430
Fa[...]

ou know you are in Hong Kong when the
pre-screening slidestellaudiencestoturn
off their pagers and mobile telephones.
Not that they do and the incessant beep-
ing precludes snoozing during movies. Still, that
is about the only reminder at the festival of the
commercial hustle and bustle that is Hong Kong.

Now in its seventeenth year, the Hong Kong
international Film Festival is not only the most
important festival in our region but also a[...]nt. It is not just a collection of pre-
views for the art—house circuit.

The international round—up and American
independent film sections of the Festival would
have been of great interest to local festival-
goers because Hong Kong does not have a
developed art-house circuit and this might well
be the audience’s only chance to see these
films. However, from an Australian poin[...]these films have already screened here,
and it is the Asian cinema section of the Festival
that usually holds the greatest interest, as many
new films get shown here first.

Unfortunately, few of the major Asian direc-
tors had any new works at Hong Kong this year.

Zhang Yimou, Hou Hsiao-Hsie[...]awaited
epic about Beijing opera actors, Farewell to My
Concubine (Bawang Bel J1), had to be excluded
because Cannes Festival rules forbid prior
screenings at other festivals, even though the
film had already had a successful release in
Hong[...]ere many competent butfew outstanding Asian
films at Hong Kong this year.

The one major exception was Malaysian-
born Taiwanese director Tsai Ming—Liang's
Rebels of the Neon God (Ching Shao Nien Na
Cha), a film about juvenile delinquency and
urban anomie set in the grunge of modern-day
Taipei. The main character, Hsiao Kang, is a
teenager bored with cramming schools and com-
ing home to dinner with his parents. He becomes
fascinated with an older youth, Ah Tze, a petty
thief who steals from phone boxes to fuel his
video game habit, after Ah Tze smashes Kang’s
father’s taxi. To his parents uncomprehending

’fury and d[...]

As intriguing as the ambiguous narrative is
Tsai’s closely-observed detailing of the lives of
these marginal people in modern Taipei, from
the video parlours and street stalls they hang out
at to Ah Tze’s apartment. The latter is ankle-
deep in drain water that comes and goes at the
will ofthe wayward plumbing. When Hsiao Kang
smas[...]e, Ah
Tze accepts bad luck, picks his way through the
sodden debris and gets on with life.

No other Asian film displayed the same sure
feel for quiet observation of telling visual detail,
and the local critics agreed that this is the Asian
find of the year. Apparently, Flebels ofthe Neon
Godwas declined by the Melbourne Film Festi-
val on the grounds that it is too difficult for local
audien[...]heavily dependent on
dialogue and drama, lacking the visual style and
innovation of Flebels of the Neon God. From
Taiwan was The Wedding Banquet, which had
already shared the Golden Lion as Berlin in
February, and was this year’s closing film at
Hong Kong. Heralded as a crowd-pleasing com-
edy,[...]ial taboos because it deals with homosexu-
ality. The main character lives in New York with
his Caucasian lover. When he helps out a friend
by agreeing to a passport marriage, his family
travels from Taipei for the momentous event,
and much farce ensues.

The Wedding Banquefshared the Berlin prize
with Oi/maker’s Family (Xiang Hun Nu, Xie Fei)
from the People’s Republic. This was widely
considered a diplomatic award. The film is a
competent melodrama about the life of a woman
entrepreneur caught between the feudal values
she was brought up with, and which oppress her
in her personal life, and the modern world of the
burgeoning Chinese marketplace. The film of-
fers insight into contemporary Chinese l[...]performance from
Mongolian actress Siqin Gaowa in the main role.

However, while director Xie Fei’s w[...]teresting, except when
he steals shamelessly from the work of his
former students at the Beijing Film Academy,
including a wedding scene l[...]mou’s Ffed Sorghum, hand-held shots
from inside the red bridal sedan and all. Perhaps
it is not surprising that the Hong Kong organizers
decided to run the film in the regular screenings
and not feature it, despite the Berlin award.

Oilmaker’s Family reveals just how much the
cinema of the People's Republic is suffering
after its heyday in the 1980s. Now it is being
squeezed from both sides by the demands of the

box-office in an ever more commercial economy
and by the post—Tiananmen censor.

The opening film, woman director Ning Ying’s
second[...]budget and a totally innocuous storyline
designed to keep the censor happy.

The slick opportunism of Huang Jianxin’s
tenement c[...]can overcome all political differences,
appealed to Hong Kong audiences apprehen-
sive about 1997, wh[...]as abitter disappoint-
mentto those who remember the radical expres-
sionist style and biting politica[...]with
their respective themes of homosexuality and
the lives of mainland Chinese students in Japan,
but a tele—feature look and sentimentalism un-
dermine the interesting material. Also from Ja-
pan, l’ve Heard the Ammonite Murmur
(Ammonaifo No Sasayaki Wo Kira, lsao Yamada)
is a beautiful to look at fantasy about a brother-
sister relationship bordering on incest, but it
doesn't have the brittle edge and hidden depths

of the similarly-themed March Comes in Like a
Lion of tw[...]but we all know that is no
guarantee of quality. The government—sponsored
Equatorial Trilogy: Procession (Arak Araken,
Teguh Karya) from Indonesia and the Japa-
nese-Indonesian—Thai—Philippine portman[...]Shoji Kokami),
were predictably line-toeing, with the exception
of Mike de Leon's excellent fantasy satire in the
latter about The Philippine Ministry of Entertain-
ment’s search for something new to sell. After
going through schoolteachers who enli[...]ll-
dancing crucifixion,theydeterminethe onething
Theto make a long,
long historical epic. However, where Hou and
Yang chose topics sensitive today, Wang has
chosen the brutal treatment of miners by the
Japanese during the 1930s, something the
present government feels completely comfort-
able[...]ters of sub-
tle observation, Wang’s film tends to endless

I'VE HEARD THE AMMONITE MURMUR
(AMMONAITO NO SASAYAKI W0[...]

soap op[...](Woorideu/—ui /lgreojin Young-Woong) as-
pires to radicalism with a story about tyranny
and the difficulties of democracy and the rule of
the law in a high school. However, by setting the
film in the 1950s and depending upon the au-
thority of a new teacher to resolve the situation,
Park’s admittedly well—made and acted melo-
drama hardly represents a challenge to present-
day Korea.

in these Circumstances, one turns to the
ever-dependable, energetic and lively cinema of
Hong Kong to save the day, and save the day it
did. However, it must be noted that the best of
this years films may not play very well w[...]as
they depend heavily on pastiche and references
to past Cantonese cinema. What local critic and
film festival organizer Li Cheuk-to has noted as
a post-modern tendency has been building for a
couple of years now.

The most accessible films in the tendency
stem from a return to the martial—arts genres and
swordplay of the 1950s and '60s. Classic direc-
tor Tsui Hark continues his successful revival of
the late 19th century hero Wong Fei—Hung with
Once[...]ong
zhisan shiwang zhengba), which marks a return
to straight martial—arts films likely to appeal to
foreign audiences despite the nationalistictheme.
Swordsman ll (Xiao aojianghu ll Dongfangbubai,
Ching Siu-tung) and Swordsman III — The East
is Fied (Dongfangbubai fengyun zai qi, Ching
Siu-tung, Raymond Lee) mark a return to an-
other type of martial arts, inflected this ti[...]elights local audiences but
may seem unconvincing to the sceptical and
literal imagination.

52 - CINEMA PAPERS 94

However, the big hit of this year from Hong
Kong with audiences and critics alike is liable to
elude foreign audiences altogether. As its strang[...]relentless comedy-
action pastiche dependent upon the audiences
knowledge of Cantonese cinema history.[...]e popu.-
lar. A contemporary writer uses her name to sign
a note when she and her housewife friend acci-
dentally witness some gangland murders. On
the run, theytake refuge in a house populated by
figures from Cantonese B-movies of the ’60s,
including La Rose Noire herself. The result had
regular audiences rolling in the aisles from Sin-
gapore to Kowloon and Taipei, and local intel-
lectuals penning essays on post-modern Hong
Kong, but it is likely to be lost on Australian
audiences.

lfthe Asian features were rathera mixed bag,
the documentaries were better. Australia's Senso
Daughters and Mrs Hegarty Comes to Japan by
Sekiguchi Noriko went down a treat, and Noriko
was surrounded by crowds of eager questloners
after the screenings.

Appropriately in the year of the Festival's
tribute to the great Japanese documentarian,
Shinsuki Ogawa, who died in 1992, Living on the
Ftiver Agano (Aga nilkiru, Satoh Makoto) takes
up Ogawa’s baton with excellent results. Like
Ogawa, the filmmakers went to live with their
subjects, and, as in Ogawa’s films, the subjects
are plagued by social ills, in this case Minamata
disease as the result of mercury poisoning. The
power ofthe film comes from the fact that it does
notfocus so heavily on the disease and the
locals’ efforts to fight for compensation as it
does on how they go[...]ached byfollowing Ogawa’stechnique
of living in the community, andi is the complete
antithesis to the conventional requirements of
documentary objectivity. The resultantfilm seems
slow at first, but rapidly becomes engrossing,
moving and totally compelling viewing.

As well as Living on the Ffiver/lgano and the
tribute to Ogawa — composed of Narita: Peas-
ants of Secon[...]Village
(Sanrizuka — Hera Buraka, 1973), A Song at the
Bottom (Dokkoi Ningen—Bushi/Kotobuki-Jiyu
Fiodosha no Machi, 1975) and, longest of them
all, The Tale of Magino Vi//age: Sun Dial of a
Thousand Ye[...]l filmmaking in China has been com-
pletely under the control of the State. However,
the advent of the video camera has made inde-
pendents possi[...]

THE WEDDING EANOUET, ANG LEE.

through private screenings only, since most of
their films are not cleared by the Chinese cen-
sor. The results are often crude but fascinating.

The earliest of these documentaries began
to appeara year ortwo ago, with Wu Wenguang‘s
Bumming in Beijing , a lengthy work about the
lives of marginal artists and other members of
the counter-culture in mainland China. Wu’s
most recent work, shown this year at Hong
Kong, was 1966: My Time in the Red
Guards ( 1966: W0 de hongweibing shidai).
Now middle-aged businessmen and doc-
tors, these are the kids who followed Mao’s
calls to rebel against the elders and cre-
ated chaos throughout the country. Wu’s
interviews contain many fascinating de-
tails, and the clips from fanatical Mao-
worshipping documentari[...]some ofthe
repetition from one interview subject to
another.

More satisfactory are I Graduated! ( W0
biye /e, The Structure, Wave, Youth, Cin-
ema Experimental Group) and The Sacred
Site for Asceticism (mChims-phu, Wen
Pulin, Duan Jinchuan). The former con-
sists of smuggled interviews with stu[...]niversities. They are asked about their
attitudes to love and life at university, be-
fore campus officials intervene c[...]mission and