Cinema Papers no. 96 December 1993 (2025)

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DECEMBER 1993 N0. 95

COST.

It costs less in Queensland. Interested? _

Contact: PACIFI[...]

CONTENTS

2 BRIEFLY
4, FILM IN QUEENSLAND: AN OVERVIEW

BRUCE MOLLOY

10 ‘ROUG[...]NDREW L. URBAN

COVER: MAIIENA ¢:onEcIrI=As NEII IN TR: 16 DIRECTOR, FILM QUEENSLAND
ronmcouinis TI[...]T CUNNINGHAM AND LIZ JACKA

Raffaele Caputo
28 ‘THE PENAL COLONY’
T E ° " " ' ° ‘ L 5 ° ' T °[...]ich. Solicitors
PETER MALONE. RUSSELL EDWARDS
A D V E R T I s I N 0

Contact Patricia Amad 46
sUB5[...]Raffaele Caputg KARI. QUINN

CRUSH PAT GILLESPIE
THE NOSTRADAMUS KID KARL QUINN
THIS WON'T HURTA BIT![...]urray, Philippe Mora

D E S I G N
'3” Rubens“ THE WEDDING BANQUET CHRIS BERRY
DISK PROCESSING 53 BOOK REVIEWS
W“°“‘V°° THE FILMS OF wooov ALLEN REVIEWED BY ANNA DZENIS
P II IN TIN a LITERATURE ’FIIM QUARTERLY: THE AusTRALIAN CINEMA REVIEWED BY JOE STEFANOS
Jenkin SW0" SONDHEIM; SONDHEIM & co AND ART ISN'T EASY: THE THEATER OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM
D . 5 7 R . 3 I, I .[...]is PUBLISHED 80

WITH FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM THE
AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION
AND FILM VICTORIA

CONTRIBUTORS

'3‘ °°PyR'G"T 1993 CHRIS BERRY is a Lectuer in Cinema Studies at LaTrobe University, Melbourne:[...]G LIMITED A.c.N. 006 258 699

_ . Senior Lecturer in Communications at Queensland University of Technology; ANNA DZENIS is a tutor in Cinema
Signed articles represent the views of the authors

and not necessamy that 0, me Edna, and p[...]DWARDS is a freelance writer; RICHARD FRANKLIN is the director
While every care is WW“ Wm‘ "‘a""5[...]'"ag“I"e' ”°""e' me “'“"°' LIZ JACKA is the author of several books on Australian film and te[...]e W I5 9' can_accep_ '8 Hy 0' any 0“ or living In San Francisco; CHRIS LONG is a Melbourne film his[...]se. This magazine may not be ‘ _ ' ‘
mpmduced In whole 0, D3,, without me exmess Review‘; IRIAN MCFARLANE is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Monash University; BRUCE MOLLOY is
permission of the copyright owners. Cinema Papersis Professor and H[...]IaP°'°"""a""” eve" ”’° "‘°“"‘5 “V writer on film; PETER M. SCHEMBRI is a freelance[...]TEFANOS is a freelance writer; ANDREW L. URBAN is the

MTV Puwshmg Lmmed' 43 Charles sheet A st al‘an[...]255 into English; RAYMOND YOUNIS is a lecturer at the University of Sydney and a passionate love[...]

Dear Editor

I am somewhat puzzled by aspects of the review
by Jennings and Hollinsworth (Cinema Papers,
No.94, p. 55-7) of Marcia Langton’s We//, /heard
it on the radio and I saw it on the television...
(Australian Film Commission, Sydney, 1993).

The charge that Langton “seriously overreaches
hers[...]mplies that she is way out of her
depth) is based in part on “her claim that there is no
sizeable bo[...]a-tion of Aboriginality [which] is manifestly ill-in-
formed”. This statement is followed by a list of
writers whose work has encompassed the repre-
sentation of Aboriginality.

This is not what Langton actually states. In her
discussion on the politics of Aboriginal representa-
tion she acknowledges the work of particular writ-
ers who have produced cr[...]about Aboriginal people.” (p.
24, my emphasis). In other words, her comments
were far more specific than is implied by her
reviewers. Given that the majority of writers cited
by Hollinsworth and Jen[...]rrect to accuse
Langton of being so ill-informed. The reviewers’
remarks read as a patronizing misrepresentation
of Langton‘s intent.

Further, in Jennings’ Sites ofDifference (whose
publication by the Australian Film institute in 1993
was anticipated in the review), the author states:
“Despite a burgeoning interest in Aboriginal Stud-
ies in recent years, there have been few general
studies of the representations of Aborigines in
Australianfilms.”(p.18)This concurs with Langto[...]is apparent that there is some academic
posturing in this review which reflects poorly on the
reviewers and does little to advance the debate on
the issues under consideration.

Ian Anderson

Karen[...]an Anderson has placed such
emphasis on virtually the only reservation that
David Hollinsworth and I expressed about Marcia
Langton’s book. It was a decidedly favourable
review of a publication wh[...]spect can be construed as patronizing. But to set
the record straight: all of the writers we cited have
written significantly about[...]tary

Accord with ABC and SBS

Chief executive of the Australian Film Finance
Corporation, John Morris, announced the renewal
of agreements on the funding of Australian docu-
mentaries pre-purchase by ABC and SBS. The
agreements known in the industry as the Accord
have been in operation for two years with the ABC
and one year with SBS. Since the inception of the
Accord, more than 40 hours of television have
bee[...]ting significant
audiences and critical acclaim.

In a joint statement, ABC managing director
David Hi[...]executive Malcolm Long, and
John Morris welcomed the Accord’s renewal and
described it as essential to the maintenance of a
viable level of Australian documentary production.

“Without the Accord, local documentary pro-
duction and its vital role in recording the Australian
culture and way of life would be substantially
reduced", said the ABCs David Hill.

The new FFC-ABC Accord renews a commit-
mentfrom the FFC to provide funds for up to twenty
hours of documentary a year in 1993-94, ’94—95
and '95-96. Under the new agreement, the ABC
will provide cash pre-sales of $62,500 for bu[...]jects
with budgets between $320,001 and $350,000,
the ABC will provide either a pre-sale of $75,000
where the producer can attract a distribution guar-
antee (payable in twelve months) of $10,000, or
the ABC will provide a pre-sale of $80,000. The
FFC will provide the balance of funds in all catego-
ries. SBS’s Malcolm Long said:

The SBS-FFC Accord has allowed SBS to con-

tinue to pioneer documentary production in the

area of multiculturalism.

To date, completed Accord films have contrib-
uted to the strength of SBS programming. The
continuation of the Accord will ensure that SBS
can continue to work collaboratively with inde-
pendentdocumentary makers in developinginno-
vative, informative and entertaining television.
Under the new agreement with the FFC, SBS

will provide during 1993-94 cash pre-sales equal
to 23% of the budget for up to 10 hours of docu-
mentary with budgets upto $1 90,000. The FFC will
provide the balance of the budget.

Subjectto normal FFC marketing requirements,
the FFC will provide the balance of funds required
by ABC and SBS Accord projects.

Morris said the renewal of the Accord was a
clear indication of its success and importance to
the broadcaster, the Australian film industry and
the viewing public.

READERS POLL

To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Cinema Papers in the next issue we will be polling various

industry f[...]ms. As well, Cinema Papers invites all readers
of the magazine to submit their Top Tens for collation into the Readers’ Top Picks. Any film that
can conceivably be called Australian is eligible. The closing date is 7 January 1994.

2 - CINEMA PAPER[...]er coverage of
this year’s Cannes Film Festival in Cinema Papers
No. 94, August 1993, page 22.

00000

New Exemptions will Ii-elp
film production

The Australian Securities Commission has re-
solved c[...]tracts should be structured to avoid contravening
the Corporations Law. A new exemption is in place
that means producfers can now offer.“points” — a
share of the net profits — in films to cast and crew
without potentially having[...]prospectus and
prescribed interests provisions of the Corpora-
tions Law.

This means producers will have more flexibility
in packaging productions, while allowing creative
personnel such as scriptwriters and directors to
share in a film's success. .

The ASC issued a Class Order, which came
into effect[...]itle a
person to a share of revenues or copyright in a film
as part of their fee.

“This ruling effectively recognizes what is a com-
mon industry practice”, says FFC chief executive
John Morris. “Its a very practical decision that ends
the confusion surrounding this question. Producers
ca[...]t
of their negotiations with a minimum of fuss."

The ASC says it recognizes this form of fee
payment also acts as an incentive for creative talent
in the industry and is consistent with royalties being
the usual form of reward for literary and other creat[...]as also been made, subject to
some conditions, if the contract is with a writer forthe
acquisition of the rights in a script.

However, the exemption does not apply to
private investors. Su[...]ocumentary Conference

2-5 December

Thetheme for The Third Australian National Docu-
mentary Conference is titled “Reflecting the Fu-
ture”. Two major issues of this theme are the
governments move towards the Asia-Pacific re-
gion, and the impact of interactive multi-media on
documentary filmmaking.

Opening the Conference is The War Room,
which looks at the inner-workings of Bill C|inton’s
1992 Presidential Campaign. The WarRoom is the
latest film by seminal documentary makers D. A.
Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, who will also be
in attendance.

Other guests include major award win[...]l Documentary Film
Festival: Wu Wenguang (My Time in the Red
Guards, China), Anan Patwardhan (In the Name of
God, India), Makasato Sato (Living on the River
Agano, Japan) and Grand Prize winner[...]

Partner-

Film Queensland is committed to the development
1 and production of quality film and[...]ve range of
development, pre-production and
‘ V e.--of innovative schemes to[...]

WP '

Late last year, the Australian Film Commission reported that in
1991-2 Queensland had replaced Victoria as the second largest
producer of film and television drama in Australia.‘ Queensland’s
share of production[...]les at 37% and Victoria at 20%.
Considering that, in 1988, production in the state had been less than
$5 million and the state film agency, the Queensland Film Corpo-
ration, had been di[...]

" ' ‘ " r‘7"7"'°'s “Vwas a send—up. After I convinced him that it was in fact serious, he
recorded a long interview then told me — in the nicest way — that I
was deluding myself, and that there would never be a film industry
in Queensland. The interview ended on a spike somewhere.
What has caused this unexpected development to take place?

The short answer is the existence in Queensland of a vision for a film
industry among[...]players. This vision has been translated

fraud, the emergence of a revitalized film industry provides an int-

eresting case study in the development of a regional film industry}

The chances of the Queensland film industry reaching more than
$100 million of production in a calendar year (as it has already in
1993) seemed so remote as recently as 1991 that when I presented
a paper, “Hollywood on the Gold Coast? Towards a Regional Film
Industry”, at the Australian Communication Conference in Sydney,
The Australian sent its media reporter to interview me, expecting it

into a strategic plan for drawing the various elements of film
industry, business, cult[...]ssor and Head, School of Media and Journalism, at the
Queensland University of Technology. He is a board member of the Brisbane
International Film Festival and the Queensland Cinematheque, and a Commis-
sioner of the Pacific Film and Television Commission.

C[...]

he key players in the rejuvenated Queensland film industry

comprise the state government through its film agency Film
Queensland, a government-owned company called the Pacific Film
and Television Commission, and Warne[...]zations as Brisbane
Independent Filmmakers, Women in Film and Television, and the
Brisbane International Film Festival, as well as the film and televi-
sion committee of Arts Training[...]d various educa-
tional institutions. Analysis of the composition of the various
film—related committees and working par[...]isingly, a cross membership which is instrumental in ensur-
ing that the minor players in this filmic version ofalphabet soup are
at least aware of the overall strategic vision informing the broad
plan, even if they do not always share it.

This overview describes the operations of Film Queensland and
the Pacific Film and Television Commission, and their place within
the broader strategies for a Queensland film industry.

Difficulties inherent in applying a strategic plan to the whole of
Queensland can be appreciated when you consider that the distance
from Melbourne to Brisbane is about the same as the distance from
Brisbane to Cairns. When people living north of the Tropic of
Capricorn, like the residents of Rockhampton, Townsville, Mt Isa
and Cairns, talk of “southerners”, the reference is to those living in
southern Queensland, not those dwelling south of the Queensland
border. Colloquially, the latter are “Mexicans” or “cockroaches”.
P[...]ate identity. This parochial desire to overshadow
the southern states is a motivation not to be ignored in assessing the
drive towards a Queensland film industry.

Of course, the notion of a “Queensland film industry” is not[...]onstitutes a Queensland film industry, or whether the production
of films and television programmes rel[...]n-
going debate within local production circles.

The foundations of this overall strategy were laid in 1990 and
1991. During this period, the sunset clause in the charter of the
Queensland Film Corporation saw it replaced by the Queensland
Film Development Office in late 1988. Plans for a multi—media
complex adjacent to the Warner Roadshow Studios at Coomera
were included in the Queensland bid for the Multi—Function Polis.
When this bid, initially successful, was disqualified because the
government was unable to guarantee title of the land, Premier Goss
decided to pursue the more promising Multi—Function Polis propos-
als anyway. One of these was the Pacific Film and Television
Complex.

At about the same time, new management had taken over the
film studios built at Coomera, some fifty miles south of Brisbane, as
a result of a deal between the former National Party government
and Dino De Laurentiis. The new owners were Village Roadshow,
which then entered into partnership with Seaworld Industries and
with the Time Warner organization to form Warner Roadshow[...]AURIE MClNNES' BROKEN HIGHWAY.
Studios, To recoup the government investment it was essential to
convert the studios from white elephant to profitable business. The
Pacific Film and Television Complex was to become an important
catalyst in this process.

Film Queensland

When the discredited Queensland Film Corporation was replaced
in 1988 by the Queensland Film Development Office (QFDO), the
newly—appointed director, Michael Mitchener, was reported in The
Courier Mail as claiming that, “with proper loc[...]g”,
an annual production target of $100 million was possible? Despite
this prescience, Mitchener decided to return to Victoria in 1990, and
the QFDO project officer Richard Stewart took his place. Stewart
has presided over the revitalization of the state’s film industry ever
since. The QFDO operating budget grew from around $700,000 in
1988 to $3.25 million in 1993. The appropriate if inelegant QFDO
title was changed early in 1993 to Film Queensland, and the parallel
growth of the Pacific Film and Television Commission (PFTC)
allowed a division of responsibility between the two organizations.
Film Queensland concentrates on the development of local films
and filmmakers, while the PFTC attracts interstate and overseas
production.[...]anager of PFTC, thus ensuring some
government say in its day-to-day operations, while executive direc-
tor of the Queensland government’s Arts Division, Greg Andrews,
is a PFTC board member.

Many of the initiatives to stimulate film and television produc-
tion in Queensland originate with Film Queensland, but are man-
aged by the PFTC, in conjunction with officers of the Queensland
Treasury. One of these is the $10 million revolving fund available
for low-interest loans, secured against pre—sales or guarantees. This
was announced by Wayne Goss at the opening ofthe 1 992 Brisbane
International Film Festival, of which Film Queensland is the major
sponsor. At this year’s Festival opening,[...]locally—based filmmakers to bridge short-
falls in production funding. There is little doubt that Goss believes
a bright future exists for the film and television industry in Queens-
land.

Film Queensland offers a range of other incentives in scriptwriting,
pre-production and marketing. Stewart states that present Film
Queensland policy is to target[...]nathan Shiff, whose company, Westbridge, is
based in Port Douglas.

or “cockroaches”. Pa[...]te identity.

This parochial desire to overshadow the southern states is a motivation not to be ignored in assessing

the drive towards a Queensland film industry.

Stewar[...]to Film Queensland recording successes
similar to The Heartbreak Kid (Michael Jenkins, 1993) or Proof
([...]most notable success to date has
been involvement in the production of Brolzen Highway (Laurie
Mclnnes, 1993), which was invited for exhibition in Cannes.” He
is adamant, however, that Queenslan[...]onfident that Film
Queensland projects will reach the standard expected of the best
Australian films, and our assessors are providing feedback that this
is so'.” He is heartened by the success of Laurie Mclnnes, and other
directors wi[...]ently completing a
feature, Rough Diamonds, while the television series Ocean Girl,
produced by Westbridge, follows in the tradition of children’s
television established[...]ong Film Queensland’s other responsibilities is the task of
stimulating film culture. This includes p[...]elated initiatives. It also involves attention to the educational
process, with Film Queensland working with the local Australian
Film Radio 86 Television School[...]i-
versity of Technology, Griffith University and the TAFE sector to
ensure a continuing supply of trained personnel. This role recently
culminated in the appointment ofthe state’s first training coordi[...]secondments, internships and programmes bridging
the transition of graduates into industry.

The Film Queensland brief extends to supporting cultu[...]these groups to collaborate, a
view supported by the Australian Film Commission. “There’s
enormous enthusiasm and energy in this area”, says Stewart. “Our
goal is to provide a focus and perhaps turn what’s presently
somewhat ofan unguided missile into a guided one.” Another long
term aim is the establishment, with federal support, of a National
Centre for the Moving Image in Brisbane. As Stewart says, “lt’s
almost an ac[...]ink
we’ll get it.”

FILMING MARTIN CAMPBELIJS THE PENAL COLONY IN QUEENSLAND.

I ' v -

Pacific Film and
Television Commission

Although it started out in 1991 as a subsidiary of the QFDO, the
PFTC now has a separate existence as a government[...]ny limited by guarantee, nominally responsible to the Director-
General of the Premier’s Department. The PFTC is controlled by a
board of directors and fu[...]signed to attract production to Queensland.

From the outset, PFTC board members identified the need for a
two—fold approach to the problem of attracting business. First,
potential[...]proached; second,
infrastructure would need to be in place. This infrastructure was
seen as both “hard ” (the technology and plant to support all aspects
of the production process), and “soft” (the personnel required to
provide creative, business and technical inputs into the industry).
The aim was to make possible the full production and post-
production of films and television series in Queensland. Pivotal to
these plans was \X/arner Roadshow Studios, and the objective was
to ensure that it became a “one—stop shop”. Both aspects of the
strategic approach had to proceed simultaneously if the objectives
were to be realized.

RobinJames was appointed chiefexecutive officer in 1 99 1, while
Richard Stewart, director of Film Queensland, was appointed
marketing manager. During the early days of the PFTC, most
business was expected to originate in Japan and South—east Asia, but
increasingly the source of business proved to be the U.S. A major
attraction for U.S. producers has been the differential between the
value ofthe Australian and U.S. dollars. AsJames states, the bottom
line is always the principal motivation for producers, but the
professionalism of the PFTC has given Queensland a competitive
edge over[...]cial-
ist expertise and equipment, and assistance in dealing with authori-
ties at all levels of gover[...]urd, American
producer ofthe $22 million feature, The Penal Colony, as “equal to
the best in the world”, is supported by the range and diversity of
locations, and by the various incentives managed by the PFTC.
These are the $10 million revolving production fund, the $1 million
fund for payroll tax rebate on films with budgets that exceed $3.5
million, and the crew subsidy scheme, which returns up to $ 1 00,000
for productions which use Queensland—based crews.

The PFTC is a lean operation with an operational budget of
around $500,000. As well as the chief executive, it has a location
liaison manage[...]and a secre-
tary. Projects range from movies of the week for U.S. networks, such
as the recent Mercy Mission (with a $3.5 million budget)[...]m), to
big—budget feature films such Sniper and The Penal Colony. The
next major production scheduled for television is the NBC mini-
series Gaijin, based on James Clavell’s novel, while the Australian

CINEMA PAPERS 96 - 7

component of the Paul Hogan project, Lig/atningjac/z (total budget
$35 million), was shot in Queensland.
The supporting infrastructure has expanded greatly since the

first series of Mission: Impossible used to beam the footage to Los
Angeles for editing. The need for a film processing laboratory was
identified early on and satisfied this year by the establishment of the
Atlab facility on the Warner Roadshow Studios site. A pre—feasibil—
ity study jointly funded by the Multi-Function Polis and Depart-
ment of Industry Trade and Regional Development is currently
assessing the economic viability of developing a state—of—the—art
post—production facility on or near the Warner Roadshow Studios
complex as part of new techno—park development.

James is realistic about the levels of production that might be
attracted from the U.S. and Asia:

What we can do is provide services particularly to Asia because we
have the creative expertise and the experience, and also to theThe PFTC board is aware of the scepticism and criticism directed
at the PFTC by those who believe its activities conflict with the need
to preserve Australian culture through indigenous production.
However, the PFTC board believes that thein local film and television production, while
simul[...]f which are world—class.

Policy directions for the PFTC are set by its board, which
comprises a cros[...]ls and experience, and
this pays off particularly in the process of strategic planning. This
emphasis on planning has, in James’ terms, distinguished the
operations of the PFTC: “Too often the film business in Australia
has been the preserve of the gifted amateur rather that the profes-
sional. If the film industry in Australia is to survive, it will be through
thorough planning and the application of sound business princi-

ples. ”

8 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

LEFT: NERI (MARZENA GODECKI) IN MARK DEFRIEST'S OCEAN GIRL.

Film Culture in Queensland

The various organizations dedicated to advancing film culture in
Queensland depend largely on Film Queensland and the Australian
Film Commission for a considerable pro[...]their funding. As
Richard Stewart suggests above, the two government agencies seem
to favour some ratio[...]rganizations for economic
reasons. An analysis of the role and functions of the various
organizations, the Coulter—Pacey Report, was undertaken in 1992.
Currently Andrew Zielinski, manager of the South Australian
Video Centre, has been retained as a consultant to prepare a report
on implementation of the Coulter—Pacey recommendations.

In Brisbane, the major film cultural organizations include Bris-
bane Independent Filmmakers, Women in Film and Television and
Queensland Cinematheque. Brisbane Independent Filmmakers,
under the energetic leadership of Jonathon Hardy, has recen[...]ivities to include exhibition and seminars.
Women in Film and Television continues to serve its member[...]eensland Cinematheque, after a flurry of
activity in 1992, is currently experiencing a minor identity crisis as
it endeavours to redefine its aims following the implementation of
the National Cinematheque programme.

Following the success of the 1990 Queensland Images festival,
moves occurred for the establishment of a full-scale international
film festival in Brisbane. The first of these festivals was held in 1 992,
incorporating both considerable popular co[...]icant
Asian component as a distinctive feature of the Brisbane Film
Festival. These Asian films were re[...]avid Stratton, is a major programming
consultant. The 1992 Festival was an outstanding success in terms
of attendance and critical response. The more ambitious 1993
Festival retained the 1992 levels of attendance. Film Queensland is
the Festival’s major sponsor, supported by the Australian Film
Commission, Warner Roadshow and the stockbroking firm
Morgans.

One of the most successful screening series in Brisbane is
conducted by the State Library of Queensland with annual attend-
ances of around 8000, despite the limited capacity of its theatrette.
Also worthy o[...]a
groups: Murri Image is located near Gympie, and the Townsville
Aboriginal and Islander Media Association (TAIMA) in north
Queensland. Both Murri Image and TAIMA are active in produc-
tion, skills development and related cultural activities.

Conclusion

In his response to receiving the Chauvel Award for his distinguished
contribution[...]onal Film Festival, Paul Cox stated, referring to the energy
evident in Queensland film culture, that “There’s a fire burning in
this city.” This comment might be applied with some justification
to the level of film and television activity of all types occurring in
Queensland. .

Acknowledgement: The assistance of Richard Stewart and Robin
James in preparing this article is gratefully credited.

1[...]Film, Television and Video Production, 1989-92.
2 The inglorious history of the QFC is described by Helen Yeates in her
contribution to Jonathan Dawson and Bruce Molloy (eds), Queensland

Images in Film and Television, University of Queensland Press, 1990.
3 The Courier Mail, 23 November 1988.

...,_

We Specialise in Insurance for:

Film Producers Indemnity ([...]

bre[...]Donovan is Mike
Tyrell, whose life changes when, in a moment of inattention, the cattle truck he is driving hits
a car parked on the side of the road. The car belongs to Chrissie Bright (Angle Milllken), an‘
ex-singer turned.barrister's wifelon the run from suburban life. Rough Diamondsls based on
an original script by Crombie and Christopher Lee. The fi!m is produced by Damien Parer,
association wi[...]Star Entertainments, with major financing from A
the Australian Film Finance Corporation and Film Queensland. lt was mostiy shot on location

in Boonah Shire, Q.-ueensiand. Andrew L. Urban visited the set during filming at

Toongoolawha which, Urban notes, "the producers have carefully disguised

‘in the film by renaming Boongoolawha”;

What was the genesis of the film?

It all began when we were filming The Irishman in North Queens-
land back in 1977. We were driving out of town one day and
happened to go past a road gang. Whoever was showing us around
said, “See that chap over there on the shovel. He owns Rockhampton
Downs, 80,000 hectares of prime beef country.” I was fascinated
with the thought of a man, who on paper would be a multi-
millionaire, having to work on the roads. I then learnt about rural
debt and how peo[...]re sometimes
literally penniless. I thought there was a movie in that, particularly
for city dwellers.

I then wrote a social drama on commission for Film Australia. It
was all very serious and well meaning, but it never got made. But I
kept thinking about the idea and over the years it evolved. I realized
that if it were ever going to get up, it would have to be an

1 The other features are The Irishman (1978), The Killing 0/‘Angel Street
(1981) and Kitty and the Bagman (1983). With Ken Hannam, Crombie
directed Robbery Under Arms (1985), which was made as both a feature
and a mini—series.

12 ~ CINEMA PAPERS 96

entertainment. The question was how to make it entertaining. The
story about a cattleman going broke or battling the banks, even with
moderate—level stars, is not g[...]ssing. So we swung it right around and
introduced the music elements and the charm.

Was the idea of Mike being a musician added after you considered
Jason Donovan for the role?

No, it was written into the script during the course of development,
some three or four years ago.

Mike can sing, but he is not the singer in the story — Chrissie is.
She is the one with the experience and a gold record or two in her
past. Mike’s just a reasonably good bush dance—hall singer.

In theory, we didn’t need to have a singer like Ja[...]ave someone who is known as a
recording star.

To what extent does Rough Diamonds get to deal with the issues
you discovered in the bush?

When you first meet Mike he’s driving a[...]wns this property and he is trying to stay
out of the hands of the bank. He’s driving for a living, not because
he wants to.

Do we learn why he is in debt?

You know he owes money to the bank. We don’t go into it, though.
We are not giving a lesson in rural economics.

The bank is represented by Arthur [Ieff Truman], who[...]o be liked. He actually believes that he is doing the right
thing by his customers in suggesting that perhaps it’s time they gave
up[...].

I think Arthur’s quite a real character from what I’ve read and
heard about rural bank managers. But he’s not a villain; he’s not the
archetype.

Is there a Villain?

No, I don’t suppose there is. Arthur is the nearest thing to one. He’s
the threat.

In terms of structuring the script, did you had any qualms about the
fact that almost all the characters seem to be nice, positive people?

No. It was a conscious decision not to create black characters. It is
probably easier to write truly bad people, but we were trying to find
the right lightness of tone. That was the biggest problem: not
making it too slapstick, or too serious; trying to find the right levels
of the comedy.

The setting suggests a rediscovery of the original Australian style of

humour, that laconi[...]ile Dundee [Peter Faiman, 1986].

Yes. Almost all the secondary characters have some laconic touch
that is based on truth. The doctor in the film, for example, although
he doesn’t have any[...]a doctor that I actually saw
once. I won’t name the town, but this particular doctor liked to

A lot of the film is based on
observation. Part of the enjoy-
ment will come from the obser-
vation ofcharacters and the little
things they do — like the dog on
the property which sleeps in the
boot ofthe car that’s always left
open. Of course, this could also
be the film’s weakness, too, be-
cause if you don’t[...]unny, (HR|55jE_ ROUGH MMOND5,

you might not find the film par-
ticularly funny, either.

This is also not a film where the dialogue conveys all the humour.
There are not many wisecracks. It mightn’t be the greatest dialogue
in the world, but it’s real.

I was very offended by one of the script assessments which said,
“Didn’t like the American influence in the dialogue.” I thought,
“Well, bugger me, I don’t know where the American influence is. I
have no idea.” Sure, p[...]s been with us a
generation or more now.

I think the film is very genuinely Australian, which will either
make it or sink it. We took the deep breath and said, “This film’s
going to b[...]We are not going to allow
any influences to come in from overseas. We are going to avoid
having an American lead.” Actually, a Texan playing Mike was
seriously suggested by one of our financiers in the past. We have
been through a fairly tortuous trai[...]ng
a story about a Texan who happens to be living in Queensland.

Can you put a label on the film?

Yes. The label is “romance, music and cattle theft”, which I hope is
going to be attached to the title on the film. I think that sums it up
really well.

Did you live in the bush for a while to observe all these things?

No[...]from a family where previous generations were on
the land. Maybe I have some sort of affinity with those sort of
characters.

The other thing about this film is that everything is[...]etter than others

Where does Rough Diamonds fit in that context? Are you enjoying
the process more than before?

I find the process extremely difficult, maybe because this is a
personal project. It was not something I was offered. ,

These days it’s so hard to make a p[...]know everybody says that. But when we were facing
the reality of how much money we could get to make it[...]ep breath and said, “We are still going to make the movie and not
cut a lot of the scenes or replace the more expensive elements in the
script with scenes of people just talking.” In other words, we tried
to make it a movie, not a t[...]do that?

Well, it’s fairly scene—intensiVe. In telemovies and in mini—series, a lot
ofthe drama is conveyed by people sitting in rooms and cars talking.
With this film, there are[...]move
through. For example, there is a scene where the girls are talking
about what the bull is going to mean to them and, instead[...]

on a vehicle and continue the scene in the travelling vehicle. That is
very expensive to do[...]cond sequence done as a travelling shot. That’s
the sort of thing that probably separates this movie from a telemovie,
more so than the lenses you use.

How, then, were the cost savings achieved?

By not filming over 8 weeks, and trying to do it in 6. Every day had
to be planned meticulously, right down to the number of shots. We
can do about 20 set—ups a day, so we plan the coverage to fit that.
There isn’t time to say,[...]y and
do it another way.” It really has to work the first time.

Everything has been planned to the nth degree, and it’s been an
extremely efficient production. Apart from the weather problems,
nothing really has gone wrong.[...]lanned something properly.

We did lose time with the animals, however. I think if we’d have
known what was ahead of us we might have taken a deeper breath.[...]ot having done
intensive work with bulls before.

What didn’t you expect about the bulls?

The nearest way of equating doing drama around a bull[...]a. When you work with boats, everything moves all the time, and
you can’t control it. Bulls also keep[...]se, stay on
your marks.” And we had seven bulls in a line when we did the
cattle—judging sequence, in very powerful winds!

CHRISSIE AND MIKE. ROUGH DIAMONDS.

14 - CINEMA PAPERS 96

The other thing we discovered is that by using a bull[...]are Brahmins — actors kept getting lost behind the hump.
The bull is actually taller than young Haley Toomey [Samantha,
Mike’s sister, and the bull’s handler].

You can laugh about it now, b[...]n. Our
shooting ratio is higher than it should be in a normal drama because

we had to get the shots to get the drama right when working with
the bull.

When you talked to DOP]ohn Stokes, What were the stylistic things
you discussed?

We got photographs out of A Day in the Life of Australia and
looked at the colours, the sun. We talked about how in scenes on the
verandah of the homestead we should see the countryside. We
didn’t want to expose just for the verandah and let everything else
burn out.

We also talked about the lenses. Virtually everything is shot on
a 50mm an[...]a slightly longer effect and
everything is packed in. We don’t use wide—angle lenses very often
—only sometimes with the bull. They make the bull look a bit bigger.

Is it a black bull?

No,[...]t’s a champion. It’s better
bred than most of the crew!

In the script it’s described as a deep thinker. So, when things are
happening around it, you cut to the bull and it’s thinking.

The scene of the bull being towed through Brisbane is very funny.
The bull stands on the back of this open cage. It’s a very regal animal,
looking around. To me that is funny.

How did you cast the bull?

We looked for an animal that created a concept that the audience
would feel comfortable with. Some bulls[...]l. This bull you can cuddle.

I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense, and I wouldn’t want it to
be taken as such, but there is a whiff of Disney in this. We have a
charming, good-looking cast and we tried to make the film as
attractive and charming as possible.

As far as the marketing of the film goes and its potential for
success, I have a feeling that the films which have really worked in
Australia have been three—generational films. T[...]ith nudity, sex, violence, etc.

We are aiming at the people who don’t go to the pictures a lot,
but who will come out for a speci[...]see Crocodile Dundee at a suburban cinema,
and I was amazed that whole families were at the pictures: mum and
dad, the kids and the grandparents. I’d never seen that before.

When[...]explains best why there aren’t certain elements in the
film. For example, there aren’t torrid sex scenes between Angie
Milliken and Jason Donovan. I mean the nearest we get to that is
when he takes his shirt off on one or two occasions.

When I arrived on set, the first thing I saw was Mike and Chrissie
kissing outside the door of a pub. You choreographed them to be
turning around as they kissed, like in a slow dance.

That’s the end ofthe movie. There is a song which Chrissie is singing,
because she goes on and becomes a singer. The whole story is they
keep pulling apart, coming together, pulling apart, and finally at the
end of the movie they are together— in the good traditions ofthis sort
of entertainment.

What about the music? Is it all original?

No, we are using three classics, “Help Me Make it Through the
Night”, “Could I Have This Dance?” and the Johnny Farnham hit,
“Two Strong Hearts”. The rest are original. I’m not quite sure
whether t[...]nly one song that has been written especially for the
movie, which is the title song, “Rough Diamonds”. Lee Kernaghan
sings that. The music producer is Garth Porter. Jason flew to Syd[...]s with Garth. He sings “Help Me Make it Through
the Night”

How much singing is there all together?[...]for about 95 minutes?

That would be about tops. The story itself is fairly slight, so we
wouldn’t w[...]t it would have
to really convince us all that it was working, because I think 90
minutes of entertainment is about right.

Our screen times are up at the moment, so we are not quite sure
what we will end up with. But hopefully we can edit it down.

How would you like people to walk out of the cinema?

With a smile on their faces and telling their friends to come and see
the movie. I think it is so important that they actually enjoy it. If they
don’t enjoy the film, it has no value because it doesn’t have any deep
message to give the world. So if it works, it will work because it is
a charming entertainment that you will actually enjoy in the 90
minutes that you spend with it.

Jason Donovan

After small roles in Blood Oath and a student film in London, and
with the frustration of several projects having faltered in pre-
production, Jason Donovan finally has his sought—after lead in
Rough Diamonds.

Donovan had been starring in London in Joseph and his Amaz-
ing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and returned to that after finishing
Rough Diamonds. In February, he will begin his new album for
Polydor records.

What attracted you to what has become your first major role in a
theatrical feature?

Iwas impressed with the script. It’s a very Australian and commer-
cial[...]tralian
cast. That attracted me a lot. It’s not the usual syndrome of trying
to put an American or an Englishman in there to sell the product
overseas. It stands up to the buyers on its own right.

Without saying it wouldn’t be a challenge to me, I felt the part
was something that wouldn’t throw me. I wouldn’t[...]me as a person. Instead of trying to do
something in England, which might have required an English
acc[...]on, as it were. As you know, I have
been involved in other productions that have missed out on finance.

This one nearly did, too.

It did twice, which was like, “Oh God, not the fourth time!” But I
had faith in Damien [Pater] and I’d worked with Donald [Crom[...]es a lot up
to you.

I think it is very important in the casting to get a lot ofyour acting
work done, and Donald had faith in what I could do.

I’ve always wanted to do cinema -[...]after getting out of Neighbours, I wanted to find the right
project — and a project with the money to get made!

Now that you have been doing it for a few weeks, have you found
the creative stretch enjoyable?

Oh, absolutely. The romanticism of it I haven’t touched for quite a
while. joseph isn’t exactly a romantic piece. In Heroes, I played a
soldier and, in Shadows of the Heart, I was a sort of drunk crazy
type.

It’s been challenging to relax in front of the camera enough to let
your emotions speak for themselves and to let the story take over
your mind.

Since coming out of school, where one is more energetic and in
peer groups where there is a lot more dominance between people,
l’ve probably softened a lot. This guy in Rough Diamonds has a bit
of punch to him. The first time I got on the set, they said, “Okay,
we’re doing the fight stuff today.” It was like, “Oh, I haven’t done
this in a long time.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind! At school, I was

a pretty sort of placid guy. But you do sports a[...]sical sort of person.

Apparently, your childhood was pretty uneventful, without any big
family traumas. The biggest hassles you’ve probably had have been
dealing with the British press. Can you gain anything from[...]

Queensland state government's very active film
instrumentality, Film Queensland. Brought in to help
assess the wreckage ofthe Queensland Film Corporation
in 1987, Stewart has helped oversee a remarkable
revival in the state's film ‘production fortunes.

Much credit for this is-due to Film Queensland,

as well as to the spirit of several independent
Queensland producers and directors, and,

most important, the massive and financially
successful presence of Warner Roadshow’s Movie
World Studios on the Gold Coast.

Stewart is also the marketing manager of

the Pacific Film and Television Commission and
recently became the first Australian appointed

to the Association of Film Commissioners
International.[...]aced

to give an extensive and forthright view on the

state of film production in Queensland.

16 - CINEMAIPAP-ERS 96

VVhat does Film Queensland owe in legal structure to the Queens-
land Film Development Office and earlier incarnations?

In October 1 98 7, the Queensland Film Corporation was wound up.
It had a sunset clause, being only everintended to last for ten years.
But clearly after the matter of Allan Callaghan‘, and the perceived
lack of success, it was a conscious government decision not to renew
the licence of the Corporation.

In early 1 988, two people came on the scene: myself and Michael
Mitchener. Michael’s job was to prepare a report on what had really
happened in relation to the Corporation: primarily why it failed and
an exploration of future options. It was only a verbal brief from
what I can gather —I never saw it in writing — and was given to him
by the then Director of the Arts, Donna Grieves.

I came in from a different perspective, in so far as I’d been
working in government for a while. I have some accounting
background and a background in: film. I was asked to do a
reconciliation of all the assets of the Corporation, to look at what
films had been made, what their position was in terms of marketing,
what recompense may be due, what amounts may be still outstand-
ing to individuals, and so on. As you know, the Corporation was
also acting at that time as investors’ represen[...]of 1988. It didn’t take long for word to
spread in the industry that there were two people sitting in the office
there. We received a number of requests..Somebody then decided to
call us the Queensland Film Development Office and we[...]

About that time, the De Laurentiis Studios on the Gold Coast
were in their virtual death throes because of Dino’s bankruptcy
overseas. The Studios were absolutely vacant and the only film that
had been mooted there, Total Recall, had gone elsewhere and
eventually ended up in Mexico — but that’s another story.

There was a range of opinions to what should happen to the
Studios. Fortunately, none of the other alternatives — such as
converting it into a aircraft hangar, making an airport for the Gold
Coast — happened. Instead, Village Roadshow decided to take over
the facility.

At the same time, Paramount came in with two television series:
Mission: Impossible a[...]or Dolphin Bay. That
caused government to rethink the possibilities of a film industry.
Here we were sitting in a state with a studio which had been
perceived as[...]erybody felt that perhaps it could be
turned into the nucleus of a developing Queensland film industry.

It was along those lines that we convinced government to start
reassessing its earlier position in relation to film development. We
were then given $1.2 million for the next year. We already had
developed a set of programmes of assistance, and participated in
Locations Expo in 1 989, so we obviously had a clear direction, from
within the office and also from government, to market Queens[...]We
also started to work at a cultural level with the introduction of such
things as the Queensland Young Filmmakers Awards.

We then had[...]obliged
to look very carefully at our directions. The review lasted a long time
— rather too long, actually, because it also led to instability in terms
of the office. You see, we still hadn’t really been gi[...]m government; our activities were never enshrined in legislation.
We were just simply a branch of the Arts Division, as it was called.
We could have been told to wind up shop at any time.

Was the internal review of the whole Arts Division, or just the film
office?

Of the entire Arts Division in Queensland, as well as a number of
companies that had been funded by the Arts Division.

The review was quite successful in terms of our perspective and
it affirmed what we had been doing. The general feeling of the
review committee was that they were happy with the programmes
of assistance and with our policy.

In fact, our policy in those days was quite radical for Queensland
because we were the only arts body in the state which was funding
individuals. All other arts’ grants operated by the Arts Division were
provided to organizations for[...]e. When we
came along and presented our report to the review committee, they
were quite taken back. They said that what film had been doing was
basically a blueprint for the other art forms. We were funding
individuals, usi[...], and these two things were
introduced throughout the arts in Queensland.

After the review, it became clear that the Queensland Film

Development Office had a future under the Goss government. That
was confirmed on a number of occasions by the Premier. His
government made a strong commitment to film and he has contin-
ued to do so.

Then, of course, the Queensland Film Development Office
changed its name to Film Queensland earlier this year. That was
really done to try and achieve a better national[...]ganizations. It seemed that Film Victoria had set the standard
here, by its name.

There was more to it than that, however. There was an underly-
ing philosophy that Film Queensland had in fact moved from an
organization which was strictly a development office to an organi-
zatio[...]become very much a reality of Queensland life and
the office had a contributing role into an industry which, in dollars
and cents terms, had become a significant player for Queensland.

As all this was going on, we set about developing a new range of
policies. In 1991, we developed the Pacific Film and Television
Commission (PFTC), wh[...]also set about‘ some other initiatives,
such as the Brisbane International Film Festival. We’d had a smaller
event called Queensland Images, which was a retrospective festival
in 1991. We’d been pleased with the general success of that event.

The Festival was established initially to showcase the work of up-
and—coming Queensland filmmakers. I[...]ocus, again as part of overall government policy. The
Queensland government, in its trade and investment sections, has a
strong A[...]ng and Japan. So, we have had a strong Asia focus in our
Festival. It still reflects that, particularly with the excellent assist-
ance from Tony Rayns.

What is the legal status of Film Queensland today?

Film Quee[...]nch, but now a formal branch, of
Arts Queensland. The Pacific Film and Television Commission is a
wholl[...]Film Queensland is not a statutory authority like the others. Is that
a disadvantage or an advantage?

When we under the wing of the Premier’s Department, that was a
much more difficult question to answer. Being directly involved
then in the total infrastructure was quite useful, particularly in terms
of matters relating to budget, flexibility[...]re is
obviously quite a lot to be gained by being in the Premier’s office.

But now, being part of Justice of Attorney-General’s Depart-
ment, I can answer the question very easily. It is no way as
convenient or as useful or as flexible as in the past. We are finding
difficulties in that environment. It’s not because there is anything
wrong with individuals involved in Justice of Attorney—General’s
Department, exc[...]statutory author-
ity, they could both happen at the same time, or we may achieve our
goal a li[...]

We have[...]e affected by excessive red tape.

Your budget at the moment is $2.7million, plus $750,000 for the
Equity Fund.

That’s right. We also administer a range of other funds, including
about $3.5 million in the Revolving Film Fund (RFF). We also
administer another half a million a year or so in other government
incentive programmes, such as the payroll tax rebate scheme and
Queensland crew sub[...]t for foreign but
for local productions as well.

The sum total would put Film Queensland on a similar[...]ven higher, than say Film Victoria.

Pretty well. The mix is different because we are the only state
running a discounting transaction.

Our Equity Fund will be run along very similar lines to Film
V—ic’t'oria’s or the AFC’s funs. We are drawing up guidelines for th[...]be too many surprises, except we may use some
of the funds to possibly interface with the Revolving Film Fund, so
a client coming to us can[...]ss to a loan fund as well as
investment funds — the loan fund is much higher in quantum —
should give us an interesting advanta[...]g
deals together.

Loan funds are being discussed in principle at the moment by the
AFC’s consultant, John Maynard.

john is actual[...]ng to be directed by Gerard Lee, who is living up in
Queensland now. john has had experience of what this fund is
about. I haven’t actually spoken t[...]pecifically, :but it
wouldn’t surprise me if he was thinking about it, because it works
well. And, of course, the American film industry is based on
discounting tr[...]ere: people
get a deal and go to a bank. That’s what we are doing here: we are
running a bank and it w[...]do you think Film Queensland can viably
generate in a year?

I don’t know. I read a report that Peat Marwick has done for Greg
Smith at the New South Wales Film and Television Office, and he
seems to be using the money wisely and well. [laughs]

If one considers that the FFC requirement for pre—sales to be
around 30% — the amount obviously varies depending on who is
-maki[...]hat an injection of
$200,000 straight equity from the government film office can be
very useful in that equation. It’s not quite 1 0% , but it’s closing in on
10%, and that can be hard to get.

So, I think the $750,000 Equity Fund could be carefully used to
l[...]ut $200,000 for
each picture or television show.

The RFF, being a little bit larger and offering up to $1million of
investment, but only 20% of the total budget, ought to be able to
generate probab[...]n that mix, and everything else that is happening in the state,
I think the slate of productions that we’d see in Queensland in the
future might be anything from six to eight in an average year —
maybe more if we are lucky. We have the potential to do that, but
there are limitations as well. There is our small producer base, the
availability of crews and studio space, and the limitations of a fairly
small office — there ar[...]so it’s not
exactly a big office. There is also the fact there is only a small amount
of network production in Queensland. We don’t have that large
base of AB[...]location, even though
there is Paradise Beach at the Studios, and some other Nine and
Seven programmes[...]they are more magazine
and documentary—style.

The problem with the Studios is that it is totally booked for the
next year and longer. There seems to be at least 14 confirmed
productions coming into Queensland in the next year or so, which
means that there are limit[...]es and confirmed money. Some
are still waiting on the FFC, but I see no reason why any of those
project[...]ee Likely Queensland Production Slate, page 58.]

What are the Queensland element requirements for receipt of
mo[...]four ‘basic
elements and get two of them right. The show has a Queensland

“ ...we do welcome appli[...]re can be some
demonstrated Queensland element to the show.
That means more than just saying, ‘The script
has a few palm trees in it. Do you want us

to shoot it in Queensland?”

writer, it’s Queensland produced, has a Queensland image — in
other words it’s clearly about Queensland — and can be shot on
location. You should in theory get two of those. However, I’ve
known projects occasionally not to quite get past the two, for
reasons such as co—production, etc. Ou[...]re can be some demonstrated Queensland element to the show.
That means more than just saying, “The script has a few palm trees
in it. Do you want us to shoot it in Queensland?” That’s not of great
interest to us, even though, if the project is something we all love,
we will try and be as accommodating as possible.

At the same time, the emphasis and priority is always given to
Queensla[...]ly well-established producer and
writer community in Queensland, that community deserves our
support first. And that goes specifically in respect to the new
$75 0,000 Equity Fund. It is available to Que[...]ue to support interstate projects, though
perhaps in a more formalized way through those various state[...]it:s_probably fair to say,
have been knocked back in another state~and have come to

I’m[...]more co—funding ventures between film
agencies in other states and the AFC. I welcome discussions in
relation to projects where we can all get together and work
collaboratively.

What about the RFF fund?

RFF is available to anybody. There are[...]specifically to how much money has to be expended in the
state. Generally speaking we are looking for about 50% of the total
below—the—line costs to be expended within Queensland. Th[...]are looking to see some clear financial return
to the state in exchange for that loan fund.

In theory, the RFF is available to overseas producers as well.
H[...]limited resources, we have not widely advertised the
availability of the Fund overseas. We haven’t really had to anyway,
because most of our clients to date, particularly in terms of location
shooting, have come from the U.S. and virtually 99.9% of those
films are fully funded by the time they reach our shores.

You mentioned a strong local producer base. How successful do

you consider the relocation of four interstate producers to Queens[...]iff has been great. He’s established Westbridge in North
Queensland, and he’s produced Ocean Girl up there. We’ve seen
some of the early shows and like them a lot.

‘ Then there[...]oduction soon.
He’s also likely to produce Over the Top with ]im in the next year.
He has another two features which look[...]jects which I think look very healthy.
Except for the problem with London Films [which experienced
financial problems in England], Ross would have had a show up this
year[...]upport and I am sure she will commence
production in Queensland next year.

So, in terms of our investment in these individuals, I think the
scheme is worthy of a second look.

However, if y[...]ause we want to consolidate and work closely
with the existing recipients.

It is important to note tha[...]ys been available
for local producers as well. It was designed to help producers in the
same way that Film Victoria has with its fund. That has only been
used to help Victorian producers, but in Queensland the fund has
also been used to encourage producers to[...]to produce. That’s
Why I think we will continue the fund and it may reappear next
financial year, with some modifications. That could mean that the
actual quantum of money available may be increase[...]ly mean a more tightly—stru<:tured
package —- in other words, with clear performance indicators and
production horizons — than the ones that exist at present. We are
taking examples out of. the New Zealand book there, and also a
couple of other examples I’ve heard about in other parts of the
world. ,

At the same time, we have been lucky because there are some up-
and—cor_ning Queensland producers.

“...we have in the context of the Studios

several producers who are bubbling away[...]a whole range of projects.

It's fair to say that the producer base in Brisbane
and in Queensland generally is widening
dramatically."[...]rojects, some with
pre—sales attached, and some in quite advanced stages of develop-
ITICHIZ.

More producers have been moving up into the Studios environ-
ment as well, such as Jock Blair[...]ainees: Brett Chenoweth andjoe Porter. Joe is now the production
manager on Paradise Beach, and Brett is working with Nick
McMahon in an executive producer role.

So, we have in the context of the Studios several producers who
are bubbling away d[...]whole range of projects. It’s
fair to say that the producer base in Brisbane and in Queensland
generally is widening dramatically. I[...]dozen or so active.

producers are working within the state, which is a lot better than in:
1988 when we had two credited drama producers: K[...]ia’s feature production pretty well exists only in cohorts
with the AFC. Do you envisage similar arrangements with the AFC,
particularly on low-budget films?

I hope so. We had a good example ofdoing something with the AFC
this year with Bro/zen Highway, which I think is a good film. That
was an example of Film Queensland and the AFC getting together,
and we’d like to do more[...]bvi-
ously like to talk to john Maynard as well.

The same goes in relation to the state base. Whenever I get a
chance, I always tal[...]s. I have also
spoken with Valerie Hardy when she was in Adelaide, but she is now
at Network 10. There is obviously a great synergy in terms of the
SAFC and Queensland to perhaps shoot on location here, and do
the post—producing and studio work down in SA.

I see nothing wrong with encouraging that ty[...]me on.

How do you regard balance of monies spent in the federal and the
state spheres?

They’ve got it all and we want it!

The state bodies have always been seen as secondary b[...]rate
amount of energy and initiative comes out of the state sphere.

Exactly. And it’s fair to say that it has been a popular pastime in
Queensland to suggest that we don’t receive eno[...]to say I
genuinely believe that if agencies like the AFC worked more closely
with state bodies, and really made a very positive commitment
towards the establishment of small branch offices in the states, then
the variety and overall texture of the programmeswe see come from
the AFC would improve. I consider there is far[...]

AFC that there are horizons which haven’t been explored yet. I think
we can do that.

The AFC has always felt — though decreasingly so, given the recent
films it has supported — that it should be reactive, responding only
to what applications it receives. Film Queensland, on the other
hand, obviously believes in actively help initiate productions and
filmmaking teams.

What you are saying is absolutely true and I have affe[...]espect for a number of individuals working within the AFC.
However, I think AFC policy needs to look a little more carefully at
what really is available in terms of partnerships with the state
agencies and what’s possible with individual filmmakers through-[...]n there a short time. If he can manage to achieve what I
believe he is trying to achieve, I think there will be a lot of changes
coming through in the AFC and they will all be positive for the entire
Australian film industry.

Speaking as a “Mexican”, there seems to be two industries in
Queensland: the one on the coast, with a large proportion of
offshore-funded projects, and the more indigenous Brisbane one. Is
that a fair gene[...]say it has been bad. It is something that
worried the hell out of me for a long time. I felt there would never
be a synergy between the Brisbane industry and the Gold Coast
industry. But fortunately the barriers are breaking down, and I’m
actually st[...]isbane
filmmakers, are actually starting to enter the Gold Coast Studio.
There is a much greater feeling of partnership between the two areas
than there ever has been.

I think the first good sign was when Donald Crombie, who I
think is one of Australia’s best directors, started to work on Time
Trax. The Americans thought he was a great director, and they keep
ringing him up, asking him to do some more shows! That was a
really good sign that there are talented individuals living in Brisbane.
And it’s starting to happen more. The[...]mut of local
people starting to have a real input in the total Studios complex.

Another important sign was the transferring this year of the
script office of Paradise Beach from Sydney to Qu[...]more trainee directors and producers
coming into the Studios system, most of whom are coming out of
Br[...]one or two more independent pictures produced at
the Studios, that us—and—them mentality we have seen over the past
few years will slowly break down. The Studios has been pretty
generous in sponsoring things as well, like the Brisbane Interna-
tional Film Festival, the Young Filmmakers Awards and other
sponsorship around the town.

The Studios is a bloody great mass sitting out there like a shag on
a rock on the Gold Coast highway. It is pretty hard to ignore a[...]. I don’t think anybody should resent success.

What are the feelings about foreign productions? Do they still[...]ays will. But I don’t think there is much
point in dwelling on it. Foreign production in the Queensland
context is here to stay. And if one listens to what other state agencies

20 - CINEMA PAPERS 96

are saying, and I have looked at the latest SA review, it’s the
recommendation for the future. It’s becoming part of the Australian
scene, like it or not. And the number of people who travel this
highway from Brisbane to the Gold Coast each day to work at the
Studios is growing. While the occasional piece of controversy still
flairs about this and that relating to the Studios, and there is
certainly still an emphasis on foreign production, one can’t deny the
infrastructure that is being attracted to the state as a result of that
throughput.

Throughput[...]hether it’s coming from Queensland or wherever. The only way
you can sustain laboratories, post—pro[...]of employment for/individuals is by throughput.

What’s happened to the Studios, and what we’ve managed to
achieve by attracting those levels of production to Queensland, has
been fantastic from the point of view of obtaining the sorts of
budgets I have. Could anybody really say that local productions
alone in Queensland could justify a film office budget of[...]hat level of expenditure can only be justified by the
fact we have more than $100 million worth of production in
Queensland, which is flowing directly back into the state and
indirectly back into the state coffers through taxation and so on.

The main argument against foreign productions is a cultural one.
Should, in fact, government bodies, state or federal, be involved in
trying to shape the film culture of a country in some particular way?

I agree and it’s one of the reasons why we started the PFTC as well.
There has often been confusion about the difference between the
PFTC and Film Queensland. Film Queensland, as the Queensland
government’s principal film funding body, has in its basic charter
the attraction of foreign production, whether it be from the U.S. or
Japan, North Asia, Europe or wherever.

To make life a little bit easier for all of us, in terms of efficiencies
and perceptions and a lot o[...]lm Queensland itself doesn’t have any confusion in its own
goals. Film Queensland is here to develop the Queensland film
industry, including the development of Queensland film and televi-
sion p[...]tive and cultural areas that
need to exist within the state. And it happens that one of its other
progr[...]on facilities marketing which is handled by
PFTC. The PFTC has a totally separate board of directors, a[...]s a fair degree of industry support, particularly in kind, and
it’s also eligible to receive funding[...]ngth from Film Queensland, but is still
very much in accord with government policy as it relates to the
totality of the Queensland film industry.

What is Film Queensland’s view on the push for changes to
Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) regulations on foreign
productions shot in Australia.

Yes. We have argued that some limited content be granted for the
likes of the Mission: Impossibles of this world. We argued for the
ABA to consider the introduction of a broadcasting policy not
unlike the Canadian system. So far it hasn’t happened.

We believe that in terms of the levels of Australian creativity that
exist on sho[...]e producers,
directors, directors of photography, the amount of money which is
expended in the country — that limited content should be made
a[...]y convince me otherwise,
I’d like to think that the ABA could consider this sometime in the
future.

CONCLUDES ON PAGE 58

‘AUSTRALIA 3000 V ,. ’

CINEMA PAPERS 96

Director N[...]eir Melbourne
production offices. From Malcom to
The Big Steal and now the television
series Stark.

“Melbourne offers a u[...]t, we are able to
draw on a wealth of talent both in front
of and behind the camera. The city is steeped in
culture — every turn presents another visual delight".

“Stark locations ranged from the Australian

outback to New York Streets, from[...]sleepy seaside suburbs - all were
available to us in Victoria” adds David. “The light
here is stunning — day after day of light cloud
cover gives a sophisticated, mellow look with the
minimum of fuss.

Tramcars weave through streets[...], beaches stretch for 90 miles,
untouched turn-of-the-century townships nestle
below the rugged mountains of the Australian
Alps. With first class crews,[...]

tralia. It is the only completely-integrated audiovisual enter-

tainment company, having involvement in studio management,
production of both film and te[...]s approach to internationalization is
also unique in that the main thrust of its strategy is to attract
oversea[...]ner Roadshow Movie
World Studios at Coomera, near the Gold Coast in south—east
Queensland. It also has a satellite[...]Christ, which
makes programmes mainly oriented to the local market. But while
significant in critical and cultural terms, Roadshow Coote 84:
Carroll is not economically significant in the context of the whole

company.

he international strategy of the Village Roadshow group raises
particular policy and regulatory issues. The present thrust of
the government’s regulatory policy for television, expressed in
current Australian content rules for commercial t[...]show production strategies and it has been
active in lobbying the government for a relaxation of the rules to
cover the sorts of projects it is involved in. This situation adds fuel
to the debate about whether Australian content regulatio[...], finally, it has a primarily cultural thrust and what the
connection between these elements is.

Village Roadshow was founded by Roc Kirby in the mid-19505
as an exhibition organization, beginning with a chain of drive-ins.‘
In 1968, current managing director, Graham Burke, and Kirby
founded Roadshow Distributors, the key to Village Roadshow’s
overall success as a company. In 1970, Roadshow distributors
signed an exclusive agreement with Warner Bros. to distribute
Warners pictures in Australia, an association that was to prove
extremely beneficial to the company’s expansion. The company
quickly developed and by the mid—1970s had challenged the tradi-
tional exhibition duopoly of Hoyts and Greater Union (the latter
owning one—third of Village Roadshow).

[Stuart fiunningham and Elizabeth Janka)

In the early 19705, Village Roadshow established a produ[...]then prominent director—producer, Tim Burstall. The
Company, Hexagon Films, produced the Alvin Purple filmsz, Petersen
(Burstall, 1 974) a[...]a Fraser (Burstall, 1976), but went
into abeyance in the late 1970s. At this stage, managing director
Grah[...]l, Mad Max 2 (George Miller, 1 98 1), which
under the name The Road Warrior had enormous success through
international release by Warner Bros. A third in the cycle“ was fully-
financed by Warner Bros. and launched the Hollywood career of its
star, Mel Gibson. This ty[...]pointed to by Village
Roadshow as a model of how the Australian industry could
develop.

As this example reveals, there was a close relationship between
Village Roadshow as[...]Warner Bros. as
international distributors. There was also a relationship between
producer Matt Carroll and Village Roadshow. The latter had been
formed during the 1970s when Carroll was a producer at the South
Australian Film Corporation and Village Roa[...]sford, 1980). These rela-
tionships were cemented in the early 1980s when Greg Coote
became managing director of the TEN network and took it close to
being the top-rating network in Australia for a short time. Its
strategy was a combination of top-rating Hollywood movies (for[...]es, usually produced
by Kennedy Miller, including The Dismissal, Bodylirze and The
Cowra Breakout.

After a couple of years at the head of the TEN network, both
Coote and Carroll departed, Coo[...]s Los Angeles representative, and Carroll to head the
production company founded by the two in 1984, Roadshow
Coote SC Carroll. The latter company would be a vehicle for high-
quali[...]duction; it began to make tele—features such as
The Perfectiomst (Chris Thomson, 1985) and Archer (Denny
Lawrence, 1985) and mini—series like The Challenge (the story of
Alan Bond’s America’s Cup challenge) and The First Kangaroos,
the first official co—production Australia was involved in.

CINEMA PAPERS 96 - 23

In 1 986, the American independent producer, Dino De Laurentiis,
who specialized in studios in out of the way places (his other one was
in South Carolina), persuaded the Queensland government to give
him a low—interest loan to build a studio on the Gold Coast. This
duly happened and De Laurentiis was set to produce the multi-
million dollar special effects picture, Total Recall (to have been
directed by Bruce Beresford), when the world—wide stock—market
crash occurred. The bottom fell out of De Laurentiis’ distribution
business and the studio appeared to be threatened.5 Village Roadshow
made the decision to buy the studio in a joint venture with Warner
Bros. The studio was seen as the heart of a bigger complex which
included the Movie World theme park. Faced with the prospect of
a white elephant on their hands and an unpaid loan, the Queensland
government continued the favourable deal it had extended to De
Laurentiis, and the Warner Roadshow complex on the Gold Coast
was born. Thus came into existence Australia’s only fully-integrated
entertainment company.

The parent company, Village Roadshow Ltd, has a 50% stake
with Warners in the Gold Coast Studios and the theme park, and has
interests in other entertainment centres in the area not themed on
‘movie magic’. Warners, GU Film Distributors and Village Roadshow
each own a third of the multiplex business. In addition, the Nine
Network has a 10% share in the parent company and the UK ITV
franchise-holder for East Anglia, Anglia Television, has 17%. The
latter relationship is a result of the fact that Roadshow Coote SC
Carroll has presold a number of programmes to Anglia.

The Village Roadshow organization has two production[...]Roadshow Pictures and Roadshow Coote {SC Carroll. The
former is more important economically, though the latter has a
much higher profile in Australia. This is because the huge invest-
ment in the Studios depends totally on the success of Village
Roadshow Pictures in attracting production to them. Roadshow
Coote SC[...]ment and could continue quite comfortably outside the
umbrella of the parent company.

The studios were kicked off in 1988-9 by housing two off—shore
television productions for the Hollywood studio Paramount. These
were Dolphin Ba[...]ormously
controversial and provoked conflict with the unions "‘, especially the
then Actors Equity and the Writers Guild, and also a minor flurry
with the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT). Mission: Impos-
sible was brought to the Warner Roadshow studio by the team of
Michael Lake and Nick McMahon, who had both worked previ-
ously for Crawfords in Melbourne, and had a long history of sales

24 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

The Village Roadshow organization has two production[...]Roadshow Pictures and Roadshow Coote 8:
Carroll. The former is more important economically,
though the latter has a much higher profile in Australia.
This is because the huge investment in the Studios
depends totally on the success of Village Roadshow

Pictures in attracting production to them.

and production management. They had wanted to buy Crawfords
and take it in a more international direction, but had failed and had
gone independent. Their idea was to attract overseas production to
Australia, taki[...]ts high-level of
expertise and good locations. It was recently estimated that an hour
of series drama c[...]t about 30% lower cost than a
comparable one made in Hollywood (although there is great
variability and volatility in the area of comparative costs of off-
shore internati[...]gal, Mexico and South Africa — vying to
attract the same productions as Australia).

McMahon and Lake had approached Paramount and secured
the Mission: Impossible deal, which they then took to the Warner
Roadshow Studios. It was based on the programme formula that
had been so successful during the 19605 and the new show was
entirely conceived in the U.S. It was to use mainly U.S. principal
actors, U.S. directors and all the early episodes used U.S. scripts. It
was financed by Paramount with a pre—sale in the U.S. to the ABC
network and in Australia to the Nine Network. The Australian
involvement would be actors in bit parts and as extras and Austral-

“"‘ Michael Lake, who negotiated the deal with the unions, says he recalls no conflict. [Ed.]

purposes ofmeeting the requirement that was then in place that each
station must broadcast 104 hours of such drama a year. In spite of
a great reluctance to approve it, the ABT found itself in a position
under the then definition of being unable to exclude it. The then
Australian content (TPS14) definition said an Australian produc-
tion was one “wholly or substantially made in Australia” and the
Nine Network made a successful case that the programme met the
definition. The Nine Network then was able to use it to fulfil its
Australian drama quota in 1989, which meant that 19 hours of
Australian—c[...]get
made that year. This case played a major role in the ABT’s thinking
about strengthening the definition of Australian content when it
determined a new standard at the end of 1989. This new definition
excluded the Nine Network from getting Australian quota points
for the second series.

Since 1989, the Studios has attracted part or whole production
of[...]of Australian and overseas
productions, including The Delinquents (Chris Thomson, 1989),
Blood Oath (Stephen Wallace, 1990), Until the End ofthe World

(Wim Wanders, 1 992), The Penal Colony (Martin, Campbell 1993)
and Fortress[...]]ac/2 (Simon Wincer), is being partly produced
on the Gold Coast. It has also hosted a number of U.S. s[...]ction of Skippy, which also ran into trouble
with the ABT when two episodes were refused C drama classifica-
tion by its Children’s Program Committee.

The studio’s recent major U.S. series, Time Trax, u[...]TCH OF WARNER ROADSHOW MOVIE WORLD AND STUDIOS ON THE GOLD COAST.

entirely post—produced here. It is, however, conceived, scripted in
and entirely controlled from Hollywood. With 22 episodes in this
series, Nick McMahon, managing director, Vil[...]), claims that $700,000 per episode will be spent
in Australia, a total of more than $15 million. This by itself makes
a dint in the balance of audiovisual trade and he argues that w[...]al ones. They allow Australian creative
personnel the opportunity to work with the best of Hollywood and
thus increase their skills;[...]dits on projects with
a high level of recognition in the U.S. market and thus increases their
chance of wo[...]s of a ‘second wave’ of Australians making it in Hollywood.
They argue that these benefits ought to be reflected in the recogni-
tion given to such productions by the regulator. In concert with the
Queensland government and its key instrumentality, Film Queens-
land, they actively campaign in Canberra and with the Australian
Broadcasting Authority (formerly ABT) for the Australian content
regulations to be changed to a system, like the Canadian one, where

’* Michael Lake says the deal was 50% Australian directors and 30% Australian crew, with
Australian actors in the guest parts.

CINEMA PAPERS 96 - 25

LEFT: LOLA (KYLIE MINOGUE) AND BROWNIE
(CHARLIE SCHLATTER) IN CHRIS THOMSON’S THE
DELINQUENTS, A VILLAGE ROADSHOW PICTURE.

points[...]according to how many Aus-
tralians are employed. The
present rule disqualifies from
full quota points[...]oth a foreign writer and
director even though all the other elements are Australian.

They argue that changes are necessary in order to raise the level
of the licence fee that the Australia networks are prepared to pay for
programmes. Licence fees have fallen drastically since the television
industry got into severe financial trouble. In 1 989, the typical licence
fee for an hour of Australian series drama was $250,000; now it is
$150,000 or lower. According to McMahon, three years ago the
price paid for an hour of imported drama was $50,000; now it is
$20,000, and this is all the networks will pay for programmes which
do not qualify for the full Australian drama quota even if they are
produced in Australia.

Village Roadshow argues that the restrictions mean that Aus-
tralia has lost impor[...]pensive projects to other countries.
It instances The FatalShore, a $20 million mini—series adaptatio[...]s is an Australian story and
would have been made in Australia with all Australian cast and crew
except writer and director. This is typical, it argues, of what will
happen with increasing frequency in the future as other production
sites — for example[...]adshow Studios has also been largely instrumental in
the establishment in 1993 of Export Film Services Australia (EFSA),
an audiovisual export promotion lobby supported by Austrade, the
Pacific Film and Television Commission, and the NSW Film and
Television Office,‘ and a number o[...]. CINEMA PAPERS 96

ancillary services companies. The purpose of EFSA is to
create more opportunities for off-shore production in
Australia, includingjapanese but most significant[...]pro-
ductions, Village Roadshow has also engaged in very big
budget film investment, but with problematic results. It
is estimated that the Australian Film Finance Corpora-
tion and Village[...]e lost several million
each on two projects, Over the Hill (George Miller,
1992) and Turtle Beach (Stephen Wallace, 1992).° This
experience does raise the issue of whether the pursuit of
a high—budget feature film strategy, which can only
succeed if the elusive major U.S. release is secured and is
succ[...]idea for Australia. Even a cursory
examination of the FFC’s recent investment history
suggests that it is the modestly—budgeted projects which
succeed better, both aesthetically and financially.

Within the Village Roadshow organization we see
two very different internationalization strategies. (The example of
Paradise Beach indicates a third, in that it is an unequivocally
Australian programme from a regulatory viewpoint, but is prima-
rily aimed at the U.S. market. Whether this third way is one to be[...]est budgets and indigenous
flavour and recognizes the necessity of overseas financial input
while retaining a high level of local control and local specificity. The
other strategy is to try to make Australia an att[...]for
off—shore production, especially that from the U.S. This recognizes
that the whole world is, as it were, a site for internatio[...]competitive edge will probably flow mainly
from the depth of skill that has been developed in Australia since the
beginning of support policies in 1970 and the fact thatthis continues
because of the comparatively high volume of production carried out
in Australia because of the maturity of the television industry,
backed as it has been by Australian content regulation.

The latter strategy divides opinion in the Australian film and
television community. While m[...]roups of workers now belonging to a single union,.the Media,
Entertainment and Arts Alliance, there wil[...]his issue. It is also opposed by some sections
of the bureaucracy and theThe
growth of productions designed from and for somew[...]t projects of a genuinely indigenous nature.7

On the other hand, the strategy has the strong support of the
Queensland government for whom it is an important plank in its
regional industrial development plans8 and from some sections of
the Commonwealth government and the federal bureaucracy, not
to mention the Opposition. The answer to the dilemma presented
by the Village Roadshow case is, we believe, to not conf[...]dustry. development. Pressure is
being applied to the federal government to relax the

Off—shore production of, say, Mission: Impossible in Australia
will obviously not do that. On the other hand, it may have industrial
benefits and enhance the trade balance, If so, then let governments
accord it the same benefits they might give to other deserving[...]ted sales tax, payroll tax,
favourable loans, and the kind of government-backed initiative that
the EFSA represents. The history and analysis of the experience in
countries which have had ‘branch plant’ film industries — for
example, Spain, Canada, or the UK —— tell us that acting as host to
U.S. pro[...]nce both here and overseas seems to indicate
that what is needed is a combination of both cultural and i[...]al for this article is drawn from interviews with the following
personnel from the Village Roadshow—Warner Roadshow group: Greg Co[...]Cunningham, Framing Culture: Criticism and Policy in Australia, Allen
and Unwin, Sydney, 1992.

Susan Dermody and Elizabeth jacka, The Screening of Australia Vol. 1:
Anatomy ofa Film I[...], 1987.

Susan Dermody and Elizabeth jacka (eds), The Imaginary Industry: Australian
Film in the Late Eighties, Australian Film Television 86 Radi[...]Giles Consulting, Film Industry Opportunities for the Gold Coast Albert
Region: An Economic Perspective, Report for the Gold Coast Albert Regional
Development Committee and the Department of Business Industry and Re~
gional De[...]ement Consulting, A History ofOffshore Production in the UK:
A Report for the Australian Film Commission, April 1992.

Notes

1 See, for a brief history of the company, Susan Dermody and Liz jacka, The
Screening of Australia Vol. 1:Anatomy of a Film I[...]978).

5 Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka (eds), The Imaginary Industry: Aus~
tralian Film in the Late Eighties, Australian Film Television 86 Radio
School, North Ryde, 198 8, p. 50.

6 Graham Burke says the figure lost is far less than usually assumed, as 50%
of Over the Hill was pte—sold to Rank, and Turtle Beach was widely pre-
sold around the world. (Ed.)

7 For further discussion ofthis hig[...]Cunningham,
Framing Culture: Criticism and Policy in Australia, Allen and Unwin,
Sydney, 1992, pp. 37-[...]Giles Consulting, Film Industry Opportunities for the Gold Coast
Albert Region: An Economic Perspective, Report for the Gold Coast Albert
Regional Development Committee and the Department of Business Indus-
try and Regional Development, April 1992.

9 See, for analysis of the UK example, KPMG Management Consulting, A
History of Offshore Production in the UK: A Report for the Australian Film
Commission, April 1992.

fi'%[...]:‘.".".L.., and c, -. 9 ,- 9‘ I
’ present

THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS FILM
EVENT OF THE YEAR

Italian films never before
screened in Australia

Yesterday, Today
and Tomorrow

with sp[...]Taviani, Roberto Faenza,
Francesco Martinotti and the delegation of
Italian filmmakers

FIORILE (1993)[...]se pursued over two centuries of Italian
history. In competition, Cannes 1993.

A MAN TO BE BURNT (1962)
by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Their first film. The story of a Sicilian peasant and his
struggle with the Mafia.

SAINT MICHAEL HAD A ROOSTER (1971)

by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Set in the 1870’s. The tale of a man sentenced to ten years of
solitary confinement for staging what he thought was a
popular uprising. Based on a story. by Leo Tols[...]ssigned as body-
guards for an anti—Mafia judge in Sicily. Starring Enrico Lo
Verso (The Stolen Children). In competition, Cannes 1993.

JONAH WHO LIVED IN THE WHALE (1993)
by Roberto Faenza
An Italian/ French co—production made in English, based on

Iona Obersl<i’s best seller[...]1m—noir styled tale of lethargy gone lethal set in the

tourist mecca of Riccione on the Adriatic.
Critics Week, Cannes 1993.

PERT[...]

Andrew L. Urban reports

Flattered by the attention paid to his project

by the Australians at both a federal and state level
exe[...]Jake Eberts and his team decided
to shoot much of the US$20 million action-adventure

film The Penal Colony in Queensland.

28 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

Jake Eberts:

We were shown all the things we were looking for. I have no idea how
much We saved by shooting in Australia, but what we shot here is
unique. We’re getting considerable benefits, such as the outstanding
crew. We have the pick of the crew. The locations are not expensive
and they are not hard to access; and yes, labour is a BIT cheaper.

The film is produced by the slightly—built but powerfully—success—

ful Gale Anne Hurd, who made her investors millions with The
Terminator (James Cameron, 1984) and Terminator 2: judgment

Day (Cameron, 1991), Aliens (Cameron, 1986) and The Abyss
(Cameron, 1989), among others. Hurd:

The reasons we came here are basically these: I’d a[...]ommission, and
they said, ‘Oh, you can shoot it in Queensland!’ Then the PFTC
proved to us we could in fact do it — they showed us how.

(The Pacific Film and Television Commission is a gover[...]y set up to encourage and assistproduction within
the state.)

Hurd says unlike Mexico and Spain[...]tralia offers two important additional elements:

The language is English, and the crew is world class, which is not the
case in Spain or Mexico. You have to import all your people. The
talent in some cases is not just equal to but superior to a[...]ter. Besides, Spain doesn’t
have a rainforest.

The production used up a massive 400,000 feet of film stock,
which was processed through the new Atlab facility situated within
the Warner Roadshow Studios complex at Cade County on the
Gold Coast. It was the first feature film to utilize the laboratory’s
new arm at the studios, saving the inconvenience of having to get
rushes done in Sydney. Atlab’s set-up at the studios (made possible
by a Queensland Government grant) has substantially improved the
Studios’ appeal to producers.

The Penal Colony pumped some US$14—16 million into the
Australian film industry and the economy generally, through the
provisions, services and equipment needed, plus the hundreds of
cast and crew employed. An estimated 2,000 different people
worked on the film, with up to 450 extras on a single day.

(Although the bulk of the shoot was on Queensland locations,
New South Wales also benefited. The NSW Film and Television
Office had met with Hurd in Los Angeles during thethe NSWFTO: “I think it led

Gale to a greater understanding of the depth and diversity of the
Australian industry; that’s probably why she’s interested in coming

back.”)

Many of the 150-200 crew are Australian, including senior
cre[...]as costume designer Norma Moriceau (who
worked on the Mad Max and ‘Crocodile’ Dundee films), sound[...]r Lesley Wanderwalt and art director Ian Gracie.

The sheer size of the production made it attractive to Queens-
land’s[...]chiefexecutive officer Robinjames points out,
it was also appealing because of Hurd and Eberts. The fact that
filmmakers of their stature in Hollywood are seen to be making big-
budget features in Australia — Queensland in particular — is crucial
for the longer term, as it gives others confidence.

The Penal Colony was originally set amongst the windy, rugged
cliffs of Ireland. But when the PFTC got wind of the project, it set
about discouraging Eberts ‘and[...]and suggested they look instead at re—locating the script
in a rainforest setting.

Over a full 12-month period, the PFTC lobbied and faxed and
phoned; Eberts and Hur[...]s enthusiasm for scuba diving (she hasan interest in
dive businesses in Micronesia), she was drawn to think again about
Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. As often ‘happens, that
particular project was shelved.

CINEMA PAPERS 96 . 29

James felt he needed to do someth[...]eeing it, touching it,
smelling it. So he invited the filmmakers to visit Queensland, and
took them to Canungra in the south of the state, then up to the
\Warner Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast, and further still to
the North Coast and Cairns. They were sold.

The massive movie factory was assembled in readiness to use the
dry season of Far North Queensland, in Australia’s winter. Clear
blue sunny skies were guaranteed but nature had other plans. The
dry season never happened and a new wet season so[...]low clouds and persistent rain so bad it delayed the cane harvest,
ruining much of the crop — and pestering the shoot. James says it is
extraordinary that under the circumstances the production ended
up on time, without the loss ofa single day: “It is a credit to the crew.
I doubt if there are crews anywhere in the world who could have
done that.”

The script is an adaptation of Richard I-Ierley’s violent and
visceral futuristic book, in which a Marine who kills his command-
ing officer[...]gaols — is sent to an
island penal colony where the inmates are more or less left to fester
in their own chaos.

It is a tough place which has split into two armies: the Insiders,
who live within a compound in a roughly ordered community, and
the Outsiders, who roam and rampage wildly.

In the process of fighting for his own cause, the insular killing
machine of a man, Robbins (Ray Liotta), rediscovers some sort of
humanity and recognizes the need for contact with others.

The locals were recruited for the rugged battle scenes, and the
only futuristic scenes are at the beginning of the film. The penal
colony has a slightly mediaeval look, with[...]ecycled as clothing, weapons and even furniture.

The extras and support roles were filled locally, but all principal
roles were cast in the U.S. Despite having a basic agreement on work

30[...]l relations matters, Gale Anne Hurd
found herself in a battle of her own with Actors Equity — a skir[...]trigger happy, with instant threats of ‘see you
in court’, without trying to sort out any problem calmly. It doesn’t
make one want to come back. The problem is not coming from [the
cast or crew], but from the union. In the first two weeks of the shoot,
they came with a list of allegations, all groundless. Maybe someone
who was not hired wanted to cause trouble.

They came and accused us of using the army as extras. That is
absolute nonsense. We had[...]o march like marines — and they knew about that in
advance. But that’s it.

This clash was the only fly in the ointment as far as the producers
were concerned, and PFTC’s James says a meeting of concerned
parties (including the PFTC and Equity) after the completion of
production agreed to follow a more co-operative approach in
future.

Director Martin Campbell (Edge of Darkness) found the making
of The Penal Colony an awesome and challenging task, not least
because of the weather. But he also admires the crew and believes
it is world—class. The film is not only complex in its twisting plot
structure, but it calls for doz[...]iza-
tion. Campbell:

By Hollywood standards this was a lot to achieve, which is one
reason we were down here. All filmmaking is a battleground, and this
is the worst I’ve ever had — and I’ve never done anything on this scale.
Then there is always the challenge to make it more interesting —[...]

ments and analyses all the theat- writer on film - has commissioned

rically-released Australian feature 1 succinct articles on all the films of the

films from 1978-1992. Over 350 stills

illustrate the text, which covers every

past fifteen years from[...]ith Connolly,

Philippa Hawker and Adrian Martin.
The detail and accuracy of each article

aspect of production, financing, cast-
ing and even the critics’ reactions to

the films. is extremely impressive.[...]ustralian Film 1978-1992 has

been produced with the assis-
records each film’s technical and cast tance of the Australian Film Commis-
credits. Carrying on the spirit of sion.
Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper’s p[...]Australian Film 1900-1977,

this book will become the essential

* Essential reference for all those
interested in film

‘*7 Thirty leading film writers exam-

re[...]ne still image

SCOTT MURRAY

IS a film-maker and the editor of
Cinema Papers.

ontributors include Keith
Connolly - longtime film critic
for the Melbourne Herald, now with

the Sunday Age - Geoff Gardner, Paul
Harris and Adrian Martin.

Abe: Paul Mercurio and Gia Carides in
the comedy drama Strictly Ballroom

Right: John lngram (Sam Neill) and his
wife Rae (Nicole Kidman) in the suspense
thriller Dead Calm

Available Nov[...]

When cinema began, Brisbane was a tiny colonial
capital with a population of about 95,000. None of
its suburbs was more than five miles from its centre

and it contained less than a quarter of Queensland’s
inhabitants. It was in the most decentralized of the
mainland states, heavily reliant on mining and
agriculture with o[...]g base.
Nevertheless, Queensland produced more of the
surviving Australian colonial films than any other
state. Their public premiere was delayed for 94 years,
until the authors exhibited them at the Queensland
State Library on 15 September 1993.

T[...]ged

from research funded by Griffith University

in Brisbane, and is published

for the first time in this article.

QUEEN-STREET.
(Two Door: from “[...]FEW DAYS

0!
LUMIERE‘S

CINEMATOGRAPHE.

Under the Patronage 0! His Excellency Lord
Larnlugton, K.C.M.G.

2-I PICTURES IN TWO SERIES OF 12
EACH.

In whlchja Included VIEWS Of

TI-IE QUEEN'S JUBILEE PROCESSION
IN LONDON.

Exhlbltlons every Ha.lf—hour, from 3 t[...]°-

:5:-‘ Nous: axrnaonnrxaav.

On account of the management h8V1DK
decided to take some views of Qu€‘3}1'5"°°‘
to-day (weather permitting) at _12..30 P-mu
In front of the Telegraph Eulldm:§5.' were
\vlll’l')0 N0 EIORN[...]uction
begins: G. Boivin placed
this announcement in the
Brisbane Courier,

7 September 1897, p. 2.

32 .[...]were no Australian film industry magazines until the advent
of Pathé’5 Weekly (later the Australian Kinematograph journal) in
1910.‘ Before then, we had few permanent cinemas. The earliest
Australian films were made and shown by[...]anies, their
output being advertised and reviewed in regional newspapers. The
Brisbane Courier provides most of that city’s available early film
production data. Thethe centralized archiving of its newspapers. Publishe[...]ed to donate copies to Queensland libraries until the
late 19405.2 Brisbane’s evening paper from the 1890s, the Tel-
egraph, survives only in decayed hard copy at the john Oxley
Library, and public access to it is forbidden. Both of Townsville’s
dailies of that period, the Bulletin and the Star, are entirely lost}
Consequently, our attemp[...]ness.

G. BOIVIN
FIRST QUEENSLAND FILMMAKER

When the Lumiere company’s operator Marius Sestier left Australia
in May 1897, one of his cinématographes was bought by a Mr G.
Boivin, who put it on show in Brisbane from 3 May to 26 June
1 897.4 He later re-opened in a converted shop near the Telegraph
newspaper building in Brisbane’s Queen Street on 3 1 August 1 897,,
s[...], showing Queen Street’s lunchtime
traffic from the front of the Telegraph building. Reports suggest that
several[...]ed his inten-
tion of returning to Brisbane early in 1 898 to show these efforts7, but
no report of th[...]e Royal, including several Australian film
titles in his programme.” Excluding those attributable to[...]TLE
(from Roclzhampton Bulletin)

A Game of Bowls in Sydney
Tigers in Adelaide Zoo

Breaking down a Shed in Sydney
Breaking down a Wall in Melbourne
On the Swings in Melbourne

These misrepresentations, and the absence of the Queen Street
film from the Rockhampton programmes, throw doubt on the
success of Boivin’s Brisbane productions. Was the film successfully
processed and exhibited? Was it only a publicity.stunt? Was there
really any film in the camera?

Alternatively,[...]ed “Lumiere’s
I Cinematographe” (improved, in that it projected both
slides and movies) at Rockhampton’s Theatre Royal.‘° The show
was inexplicably postponed until 15 December 1897, when he
exhibited the 1897 VRC Derby and 1897 Melbourne Cup, prob-
ably shot by A. Perier of the Sydney photographic supply house
Baker 86 Rouse."[...]s
(taken at Government House, Brisbane), but this was probably
another re—titled import. He subsequently moved to Brisbane with
shows opening in Queen Street’s Grand Arcade from 22 December
18[...]further Queensland films were advertised.

Until the 1 897 issues ofthe Brisbane Telegrap/7 can be exa[...]Mason,

BoIvIN FILMOGRAPHY

(1) Lunchtime Traffic in Queen Street, Brisbane (shot 12:30 pm, 7
Septembe[...]efer to “views” (plural) of Queen Street,
and the intention to show them early in 1898. Same paper, 13
September 1897, p. 7, has a[...]robably a French film, re—titled “with tongue in cheek”!

‘MELBOURNE RACING FILMS SHOWN BY
ALFRED MAsoN

A. J. Perier, sales manager for Baker Sc Rouse in Sydney, recalled
making films answering this description in Tbe Sydney Morning
Herald, 9 June 1922, p. 9. Mar[...]d these events. These may be Sestier’s films of the 1896
Melbourne Cup and VRC Derby, misrepresented as the following
year’s races:

(1) V.R.C.Derby, Melbourne, 1897.
Refer Brisbane Courier, 23 December 1897, p. 2.

(2) Start, Finish and Weighmg-In of the 1897 Melbourne Cup.
Refer Brisbane Courier, 23 De[...]. C. Haddon (seated) and Sidney Ray (kneeling) on the Cambridge Torres
Strait Expedition, 1898. A. C. H[...]tesy
AIATSIS Pictorial Collection, Canberra.

(4) The Lawn, Flemington.
Refer Brisbane Courier, 23 Dece[...]er Brisbane Courier, 23 December 1897, p. 2.

(6) The Crowd at the (Melbourne) Cup.
Refer Brisbane Courier, 23 December 1897, p. 2.

(7) Carriages Returning from the (Melbourne) Cup.
Refer Brisbane Courier, 23 Decem[...]s of Australian Aborigines
are often portrayed as the pioneering effort in the field. His effort
was praiseworthy, but Spencer was following a precedent set in
1 898 by his colleague Alfred Cort Haddon (1 855-1940). Haddon’s
films were the first ever taken on a field expedition.”

Two years after graduating from Cambridge University in 1 878,
Haddon was appointed Professor of Zoology at the Royal College
of Sciences, and Assistant Naturalist to the Science and Art Museum
in Dublin. In this capacity, Haddon spent eight months on an
expedition investigating the marine zoology of Torres Strait during
1888 and 1889. There, he became fascinated by the rapidly
disappearing customs and ceremonies of the Islanders, spending
most of his spare time noting[...]ral minor papers were subsequently published, but the research
was inadequate to assemble a general ethnographic work on the
region.”

CINEMA PAPERS 96 . 33

leaders in their specialities, to go to Torres Strait in 1898 and make
a thorough study of it. They were comprehensively equipped with
the very latest scientific recording instruments. Sidney Ray, an
authority on the languages of Oceania, the musicologist Dr C. S.
Myers and the naturalist Dr C. G. Seligman used two wax—cylin[...]rds of Islander speech
and song.” These survive in the British Institute of Recorded Sound.
Their photog[...]ovies
and even experimental colour photographs by the Ives and Joly
process. These would have been the earliest colour photographs
taken in Australia. “ The photography was done by Haddon and by
a 21-year-old student with previous experience in Algeria and
Egypt, Anthony Wilkin, who died of dysentery in Cairo only three
years later.” The psychologists and medical experts Dr W. H. R.
Rivers and Dr W. McDougall completed the party.

They reached Thursday Island on 22 April 1898 and spent
almost seven months in the Torres Strait and New Guinea. Four

34 . CINEMA P[...]September 1898);
Murray Island: Islanders Dancing in Dari Headdress (c. 6 September
1898); Murray Island: Islanders Dancing in Dari Headdress (No. 2; c.
6 September 1898); Murr[...]Guardia movie camera, as used by Professor
Haddon in the Torres Strait in 1898, had a convoluted film path
causing films to[...]es Strait,
during Haddon’s Cambridge Expedition in 1898. With two phono-
graphs, a movie camera and[...]ictorial Collection, Canberra.

months were spent in the Murray Islands, whose inac-
cessibility and relat[...]y suitable for study. Two visits were made
there, the first during May 1 89 8, the latter commencing
on 20 July and concluding on 8 September.”

HADDoN’s FILMS

In March 1898, Haddon purchased a 35mm Newman and Guardia
movie outfit in London, including 30 rolls of raw film 75 feet lo[...]oduce Islander dances, ceremonies and customs.”
The dispatch of the film was apparently delayed by being inadvert-
ently sent to Haddon’s friend, Mr C. Hose, in Sarawak.” As a result,
filming did not begin until the last week of their second stay on
Murray Island, after 1 September 1 898. Another problem was
encountered with the Newman and Guardia movie camera, which
sustained damage in transit, ca using the films to jam in the tropical
climate. Only a few films were taken successfully.

According to Haddon’s diary“, the films were made by Haddon
himself, possibly assis[...]photo of fire making
by Pasi, Sergeant and Mana in morning.

6 September 1898: Tried to take cinematograph photos of Murray
I. Kap in Australia corrobora (beche de mer men on board the lugger
Coral Sea belonging Fred Lankester [.. .][...]ed [P] at Kiam [...]

Haddon’s journal covering the week of 1-8 September 1898,
written while the expedition was packing for its departure from
Murray Island, ind[...][...] some rather important things turned up at the last [...] For
example some Australian natives came in a beche de mer boat and
I wanted to get a cinematograph of their dancing — and it was also
only just at the last that we could get part of the Malu ceremony
danced with the masks that had been made for me — but the dance
was worth waiting for. I tried to cinematograph it but as has often
happened the machine jams and the film is spoiled — I am afraid that
this part of my outfit will prove a failure 86 the colour photography
is I fear at present of little[...]many
disappointments on this expedition, perhaps] was too sanguine.

Cat. 6250b. Panorama of Thursday Island,
the Headquarters of the Pearl Fishing Indus-
try. This little known island is very difficult
ofaccess, but from it the great majority ofthe
largest and finest pearls are obtained. The
view presented in the film embraces the jetty
alongside which the sailing craft are moved
as they return from the fishing grounds. In
the back ground the conformation of the

island is distinctly seen, whilst as the camera
Thursday 8 September [1898] we left Murray Island [per the
“Niue”] at 10 a.m. 23

rotates a number of the pearling cutters are seen lying at anchor in
the estuary. Length 75 feet [1 minute 15 seconds].

H[...]rs about his films were ill-founded. On return to The film is I10t l<I10WU f0 Sl1fViV€ and the IHCIUSIOH Of the “P311”

London, he had the few rolls shot on Mun-ay Island processed by move[...]s’movements.However,

Guardia told him: Spencer was quick to follow Haddon’s advice. On 1 December

_ _ _ e 1900, Spencer wrote to Haddon:
With respect to the Kinematograph, we are waiting for you to return

the machine for repair, when we will report as to what has gone
wrong with it. In the meantime, we beg to enclose a print from a strip[...]at there is nothing much to

I am cabling home to the Warwick Co. to send me out the Biograph
[sic] instrument. They wrote me by last mail saying that a catalogue
was forwarded [...] I was in hopes that you would have given me

complain of w[...]to take with me as I have had no

practically on the first trial and under admittedly unfavourable
circumstances. We tested all the films, and have developed those that
promise good[...]ll have one or two more to finish?‘

experience in this line and can get no help out here [in Melbourne] .3“

Spencer’s work with the Warwick Bioscope in Central Australia
during 1901 is well known.” Many popular histories credit him as

Although limited in both scope and duration, the surviving 4.5 being the pioneer of these techniques, ignoring the Torres Strait

minutes of I-Iaddon’s films cont[...]s precedent. Haddon reaped more tangible rewards. In 1900, he Was
with their high technical standard. The material surviving matches appointed University Lecturer in Ethnology at Cambridge Univer-
the descriptions in Haddon’s diary and journal, and there seems to sity, and in 1901 was elected to a fellowship at Christ’s College?“

be little missing from the print. Strangely, no screenings of the films Haddon’s films were stored at Cambridge until 1967, when the

by Haddon have been traced. The six volumes of Reports of the British Film Institute copied them?" Prints are now held by the

Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
Torres S[...]en 1901 and
1935, contain virtually no mention of the
films, other than a few frame enlargements
(plate 29) in volume six. These show “the
movements of the zogo le” (cult priests) from
the Bomai—Malu ceremony, stated to have
been shot at Kiam in the Eastern Torres
Strait.“

INFLUENCE 0N BALDWIN
S[...]graph — a
biograph — or whatever they call it in your
part of the world. It is an indispensable piece
of anthropolo[...]order from Lon-
don I think I would place myself in the hands
of the Warwick Trading Company, 4 War-
wick Court, High[...]alogue and to write to
you as well. I have stated what you want it for.
I have no doubt that your films will pay for
the whole apparatus if you care to let some of
them be copied by the trade.“

Examination of the Warwick Trading Com-
pany film catalogue for Augu[...]f Biology at Melbourne University and Director
of the National Museum of Victoria, followed
Haddon’s instructions in the anthropological
usage of motion pictures and sound recording. He
took the usage of film on field expeditions much
further t[...]g 3,000 feet of
Aboriginal ceremonies and customs in the five
weeks following 3 April 1901. Contacts and
recommendations on film equipment in London
were made for Spencer by Haddon. Photo fro[...]owry.

National Film SC Sound Archive and AIATSIS
in Canberra, and by Ian Dunlop at Film
Australia in Lindfield. They are the oldest
surviving Queensland films, and the oldest
films ofTorres Strait Islanders. As a result of
the béche de mer men’s visit to Murray Island
on 6 September 1898, they are also the oldest
films of Australian Aborigines.

HADDoN’[...]ny at Kiam (shot c.
6 September 1898).

Three men in forest setting wearing leaf
skirts; leading man wears the cardboard
mask made for Haddon and last man holds
a tailpiece. They dance in procession. Length
50 seconds at 16 f.p.s.

(2) Murray Island: Islanders Dancing in Dari
Headdress (probably 6 September 1898).
Three men in labalabas perform a proces-
sional dance on a beach. Camera jam occurs
mid-shot and the dance re—commences.
Length 70 seconds.

(3) Murray Island: Islanders Dancing in Dari
Headdress (probably 6 September 1898).
Unidentified dance, same camera position as
(2), but with the camera panned slightly to
the right. Three men dancing in procession
on a beach. Length 21 seconds.[...]

the 1899 films.

Above, right: Lumiere Cinematographe No. 296, 1898, used by Wills and Mobsby of the
Queensland Agriculture Department to shoot the world’s first governmental films, 1899.
Currently held by Queensland Museum, and still in working order. Photo by courtesy of
Mark Whitmore[...]m.

Right: Wills‘ Lumiere camera opened to show the film gate and lightproof feed magazine

with 75 foot film load capacity. There was never any viewfinder on this camera. The glass

window behind the film gate (top right) provided a view of the image on the film itself
before shooting commenced to indicate the field of view. Photo courtesy of Mark
Whitmore, Q[...]Pasi, Sergeant and Mana — sit cross—legged on the
ground, twirling a stick between their palms bear[...]rhythm by hitting
a long pole with a branch. Film in three sections with cuts
separating them. Same lo[...]GOVERNMENT
FILM PRODUCTION: 1899

Immigration to the colony of Queensland was promoted by a
touring lecturer in Britain named George Randall, working under
the direction of the Queensland Agent—General in London, Sir
Horace Tozer.3° In the late 1890s, Randall illustrated his lectures
with lantern slides prepared in Queensland by the official photog-
rapher of the Department of Agriculture, Frederick Charles Wills.

Wills was young and enthusiastic, actively involved with the
Queensland Amateur Photographic Society, and a fr[...]ralia’s photographic magazines.“ Appointed to the
Department of Agriculture as Official Artist and[...]ted by cons-
ervative co—workers. For instance, in March 1898 the Queensland
Agricultural ]ourmzl’s editor tried[...]on-
tent.” Fortunately for Wills, a Ministerial decision overruled this.

In October 1898, Wills suggested that Randall’s le[...]des [...] prepared on

36 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

the Lumiere Cinematographe principle”.3" The imminence of the
prestigious Greater Britain Exhibition at Earl’s Court in 1899
provided an incentive to give this project a[...]ls’
lantern slides were exhibited there, though the films were not
completed in time for it.

Queensland’s Chief Secretary’s Department agreed to finance
the motion picture venture for a year starting in October 1 8 9835, and
the world’s first governmental film production project was launched.
In December 1 898, the Minister for Agriculture instructed Wills to
go to Sydney to obtain a Lumiere Cinematographe and the expertise
to operate it.“ Baker 8C Rouse imported the gear, and early in 1 899
Wills made about five trial films with it in Sydney.” Success was
reported in the Australasian Photographic Review on 21 March
1 89933, the Sydney films including scenes of Redfern railway[...]Sydney survive today.

On his return to Brisbane in March 1899, the Department gave
Wills an assistant.” Henry Will[...]1933) helped
Wills to produce and process many of the 1899 films. After Wills’
resignation in 1903, Mobsby continued to produce Queensland
government films sporadically until he retired in August 1930.40

During Wills’ “still” photography excursions around Queens-
land for the Department of Agriculture between March and Octo-[...]Many of these illustrated agricultural processes in
an attempt to attract British farmers to the colony, which was the
immigration lecturer George Randall’s primary c[...]ial Governor, Lord Lamington, is seen
arriving at the opening of Colonial Parliamentin Brisbane on 18

May 1899 — the oldest of Wills’ Queensland‘films which can be

Between June and August 1899, the Lumiere cinématographe
accompanied H. W. Mobsby on the tour of the government motor
vessel “White Star” to Torre[...]tary, Justin Foxton, received reports of problems in the pearling
industry, and of abuses of the natives in the Torres Strait. The
subsequent expeditionary party included Aborigina[...]Tilston, Police Chief Parry—Oakden and Mobsby. The two
surviving films ofthe expedition show the Channel Rock Light Ship
receding astern off the Townsville Coast, and Foxton receiving a gift
of bananas from Islanders on either Darnley or Murray Island in the
Eastern Torres Strait.

Mobsby also attempted to[...]ipa when Foxton
officially gave it that name, but the attempt was aborted when “an
expected corroboree fell throu[...]as lantern slides to comple-
ment and supplement the films, survives in thejohn Oxley library.“
The expedition concluded on 5 August 1899 when the party
returned to Townsville.

The greater part of Wills’ surviving films were apparently taken
in the Spring of 1899, following Mobsby’s return to Brisbane, and
illustrate aspects of wheat harvesting on the Darling Downs, sugar
harvesting at Nambour, and ofstock management. These are easily
the earliestAustralian industrial documentary films, and are among
the earliest films of their type in the world. Many of the 60—second
rolls are constructed in sequences of two or three camera set—ups,
and the rolls are intended for exhibition in a logical order to
construct a narrative of the agricultural processes shown. “When a
subject takes more than one film”, Wills casually observed in 1900,
“they are joined with the aid of amyl acetate with some of the
celluloid dissolved in it. ”“" Wills made the earliest surviving Austral-
ian films exhibiting sequential editing techniques.

Especially in the wheat harvesting series, the shots are superbly
composed, logically sequenced[...]d Wills’ films, shot as a trial while
acquiring the Lumiere machine from Baker 8c Rouse in Sydney. Castellated turrets of
Government House can be seen on the opposite shore, with Bennelong Point and Fort
Macquarie on the left. Photo courtesy of Meg Labrum, National Film[...]anberra.

wide View of a wagon bringing stooks to the thresher into a close
View of operations at the thresher itself. In the Nambour sugar
harvesting series a similar “jump[...]horse—drawn tramway bringing a load of cane to the mill’s
conveyor, cutting close into a scene of trimming operations at the
conveyor. The sugar harvesting series is particularly important[...]orted to work under conditions resembling slavery
in the Southern states of the U.S. The usage of this labour force
ceased with the advent ofAustralian federation, and Wills’ films are
among the few surviving reminders of this shameful chapter in
Australia’s history.“

Wills showed an artist’s care in his methods of composition and
working, outlined in a lecture he subsequently gave on film-making:

There is artistic taste needed in choice and arrangement of subject as
much, and perhaps more, than in ordinary photography. I find it best
to rehearse the scene I wish to photograph whatever it might be, that
is when persons are to play any part in the picture, as those
unaccustomed to photography often do the wrong thing at the
wrong time, and possibly cause a film to be waste[...]Of his “out-takes”, one negative is included in the collection
which appears never to have been printed. It shows a close view of
railway tracks receding from the rear of a railway carriage in rural
Queensland. Wills apparently misjudged the coverage ofhis camera
from the rear of the train, pointing it downwards too far to record
an[...]ccessful travelling
shots of this type do survive in the collection, one showing scrub in
the vicinity of the railway at Eumundi (near Nambour) and the
other showing forests in the Atherton tablelands on the Cairns-
Mareeba line.

In 1 899, the concept ofa camera with a moving point ofview was
unprecedented in Australia, and Wills’ “phantom train rides”[...]A constant rule of documentary production is that the sponsor
should be kept happy. Wills did well to include his employers, the
Queensland government, in a film of them boarding the govern-
ment paddle steamer “Lucinda” for a Ministerial banquet. It was
shot at a Brisbane River wharf just behind the (then) new Agricul-
ture Department building in William Street. I-Iighgate Hill can be
seen across the Brisbane River. The occasion is thought to be their
outing in connection with the Queensland Federation League on 14
October 1899.50

Wills’ last and most impressive films recorded the departure
celebrations of the First Queensland (Cavalry) Contingent for the
Boer War in South Africa at the end of October 1899. The
Queensland Mounted Infantry, 14 officers and 250[...]during
their final parade past Post Office Square in Queen Street on 28
October 1899.5‘ Later sequences show their Review before the
Lieutenant-Governor Sir Samuel Griffith on the Brisbane Domain
that afternoon”, and the loading of their reluctant horses for South
Africa aboard the troopship “Cornwall” at Pinkenba on 31 Octo-
ber 1 899.53 This was the first occasion on which Queensland troops
went to war, and it was attended with forcefully jingoistic displays
of patriotism, as the film indicates. No other films of Australian
Boer War troop departures are known to survive.

At the end of October 1899, the Chief Secretary’s financing of the
film experiment ceased. The value of this film to Queensland now
had t[...]

of the cinema

REEEHM

\‘_

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UNIVERSITY PRESS

IO Stamford[...]

BRIAN MCFARLANE

I n the past few years there has been a heart-
ening flow[...]ave been films which seem to have taken
notice of the fact that he — Shakespeare — was
not writing forthe academy, but for large, enthu-
siastic audiences. Kenneth Branagh's Henry V
(1990) settled in for a long, comfortable run at
Hoyts complexes and, in the following year,
Franco Zeffirelli had his first box-office success
in years with Mel Gibson as Hamlet. in 1992,
Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, a mo[...]ularity by
casting Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in the
leads. Now we are in the situation of having
Branagh's exuberant Much Ado About Nothing
opening as a mainstream release at the same
time as Orson Welles’ more than forty—year-old
Macbeth (1949) and Othello (1952), in lovingly
restored versions, are both showing in more
limited releases, and preceding, though not[...]Like It.

If Shakespeare is to be kept alive for the
young and for the non-specialist audience, then
increasingly the cinema seems the most likely
medium. The theatre is becoming more and
more a middle—clas[...]musicals, or,
if we are thinking of Shakespeare, the prestig-
ious reaches of Britain's National Theat[...]sell-out as King Lear. Television, demotic
enough in its appeal, goodness knows, has
adopted generally[...]ntional
approach to Shakespeare, cleaving more to the
traditions of the stage than to the greater free-
dom offered by filming. The BBC Shakespeare
series is a prime example (but by no means the
only one) of this tendency, whereby actors in
doublet and hose run up and down rostra and
peer[...]nd.

There are no doubt many challenges to be
met in filming Shakespeare, perhaps none of
them more demanding than that of rendering the
stylization of his blank verse pentameters com-
patible with the intransigent realism of the

screens mise en scene. To retain
a sense of the poetry at the same
time as making it sound sufficiently
conversational, as realistic as the
settings in which it is spoken, has
not always come easily to[...]enging as this is, it needs to be
remembered that what is at stake
is no more than a convention, no
more of an affront to what is "real-
istic” and acceptable than those
moments in musicals when walk-
ing, talking characters suddenly
begin to dance and sing in the
streets.

The cinematic task of popular-
izing Shakespeare has[...]to Branagh, with more
uncompromising sallies from the
likes of Welles and Derek Jarman
(The Tempest, 1979). Olivier, still
working very much within the tra-
ditions of British theatre and sur-
rounding himself with actors from
the Old Vic and other theatre col-
leagues, scored a great succes
d’estime with his moraIe—boosting
Henry V (1944), and some con-
siderable popular success, though
not enough to ward off the Ameri-
can pun pan of “Hank Sank” as a
comment on its mainstream re-
ception in the U.S. His Hamlet
(1948), drawing on contemporary f[...]technique, and Richard //l(1955), engross-
ing if in a more academic mode, confirmed his
position as the screens most respected and
successful adaptor to date.

Nevertheless, it was really Zeffirelli who
achieved what Shakespeare himself would al-
most certainly have[...]his Richard Burton-Eliza-
beth Taylor version of The Taming of the Shrew
(1967) and, above all, his Romeo and Juliet
(1968). This latter caught the mood of youthful
rebellion that was in the air and on the campuses
in that year, and his handsome, then-unknown
leads.[...]bunch of hot-
blooded Veronese youth reacting to the high
bright sun and against their dictatorial eld[...]Ote/lo is of
course Verdi not Shakespeare, and it was not
until his 1990 Hamlet that he returned to the
filming of the Bard. When he did, the result was
popular as a star vehicle for Mel Gibson, and
was a decent enough piece of work, butseemed
to have[...]Macbeth made on a shoestring for
Republic, of all the most unlikely studios, met
with widespread[...]

Welles’ Othello[...]d its filming subject to all
manner of delays, is in spite of these vicissi-
tudes some sort of a mast[...]is glorious Chimes at Mid-
night(1 966), arguably the greatest of all Shake-
s‘-pearian films, he has again been obdurately
true to his own vision of the play. He does not
make it easy forthose unfamiliar with the plays
as he pursues his'own line on what it is that
drives Macbeth or Falstaff or Othello. His search
for the essential protagonist leads him to weave
in and out of the p|ay’s structure until he finds
one of his own[...]holly cinematic vision.

Othello, now being shown in a version re-
stored by Welles’ daughter, Beatrice Welles-
Smith, opens daringly on a close-up of the face
of the dead Othello (Welles). The litter on which
he has been lain is picked up and[...]mpa-
nied by a keening soundtrack, is borne up to the
parapets of a seashore castle. Another proces-
sion carries the body of Desdemona (Suzanne

40 - CINEMAR/PAPERS 9[...]CONRADE). MUCH ADO ABOUT
NOTHING.

Cloutier), and in the opposite direc-
tion Iago (Micheal MacLiammoir) is
dragged by the neck and placed in
a cage which is then swung aloft,
the object of contempt and revile-
ment. All this takes place before the
credits; no dialogue is spoken, but
music and the sound of guns, and
the violent contrasts of imagery,
have prepared the way for an in-
tensely cinematic, far-from—conven-
tional reading of the play. In spite of
the often out-of—sync sound—record-
ing and the scratchy nature of the
print, even in its restored form, it is
clear from the outset that this is a
major piece of work.

In swift, visual story-telling mode,
the tale of Othel|o’s courtship ofthe
Venetian lady, Desdemona, the removal in the
cause of war to Cyprus, and the sowing and
rapid germination of the seeds of jealousy in
response to lago’s malign innuendo is accom-
plished with a fluidity that seems to belie the
films fractured production history. Marvellously[...]ultiple designers and camera-
men, Welles creates the ascendancy and fall of
Shakespeare’s simplesttr[...]es.

After a surprisingly low-key introduction to
the vocal Othello in “Keep up your bright swords,
for the dew will rust them", the film suddenly
offersaclearclose-up of Wellesthat recallsthat
sublime moment in The Third Man (Carol Reed,
1949) when we first see his Harry Lime. Almost
wholly in close-up, too, and working quietly and
persuasively against the potential bombast of
the lines, he recalls the “round unvarnished tale"
with which he had wooed and won Desdemona,
whose reactions are recorded in inserted close-
ups. A little later, they are seen hemmed in by
high buildings, ob-
served from a balcony
abov[...]Coote). By contrast, on
OtheI|o’s safe arrival in
Cyprus, he and Des-
demona are reunited in
a low-angled shot that
seemsto celebrate the
security of their love.

The film invites one
to talk about it in this
way because it so in-
sistently makes its
meanings in visual
terms. A mirror shot in
which Othello makesa
brief se|f—appraisaI; the
turmoilofthe oceanfar
below as he demands

"proof[...]of eloquent compositions, but they are
always at the service of the narrative and the
drama. Equally, too, one can be moved by the
sudden simplicity of pain that informs the soli|o-
quy “Farewell the tranquil mind as Othello,
still. and shot from below, surveys the inner
wreckage ofhisIife.ThefiIm ends visually where
it began, with the cage, the procession and the
parapets, images that now take on a new poign-
an[...]ent into chaos has been
swiftly accomplished, and the penultimate scene
makes clearthe basis for our pi[...]It is not
truethatheis "one not easilyjealous”:the action
of the film gives the lie to. this: he is, though,
“Perplex’d in the extreme”, and his face, lit in
close-up, surrounded by darkness, reinforces
visually the words of the screenplay.

As in Macbeth, though to a much lesser
extent, there are some depressingly inadequate
performances in supporting roles. Loyalty to an
early mentor prob[...]despite a very apt
sense early on of a terrier at the heels of a large
dog, he seems too elderly, too lacking in the kind
of imaginative energy that would enable him[...]actress, achieves some real author-
ity as Emilia in her final confrontation of Othello
and Iago, but too often seems to be acting in a
different, older theatrical tradition. Suzanne[...]is not only that
Welles’ own performancegivets the attention,

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David Williamson, R[...], Antony Ginnane, Gillian
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Cen[...]Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under
Allende, Between The Wars, Alvin Purple

NUMBER 3 (JULY I974):

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

NUMBER I0 (SEPT/OCT I[...]obb, Samuel Z.
Arkoff, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The
Picture Show Man.

NUMBER I2 (APRIL I977)

Ken Lo[...]o Tosi, John
Dankworth, John Scott, Days Of Hope,
The Getting Of Wisdom.

NUMBER I3 ( JULY I977)

Louis[...]eanine Seawell, Peter Sykes, Bernardo
Bertolucci, In Search OfAnna.

NUMBER 14 (OCTOBER 1977)

Phil No[...]er,
Terry Jackman, John Huston, Luke’s
Kingdom, The Last Wave, Blue Fire
Lady.

NUMBER IS (JANUARY I978)

Tom Cowan, Truffaut, John Faulkner,
Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri
Lankan film, Chant Ofjimrni[...]blom, John Duigan, Steven
Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa
Project, Swedish cinema, Dawnl, Patrick.[...]lle Huppert, Brian May,
Polish cinema, Newsfront, The Night The
Prowler.

NUMBER 18 (OCT/NOV 1978)
John Lamond, S[...]nalism,

Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, Water
Under The Bridge.

NUMBER 27 (JUNE-JULY 1930)
Randal Kleise[...]ka, Stephen Wallace, Philippine
cinema, Cruising, The Last Outlaw.

NUMBER 36 (FEBRUARY I982)

Kevin Do[...]chael Rubbo, Blow Out,
Breaker Morant, Body Heat, The Man
From Snowy River.

NUMBER 37 (APRIL I982)

St[...]Jacki Weaver, Carlos
Saura, Peter Ustinov, women in drama,
Monkey Grip.

NUMBER 38 (JUNE 1982)

Geoff[...]r, Norwegian cinema, National
Film Archive, We Of The Never Never.

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER 1982)

Henri Saf[...]Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, My
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Captain Invincible.

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The Year Of Living Dangerously.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH I98[...]Ian Pringle,
Agnes Varda, copyright, Strikebound,
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-[...]uvall, Jeremy Irons,
Eureka Stockade, Waterfront, The Boy In
The Bush,A Woman Suffers, Street Hero.

NUMBER 47 (AU[...]hael Pattinson, Jan
Sardi, Yoram Gross, Bodyline, The Slim
Dusty Movie.

NUMBER 49 (DECEMBER 1984)

Ala[...]Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti,
Brian May, The Last Bastion, Bliss.

NUMBER SI (MAY I985)

Lino[...]Hazlehurst, Dusan Makavejev, Ernoh
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Max: Beyond Thunderdorne, Robb[...]man, Menahem Golan, rock videos,
Wills And Burke, The Great Bookie
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NUMBER 56 (MARCH I9[...]ard—Smith, John Hargreaves,
Deaa'—End Drive—In, The More Things
Change, Kangaroo, Tracy.

NUMBER 58 (JULY I986)

Woody Allen, Reinhard Hauff, Orson
Welles, the Cinémathéque 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 I986)
Australian Tel[...]man Polanski, Philippe
Mora, Martin Armiger, film in South
Australia, Dogs In Space, Howling III.

NUMBER 62 (MARCH 1987)

Scre[...]A conference, production
barometer, film finance, The Story Of
The Kelly Gang.

NUMBER 53 (MAY 1937)

Gillian Armstr[...]ris Haywood, Elmore Leonard, Troy
Kennedy Martin, The Sacrifice, Land-
slides, Pee Wee’s Big Adventur[...], James Clayden,
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NUMBER 67 (JANUARY[...]iller, Jim
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Martha A[...]4, Soviet Cinema,
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Yahoo Serious, David Cronenberg, 1988 in
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NUMBER 74 (JULY 1989)

The Delinquents, Australians in Hollywood,
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NUMBER 75 (SEPTEMBER 1989)
Sally Bongers, The Teen Movie, Animated,
Edens Lost, Pet Sematary, M[...]dile” Dundee overseas.

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The Crossing, Return Home, Peter
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Hilton, Barlow and Chambers[...]NUMBER 82 (MARCH 1991)

Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather Part
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Australia at Cannes, Gillian Armstrong: The
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NUMBER 86 (JANUARY 1992)
Overview of Australian film: Romper
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Clint Eastwood an[...]iller and Gross Misconduct; David
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Australia’s First Films.

NUMBER 92 (APR[...]ller and Lorenzo’s Oil; Megan Simpson
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Australian films at Cannes, Jane Campion
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NUMBER 95 (OCTOBER 1993)
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The mantle of popu|arizer— a term used here
with ab[...]er
fitted Welles and has fallen to Branagh. Still in
his early thirties, he has the triumphs of Henry V
and now of Much Ado About Nothing already
under his belt, as well as a string of other
achievements inin the same waythatthey respond
to any other movie", and the evidence of his first
two adaptations is that he has achieved his goal.
In narrative terms, the action is wholly clear, as
it was in Henry V, as are the characters and their
relationships. As before, he has not hesitated to
shear away what is likely to be obfuscating to
modern ears not pa[...]f some
ofthe most potent young American actors of the
day, reinforces his belief that Shakespeare
should be accessible to everyone, not the pre-
serve of an elite theatre tradition.

The film opens on a black screen, across
which in white script the words of the song “Sigh
no more, men were deceivers ever ar[...]ich
proves to belong to Beatrice (Emma Thompson).
The camera eventually finds her seated in a
tree, reading to a group of alfresco lunchers on
a Tuscan hillside. The sensuous gaiety of the
scene is then interrupted by the approach of
returning soldiers, first in an overhead long-
shot, then of horses’ hooves in close-up. In an
exhilarating alternation of the women's frantic
dressing and of the men arriving, bathing and
changing, the scene is set for the opening ex-
change between Beatrice and Benedick[...]l be talking, Signior
Benedick: nobody marks you.
What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?

The strength of the play is of course in the
relationship between these two mature, corro-
siv[...]oddly vulnerable people, cre-
ated by Shakespeare in his mid—thirties and here

I[...]y two of nearly that age who perfectly
understand the requirements of the roles. They
can (like the cast at large) speak the verse as if
they had just thought of it; they clearly relish the
cut and thrust of vituperation which character-
i[...]alings with each other; and
they can move us with the sudden access of real
feeling that enables them t[...]their love
for each other and their contempt for what they
see as Claudio’s dishonourable behaviour.

The Claudio-Hero sub-plot, inin itself very interesting or even
convincing. its real importance is in the way it
provides the occasion for the deepening of the
relationship between the mature lovers-to-be,
Beatrice and Benedick. The play’s most chilling
moment is when Beatrice tests the strength of
Benedick’s newly pronounced love with the two
words, “Kill Claudio”. In Branagh’s film, this
scene, set in a small chapel, has been very
sharply directed an[...]ough a series of
rapidly alternating close-ups of the two, culmi-
nating in Beatrice’s full-face command. Very
movingly, the whole tone of the drama is deep-
ened as lt should be, and gives weight to the
ensuing scene in which Benedick, with new
seriousness of purpose, attacks his old com-
rade, Claudio.

As always in Much Ado, it is very difficult to
retain any sympathy for the gullible Claudio or
any real interest in the blameless Hero. How-
ever, they are played here w[...]and newcomer Kate Beckinsale to more than
answer the demands the narrative makes on
them. (if Branagh has Romeo an[...]are his stars.) Above all, they throw into
relief the greater wit and maturity ofthe Beatrice-
Benedick partnership, in the rendering of which
Branagh and Thompson suggestthat they could
be the heirs to the high—comedy laurels once
won and worn by Willia[...]ly, Shakespeare's
bickering lovers may be seen as the ancestors
of, say, Nick and Nora Charles: that is, of lovers
with minds that they are not prepared to check in
at the desk as they register for marriage.
Thompson’s[...]ranagh’s direc-

tion have also retained the moving sense the
play offers of Shakespeare's respect for and
belief in the powers and perceptions of an intel-
ligent woman.

For all that Branagh has described the play
as a fairy tale with a darker undercurrent, he has
not hesitated to invoke the screen's effortless
naturalism in this version of it. The formal dignity
of Leonato’s villa and the slumbrous, summery
Tuscan countryside in which it is set provide
exactly the correlatives for the drama of cold
purpose and sensuousness that constitutes the
plot, and could make one dissatisfied forever
with pillars and rostra.

The casting, too, works remarkably well. Apart
from t[...]such
Branagh regulars as Richard Briers (Bardolph in
Henry V, a dignified Leonato here), Brian Blessed
(Exeter in Henry V, here a bluff Antonio), the
wonderful Phyllida Law and Imelda Staunton
(both in Peter's Friends, here respectively the
wise Ursula and the duped Margaret). As well as
these, all attheir considerable bests, there is the
American contingent: Denzel Washington (a
striking leader of the returning soldlery, as Don
Pedro); Michael Keaton[...]Verges, doing all that could possibly be asked of
the tiresome Dogberry, Constable of the Watch,
one of Shakespeare’s most lntractably un[...]ght Claudio; and Keanu
Reeves’ intense study of the malignant Don
John, the serpent in this hillside Eden. it is the
sort of cast that cries out to be listed one by one.
The use of name actors in small roles pays off in
sharpness and clarity, by giving an individuality
not always found in the play. Further, the daring
use of actors from different backgrounds does
notjar here, but-underlines the sense that this is
not a production aimed at embalming a classic
text in a classic tradition, but one intended to
reach and attract as wide and varied an audi-
ence as possible.

The British Government has been notori-
ously stingy in offering financial succour to its
ailing film industry in the past decade or more.
Probably the best it could do would be to stake
Branagh to film his way through the Shake-
spearian canon; it would be, in doing so, per-
forming a cultural service in the interests of
literature and film both. On the evidence to date,
it seems as if nothing is beyond our Ken.

*

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PETER MALONE

“Dies Irae” was the title for a retrospective

selection of films screened at the Venice
Film Festival. It means "Day of Wrath”,[...]for a time of suffering and judgement. It is
also the title of Carl T. Dreyer’s austere 1943
film, which was included in the retrospective.

The reason for this was that 1993 marks the
50th anniversary of the Mostra Cinematografica
(cinema showcase) and a fitting way to mark the
occasion was the screening of films which were
released in those days of wrath of World War II.
Continental[...]ia Solntseva (Bitva za
nashu Sovietskuyu Ukrainu (The Fight for Our
Soviet Ul<raine)). The British choice was Millions
Like Us (Frank Launder), The Man in Grey
(Leslie Arliss) and The Gentle Sex (Leslie
Howard). The U.S. selection was more diverse:
Hit/er’s Children (Edward Dmytryk), Cabin in the
Sky (Vincente Minnelli), Watch on the Rhine
(Herman Shumlin) and This Landis Mine (Jean
Renoir).

The Festival programme consisted of six
sections: the films in Competition (18) and five
others which were given[...]but
which were screened “out of Competition”. The
latter were mainly American films, Jurassic Park
(Steven Spielberg), The Age oflnnocence (Mar-
tin Scorsese), Manhattan Mu[...]Olmi’s ll Segreto dei Bosco Vecchio
(Secret of the Old Forest).

There was the “Panorama ltaliano”, seven
features and five[...](Raoul Walsh, 1947) and smal|—budget
films like The Hollow Men (Joseph Kay and John
Yorick) and Joe C[...]igh Boot Benny
from Ireland.

For those who enjoy the mainstream, there
was the “Venetian Nights”, mainly U.S. films: in
the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen), The Fugi-
tive (Andrew Davis), Dave (Ivan Reitman),
K[...]s), Boxing Helena (Jen-nifer. Chambers
Lynch) and What's Love GOI,jYO.D0'IZVlTh lt(Bria-n
G‘i‘b'son).

'42 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

The daily “Press Conferences" usually had
representatives from the main films screened,
but attention was focused on the celebrities.
There were 2,500 journalists accredited to the
Festival and swarms of photographers. As they
rus[...]nother session,
chair Gideon Bachman remarked, “The invasion
of the Body Snatchers”. They were excessively
in evidence at the awards evening staged at the
Palazzo Ducale, which, from an audience point
of view, was little better than a ‘scratch concert’
— pr[...]—overs
— but a cheerful evening nonetheless!

In watching the films in Competition, one wasin a French mid-
die-classvfamily with a performance by the young

ABOVE: NICK HOPE AS BUBBY IN ROLF DE HEER’S BAD BOY BUEBY,
WINNER OF SEVERAL PRIZES AT VENICE, INCLUDING THE FESTIVAL JURY
AWARD, THE CIAK JURY AWARD AND THE BRONZE PLAQUE FROM
OCIC, AS WELL AS SHARING (WITH SHORT CUTS) THE INTERNATIONAL
CRITICS’ AWARD.

Sandrine Blancke that made thethe
hearing—impaired, a film of great feeling.
Perhaps the big surprise of the Festival was
Rolf de Heer’s Bad Boy Bubby, with a powerful
p[...]way from people, who
eventually gets out, mirrors the society he en-
counters and emerges Rom hi[...]

The Leone d’Oro was shared by Krzysztof
Kieslowski's first in a trilogy, Trois Cou/eurs:
Bleu, and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts. In fact,
these two films won most of the awards: Trois
Cou/eurs: Bleufor CIAK, Italian Cat[...]nal Critics’ Award and a
special jury award for the cast ensemble of 22.
The Silver Lion was given (one presumes in
solidarity) to Kosh ba Kosh (Bakhtiar
Khudoinazarov) from Turjikistan and the Presi-
dent of the Senate’s Award to the Chinese film
Za ZuiZi(An/nnocentBabbler, Liu Miamomiao).

Otherdirectors with films in Competition were
Abel Ferrara with Snake Eyes, Je[...]ic remarked), Gus Van Sant
with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Carlos Saura
with Dispara, Bertrand Blier[...], Britain, Canada,
Japan and India, and none from the whole of
Africa.The Bembergfilmwasthe only entryfrom
Latin America.

Australia, on the other hand was well repre-
sented: Bad Boy Bubbyin Competition,[...]om David Parker and a
letter, one presumes tongue-in-cheek, from the
director Giorgio Capitani to Parker wishing him
well but saying he was unable to come to Venice
to see and hear what they had done to his epic),
Lynn-Maree Mi|burn’[...]nd
Monica Pellizzari’s Just Desserts, winner of the
award for Best Short Film.

The sharing of the Golden Lion (or dividing
the prize depending on your perspective) be-
tween Altman and Kieslowski was symbolic of a
mood in Europe and at the Festival. During
September, it was not only the French farmers
who demonstrated in the streets about the GATT
Talks, but French filmmakers, including such[...]Gerard Depardieu and

Isabelle Huppert, protested the invasion ofAmeri-
can films at the expense of local productions.
This kind of feeling was obvious at Venice and
featured in many articles about the Festival.
Festival director Gillo Pontecorvo chided the
press for its bias in this regard, highlighting
clash, and pointed out the necessity of keeping
communications open with Hollywood. This was
evidentinthe numberof Americanfilms screened
and thethe continent and from North
America attended, the discussion ranging from
marketing to copyright protection and the rights
of ‘authors’. An international committee was
elected, published resolutions and have com-
miss[...]drafted.
Pontecorvo expressed disappointment that the
media gave scantattentiontothis ground—break-
ing meeting of minds.

The meeting was well attended by directors
from all over the world, taking advantage of
those present at the Festival (including Peter
Weir, who was President of the Festival Jury,
and Chen Kaige, a member of the Jury).

Festivals are obviously significant for E[...]n, as occasions for awards (sixteen groups
beside the official Jury made awards at Venice)
and as a key[...]rting.

Europeans also like to discuss cinema and
the philosophies behind cinema. This became
clearto me with the discussions about Krzysztof
Kies|owski’s Trois[...]o popular from his Deka/og,
then La Double Vie de Véronique) dramatize the
anxieties of contemporary Europe, the self-
centredness of the West and the grappling with
recession and its consequences, the collapse of
structures in Eastern Europe and the quest for a
European Community. Trois Cou/eurs: B/eucul-
minates in a concerto for a United Europe that
touchedthejuryemotions—with afurthercu|mi—
nation in awards.

My journey to Venice also took me to Rom[...]irst for Catholic professionals, and
sponsored by the Jesuit—run Gregorian Univer-
sity, OCIC, the International Catholic Organisa-
tion for Cinema and the Center for the Study of
Communication and Culture (St Louis). The title
of the conference was “The New Image of Reli-
gious Film”. “Religious film" was not confined to
explicitly religious films. In fact, as the confer-
ence progressed, it was clearthatthe focus was
on films and values, the latent spirituality in their
text and texture.

The majority of the presenters of papers as
well as of the participants were from continental
Europe; several came from the U.S., but only
three from Africa, two from Asia and one from
the Pacific. Discussion tended to focus on Euro-
pean[...]genuflections to Andrei
Tarkovsky and Kieslowski. The Venice award
seemed to set the seal on Kieslowski as the
successorto Luis Bufiuel, Ingmar Bergman and
Federico Fellini as the great directors whose
work could be deemed, in the broadest sense,
religious.

Yet in looking at the films in Competition in
Venice, one noted the frequency of explicit reli-
gious icons, of ceremonies, of language about
God. This tended to pervade the continental
films in a way that does not happen in the
American cinema — yet it was there in the films
of Ferrara and De Niro, and in Bad Boy Bubby.

European thinkers (and Latin Americans) are
also concerned about ‘post-modernism’ in away
that those from America, Asia, Africa and Aus-
tralia are not. If the certainties of the classical
world-views of the Enlightened 18th Century
and of the faith-in-progress of the l9th and 20th
Centuries and the organizations and structures
built on these can no longer hold, then we are in
an age of post—modernist search.

It was suggestedthat, in the early 1980s, this
led to an exultant trampling on the institutions
and the certainties. In the early ’90s, it has been
a less arrogant self-confidence, more ofasearch
and an acknowledgement of the latent spiritual-
ity. Jean—Luc Godard’s career is interpreted in
this light, his 1993 Hé/as, Pour Moi combining
w[...]meditation on life and
faith through awareness of the seeming ab-
sence of God. For European thinkers, there is a
delight in the esthetics of abstraction.

Commentators from English-speaking coun-
tries tend to be far more utilitarian in their ap-
proach, and stronger on narrative and the
conventions of story—tel|ing. Harrison Ford and
Robert De Niro both made this the core of their
answers to questions at their press[...]post-modernist, butthe empha-
sis is on story and the aesthetic satisfaction in
responding to a well-told story. And so, the
Venice Golden Lion was shared with Robert
Altman’s intertwining of Cal[...]rived from Raymond Carver), Short Cuts.

However, the Europeans like their stories,
their Hollywood sto[...]ood is a
European hero. But they also tend to see the
post-modern dimensions of popular culture.
David[...]lassic, as does Ferrara’s Bad
Lieutenant(1992). The multi-media dimensions

CINEMA PAPERS 96 . 43

Bad Boy Bubby made an appearance with
the question of the confrontational, even repel-
lent, films and their latent spirituality. The edify—
ing films may have their place but, as was said,
if Marx declared “religion was the opium of the
people”, then explicitly religious films were an
overdose. BadBoyBubbyand the films of Ferrara
were seen as “De Profundis" films (from the
Psalm of deep depression and longing, “Out of
the Depths...”). With their graphic images of the
victimized, suffering human condition and the
search for hope, they are the ‘religious’ films of
ourtime. They are ‘que[...]latterday ‘Idiot’, a holy fool who confronts the
contradictions of life (and one remembers
Chance, the gardener, of Being There (Hal
Ashby, 1979); Jobbe in The Lawnmower Man
(Brett Leonard, 1992); and Il Leggenda del Santo
Bevltore (The Legend of the Holy Drinker
(Ermanno Olmi, 1988).

One took heart from the fact that the OCIC
plaques at Venice went to Bleu and to Bad Boy
Bubby, in line with the awards from the Festival
Jury and other groups. The conversation be-
tween religion and cinema culture is not as far
apart as might at first be thought.

One of the difficulties for Venice this year
was that the Italian Government was limited in
its funding ofthe Festival. The exuberance ofthe
event and the seriousness of the discussions
makes one hope that the economic recovery is
well on the way.

MONTREAL

WORLD FILM FESTIVAL
AUGUST 24 —[...]PTEMBER 9 — 18

RUSSELL EDWARDS

very September the Montreal and Toronto

Film Festivals act as a splendid double-
header for the over-indulgent film buff. Despite
their proximity in both time and location (the two
cities are only four hours apart by car), how[...]sed by each Festival's
choice for opening night.

The Montreal World Film Festival commenced
this year with a Quebecois feature, Le Sexe des
Etoiles ( The Sex of the Stars, Paule Baillargeon).
Given the powerful nature of previous Quebegois
product (Je[...]d's Je’sus de Montreal, for example), this
film wasthe excesses of soap
opera. What this film does have is the European

44 - CINEMA PAPERS 96

feel which domin[...]tof
Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs: Bleu (which is the
first in his trilogy based on the qualities and
colours ofthe French flag) and Jane[...]se of French
language. Not to be fooled, however, the Com-
petition Jury gave the Best Film prize to
Margarethe Von Trotta’s Italian language film ll
Lungo Silenzio (The Long Silence), while the
FIPRESCI jury awarded their prize to the Brad
Pitt and Juliette Lewis vehicle, Kalifornia (Dominic
Sena).

The most impressive French language film of
the Festival came from a European émigré who
had settled in France. Costa—Gavras' new film,
La Petite Apocalypse (The Minor Apocalypse),
was unheralded, yet this satire on veterans of
the May '68 riots was dead on target. The story
describes how a handful of once—radicaliz[...]ly as it turns out) a Polish
poet willing to take the risks that they, under the
doona of capitalism, are no longer willing to tak[...]this hilarious
should be considered a milestone.

In addition to the continental cinema, Montréal
ran a special selec[...]Nakedand Stephen Poliakoff’s
Century, they were the headliners and the re-
sponse was predictably favourable (deservedly
so in the case of the Mike Leigh film), though
they are not traditional[...]ris Newby‘s Anchoress has its closest
relatives in the work of Peter Greenaway and
Ken Russell, but was executed with a restraint
that marked an advance on either of those direc-
tors. Shot in exacting black-and-white, Anchoress
looks like the Middle Ages would have if Ansell
Adams had been there to photograph it. The
story revolves around a young girl who has
experienced visions of the Virgin Mary. Unable
to mould her spiritual convictions to the current
Christian dogma, the local priest has the girl
bricked into the wall of the church. This ensures
she can be supervised by the clergy and visited
by the parishioners in search of salvation. The
priest, however, is horrified that his Anchoress[...]f wisdom more befitting of
her pagan origins than the Christianity he would
have her promote.

The other surprising British film was also a
first-time feature by Chris Jones, White Angel.

Opening with a woman ramming her husband.

against the garage wall with a car, Chris Jones
is clearly bo[...]as her husband’s death is investi-
gated. When the body cannot be found the
charges are dropped, but her writers block re-
mains. Unableto pay her mortgage, Cartertakes
in a boarder, Leslie Steckler (Peter Firth), whose

hobby is chopping up blonde women in white
dresses. Jones reveals their secrets early[...]his memoirs. Chris Jones’ debut feature is shot
in a straightforward manner, but the complexity
of the script prevents any chance of tedium
developing.[...]owing Joanna, 1968, and Myra Breckinrldge,
1970), The Punk, and the lame comedy Leon the
Pig Farmer(Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor), White
Ang[...]of English drama.

There were two such selections in the
Montreal Festival. First, the exciting “Midnight
Edition” in which director Howard Libov skilfully
synthesized the structure of Billy Wilder’s The
Big Carnival(aka Ace in the Hole, 1951 ) with the
story of Gary Gilmore. The other low—budget
American stand—out was Public Access, which
had won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance
earlier this year.[...]on a public access
cable television programme: “What’s wrong with
our town?” From there, the town’s self-hatred
and fear takes over letting the populace feed off
itself. Unfortunately, Public Access suffered the
fate of many elaborate thrillers and eventually
became confused. The first hour, however, en-
sures that Bryan J. Singer is a writer-director; to
watch.

The indisputable highlight of the Montreal
Festival was the Taviani brothers‘ film, Fiorlle.
The film begins as an affluent man drives his
wife and two children through the Italian coun-
tryside to Tuscany. As Luigi Benede[...]o) drives hetellsthe epic drama of his
family and the greed that has cursed their an-
cestors.

The first tale reveals how the curse is set in
motion when a young man robs a soldier of the
gold meantto finance the Napoleonic campaign.
The wealth of the Benedettis is assured but so is
the dishonour he brings on the family. Three
more stories (one taking place in the 1870s", one
during World War II, and the last using. the
present-day framing device) make up this exqui-
site film, but every,subsequent story‘.-has its
roots in the originalflashback. The transitional
sequences from the present day to the past are
beautifully executed. -‘

1 Like the Melbourne and Sydney Festivals,
the proximity.of the Montreal and Toronto Film
Festivals means an overlapin the product shown.
Hence, catching Fiorile, Howard Davies’ The
Secret Rapture, Alain Tanner’s Le Journal de
La[...]You
to Love Me), saved a lot ofshoe leather when the

Among the First Cinema programme there
were two films a cut—above-the-rest. Suture, a
film co-directed by first—timers David Siegel and
Scott McGehee, was clearly not the work of
talented beginners fumbling their way. Ra[...]n look,
devious script and seamless direction, it was
difficult to accept this film as the work of two like-
minded individuals instead of o[...]n.
Respectfully acknowledgingtheir predecessors,

the filmmakers said they were heavily influ-
enced by[...]lements of amne-
sia, twins and plastic surgery.

The FIPRESCI Prize went to actor Forest
Whitaker's feature, Strapped, about the urban
tragedy and reality of gun—running to street kids
in New York. Whitaker's direction is ambitious
and s[...]o disputing his talent for directing.

Outside of the First Cinema selection, my
overall favourite was Thirty—Two Short Films
About Glenn Gould. Bypassing the hazards that
caught the recent deluge of mediocre bio-pics,
Francois Girard found an original angle with his
filmed biography of the Canadian concert pian-
ist. Just as the title describes, the film is a series
of thirty—two fragments compil[...]eason-
ably dogmatic eccentric. Actor Colrn Feore in-
habits the title role perfectly. Not only does he
look like Gould, but I have never seen an actor
look more comfortable in a role. As Gould was a
Torontonian, it was no surprise the film gener-
ated strong interest. But since the film had just
received a standing ovation at the Venice Festi-
val the week before, Glenn Gould really was
riding the crest of a wave.

Toronto is regarded as a good place for the
studios to launch their films. Partly because it[...]NewWritings on Film, Television &Video
fii

THE MOVING IMAGE...

an exciting series of quarterly monographs
published by the Australian Film Institute

SITES OF DIFFERENCE :[...]ADDRESS

PHONE

THE MOVING IMAGE

AFI RESEARCH &lNFORMATl0N CENTRE
49[...]flight away. (it is amazing at
press conferences the number of Hollywood
personnel who speak as if they are still in the
U.S.) Jeremy Irons, Matt Dillon (Fort of Saint
Washington), Lorraine Bracco (Even Cowgirls
Get the Blues) and Dennis Hopper (Red Flock
West) all flew in and out for press conferences
giving the Festival its desired hit of glitz. The big
fuss was inevitably over Robert De Niro coming
to town. It's a pity that his first directorial effort
was of insufficient mettle to justify the fuss.

A Bronx Tale was expanded from a mono-
logue by Chazz Palminteri a[...]r parable about a boy's soul being con-
tested by the forces of good (the boy’s honest
bus-driving father as played by De Niro) and the
forces of evil (the corner gangster played by
Palminteri, who also wrote the script).

The most hyped-up film had to be Jane
Campion‘s The Piano. It was predicted that like
Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann) the year be-
fore, The Piano would win the Peoples Choice
award, and unlike its antipodean predecessor
would win the Critics’ Prize. The people and the
critics had other ideas. The critics chose Mike
Leigh’s Naked, while the public placed Campion’s
movie second to Stephen Frears’ The Snapper,
which is based on a novel by Roddy Doyle. At
Toronto the distributors and the publicists might
try to sway the results, but it is the critics and the
public who get the last say.

SOUN DTRAC KS

NEW 8: UNUSU

NEW FROM 20TH CENTURY FOX: THE CLASSICS SERIES

THE HOBEO ALFRED NEWMAN
THE DA Y THE EARTH STOOD STILL 0 BERNARD HERRMAN
STUIIMY WEATH[...]NE EYREO DAVID RARSIN & BERNARD HERRMAN
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEYD ALFRED NEWMAN

FEARLESS 0 MAURICE JARR[...]ARPENTER
BDBOCOP 3° BASIL POLEDOURIS

REMAINS OF THE DAY‘ RICHARD ROBBINS
20010 ALEX NORTH'S[...]

TRACE‘! MOFFA'IT’S BEDEVIL

46 . CINEMA PAPERS 96

BEDEVIL; BLACKFELLAS; CRUSH;

THE NOSTRADAMUS KID; THIS WON'T HURT A BIT!;

AND, THE WEDDING BANQUET

BEDEVIL

JOHN WOJDYLO

racey Mof[...]uck”, “Choo Choo Choo
Choo” and ‘Levin’ the Spin l’m In”. The vision
combines intense visual and narrative stylistic
innovation with that old American cinema in
which characters strive to look outward and be
part of life's cabaret.

In a general sense, the triptych progresses
like a contemplation: a childhood bathed in me-
diocrity; an adolescence spent with mother; a[...]a young adult with an optimistic
outlook on life. The main characters strive to
connect with others — with people in their past,
their current friends, or future lovers — resulting
in moods of ‘‘lost chance", "contentment with
li[...]ss, isolation and nostalgia, charac-
teristics of the Australian outback, are evoked
throughout. The mix of Aboriginal, multicultural
and “true blue” gives the triptych a look culturally
specific to Australia. The deep sense of ro-
mance with which Aborigines in tropical North

Queensland imbue their tales come[...]huck” is a deliberately drab piece which
begins in interview style. A housewife (Diana
Davidson) tel[...]nal
boy (Ben Kennedy) many years before, when
she was living near a swamp in North Queens-
land. The fixed camera emphasizes suburban
mundaneness. int[...]n interview with an Aboriginal man (Jack
Charles) in gaol who tells of an experience he
had when young of a ghost. It turns out, though
the film hands it to us and evokes no surprise,
that the housewife knew the man: he was the
boy of her recollection. The woman’s eyes con-
vey longing while the man’s childhood delin-
quency is portrayed charmingly: the two ofthem
look out from their mundane existence and re-
call a past bathed in the light of nostalgia; the
woman’s is warm, the man's somewhat cold.
Without making a meal of it — contrary to what
seems typical in Australian artistry these days —
Moffatt suggests the housewife is a prisoner,
too: the woman looks out from the glass door of
her home as the camera rises above the subur-
ban ordinariness. Mr. Chuck turns out to be the
nickname, perhaps invented by the boy, of a
U.S. soldier who supposedly drowned in the
swamp, on which a cinema is built. Moffatt’s film
is built overthe memory ofthe U.S. culture ofthe
1960s, the years of her childhood. As the film
progresses, the ghost seems to rise from the
swamp and fill the film with the old Hollywood
spirit.

“Choo Choo Choo Choo” is deliberately more
high—key, the first of the two “interviews", this
time realized using a ha[...]a picnic; one of them, Ruby (Auriel Andrews)
— the character of Moffatt’s mother (according to
an interview with Moffatt in Cinema Papersz) —
tells of the time she lived with her mother and
father, a railway ganger, in a remote, isolated,
ramshackle house beside a rail-line. Moffatt
herself plays the Ruby ofthe recollection. Every
now and then the family hears the sound of a
ghost train. The fantastic set (designed by
Stephen Curtis)and sty[...]’s memories of her mother.

interspersed within the woman’s recollec-
tions is an “interview" wit[...]n of Chinese origin (Cecil Parkee) who
introduces the interviewerto his shop in a sleepy
outback town. The interviewer notes that the
man repeats an odd gesture which townsfolk
also made to him while he was driving along the

Meanwhile, the Aboriginal women's barbe-
cue picnic is proceeding vociferously. In a hu-
morous scene, Ruby energetically argues with
another woman over the aesthetics of yabbie
cuisine, the position on the plate and pattern of
the sauce. The women are suitably decked out
in designer shades; and the portrait photogra-
phy is first-rate.

The interview style is abandoned in the third
miniature, “Lovin’ the Spin I'm In'’, as two ghosts
enter the land of the living with a flourish of
spontaneity: a dancer spins across the stage in
pursuit of her lover. The ideal is set and the
miniature proceeds to sketch several characters
m[...]with misfortune atthe hands of high—class thugs
in front of a dilapidated warehouse he owns; he
supp[...]operating an enterprise of
dubious integrity, so the path in life he has
chosen continually teeters between optimism
and pessimism, and seems unfulfilled. The con-
flict is benign, notional as in staged dance. The
density of visual information within the short
time—frame of conflict increases dramatically as
the psychological states of the characters are
brought out through their relative[...]hands, gestures and so forth, as well as
through what they say. The viewing experience
is like watching several mime[...]-present
mood evoked by a deserted maritime quay. The
conflict causes Roxy to dream of a better life (the
narrative link was that he witnessed the fight).
Having gone to sleep still wearing his ro[...]yet another day waiting for some-
thing to happen in his life, as artists are prone to,
he wakes up one night thinking he is hearing
something from the empty warehouse across
the road. He goes over to investigate and sees
the dancing ghosts: he is imbued with their
joyous spirit. He is “bedevi||ed" by love. Once
again, the photography (Geoffrey Burton) and
set make even mundane occurrences such as
the rollerblader seem visually fresh.

Another thread within the miniature is its
occasional focus on a man (Luke Roberts) gaz-
ing out from the window of a room in Dimitri’s
warehouse he has occupied without paying rent;
he is trying to come to terms with the delusion
that he is Trotsky’s lover, Frida Kahlo. The
morbid self-obsession is making him unhappy.
Even[...]obvious narrative
connection between this man and the rest of the
characters, apart from afew remarks exchanged

with Dimitri near the beginning, so the focus of
the miniature becomes the street they are living
on. One is reminded of the film’s social aspect.
The last scene shows the crooks haven’t a
chance of “bedevilment" — they just keep going
around in circles with their folly.

BeDevil is a difficult film to watch because of
the continuous conflict between naturalism and
anti—natura|ism. On the one hand, we are pre-
sented with the illusion that the characters are
free, and, on the other, we are constantly re-
minded of technology — the director’s will —
through Moffatt’s obsessi[...]tyle. It is like watching two films screened over
the top of each other. The hyperactive stylistic
intervention strips away narrative feeling by in-
voking formal connections (which often seem to
lead nowhere), while the narrative feeling keeps
trying to rise above the din. Putting it another
way, the director seems to be half—way between
thinking[...]ous
fiction and abandoning materialism altogether in
flowing naturalism. Sometimes it feels as if the
director has intervened at length to safeguard
the telling of the stories; paradoxically, her ap-
proach turns out[...]tt does not seem to have given serious
thought to the artistic problem of friction be-
tween showing ch[...]a flourish of spontaneity is not
enough to loosen the shackles of style which
emanate from every gesture, word and piece of
set around it: one almost gets the feeling that the
dancers, too, are the director's puppets.

The final dance scene in the warehouse is
played on an empty set, emphasizing the pure
energy of the lovers, but it seems merely a
filmed dance sequence which has somehow
found its way into the film. flEsthetically-bound
films with too much n[...]g which they
lose their film character, resulting in conflict of
purpose. There cannot be a breaking of all levels
of technology to bring the film alive: one is
always reminded of material. T[...]believed that cinema has to be
“naturalistic".

The Georgian filmmaker Sergei Paradzhanov,
who also exhibited as a primitivist painter, solved
the problem of conflict between naturalism and
anti-naturalism in aesthetically-bound, narrative
cinema by opting fortotal control in films such as
Ashik Kerib (1988) and Legenda 0 Suramskoj
Kreposti (The Legend of the Suram Fortress,
1985) in the sense that every element in the film
seems to have been painted by his hand (evok[...]s appear, dis-
appear (spliced out) and re-appear in different
costumes in the space of seconds: the films feel
coherent despite the extreme stylization and
manage to tell beautiful folk stories of the Cau-
casus region. (Legend of Suram Fortress only
has one character, an unseen narrator who
translates the Russian spoken on screen into
Georgian with ironi[...]ty, while Moffatt’s film still wants to

assert the specialness of its style.

in Bedevil, we are left inside the director’s
aesthetic structure but our feelings[...]m to have, at
best, an extraneous connection with what we
see. The eagerness of the characters to convey
something personal and the obvious mystery
evoked bythefantastic set wash pa[...]ite Moffatt’s efforts to splice them together.

The other problem faced by aesthetically-
bound narrative films is characterization. By the
end of the second miniature, one has a sense
that, although we have seen extensive machina-
tions of the director’s imagination, we have
learned little about the characters whose recol-
lections are supposed to[...]sing components
are unconvincingly drawn out from the happy
surfaces: the characters could be the same
person with masks. (I mean “conflict” as[...]s, not necessarily represented by
violent acts.)

The film is very much the author's space: one
wonders whatthefilmtells us aboutanybody but
Tracey Moffatt. The triptych is a series of self-
portraits a la Frida Kahlo. What insights does it
have to give to other people besides the image
of its creator? The stories are simple sketches —
or even less. Nothing is ventured and nothing is
gained. Ultimately, the unhappiness from self-
obsession which the Kahlo look-alike thought
he'd left behind by placing a candle at the altar
of life is merely brushed over with a happy face.
Moffatt has failed to set herself free.

The question of whether Moffatt’s creation is
a “moving painting" or a film is beside the point.
As a product of human hands that aspires to art
and not technology, it should be judged by the
impression it leaves. The impression I am left
with, long after seeing it,[...]vil is a
simplistic record of typical feelings of the Aus-
tralian outback, and is an extremely intrica[...]“Don’t worry, be
happy?

Notes

1. On screen, the title is beDevi/.

2. “BeDevil: Tracey M[...]

Outside the prison walls, Dougie finds him-
self alone. As he begins the long walk into town,
Floyd and some friends pull[...]eeing his father being
locked up again, fear that the car is stolen and
the realization that he’s got nothing else to do
an[...]imself at a bedrag-
gled Aboriginal encampment on the edge ofthe
city, where his release is celebrated in grand
style with football, grog and song.

So opens B/ackfe/las (aka Day of the Dog), a
study of the temptations and traps, the pres-
sures and prejudices, which confront contem[...]Aborigines. Decidedly and refreshingly
unromantic in its portrait of Aboriginal culture,
the film is also largely resistantto the easy point-
scoring of painting all whites as rac[...]ble criticism, with John Hargreaves hamming it
up in the role of a racist sergeant). Although
fairly loose[...]oug’s relationship to Floyd remainsthrough-
out the focal point of that drama, and serves as

48 . CI[...]Dougie, and, by implication, for young
Aborigines in general: complete disdain for the
white man’s law combined with an equally com-
p[...]bal lore. Floyd is a cheeky
character, attractive in his immersion in the
“now” of his existence, and in his refusal to view
his position as one of disadvantage. His behav-
iour—sexual, criminal, social — is, in many ways,
affirmative. But it is also heavily contingent upon
not being caught, and as such bears the heavy
weight of inevitable closure.

During his time in prison, Dougie decides to
reject Floyd’s way of[...]cklessness leading. But he doesn’t
want to live the life his white mother (Julie
Hudspeth) has mapped[...]a mechanic, and avoiding his black “peo—
ple" in preference for his white ones. Instead,
Dougie dreams of buying back Yetticup, the
clapped-out country property — and a part of hi[...]e stud.

This ambition is a highly suggestive one in so
far as it navigates a course midway between the
traditional Aboriginal culturefrom which Dougie,
Floyd and all the other urban Nyoongahs (Perth-
area Aborigines) in the film have become alien-
ated, and the commercial, land-owning
imperatives of the white culture which would in
all probability reject them even should they em-
brace it. Dougie’s dream would seem to have the
function of offering black audiences a way out of
what the filmmakers, presumably rightly, see
as a malaise. In re—forging a link with the land,
even if not on the basis of a fully understood set
of traditional be[...]gi-
nes will be taking control of their own lives in a
way they never can while allowing them to be
de[...]patronage (either living off handouts or
running the gamut of the authorities). The film
strikes a sound blow for Aboriginal self-rel[...]y), may have a shot at something
better.

Despite the clear moral dimension and di-
dactic nature of it[...]sm. Yet there remains an element of reser-
vation in this response. The film is aesthetically
a bit rough, and some of the performances
occasionally waver, but that is not where the
problem lies — at least, not directly. The rough
edges are easy enough to forgive, and to explain
away in terms ofthe film’s "veracity”, its “authen-
ticity". And that is where the problem lies. How
do I, a white Australian with f[...]nal culture — urban or otherwise —
come to be in a position to pronounce upon the
film’s veracity? I do not ask this in orderto open
up the can of worms of critical legitimacy, but to
ask how do any of us (whites) know the “truth" of
Aboriginal culture? The answer, it seems to me,
is through white media, television in particular.

The director of B/ackfe//as, James Ricketson,
comes from a background in television docu-
mentary, and has made programmes dealing
with Aboriginal culture and issues in that format.
He would seem to be ideally placed t[...]t culture and those issues,
and to employ some of the production tech-
niques of the television documentary in the name
of realism (significantly, ABC TV was a produc-
tion partner). in that sense, Blackfe/las might be
seen as an extension of the documentary into a
marginally more popular format: the limited-
release feature film. But it also means that the
points against which the movie’s veracity can be
checked have been produced by exactly the
same system — well-meaning white filmmakers
observing a culture which is not their own — as
the movie itself.

This is not necessarily intended as a criti-
cism, merely as a caveat to the implicit criteria
which many will bring to bear when commenting
upon the “worthiness" or the “accuracy” of the
film. It seems to methatthefilm is, indeed, both
worthy and accurate; but I have only the accu-
mulated evidence of (predominantly) white-p[...]break free of that circularity,
short of putting the power of critical appraisal in
the hands and mouths of those who know best
whether such things are accurate — the Aborigi-
nes who are the subject of the film(s). lam not
trying to suggest that “truth" can only come from
the mouths of the subjects of a film or other
artefact, just that t[...]l produce a very
different sort of truth if given the opportunity.

To be fair, Blackfe//as is aware of[...]s issue. While
its principal creatives are white, the film carries
the imprimatur of being able to lay claim to the
input of Aborigines on multiple levels. Ar[...]

There can be no denying that, in front of the
camera, many of those in the predominantly
black cast show considerable promise; John
Moore gives a performance streets ahead of the
one for which he garnered some praise in Deadly
(Esben Storm, 1992), and David Ngoombujarr[...]playing football or squeezing out his last
words in a pool of blood. Whether future roles
will exist for them and the others to fulfil that
promise is another matter. The best guarantee
that they do is to place the right to speak and
make films about the subjects that matter to
them in the hands of Aboriginal people.

Further Reading

Archie Weller, “Films in Colour: or, Black and White
Perspectives of Screenplay?" (re Day of the Dog
[Blackfe/Ias]), Cinema Papers, No.87, March—April 1992,
pp.44-5.

“James Ricketson‘s Day of the Dog", op. cit., pp 46-7.
John Harding, “Canons in the Camera", op. cit., pp.42-3.

BLACKFELLAS Directed[...]Chapman. Scriptwriter: James
Fticketson. Based on the book Day of the Dog by
Archie Weller. Director of photography: Je[...]nion, a young
girl and her emasculated father are the luckless
characters in Alison Maclean‘s pseudo-feminist
schlock—thriller, Crush.

While tension in the first half ofthe film is well
sustained by Marcia[...]e calculating, misanthropic and charismatic
Lane, the plot dissolves into a B-grade melo-
drama during the second half, with a predictable
and unconvincing[...]n
herwits, ruled by a hedonistic agenda. Stranded
in an alien country after surviving a car crash,
her[...]steal her companion's
diary and leave her to die in the wreckage. What
follows is reminiscent of the cross-cutting in
Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing: in a series of quick
mid—shots and close—ups, Lane soaks in a bath
while her companion, Christina (Donogh Ree[...]ched against Lane's calm is chaos which
now fills the mind of Christina, whose career has
been destroyed by Lane's provocative behav-
iour. The cross-cutting reinforces the ambigu-
ous relationship between them: Are they l[...]s bath-
ing, watching plump drops of water escape the
faucet, is symbolic of her washing away her
crime. In the interim, Christina, bathed in blood,
wrestles with her life, spilt blood releas[...]ction, demonstrated by Christina's
revenge during the film's second half. Despite
Lane's attempts to wash away the past, symboli-
cally she will forever carry the bloodstains.

Their relationship is sexually ambiguous. In
the scenes leading up to the crash, there is a
sense of tension and rivalry between the two
women: Lane is the aggressor, who causes the
accident by playfully fighting off Christina who
wants to stop her reading her diary. The scene
highlights Lane’s need for control: Chris[...]nd's suc-
cess and sabotages it by fronting up to the
author's home after the crash and makes a
sexual play for him.

Sexual power games are the only way Lane
can maintain control. At first she[...]s by giving
her a red dress and taking her out on the town.
The young girl initially submits to this make-
over,[...]juices flow just as his artistic
juices dry up.

The title of the film is a word play on Lane's
ability to crush al[...]is her
companion, whose career is cut short after thethe young girl finds her intimacy
with her father is crushed as he becomes more
and more smitten by Lane. In the meantime,
Lane, like a parasite, feeds off each p[...]whim
strikes her.

Red is used as a sexual symbol in the film, a
power colour that Lane wears like a badge. In
her tight skirt, racy leggings, leather jacket,
b[...]is a
garish, incongruous sight, wandering through
the landscape with no purpose and no under-
standing.[...]and tempt but being indiscrimi-
nate and ruthless in her seduction.

Lane tries to woo the daughter by giving her
a red “seduction” dress. It hangs uncomfortably
on the young girl's undeveloped body. Spurred
on by Lane’s charisma, she wears the dress
around the house, causing her father to look at
her in a more sexual way. Later, forced to rival
Lane fo[...]ttention, she shows her
anger by refusing to wear the dress. The red
dress on one level showed her equality with
Lane, but later shows the daughter's loss of
power — she now irritates he[...]ower state-
ment for Christina who dons it during the
dénouement, symbolizing the shift in the bal-
ance of power between herself and Lane.

The stagey ending, Christina's revenge,
poses some un[...]wn cannot trust or like their
own sex? Throughout the film, the women's

CINEMA PAPERS 96 . 49

Whilethefirsthalfofthefilm deals with primal
lust and hedonism, the second is a morality tale
about repressed anger and its consequences.
However, the latter is unconvincing as Lane
returns to the man like a drunk floozy suffering
an attack of re[...]to New Zealand life are thwarted by Christina
and the daughter. Christina confronts the couple
by dropping by unannounced; her red dress
symbolizes that she now has the emotional
upperhand while Lane feels powerless — to es-
cape ordeal with Christina’s fury. In the end, one
feels sorry for Lane despite knowing tha[...]will continuetofeed offhersources
if not killed.

The film’s awkward direction and editing is
showcased during the dénouement, a walk in
the bush in which Christina decides to take
justice into her own hands. Too much time is
spent building up to the moment of Lane’s death.
The psychological tension Maclean has built up
throughout the film is prematurely dissipated
during the ending; what started out as a promis-
ing exploration ofthe fe[...]Foot-
print. 35mm. 100 mins. New Zealand. 1993.

THE NOSTRADAMUS KID

KARL QUINN

fsuch a thing can exist, The Nostradamus Kid
is an adult-oriented teen pic. Bu[...]ly
masculine — level. But above it all presides the
narratorial voice of Bob Ellis, an established and
recognizable figure on the Australian cinema-
literary landscape. By decrying the behaviour he
has had such obvious fun delineating[...]ht of voice that is reasonably successful,
though the laddishness ofthe film is so essential
to its bei[...]winning back those many
likely to be offended by the escapades of his
youth.
in this “fictionalized autobiography", Ellis the
younger becomes Ken Elkin (Noah Taylor), a
fumbling, fearful, fairly repulsive youth on the
verge of the great liberalization of Australian
society that was the 1960s (or so the story

50 o CINEMA PAPERS 96

goes). Flashing back and
forth between Ken at a
Seventh Day Adventist
camp in the Blue Moun-
tains in 1956, and Ken as a
nineteen year-old at Syd-
ney University in the early
1960s, The Nostradamus
Kid aims both to be highly
personal,[...]thing like a universal,
nostalgic appeal based on
the shared tribulations of
growing up.

At the camp, Elkin
spends most of his time
with Wayland (Erick
Mitsak), convinced that the
end ofthe world is nigh, but
uncertain about exactly
how and when it will hap-
pen. Just across the road
from the Adventists’ retreat,
a dissenter calling himself
The Shepherd's Rod (Pe-
ter Gwynne) has set up a
rival camp and cult, boldly
predicting the exact date
and time of the long-awaited apocalypse. He is
called a heretic,[...]idiculous by Pastor Anderson (Arthur Dignam);
but the more impatient amongst the Adventist
young are attracted by the certainty — and pre-
sumably the promise of the rest of life free from
the imminence of world destruction should he
prove i|[...]rner) and Sarai (Lucy Bell),
remain as unmoved by the rival dogma as they
are by the ribald intentions of Ken and Wayland,
would-be suitors and, on the eve of destruction,
potential rapists —-,it occurring to the boys that
they’re hardly likely to suffer terri[...]isn’t going to be anyone
around to punish them (in their testosterone-
and fear-induced madness the possibility of di-
vine retribution doesn’t seem to cross their
minds). In the end, though, they relent and make
a mess of the toilet blocks instead, less out of a
new-found respect for the temples of the
Anderson sisters’ bodies than a well-founded
desire to hedge their bets.

By the time Elkin is at Sydney University, the
religious fervour has become a distant, though
still influential, memory. The Anderson sisters
are long gone, as is Wayland. The most constant
companion of the boy genius (for so we are
meant to think him) is[...]l), with whom
he shares floor-space of a night at the offices of
the student newspaper which Elkin now edits.
Just why[...]ht young things should be
homeless at a time when the word would hardly
have had a meaning in the Australian lexicon is
never made terribly clear,[...]3%

ABOVE: KEN ELKIN (NOAH TAYLOR). BOB ELLIS‘ THE NOSTRADAMUS KID.

they seem particularly to like[...]d being an obsession with
words, women and wine.

The woman most in the eye of Elkin is Jennie
O’Brien (Miranda Otto),[...]ot surpris-
ingly, Jennie’s father is aghast at the match. But
it's not until Ken drags her off to the Blue Moun-
tains to escape the imminent destruction of
Sydney at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis
of 1962 that Jennie finally[...]later marries McAlister.

That, more or less, is the narrative of The
Nostradamus Kid, apart from a few scenes in
which the fates of Elkin’s fellow campers are
revealed. Throughout, the mystery of Elkin’s
sexual attraction remains ex[...]andimagina—
tion (Ellis himself attributed it, in an interview
with this author, to body odour: ‘‘I think if you do
not wash after the act of sexual intercourse
women can smell it on you, and it excites them
and you therefore achieve the next”). Depend-
ing on your viewpoint, Ellis’ scenario and dia-
logue is either the stuff of reasonably
sophisticated sexual comedy,[...]ctorial conceit is to move
back and forth between the film’s two time-
frames, with only slim exposit[...]a
straight temporal line, ‘gaining little from the
disjunction which Ellis has effected. The film

Much the same could be said of Ellis’ voice-
over narration, which captures perfectly the
world-weary tone of one for whom every day
since the deferred end of the world has been a
disappointment. It seems intended to cast a
condescending but fond eye upon the misde-
meanours of Elkin/Ellis as a youth, as if to say,
“He/I was a prat, but an entertaining one, don’t
you think?” There is in both the voice-over and
the structure a suggestion of something like
discomfo[...]l into something so public.

lfthat embarrassment in fact exists, it may be
a product of the distance between Ellis the
scriptwriter and Ellis the director— a distance of
some thirteen years (Ellis reportedly wrote the
script at the suggestion of David Puttnam who,
having heard Ellis tell the story of his youth as a
Seventh Day Adventist, pr[...]screenplay; Puttnam gets a special
“thank you" in the final credits, although his role
as producer ended long ago) and, according to
Ellis, the screenplay which was filmed was virtu-
ally unchangedfromthe original. ltseems st[...]undeniably im-
pressive writing credits date from the late 1960s,
which include Newsfront (Phil Noyce,[...]and Goodbye
Paradise (Carl Schultz, 1983)‘, yet The
Nostradamus Kid is in subject matter and tone
rather like a writer—director debut.

This is not to say that the film should not have
been made. The tone of embarrassment which I
detect (of course, it could be a projection of my
own embarrassment, in recoil from certain simi-
larities of behaviour a[...]elf and Ellis’ remembered Elkin)
actually helps the film, deflating the sexual
braggadocio that might otherwise have seem[...]ur. Not that Ellis has gone so far as to take up

the position of chief accuser of his own sexually
not[...]trial). Rather, he seems as bemused
and amused by the fact that he apparently got
away with it as any audience is likely to be.

Lest anyone gain the impression that The
Nostradamus Kidis so uniquely about Ellis that
it could not possibly hold any appeal to any bar
the most avid Bob-watchers, be assured that it
will go down in Australian cinematic history as
something of a hybrid between the David
Williamson-style expose of our culture through
our sexual mores and appetites, and the John
Duigan school of politically—aware yet highly
personal nostalgia (the Duigan similarity, itshould
be noted, transcends the mere casting parallel
of Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen). The result
is extremely entertaining and highly uncom[...]p is
open to question.

1 Ellis is notcredited as the scriptwriter of Newsfront
(only Noyce is), though[...]d on a screenplay by
Bob Ellis“. Man of Flowers was scripted by Paul
Cox; Ellis is credited with “dialogue". Goodbye
Paradise was co—written with Denny Lawrence.
(Ref. Australian Film 7978—1992:A Survey of The-
atrical Features.)

Further Reading

Andrew L. Urban, “Bob Ellis’ The Nostradamus Kid’,
including interview with Ellis, Cinema Papers, No.86,
January 1992, pp. 12-7.

THE NOSTRADAMUS KID Directed by Bob Ellis.
Producer:[...]erned — and, one presumes,
this also applies to the patients! if this is indeed
so, why, one must ask, would any person in his
or her right mind, whatever that may be, choose
to become a dentist? Well, this is one of the
questions that is answered in the film. In any
case, the phenomenon of dentistry and, espe-
cially, the abject horror and extreme panic which
it engenders even in the most fearless individu-
als, is a worthy subject indeed for a film script.
Evelyn Waugh claimed in an interview that for
pleasure of the physical kind, he preferred to
visit his local de[...]and!" (Crazy
Like a Fox)

This film also explores the life of a man who
takes up sawing, hacking, chopp[...]on, but, mercifully, not on these shores.
This is the story of “Dr.” Fairweather (Greig
Pickhaver)[...]ng, ironic and not-
so-ironic name — who leaves the dust of Wagga
Wagga to study at Sydney University[...]to practise as a dentist. He establishes
himself in Portsmouth, England, and armed with
the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry be-
gins whittling, drilling and pulling away on the
molars of the oblivious Poms. Soon, the authori-
ties become rathersuspicious since he is[...]f everyone, even those who no
longer have teeth!

The inquiry into his practice proceeds, even
as his b[...]point is made with economy and humour: he
arrives in the town with a bicycle, buys a moped,
then a Rover,[...]first, for a
Jaguar and then a Rolls Royce. Even the man-
ager of the local bank enjoys special treatment
because Fairw[...]o knowledge of term
deposits and leaves his money in low interest-
bearing accounts. Fairweather falls in love, is
found out as a charlatan, and flees to H[...]by a loud Australian
detective and his sidekick. The film begins here.

The story is a relatively straightforward one
but it is told in an interesting and fragmented
manner. The use of a non-chronological narra-
tive technique is used skilfullyto convey the life
of a man whose existence is itself a series[...]efilmthathis competence is question-
able, to say the least, despite the fact that his

LEFT: RILEY (DENNIS MILLER)[...]