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SPECIAL HOLIDAY ISSUE HARLEQUIN - DON LANE - BRAZILIAN CINEMA ALIEN - PRISONER - LIFE OF BRIAN
December-January 1979-80
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The New South Wales Film Corporation congratulates the makers of MyBrilliantCareer Margaret Fink, producer Gill Armstrong, director Don McAlpine, director of photography Eleanor Witcombe, screenplay writer Luciana Arrighi, production designer Anna Senior, costume designer for their six awards, including Best Film,, in the 1979 Australian Film Awards. As major investors with GUO Film Distributors, creative and technical skills of Australian we alsothankthe Australian National Catholic Film film-makers. Off ice for awarding “ My Brilliant Career’ ’ its t We are also proud to have been investors in inaugural trophy for the Australian featurefilm “ Tim” ,which won three Australian Film Awards, which “ best promotes positive human values’ ’. and “ Cathy’s Child” , which won the Best Actress As official Australian entry in the 1979 Cannes Award. Film Festival, with high critical praise after its Wethankthe producers, Michael Pate and screening in the New York Film Festival this month Pom Oliver and Errol Sullivan, and the Australian and with major sales in North America and Europe, Film Commission for having given usthe “ My Brilliant Career” has proved internationally the opportunity to invest in “ Tim” and “ Cathy’s Child” .
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Communication without visuals is like putting on a play with all the actors behind the curtains... . . . and for your visuals by far the best and most flexible medium is film. Film is the medium capable of capturing a unique moment in time in all its richness and colour. In full action. In pulsating reality. Because whatever the eye can see, film can record. But that’s not all. It can capture moments that exist only in the imagination. Science fiction, mystery, fantasy, horror. Film has become one of the arts.
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AGFA-GEVAERT LIMITED Melbourne 878 8000. Sydney 888 1444 Brisbane 391 6833. Adelaide 42 5703 Perth 361 5399 SYSTEMS FOR PHOTOGRAPHY • MOTION PICTURES • GRAPHIC ARTS • RADIOGRAPHY • VISUAL ARTS • REPROGRAPHY • MAGNETIC RECORDING
NOTICE to all applicants to the Project Development Branch Commencing from the month of October the following “ CLO SIN G D A T E S ” are advised for SC R IP T D E V E L O P M E N T A N D PR O JECT D E V E L O P M E N T (Project Development was previously known as Pre-production). Because of the N E W S T Y L E P A N E L ASSESSM ENT for script development it is now necessary to restrict applications to a B I-M O N T H L Y schedule. Applications will only be considered if they are lodged at the Commission’s office at 8 West Street, North Sydney, N.S.W ., 2060 or the Commission’s Melbourne office at 409 King Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3003 prior to 5.00 p.m. on the following dates: —
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT 4 January, 1980 7 March, 1980 9 May, 1980
(for consideration at the February Commission Meeting) (for consideration at the April Commission Meeting) (for consideration at the June Commission Meeting)
The below listed closing dates are advised for applications for P R O D U C T IO N FU N D IN G (i.e. investment or loan applications). Applications will only be considered if they are lodged at the Commission’s office at 8 West Street, North Sydney, N.S.W ., 2060 or the Commission’s Melbourne office at 409 King Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3003 prior to 5.00 p.m. on the following dates : —
PRODUCTION FUNDING 22 February, 1980 25 April, 1980 20 June, 1980
(for consideration at the March Commission Meeting) (for consideration at the May Commission Meeting) (for consideration at the July Commission Meeting)
Further information may be obtained from the following officers of the Commission.
Sydney (02) 922 6855
Shirley Wyndham (Script Development) Geof Gardiner (Production Funding) Anne Pidcock (General Enquiries) John Daniell (Director of Projects)
Melbourne (03) 328 2809
Murray Brown (Script Development & Production Funding)
When making an application to the Project Branch please read the ‘Requirements Check List’ on the back of the application forms.
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Articles and Interviews Brian Trenchard Smith: Interview Richard Brennan Don Lane’s Electronic Side-show John Langer, John Goldlust Brazilian Cinema Dasha Ross Ian Holmes: Interview Liz Jacka, Ann Game Arthur Hiller: Interview David Teitelbaum Community Television Brian Walsh Jerzy Toeplitz: Interview Peter Gerdes
The Don Lane Show Examined: 604
598 604 608 612 618 622 630
Features The Quarter Edinburgh International Film Festival 1979 Jan Dawson Adelaide International Film Festival 1979 Noel Purdon, Peter Page International Production Round-up Terry Bourke Film Censorship Listings Production Survey Box-office Grosses
596
Brian Trenchard Smith Interviewed: 598
616 626 634 635 649 657
Production Report Harlequin: Simon Wincer Jane Scott Bernard Hides
638 643 646
Film Reviews Brazilian Cinema Surveyed: 608
Life of Brian Dennis Altman Palm Beach Noel Purdon Blood Relatives Tom Ryan Just Out of Reach, Morris Loves Jack, and Conman Harry and The Others Barbara Alysen Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair Meaghan Morris Escape from Alcatraz Jack Clancy Alien Brian McFarlane
659
Adelaide Film Festival Reviewed: 626
660 660 662 663 665 667
Book Reviews Alien Reviewed: 667
No Bed of Roses, By Myself, and Mommie Dearest Brian McFarlane Recent Releases Mervyn R. Binns
Managing Editors: Peter Beilby, Scott Murray. Editorial Board: Peter Beiiby, Scott Murray. Contributing Editors: Antony I. Ginnane, Tom Ryan, Basil Gilbert, Ian Balllleu. Design and Layout: Keith Robertson, Andrew Pecze. Business Consultant: Robert Le Tet. Office Administration: Nimity James. Secretary: Lisa Matthews. London Correspondent: Jan Dawson. Advertising: Sue Adler, Sydney (02)31 1221; Peggy Nicholls, Melbourne (03)820 1097 or (03)329 5983. Printing: Progress Press Pty Ltd, 2 Keys Rd, Moorabbin, 3189. Telephone: (03)95 9600. Typesetting: Affairs Computer Typesetting, 7-17 Geddes St, Mulgrave, 3170. Telephone: (03) 561 2111. Distributors: NSW, Vic., Qld., WA., SA. — Consolidated Press Pty Ltd, 168 Castlereagh St, Sydney, 2000. Telephone: (02) 2 0666. ACT, Tas. — Cinema Papers Pty Ltd. Britain — Motion Picture Bookshop, National Film Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1, 8XT.
‘ Recommended price only.
669 671
Harlequin Production Report: 637
Cinema Papers is produced with financial assistance from the Australian Film Commission. Articles represent the views of their authors and not necessarily those of the editors. While every care is taken with manuscripts and materials supplied for this magazine, neither the Editors nor the Publishers accept any liability for loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the copyright owner. Cinema Papers is published every two months by Cinema Papers Pty Ltd, Head Office, 644 Victoria St, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3051. Telephone (03) 329 5983. © Copyright Cinema Papers Pty Ltd, Number 24, December 1979-January 1980.
Front cover: Robert Powell and Mark Spain in Simon Wincer’s Harlequin.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 595
A U S T R A L IA N FILM A W A RD S
A national strike by television technicians disrupted the presentation of this year’s Aus tralian Film Awards. The Awards were to be telecast live from a specially-constructed set at the Hoyts Enter tainment Centre In Sydney. The strike by technicians, however, forced the Nine Net work to cancel the scheduled broadcast. The strike also prevented the organizers from completing the construction of the set and videotaping the Awards for broadcast at a later date. Following the strike, negotiations were held with commercial networks in an attempt to re-schedule the event, but a suitable time could not be arranged at short notice. The Awards were later held at a luncheon at the Sebel Town House in Sydney.
D ocum entary C ategory Bronze Award: Island Shunters (Tim Woolmer) H onourable M entions: I See I See (Mike Pearce) Margaret Barr (Ross R. Campbell) The Russians: People of the Cities (Arch Nicholson) Sh ort Fiction C ategory S ilv e r A w ard: Goodbye, Johnny Ray (Mike Harvey) Bronze Aw ards: Just Out of Reach (Linda Blagg) Morris Loves Jack (Sonia Hofmann) E xp erim en tal C ategory Gold A w ard: Sydney Harbour Bridge (Paul Winkler) Producer Margaret Fink accepts one of the seven Australian Film Awards for My Brilliant Career.
S ilv e r A w ard: Bondi (Paul Winkler)
Best Film of the Year: My Brilliant Career
Anim ation C ategory Honourable M ention: Letter to a Friend (Sonia Hofmann)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Mel Gibson In Tim Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Michele Fawdon in Cathy’s Child Best Performance by an Actor in a Support ing Role: Alwyn Kurts in Tim Best Performance by an Actress in a Sup porting Role: Patricia Evison in Tim Best Achievement in Directing: Gillian Arm strong for My Brilliant Career Best Achievement in Cinematography: Don McAlpine for My Brilliant Career Best Original Screenplay: Esben Storm for In Search of Anna Best S creenplay Adapted from O ther Material: Eleanor Witcombe for My Brilliant Career, based on the novel by Miles Franklin Best Achievement in Film Editing: Tony Pat terson and Clifford Hayes for Mad Max Best Original Music Score: Brian May for Mad Max Best Soundtrack: Gary Wilkins, Byron Ken nedy, Roger Savage, Ned Dawson for Mad Max Best Achievement in Art Direction: Luciana Arrighi for My Brilliant Career Best Achievement in Costume Design: Anna Senior for My Brilliant Career
Ju ry A w ard s Jury Prize George Miller and Byron Kennedy for Mad Max
596 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Honourable M ention: Feyers (Dirk De Bruyn)
A w ard s fo r C inem atography S ilv e r A w ard: Russell Boyd for Just Out of Reach B ronze A w ard: Dean Semler for The Russians: People of the Cities Raym ond Longford A w ard Professor Jerzy Toeplitz An Australian Film Institute Citation for a Sig nificant Contribution to Australian Film making S p ecial A w ard An Australian Film Institute award to Grant Page in recognition of his stunt achieve ments over the years, culminating in his work on Mad Max O C IC /A u stra lia n A w ard The Australian National Catholic Film Office, a member of the Organisation Catholique Internationale du Cinema, has awarded its inaugural trophy for the Australian feature film which ‘best promotes positive human values’ to Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career
F IR S T FILM S FOR CORPS The first film s to be backed by the recently-formed Queensland Film Corpora tion and the W estern A ustralian Film Council will soon be finished. Harlequin, the first film the West Austra lian Film Council has invested In, was shot in
Perth in September. Produced by Antony 1. Ginnane for FG Film Productions, and directed by Simon Wincer, Harlequin is a contemporary version of the Rasputin story. The cast includes Broderick Crawford, David Hemmings, Robert Powell, and Carmen Duncan. Harlequin has also been backed by the Australian Film Commission, Ace Theatres (Perth) and the Greater Union Organization. Final Cut is the title of the first film to be supported by the Queensland Film Corpora tion. Originally conceived as a tele-feature, Final Cut was developed by producer Mike Williams into a "glossy thriller about a show business tycoon who is suspected of making ‘s n u ff’ film s ” , set against spectacular Queensland locations. The film is being directed by Ross Dimsey for Wilgard Productions, a company set up by Williams with Frank Gardiner, an ex-part time commissioner of the AFC. The QFC have put up half of the budget for Final Cut, and the balance has come from the AFC and private investors. It will be dis tributed by GUO. The cast of Final Cut includes David Glen dinning, Louis Brown, Jennifer Cluff, and Narelle Johnston. The crew are all Queens landers. (A production report on Harlequin ap pears on page 637 of this issue.)
Q U E STIO N S IN P A R LIA M E N T On August 22, a number of questions were raised in the New South Wales parliament by Bruce McDonald, the member for Kirribllli, over the financing of The Journalist by the New South Wales Film Corporation. The full text of McDonald’s questions, and the answers given by the Premier of NSW, Mr Neville Wran, have been reproduced below from Hansard: McDonald: Did the Premier provide, through the New South Wales Film Cor poration, approximately $200,000 for the making of the film The Journalist? Was this a grant or a loan? What was the basis of the Government’s financial arrange ments with Michael Thornhill, a director of the corporation and director of the film The Journalist in relation to that film? As the film has received consistently bad re v ie w s in p ro fe s s io n a l film magazines and as the distributors, Road show, have no definite plans to release It, will Mr Thornhill pick up the tab for his share of the loss in this extravagant exer cise, or will it be the taxpayers who have to foot the bill. Wran: I would not be certain how much was provided by the Film Corporation to
the producers and makers of the film The Journalist, of whom one was certainly Mr Michael Thornhill, a director of the Film Corporation. In due course I shall advise the honourable gentleman of the actual amount. It is equally correct that so far the film has not enjoyed any great success either at the hands of the critics or at the box office. The suggestion that Mr Thornhill, by virtue of his being a member of the Film Corporation, is disqualified from par ticipating in any grants or assistance from the Film Corporation is entirely a mis conceived concept. Mr Thornhill is a member of the Film Corporation because he is one of Australia’s most distinguished film directors. There is ample evidence of various film commissions and corporations in other States — and indeed of the Australian Film Commission — actually making grants or providing loans or funds in order that a member of the commission or corpora tion who is involved in the making of films can participate in their making. I know that the minds of the opposition members in this Parliament are not con cerned with constructive positive matters, such as that raised earlier by the honour able member for Maitland. There is a rumour that the honourable member is making a run for the leadership. Morris: There is nothing like trying on a new suit. Wran: We on this side of the House thought the honourable member looked even more distinguished than usual. Because we know their minds do not run in terms of positive and constructive things, but rather down those narrow veins that find their way into the gutters, this question asked by the Deputy Leader of the Op position was anticipated. We have taken out some details of similar occurrences in other film commis sions and corporations, and I now provide the House and the honourable gentlemen with this information. Anthony Buckley, when he was a member of the Australian Film Commission, received funds from that commission for the production of Caddie and The Irishman. Both those films were a success. That was the good fortune of Australia, the Australian Film Commission and Mr Buckley. As the late Sam Goldwyn said, only one film in seven will be a success. We all know that. It is pointless and irrelevant to look at the ultimate success or failure of a film. Mr Graham Burke, when he was a member of the Australian Film Commission, received funds from the body for the films Eliza Fraser, High Rolling and The Last of the Knucklemen. [Interruption] Wran: I know that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition does not go to films except of a certain kind. Generally speaking, all those films were successful. Pat Lovell, a member of the Australian Film Commis sion, has received funds for a develop ment package. I refer now to the position in Victoria, which I remind the House has had a
Mike Thornhill, director of The Journalist, and a director of the New South Wales Film Corporation.
THE QUARTER
Liberal governm ent fo r some tim e. Honourable members opposite might take a leaf out of the Victorian Liberals’ book as they just scraped home by the skin of their teeth at the last elections. The following people, members of the Victorian Film Corporation, received funds in the following manner: Natalie Miller for In Search of Anna, Fred Schepisi for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; Tim Burstall for Last of the Knucklemen; and Nigel Dick, consultant to Crawford Productions, for Young Ramsey and The Sullivans. Let us not think there was anything strange about the fact that the New South Wales Film Corporation made funds avail able and was involved in The Journalist. Just let us think it strange that that is one of the new films in which our corporation has invested and has not been a success at the box-office.
A F IB O A R D ELEC TED Following the take-over of the National Film Theatre of Australia by the Australian Film Institute, an election was held to ap point a new board of directors. The new members are: Ina Bertrand (a lecturer at La Trobe University; John Flaus (a tutor in film at Caulfield In stitute of Technology); Pat Gordon (a long-standing committeemember of the NFTA, and a committee member of the Melbourne Film Festival); Barry Jones (a member of Federal Parlia ment who has been actively involved in the development of the Australian film industry, including the establishment of the Austra lian Film and Television School and Vic torian Film Corporation); , Ian Macrae (a film director); Scott Murray (a filmmaker, and an editor of Cinema Papers); and David Roe (head of marketing of the New South Wales Film Corporation). Ina Bertrand, John Flaus, Barry Jones and Ian Macrae were previously members of the board, while Scott Murray, Pat Gordon and David Roe are new appointments. The pre vious chairman of the AFI, Barry Jones, was re-elected to that position.
“There could be dozens of collections of comparable importance in the U.S., but there are none to our knowledge in Aus tralia” , Edmondson said. “ Added to the material we have already, it will give the National L ibrary A u stra lia ’s largest holdings of film literature and documenta tion.” The books — 1200 of which are by or about screen personalities — include 30 autographed by the personalities con cerned. One of these bears the signatures of Thomas Edison, Mary Pickford, Cecil B. de Mille, Carl Laemmle, Adolf Zukor and 20 other film stars and producers. Six hundred of the books deal with film histories in different countries, with more than 30 relating to Nazi cinema and the development of German silent film up to 1931. The German publications are regarded as important contemporary records. Among the periodicals are substantial sets of four key American trade papers: MetroGoldwyn-Mayer’s in-house paper The Lion's Roar and sets of two famous German program magazines, lllustrier Film Kurier and Film Buhne, which reproduced stills and the story-line of a popular film in each weekly issue.
HOYTS TO BE D ELIS TE D One of Australia’s leading film exhibitors, Hoyts Theatres Ltd, will be delisted from the Stock Exchange. At a shareholders’ meeting In Sydney in mid-October, 90 per cent of preferential shareholders voted to sell their shares for $2 million to 20th Century-Fox. Fox, the U.S. parent company of Hoyts, already controls the subsidiary. It has 100 per cent ownership of ordinary shares. The move to delist Hoyts has been criticized by James Mitchell, the director of the Film and Television Production Associa tion of Australia. Mitchell claimed that two of the three distribution companies monopolizing the in dustry would now be private. He said the delisting would mean Hoyts could not be forced to issue box-office statistics, which would be to the detriment of Australian film makers. He said his association had been lobbying the Australian Film Commission for three years to sponsor a change in the Bureau of Statistics so that box-office figures would be available to the industry. Hoyts, however, denied that the delisting would affect the industry, and that there was no reason to suppose that the attitude of 20th Century-Fox to the Australian film industry would change.
NEW PERSONNEL
The new Chief Commonwealth Censor, Janet Strickland.
NEW C H IE F CENSOR The Federal Attorney-General, Senator Peter Durack, recently announced the appointment of Janet Strickland as the new Chief Commonwealth Film Censor. Strickland, 38, a former Deputy Chief Cen sor and a foundation member of the Austra lian Broadcasting Tribunal, succeeds Dick Prowse who resigned last month. Senator Durack said the position of Chief Commonwealth Film Censor "required exceptional skills, first of all to be able to as sess community attitudes and then to be able to take this into account when examining films. “As the Film Censorship Board applied uniform classifications on behalf of the State Governments there was a need to interpret the views of the States in formulating censor ship standards.” The Attorney-General said Strickland had admirable qualifications for the position of Chief Film Censor. She held an Arts degree from the University of Sydney and an honours degree in Anthropology from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and taught for several years before her appointm ent as a member of the Film Censorship Board in 1971. In 1974, she was appointed Deputy Chief Censor, and acted as Chief Censor on several occasions until she was appointed to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal in 1976. She resigned from the Tribunal earlier this year.
The V ictorian Film C o rpo ra tio n has recommended the appointment of writer and director, Ross Dimsey, to replace Jill Robb as Chief Executive Officer. Dimsey’s appoint ment has yet to be ratified by the Victorian Government’s Executive Council. Since Robb’s resignation earlier this year, the VFC has virtually ground to a halt. Very few new productions have been funded. Dimsey has made one feature film, Blue Fire Lady, and written two others, Fantasm, and Fantasm Comes Again. He is directing his second feature, Final Cut, for producer Mike Williams.
Peter Faiman.
FAIMAN Q U IT S Peter Faiman, the force behind the Nine Network's successful The Don Lane Show has resigned to set up a film production com pany in Sydney. Faiman, the executive producer of the show since its inception five years ago, is leaving at a time when the program’s ratings are at an all-time low. Faiman’s new company, however, has signed a deal with the Nine Network to develop and produce special variety, docu mentary, and drama projects. “ Although I will be based in Sydney, GTV-9 will still see a lot of me” , Faiman said. “ In the production of major television specials, there is nowhere else in the country with such a wealth of production talent, and such a history of success.” (The Don Lane Show is the subject of an article in this issue on page 604.)
NEW ASSESSM EN T PRO CED UR ES FOR AFC Following widespread criticism from film makers, the Australian Film Commission has changed the procedures for assessing pro jects to receive development funds from its Projects Branch. The Commission’s assessments are now bi-monthly, and a special panel will meet ap plicants to discuss their projects. According to Rea Francis, the AFC’s publicity officer, the panel comprises “ pro ducers, directors, film journalists and/or marketing experts, writers, a senior project officer, the director of the Projects Branch, and a full-time commissioner.” On completion of each meeting, the panel forms recommendations to present to the next Commission meeting. This new method of assessment will not extend to production funding. Applications for loans and/or investments from the Project Branch for production funding will continue to be assessed by the Commission and outside assessors without the participation of the applicants.
FVA A E STA B LIS H ED
The Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Bob Ellicott, has announced the appointment of Henry Crawford to the Australian Film Commission as a part-time commissioner. The other members are: David Block (a merchant banker), David Williams (a film distributor), and Patricia Lovell (a film producer). C raw ford is a successful television producer. He has worked with Crawford Productions, and was responsible for the award-winning series Against the Wind. He is working on a new series with writer/director David Stevens, based on Nevii Shute’s A Town Like Alice.
LITTLE BOY LIT IG A T IO N The director of the National Library’s Film Section, Ray Edmondson, and archive librarian Julie Harders, examine one of the publications in the Leab collection.
LIB RA RY A C Q UIRES FILM LITE R A TU R E The National Library of Australia has ac quired the extensive film literature collection of New York film lecturer, author and historian Dr Daniel Leab. The collection, built over 20 years, com prises 3100 books on aspects of the Ameri can and international film industries; sets of 128 cinematic periodicals dating" from 1903; 2000 film stills; and eight shelf metres of scripts, catalogues, pamphlets and other film documentation. The director of the National Library’s film section, Ray Edmondson, said the breadth of the collection gave it considerable value in Australia:
Sydney producer-director Terry Bourke (Night of Fear, Inn of the Damned) has been given assent in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to further contest a screenplay copyright claim against the film Little Boy Lost. Mr Justice Powell ruled that Bourke’s claim should be referred to the Equity Court, but at the same time lifted a six-week injunc tion against the film secured by Bourke in an initial hearing before Mr Justice Rath. Bourke sued the Little Boy Lost producer Alan Spires, the film’s production company John Powell Productions Pty Ltd, and the film ’s Melbourne-based distributors, Filmways Australia. Bourke is claiming $6310 in unpaid monies for his work as writer-director of Lit tle Boy Lost between April and December last year. The film has had extensive release In Vic toria and the New England Ranges of NSW, but will not be seen in other cities until December.
A new professional group, Film and Video Association of Australia, was recently estab lished in Victoria. According to the president of the new association, Rob Copping, the main function of the FVAA is to “ promote and maintain the highest professional standards within all sec tions of the film and television industries, and to unify and provide a forum for all its members. “ The Association has been initiated by technicians working within the industry who acknowledge that expanded communica tion with television and videotape exponents is essential in order to keep pace with burgeoning technological developments, and who accept the need to concern them selves with the increasing demands upon in dividuals in their industries.” There are 126 members in the new association grouped into 12 categories and represented by an expert in each field. These are: Animation and Graphics — Maggie Geddes and Ray Strong Art Department, props and wardrobe — Ray Wilkinson, Jo Ford Camera — Ernie Clarke, Bob Kohler Direction — Mai Bryning, Mike Browing Editing — Mike Reed, Evelyn Cronk Grips — Paul Holford Makeup and hairdressing — Joan Petch, Marg Archman Producers (production house) — Rob Copping, Andy Way Producers (independent) — Bruce McNaughton, Eric Lomas Production and continuity — Tony Sprague, Robert Kewley Sound — Ned Dawson, Ian Jenkinson Lighting and electrics — so far unrepre sented.
FE G A The Melbourne branch of the Film Editors Guild of Australia has initiated a series of forums on aspects of the Australian film in dustry. At the first of these, held in October, the marketing and distribution manager of the Victorian Film Corporation, Colin James, spoke on marketing in the Australian film industry. For further information about FEGA, con tact Tim Lewis (03) 699 6666.
A D D EN D A AND CORRSGENDA In the paragraph beginning “The lack of media . . .” (bottom, middle column, p. 515), the sentence starting “ The recommenda tions for funding .. .” should read as follows, and not as printed: The recommendations for funding the film industry and breaking up distribution and exhibition monopolies led to growing pres sure from filmmakers which resulted in a Unesco seminar in 1968 on film and televi sion training, and the film committee of the Australian Council for the Arts which re c o m m e n d e d an A u s tra lia n Film Development Corporation, an Experi mental Film Fund and a Film and Televi sion School.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 597
E arly D a y s A bout the age of 12, one becomes aware that one’s father goes off for eight or 10 hours a day, and comes home at the end of the week with money in his pocket: this is called working for a living, and men have to do this when they grow up. I was wondering, as one does at tha,t age, what I was going to do when I grew up, when I suddenly realized I loved films. Presumably people got paid money for making films, so I decided to become a filmmaker. My first film was called The Chase, which I made on 8 mm when I was 15. It was not a critical or financial success, and was about a lunatic escaping from the Broad moor Institution for the Criminally Insane, and chasing me around the countryside with a 1918 bayonet, before disposing of me messily at the top of a quarry. One unfortunate documentary filmmaker — I think it was Alan King — was asked by the school film society to give a lecture and look at a school product. When he saw my film he said, with great dif ficulty and courage, “Yes, that does have a feeling for locations.” So, my career was obviously launched. 598 — Cinema Papers, December-January
After that I was commissioned to make a film about the school (Wellington College, England) for prospective parents. They financed the 40-minute film, which I made on 8mm with a synchronized, tape recorder soundtrack. I was 17 or 18 at the time, and the film put me on the path, because when I showed it to some people after I left school, they gave me the job of sweeping the cutting room floor, which is where I started to learn editing. After that, I worked as.a camera assistant for Reflex films, who said I was the worst they had ever employed. I think I was kept on because I was rather entertaining in my ineptitude. Anyway, they gave me a wonderful reference and I took it with me to Australia where I became a film editor at Channel 10. This was in 1955 when I was turn ing 20.
Attractions” , as they were called, for next week’s goodies. They were of particular interest if I had already seen the films, because it was intriguing to see what bits had been selected to entice the public. Anyway, I volunteered to do some promos at Channel 10, and made 73 film trailers during the night shift. Eventually, Channel 9 noticed my promotions, and Bruce Gyngell and Pat Condon asked me to become their promotions director. There I launched the last season of programs Bruce Gyngell did before he left to start the Channel 7 revolution. These programs were launched very aggressively, with lots of action cut to music, then a new style of promotion. Channel 9 was also kind enough to give me a reel of my stuff to take away with me if ever I toured the world. When I finally did go overseas, I visited Japan, the U.S. Television and Canada, where I barged into every television station I could find. At Channel 10, I cut news and One person I met worked for the documentaries by day, and expres N ational Screen Service, the sed an interest in doing the station’s largest trailer-making company in promotions by night. I had always the world; they have studios in been interested in trailers, and when H o lly w o o d , New Y ork and I went to the films, which during London. He suggested I look up my teens was three times a week, I their London office. I did, and was would always look at the “Coming engaged in 1958 as a junior writer-
producer of feature film trailers. At National Screen, I made 21 feature trailers.1 This took me through to 1970 when Clyde Packer asked me to come back to Channel 9 as network promotions director. Part of the deal was that I could make televi sion specials, thereby taking the jump into production I had always wanted. So, back I came. I produced promotions which in volved an increasing number of special effects, and I did a lot of work with the newly-formed Video Tape Corporation. I even made the first color presentation to be shown to advertisers of the new season’s program. This was at the time the station was still running in black and white. Then came my first directing assignment, and they real ly dropped it on me. “This kid wants to direct,” they said. “Well, we’ll teach him a lesson.” So they gave me a thing called Noel en Aus tralie (Christmas in Australia). Channel 9 had a reciprocal deal with French television, whereby the French had provided them with some services and they now wanted something in return. So, their top interviewer — I think his name was Jacques Chapard — came across to do a one-hour special on how Christmas was celebrated in Aus-
Brian Trenchard Smith Australia’s top action director, Brian Trenchard Smith, reflects on his career to this point, and the directions he might take in the future, in an amusing encounter with producer Richard Brennan. tralia — live, via satellite, in French, in color, and before Chan nel 9 had officially converted to color. Channel 9 did have some basic equipment, however, such as a converted rent-a-truck for the outside broadcast van. The show was to happen on Christmas day at 8.45 a.m., when Father Christmas would be rowed ashore by the Manly lifesavers on the stroke of nine (midnight in France). We lost one of the three cameras at the 20th minute, and it was probably the most adrenalin pumping situation I have ex perienced. A true baptism by fire, and no doubt deserved by someone foolish enough to say he wanted to direct, and that he could speak French.
Moving into Film After I had spent two very happy years working for Clyde — who, whatever anyone else feels about him, was very supportive of me — I decided that I was bigger and better than all this and formed my own company. I borrowed $16,000 and made a one-hour, color television special called The Stuntmen, which featured various local stuntmen,
particularly Bob Woodham, an extraordinary and talented man, and Grant Page, a former com mando and trawler fisherman, who was a rope specialist. The Stuntmen was a success. It sold to Channel 9 for its negative cost, and has made a few sales overseas. I have paid off the backers and made a little bit of money on top. Most importantly, however, it started the ball rolling. The Stuntmen is one of the best documentaries I have done. It dis played a pretty good analysis of what stuntmen are about, and the techniques they use. I have, of course, recycled the basic concept in a four-part television series called Danger Freaks, which basically featured Grant’s work, and expanded the concept by going onto international locations to make it more saleable for the inter national market. This has proved to be the case, as 12 countries have bought it so far, and more are doing so. I continued to make television specials, like The World of Rung Fu and Rung Fu Rillers, which was a 75-minute, dram atized docu mentary. Roadshow-Village then asked me if I would like to make a dramatized documentary feature on venereal disease called The Love
Epidemic. This I did for the prince ly sum of $33,000, excluding blow up to 35mm. It did okay for them, getting its money back and making a small profit. What was the basis of the legal problem regarding some of the actors? I’d rather not talk about it. To defend myself as accurately as I deserve — which the newspapers never bothered to do — would probably invite new legal problems from some disenchanted loser. The Love E p id em ic was interesting, insofar as it taught me a great deal about venereal disease, and I alw ays like to learn something out of each new Film. While I am not inviting people to come to me as a diagnostician, I can tell you that I know a great deal about it now.
Th e Man From Hong Hong By the stage I had finished The Love Epidemic, I had more or less packaged The Man From Hong Rong as a co-production between a consortium of Australian partners and Golden Harvest of Hong Kong.
Golden Harvest is Raymond Chow’s company, and Chow was the man who discovered Bruce Lee. I first met Raymond when I went to Hong Kong to do a television special on Bruce Lee called The World of Rung Fu. On an earlier trip, I happened to see some of Lee’s work and realized that if this m an’s films were put on the American market they would go through the roof. This was early summer, and Golden Harvest were planning to put a film out mid-summer. I decided to get in quick and raised $8000 to do a documentary. But on the day I arrived Lee died. It was a blow. Of course, it was a blow for him too, but particularly for me because I had committed my full resources to the documentary. The air fares were spent, the camera man was hired and so was the equipment. So, I made a tribute to Bruce, as opposed to a documentary about him, and that played quite well on Australian television, where it got its money back. Anyway, th a t’s how I met Raymond Chow, and later we came to an arrangement on The Man From Hong Rong. But the Film was thwart .with all kinds of production dramas, and was really too big for Cinema Papers, December-January — 599
BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH
Inspector Bob Taylor (Roger Ward), of the Federal Narcotics Bureau, arrests drug carrier Win Chan (Hung Kane Po) at the base of Ayers Rock. The Man From Hong Kong.
someone of my experience to handle. But I learnt a lot and walked away a wiser and more experienced man. It certainly stretched and improved me. Why was the film so problematic? Co-productions are always more difficult than straight productions, particularly when you and the in vestors are not of the same nation ality. What we were trying to do with The Man From Hong Kong was make a film that would be viewed as a serious, action drama in Asia, and elsewhere as a spoof of the indestructible ‘hero’ of the James Bond, Charles Bronson, or Bruce Lee type: the indestructible pseudo-fascist superhero who causes an appalling amount of d estru ctio n in the course of propagating the cause ofjustice. He may get punched, kicked, stabbed or run over, but his bruises heal within seconds and he takes a deep breath before killing someone else. In our film, he gets the bad guy in the end, but he wrecks most of Sydney in the process. I think Mike Harris, then at The Australian, referred to our hero as the “ Kung Führer” , and I think that is an appropriate piece of imagery. Anyway, the Kung Führer, Jimmy Wang Yu, had already directed eight films, though on lower budgets than we had for Man From Hong Kong. He was less than happy that this raw kid (me) was getting so much money to make his 600 — Cinema Papers, December-January
first film. There was a great clash of personalities, coupled with the inevitable mutual distrust that occurs in a co-production where both sides think the other is trying to rip them off. (There was also a person who at one stage tried to have me replaced, but he shall remain nameless.) In the end, all of this was too much for me to handle. It was also my first taste of politics, as all my past productions had been totally controlled and owned by me; people did as I asked, whether they liked it or not. Here, there were all sorts of political animals trying to secondguess and make capital out of any mistakes I made, and some I didn’t. There were times when one felt suicidal, and I must thank John Fraser of Greater Union (the official co-producer) for the nightly support he gave me at the rushes. He would have dinner with me afterwards and, while everyone else was telling me what I was doing wrong, he was telling me what I was doing right. He kept my confidence to g eth er, and this was very important. In situations where there is an unhappy crew, a rebellious actor or interfering investors, it is very difficult for a director to keep going. He is out there fighting on the front line, and he doesn’t need to be hit by stones in the back. Still, we fought our way through, and I made as good a film as I could under the circumstances. When Fox saw the film they valued
it at a negative cost of $2 million, and they were prepared to put up the $200,000 advance for the U.S. rights. The film was sold in addition for $500,000 worth of minimum guarantees at Cannes before it was shown. It was, theoretically, already in profit. How much did it cost? A b o u t $ 5 5 0 ,0 0 0 . It was originally costed at $450,000, but went $40,000 over when our
Chinese partners decided there weren’t enough crashes and bangs in the car chase, and we duly wrecked a few more cars. Then we decided, very wisely as it turned out, to put a hit song on it. We were guaranteed a hit by Leeds Music through the group Jigsaw in London, and Leeds lived up to their word. Jigsaw was as good as we were told, and Sky High was a No. 1 hit in Britain, Japan, the U.S. and Australia, to name a few. The film sold very well, and broke box-office records at the London Pavilion, taking the highest opening week since Midnight Cowboy six years earlier. We’ve had some difficulty collecting the money, but the film has been in profit for some time, and I received my first percentage cheque the other day. More is on the way. One of the things that tickles me particularly about Hong Kong is that it is the all time box-office champion of Pakistan. I had read this in the papers, but one day I met the man responsible in Los Angeles. As it happened, he had been working at 20th Century-Fox, when he q u it his jo b , sold everything and went back to Pakistan, from where he had come, to start his own distribution com pany. And the only film he had was mine. He had paid $8000 outright for it, which, if you can get in American dollars, is quite good money. He sank everything he had into launching the film. Western films sometimes run a month at the most, but mine ran six months and out grossed all the previous record holders: Cleopatra, Where Eagles Dare, and The Guns of Navarone. The Pakistanis loved it; went bananas over it. Then he rested it for two years before bringing it back on re-issue. It broke box office records again, despite the fact it was against the first release of The Spy Who Loved Me, which it took to the cleaners.
Rebecca Gilling and Jimmy Wang Yu (the “ Kung Führer” ) in The Man From Hong Kong.
BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH
Grant Page and friend in one of the lighter moments from Deathcheaters.
I think I will do a film in Pakistan one day. It is quite an ex citing country, and it’s good to know I have a friend there who believes in me.
The Movie Company At the time I was trying to finance The Man From Hong Kong, I approached some people at Greater Union, which had helped bankroll The World of Rung Fu and Kung Fu Killers. As both films had received their money back, Greater Union suggested we set up a joint production company, each of us owning 50 per cent. And the two projects we agreed to do were The Man From Hong Kong and Danger Freaks. After we did those, however, Greater Union had a change of policy; they felt it would be better to invest in films and not support an on-going company. While I was not overjoyed at the news, I understood their reason: namely, that they could more effectively spread their money throughout the industry. As a result, they were able to back peo ple as diverse as Hal and Jim McElroy, Michael Pate and Pat Lovell. This, on reflection, was good for the industry.
D eath ch eaters After the collapse of The Movie Company, I had to look around for new partners. Fortunately, I managed to get the Australian Film Commission, Channel 9 and D. L. Taffner to put up some money to make a pilot for a television series that could be shown theatrically in Australia and sold to television out side; that was Deathcheaters. We made the pilot for $157,000, which was $7000 over budget — I had forgotten to put in the defer
ments. This time the film was valued by Disney for $750,000, and they said a studio would have paid more. That was quite gratifying, and it was Deathcheaters and Hong Kong that ultimately got me the Disney connection. What was disappointing was that Death cheaters failed theatrically in Aus tralia. It got lost in the Christmas shuffle of 1976/77. We had planned a premiere night for the cast and crew, but Hoyts decided against it — they didn’t even put on any ice-cream girls, and no one had anything to drink. But I really can’t blame Hoyts because Christmas is a hectic time, and they had other priorities, such as the Entertainment Complex that had opened the same week. My film was against such heavy weight product as a Bond film, Eliza Fraser, The Return of a Man Called Horse and The Pink Panther, and a $150,000 film is rather weak ammunition against that kind of line-up. Where we did do tremendous business was at matinees, parti cularly at the Athenaeum in Mel bourne. In its last week we took $12,000, an amazing figure under the circumstances. In all, we got $30,000 out of Australian theatri cal. We had a pre-sale to Channel 9 for $50,000, and the money we ac tually got back from overseas sales was $40,000, so we picked up $120,000. We are still chasing the dif ference, but there is no doubt the film will be profitable as world television is yet to be sold. A sale has just been made in Japan for $20,000, and, if Japan sells, the whole of South-east Asia usually sells. The Taffner Company, which is in charge of television distribution, has a considerable track record in selling to television, and I have faith that Deathcheaters will return more than the amount it owes the investors.
The battle sequence which opens Deathcheaters.
was an object lesson in market research; namely, I should have done some before investing so much time and energy in the project. If at After Deathcheaters, I tried to all possible, one should engage in float a project called The Siege of market research to determine Sydney. Michael Cove wrote a whether a project is viable. good screenplay from a story I had Another example of the need for written, but the film became market research is the case of a uncommercial due to changing state film corporation, which shall market trends. It was about a gang remain nameless, which sent me a of CIA agents who were tossed out script and asked me to write some of their covert operations cover action scenes for it. At that stage, it when the Carter administration was a terrorist film, with the decided to clean up the American Israeli-Palestinian Liberation image. Front situation involved. The Now, what do people, who have Palestinians were the heroes, and been trained for 20 years in killing the Israelis the bad guys. people, blowing things up, sub I w rote back asking them verting democracies, and generally whether they realized that there having a good fascist time, do? Can were strong Jewish holdings in most they collect the dole? I reasoned of the television stations around the they would become criminals, world, and that the stations might because a great deal of their activity not feel inclined to buy a film in had been criminal. which the “wrong” people were the I proposed the situation where a heroes. My point was apparently gang of former CIA agents pose as taken, and the script was subse radical terrorists and attempt to ex quently changed. tort $5 million in industrial dia After Siege fell through, I kept monds from the state of New South body and soul together by making Wales by seizing Pinchgut Island trailers. With a theatrically “soft” and planting an alleged nuclear film like Deathcheaters behind me, device on it. They would deal with a I was not on the top of anyone’s list Neville Wran-type figure, who of directors to hire. Happily, Film would have been charismatically Australia decided that I was the played by Jack' Thompson. He person they needed to do a muchwould have won in the end, and so delayed project called Hospitals he should; I am a fan of Neville Don’t Burn Down. It details what Wran. happens in the first 20 minutes of a All this I was going to do on the fire in a multi-storey hospital in the lavish budget of $450,000. I had an middle of the night. offer of $200,000 from CIC, but It was intended as a fire safety they then lost a bundle on a film, and when they asked me to do terrorist film called Black Sunday. it I said it should be done as a Their opinion was that terrorists horror show. If you want to impress frightened people too much, so all people to be careful about fire, the of a sudden half of my investment best way is to show the conse package fell out. quences in most unpleasant terms, So, nine months of work and and, in particular, bereavement. If expenditure, including an overseas somebody dies, a lot of people are trip, was wasted. “Such is life” , as rather sad about it, particularly the Ned Kelly said before they hanged nearest and dearest, and if you want him. Such is life for the indepen to get that through to people, you dent Australian film producer. show the misery that bereavement The Siege of Sydney situation causes.
Keeping if To g e th e r
Cinema Papers, December-January — 601
BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH
So, in addition to the visual horrors, I had a scene where the senior sister (wonderfully played by Jeanie Drynan) finds that her lover has been burned to death while try ing to save a child; she just breaks down and sobs. I knew the way to finish the film with impact was to hold the camera on her and let her sob; not let the audience off the hook. Film Australia, in the shape of Peter Johnson, who is a delightful producer to work with, gave me a pretty free hand, and so did the Veteran Affairs Department, which provided a lot of help, not to men tion the money. The film turned out quite nicely, and it has won six international awards, including the Golden Camera at the Chicago Film Festival, and the best docu mentary award at the Cork Film Festival. It also picked up a couple of Australian awards, including best c in e m a to g ra p h y (R oss Nichols). I am very pleased for Ross, who is a cameraman I look forward to working with again. The film has sold more than 300 prints, which is more I believe than any Film Australia production has done. Also, I understand from Ray Atkinson (AFC London represen tative) that it has generated $12,000 worth of royalties in Britain, and is about to sweep through Europe. Pyramid Films of the U.S. has picked it up, and Film Australia should see substantial money from that. It was a short film (24 minutes), and I didn’t receive the kudos that goes with making a feature. But It is a film of which I am intensely proud. It set out to do some good, and I think it has done some. In England, for example, the head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said that it was the greatest fire safety film he had seen. That’s a nice compliment, and I know that it is doing its job.
Each of your features has led out of something you have previously done, but “Hospitals Don’t Burn Down” hasn’t as yet . . . It is about to do so, insofar as the New South Wales Film Corpora tion wants to do a Panavision docu mentary about the next set of Blue Mountains bushfires. These fires are about the only disaster in the world you can actually predict. T hey s h o u ld b re a k o u t at Christmas, and if they do I will be asked to come back from the U.S. to do a documentary on them. Jim McElroy is the producer. He is also trying to do a feature on the fires, and if my name is acceptable to the investors, and to the imported star, tfien I will direct it.
S tunt Rock
After The Man From Hong Kong, I felt I was falling slightly behind the other directors who had come along, so I decided to make a film which would launch Grant Page on the international market. Deathcheaters, to a certain extent, was meant to have done that, but didn’t. So, I created Stunt Rock and took it to the Dutch distribu tors who had bought Deathcheaters. They had told me to come to them with any bright and cheap ideas I had. A dramatic stunt from Trenchard-Smith’s Dutch-financed Stunt Rock. Together, we managed to finance a $450,000 film which was made in a non-union situation in Los is probably the worst film I have become dull, tedious, or uncon Angeles. “Non-union” is a rather made. Such is life. All I can say to vincing. But it moves like an emotive term, but it is not as bad as other filmmakers is never let express train, and in that respect it it sounds. It just means that one is yourself be pressured into making a is value for money for the under using people who are not in the deal, rather than a film, which is twenties. The over-twenties start to number one union, or union what happened to me. Again, it was notice a slight lack of story, and a members who are working out of a great learning experience. I few other problems. their grade to get experience in jumped in the deep end and found I some other department. was not protected by the things that Such as the music . .. We shot the film in Hollywood protect filmmakers in Australia. and it has sold very well, though it People may bitch about the Well, that is a good point since investors here and other problems, the music was an essential 50 per but there is a great deal of goodwill cent of the commercial package. I towards the film industry, and one was in the shower at the time the is quite well protected. The political concept came to me. God, I think I assassinations that befell me on The should have stayed unwashed that Man From Hong Kong were 10 day! Something clicked in my com times worse on Stunt Rock. The mercial mind which said, “ Famous budget was nearly withdrawn Australian stuntman meets famous several times due to fights within •rock group. They interrelate; much the investing company — nothing stunt and much rock takes place. to do with me. In the international Kids will tear up the seats.” Great film scene, they think nothing of idea in principle, but turning it into suddenly cutting off funds for no practicality proved impossible with reason. What I should have done too little money and too much was be a man of greater courage interference. and principle and said, “No, I will Three weeks before we were not do this. It’s either done my way scheduled to shoot, a famous rock or not at all.” group was still not signed. I had Anyway, the film got made, but Foreigner interested, but they it was a film that went from six- wanted to finish their world tour, page treatment to stereo answer and my investors wanted the film print in 4‘/2 months. That is no way completed by a certain date. Exit to make a feature and, when you Foreigner. At that time, I was also see the film, you will see why. told the script had to be re-written It is an entertaining film, though, to incorporate a Dutch actress to simply because my style is to keep strengthen the Dutch market. This, things happening. As soon as and having to find a rock group something gets dull, tedious or within four days, was difficult. Scene from Hospitals Don’t Burn, which Trenchard-Smith directed for Film Australia. unconvincing, I move on to I went out and found Sorcery. something else, which in turn might Now Sorcery is visually very
602 — Cinema Papers, December-January
BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH
Deep down, I know I was trying to prove I was courageous; that I had balls. But there was also the in tellectual desire to study a stunt from the inside. I know now the precise angles from which to cover that stunt, and I think my hit-andrun car stuff is as good, if not bet ter, than most you see on the screen.
Film ing A ctio n
exciting, but its music is frankly Hole, their current science-fiction four year-old Led Zeppelin and film, is not successful, though I doesn’t really provide what the believe it will be, they may be young audience is looking for. In reluctant to initiate the same kind th a t re sp e c t, th e film is a of expenditure for another science disappointment. fiction film, even though mine is not a deep space film. Disney are relatively pleased with Tim e W arp it at this stage, though they want to do c e rta in th in g s with the characterization, probably to suit Happily, during shooting my casting at the time. agent rang me and asked me if I could direct a Walt Disney tele Action feature to be made in London. My Stunt Rock contract unfortunately overlapped that date, and I had to say, grinding my teeth, that I Many people regard your interest in couldn’t do it. Disney asked me to action as a fixation. How do you see them anyway. They had gone to respond to that charge? the trouble of seeing Hong Kong It is an interesting point. At and Deathcheaters, and had decided I was a young talent worth school, I was a 6ft and half inch devout cow ard. My sporting exploring. When I saw them they asked if I interests lay with fencing, which had any bright ideas, and I was considered to be the activity of suggested this great science-fiction fairies. A real macho guy was one film I want to make called Time who liked grabbing people round Warp. I gave them an eight-page the balls on the rugger field, outline, and they gave me a thereby proving his manhood. I development contract. They had an think I suffered some slight option to cut me off at treatment physical inferiority complex as a stage, and then at screenplay stage. result, and when I left school I had We have passed through those this affinity for physical action in stages now, and they own the films, if not in person. I have always been interested in rights. I am contracted to direct the film and, if I don’t, they have to pay men of courage, and when I was at Channel 9 I made a one-hour me a penalty fee. The film is on the 1982 special re-enacting the exploits of production schedule, with a budget four Australian winners of the of $20 million. But if The Black Victoria Cross in Vietnam. I
When you start an action se quence you are putting your foot down on the accelerator and hyping the pace. The succession of shots becomes quicker and quicker, and you employ explosive little climaxes. As a result, each image has to tell the audience the essential information very rapidly, and often quite close up in the frame. There is no point in filming a dramatic punch in wide-shot. I am speaking in generalities, of course. Take for example a fight scene where person A throws a chair across a room at person B. You start with a wide shot of A picking up a chair and throwing it from one side of the frame. The moment the chair leaves character A on left, you cut to a wide-shot so you can see the chair fly across the screen. You then cut to a close-up of B ducking, with the chair passing over his head and shattering on the wall behind. In short, you play the wide-shot received some criticism for not when the audience has something having a left-wing point of view — that they can readily grasp: i.e., a i.e., for presenting these characters chair flying from one side of the as heroes. But they were heroes: frame to the other. The impact then regardless of the moral turpitude of comes with the chair shattering in the war, the poor bastards had to close-up. This is one way of doing it, and do what they were told. Anyway, these men won their VCs for saving there are many alternate ways. the lives of wounded people, not for Every director does things differ ently, and I don’t always do things killing hordes of the enemy. I suppose stuntment have ap the same way. Another important lesson is to pealed to me because they put their lives on the line. Sure, they work dress your frame. In a battle scene, out the variables, but there is still a for instance, you must dress your risk. They are men of great cour background, foreground and age, and they are paid proportion middleground. For example, con sider a mediaeval battle sequence. ately little for the risks they take. As a result of this fascination, I You might have in wide-shot the began to do stunts myself — not for cavalry charging forward from the use in film, but as publicity stunts. I background, while men run from have been set on, fire eight times, behind the camera into the fore and knocked down by a car three ground and proceed to meet the times. cavalry in the middleground. Peo Roger Ward drove a car at me at ple in your background then start 40km an hour in Perth, scooping firing arrows, and a body is hit by me up on the bonnet and sending an arrow, falling with a thud from me rolling off to the side; that was above frame into immediate bot for the opening of The Man From tom frame close-up. In this case, a way of initially Hong Kong. I was also skittled in Soho Square by an obliging engaging the audience’s attention is member of the film distribution the activity in the background of office there, and that appeared all the wide-shot. When they have had over m agazines in B ritain : a couple of seconds to absorb that, “ Director takes the plunge” — and before they get tired and lose the sense of timing and momentum really imaginative copy. Anyway, three car knock-downs you have been building, people rush is enough. I went through the into the foreground and engage in windshield of the one in Soho battle in middleground. Then, just Square, and I stuck a photograph when that has used up the necessary of it in my lavatory to remind me of Concluded on P. 674 my foolishness. Cinema Papers, December-January — 603
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ELECTRONIC SID E-SH O W John Langer and John Goldlust Since the early days of Australian television, the Nine Network has been producing a regular ‘live’ night-time talk/variety program. Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight was the starting point, and since then there have been numerous changes in format and personnel. The Don Lane Show is the latest offering. A twiceweekly, 90-minute program compered by American Don Lane, the show has been proclaimed as the most successful venture to date. The television industry and its publicity machine point to the program’s consistently high ratings, its ability to transcend localism to ap peal to a national audience, its production values (primarily instituted by producer Peter Faiman) and its potential saleability in an overseas market as indicators of its achievements and popularity. But the conventional wisdom, from which this praise emanates, tends to ignore, and even con ceal, some of the program’s major motifs: its relationship to consumerism, salesmanship and advertising; its saturation with commodities; its incipient provincialism; and its overwhelming commitment to fostering the cult of the celebrity. Author Raymond Williams points out that forms of television are the adaptations of earlier forms of cultural and social activity within new technological modes of presentation and recep tion.1 Cultural forms, such as the newspaper, novel, music hall, sports stadium, cinema, adver tising columns and billboards, have their modern equivalents within the contemporary forms of television production. It is in this sense that The Don Lane Show can be described as an electronic side-show. More than any other cultural form, this kind of program seems to derive its struc ture and content from the ways in which the travelling medicine show or carnival side-show once functioned. Like its predecessors, The Don Lane Show operates through the fluid and skilful interplay of salesmanship and spectacle which combine to create an evening’s entertainment. The program has its front men — Don Lane and his colorful side-kick, Bert Newton — who, like buskers standing in front of the side-show tent, excitedly regale the viewers/customers with anticipated delights and pleasures derived from the exotic or unusual exhibits and performances that await them. _ During any particular week audiences might see Hugh Hefner’s playboy mansion, a million dollars worth of gold bars, a Paris fashion show, old and new Hollywood Film stars, tribal dancers I. Television, Technology and Cultural Form, 1974
stage, still applauding. In this way, the show as ‘live’ performance is marked visually. Invariably, the next shots are of Bert standing at a microphone as he introduces the ‘host’, then of Don Lane sweeping out from behind closed curtains onto the stage. Apart from its obvious theatricality, this gesture sets into play one of the key structures of the program: the dynamic between that which is concealed and that which is revealed. Concealment is the promise of things to come; revelation is the fulfilment of that promise. At the outset it is the curtain which mediates the structure of presence and absence. Once Don ap pears, he takes control of his function by virtue of his role as principal host/compere/front man. He becomes the mediator who holds out the promises, opens up the absences and in turn The opening patter between Don Lane and Bert Newton. shapes the process by which these absences are Filled. One of his major contributions as front from the New Hebrides and even an at-home in man is to keep reiterating future occurrences — terview with that famous Australian television itemizing, enthusing over and ordering the spec family, the Sullivans. Later in the show they are tacles to be seen. During the first segment, he previews and given the chance to participate, albeit vicarious ly, in one of the most recognizable of all side hierarchially arranges the evening’s exhibits — those that are special, such as an exclusive show institutions: the wheel of fortune. In keeping with the side-show tradition, the satellite interview with an overseas celebrity, and opening segment of The Don Lane Show per those that are routine, like the performances of forms a crucial function. Similar to the patter singers or the wheel. Throughout the program, and exhibits in front of the side-show tent, the before each commercial break, Don again first minutes of the program articulate its style describes what the audience can expect if it stays and pace, hold out promises o f ‘things to come’, tuned. This constant reference to future and establish the co-presence and personae of happenings works on the one hand to keep the Don and Bert. Within seconds, several aural and viewer interested in the entire show — there will visual elements are mixed together to create a always be something more that will have appeal — and on the other hand to allow entry into the sense of action and anticipation. The viewer enters the program in the midst of program at any point without having missed tremendous applause, while the studio band anything. The next shot is taken so that the viewers see plays an up-beat number. The camera reveals the band leader conducting his musicians as the Don’s back as he faces the studio audience. His applause continues in time to the music and the figure in the foreground is carefully framed by program’s logo is flashed onto the screen. This is the proverbial sea of smiling faces as the followed by a shot of the audience facing the audience looks at him looking at them. Awareness of the studio audience is marked from the start, but it is in this shot that an inter active link between performer and a live audience is made. This shot speciFically signals the relationship that Don enters into with the studio audience. Consequently, what happens for their benefit also demands their participation and involvement. Just like the performers on stage they too must play their part. They are be ing entertained to be entertaining, and as a result they are implicated in the construction of the television event. This shot also links the viewing/external audience with the live/internal audience. Through the internal audience the viewer is given a secure place from which to watch the program unfold. The responses and involvement The frontmen: Don Lane and Bert Newton. of the studio audience set up the necessary cues for the external audience to participate in a live Cinema Papers, December-January — 605
performance situation. In this sense, The Don Lane Show and its cast perform for two audiences simultaneously. At this point the action on stage between the front men begins. Routinely Don starts with a joke or humorous personal anecdote, which just as routinely, judging from the studio audience response, fails to amuse. This serves as the cue for Bert to enter into a spontaneous, seemingly unscripted repartee with Don in which much of the humor derives from Bert’s irreverent com ments on another of Don^s attempts to be funny. Although this interchange is a brief one, it situates the relationship of the front men within a particular comic mode which is repeated whenever they are together on stage. What emerges from this verbal encounter is the fact that whereas Don may or may not have success in the comic arena, Bert nearly always does, and often as a result of Don’s failures. In this respect Don and Bert work within the comedy team tradition of the jester and his straight man. In an important sense, Bert’s persona, manifested through his quick wit and satirical skills, represents a particular kind of Australian sensibility which may prove to be much of the show’s appeal for local audiences. Bert basically operates as a subversive, undermining element. Back-handed remarks about Don’s talents as an entertainer, tongue-in-cheek digs at product promotions, and outrageously unflattering impersonations of the evening’s major guest celebrity during the wheel segment are regular parts of his satirical repertoire. In this way Bert incorporates and personifies the stance of the ‘knocker’ — the ability to debunk and to remain publicly cynical — which has been developed as a characteristically Australian response to pretension, slickness, seriousness and self importance, particularly if these are imported from overseas. This aspect of Bert’s persona has a direct historical link with the style of perfor mance cultivated and nurtured through his lengthy apprenticeship with Graham Kennedy. If Bert monopolizes the show’s humor, leav ing Don with little for himself, Don appropriates the show’s glamour and sexuality. Just as Bert extracts comedy out of Don as a straight man, Don extracts glamour out of Bert as a funny but unsexual, unavailable male. Throughout the show, constant references are made by Don ' about Bert’s weight problems, loss of hair or the creeping domesticity of his married life. The visual contrast in their physical stature helps to punctuate this difference. Bert’s ap pearance is one of shortness and roundness, stereotypically the ‘cuddly’ male as homebody (also the physical characteristics often as sociated with the comic), while Don’s is one of slenderness, a feature commonly packaged and presented to define the ‘sexy man’. Don’s sexuality and eligibility culminate at the end of each show when he leaves the stage to give away a gold pendant on a chain to a female member of the studio audience, usually someone young and attractive. The ritualized presentation of the gift further serves to distinguish the sexual from the comic domain. Using a technique which looks very similar to the way an embrace might be choreo graphed, Don faces the girl and carefully places his arms around her neck to join the clasp of the chain. He then gives her a kiss on the cheek. Although it is a distinctly innocent act, this kind of pseudo-sexual public behaviour is acceptable for the eligible bachelors that populate the world of television, but not for its married men. Despite its apparent spontaneity, casualness and encouragement of studio audience involve ment, The Don Lane Show as a television event works to a strict format. Once the warm-up and teasers are out of the way, the procession of ex
Don and Bert before their ride on a motor-cycle piloted in Evel Knievel style by Bert.
hibits and performances begins in earnest. Much of the program is taken up by the appearances of three types of guests: those engaged exclusively in a performance situation, easily identified as such; those who sit and chat with Don, osten sibly not a genuine performance situation, but a performance nonetheless; and those who do both. Most often focusing on the presentation of a musical number, the performance context forms no obvious part of the setting used in the rest of the show. It exists as an isolated segment with a momentum and style of its own. A sense of for mality and abstraction is projected through the use of elaborate sets or costumes which encap sulate the performer, drawing attention to design as much as to performance. So, for exam ple, viewers will see Colleen Hewett enclosed in a carefully decorated nightclub scene, or John St Peeters framed at the centre of eccentricallyshaped neon lights which flash in time to the music. Sometimes, the camera will accent the ele ments of design by shooting through or around the shapes and objects within the set: the per former and the music become absorbed into an environment shaped by fantasy and spectacle, displacing connections with the everyday world. In contrast, the talking guests are situated in a place of ordinariness, created to personalize interaction and provide the illusion of intimacy. They are seated with Don in a much more mun dane environment — one with a lounge room
A duet by Don Lane and Colleen Hewett.
atmosphere, where two people usually meet for an informal chat. This staged intimacy functions to reproduce one of the central myths that promotes and sustains the cult of celebrities: the juxtaposition of public life and private self. In this manufactured atmosphere of infor mality, guests are encouraged to leave aside the role demands of public life to talk openly, genuinely and anecdotally about private ex periences or personal history, to reveal aspects of their true personality. Thus, Hugh Hefner tells us, in some detail, why he likes to wander around his estate in his silk pyjamas and slip pers; Howard Keel expands on his fiery back stage relationship with Kathryn Grayson while filming Kiss Me Kate; Clint Eastwood ponders on what he does in his leisure hours; or Lady Sonia McMahon says hello to Sir William and hopes that he might be watching the show. These spontaneous disclosures, however, are misleading. Even without the benefits of inten sive investigation, it is not difficult to discover that what is supposedly an expression of a more private self has also been revealed in other public, specifically media, contexts: newspaper reports, gossip columns, fan magazines, inter views, autobiographies. Through its emphasis on informality and conversation, the program is able to re-present what is already part of a com mon stock of public knowledge as if it were a un ique kind of information to which we have gained privileged access. Rather than providing a special moment of entry to the private world of the celebrity, these ‘intimacies’ merely construct another version of the public self. It is a frequently repeated observation that the economic viability of commercial television lies in its facility to deliver the attention of large numbers of potential consumers to the producers and sellers of commodities. In its most general form, commercial television achieves this by presenting a continual flow of programs, the content of which is set up to attract and hold the interests of as many viewers as possible. These programs are interspersed regularly with brief, specially-produced messages which exhort viewers to buy some commodity or service. In most instances, there is a distinct separa tion made between the program which entertains and the message which advertises. However, in some circumstances the content of program material itself may operate as a second form of promotion and advertising, and the split between programming as entertainment and program ming as advertising message is no longer ap plicable. This process is particularly evident in The Don Lane Show where the content is as much a vehicle for the endorsement and promo*tion of commodities as the official commercials studded through the show. Almost without ex ception, each of the entertainment segments in volves the front men, the performers or the talk-
Don Lane and Sonia McMahon, Australian co-ordinator of Christian Dior.
ing guests using their appearances to promote wares of some kind. Don and Bert directly sell commodities to the audience during the live commercials which they deliver in each show, and indirectly endorse others during the wheel segment when they list and discuss the prizes being offered. Performing guests usually sing their hit single (or one destined to be a hit), or a number from a stage production in which they are appearing. Either in his introduction, or after the number is finished, Don usually provides the appropriate promotion by displaying a copy of the per former’s recent record release or by listing the dates and places of future public performances. These promotional previews are also built into the informal conversations that Don conducts with his guests. Invariably, specific mention is made of the film in which they are appearing, their recently published book, theatrical role or nightclub act. For example, in the course of a guided tour through Hefner’s “pleasure palace’’ in Los Angeles (via satellite, complete with shots of four bikini-clad girls lounging beside the grot to pool who Hef identified as “two playmates — one bunny and a future cover girl’’), Don casual ly asked about the Australian edition of Playboy on sale at the time. By an amazing coincidence, Hef was in the library at this point and just hap pened to have a copy at hand which he, just as casually, displayed for the camera, He then went on to discuss the 3-D photographs specially designed for the issue.2 The same program also featured an ap pearance by Lady Sonia McMahon, which focused on her position as the Australian co ordinator of Christian Dior boutiques. Along with a glimpse of her informally enthusing over her newly-established job, viewers also get a glimpse of a film clip of a recent Paris fashion show unveiling Dior’s latest line. Not all the talking guests are established celebrities; some are fledglings in the early stages of building their reputations and public images. An endless parade of motor-cycle stunt riders, escape artists, aspiring actresses, lady weight-lifters and the like flow through the program at regular intervals, and are provided with a forum to secure their celebrityhood and to promote any spin-offs, such as personal ap pearances, film debuts or poetry. The way in which the entertainment content of The Don Lane Show is inexorably linked with advertising emerges through a system of ‘exchange’ relations between the front men, guests, studio audience and viewers. It is this set of relations that makes palatable the program’s fundamental motivation and purpose: to act as a clearing house for the sale and promotion of commodities. Viewers are prepared to become potential consumers of the commodities promoted in exchange for free entertainment, and vicarious involvement in the exciting and exotic world of celebrities. The Don Lane Show — and, by implication, other programs in this genre — inhabits a realm of pure commercialism where the distinction between entertainment and advertisement no longer operates. In blurring this distinction, The Don Lane Show differs in degree, but not in kind, from other forms of programming on Aus tralian commercial television. What makes The Don Lane Show different from other commercial programming is the fact that instead of masking its commodity fetishism it revels in it — consumerism itself becomes entertainment. ★ 2. It is interesting to note, also, that Australian Playboy is published by Australian Consolidated Press, which, like the Nine Network, is part of the Kerry Packer empire. This article grew out of a program on 3RRR-FM called “ In the Dark” . _____________
i >*r
A CRISIS OF DIRECTION Brazilian Cinema is generally equated in the West with the films produced by the Cinema Novo. But what has happened since, and is the relative absence of production a victory of political oppression or of a change in the political thinking of the filmmakers themselves? Filmmaker and film school graduate Dasha Ross, who spent 1977 and 1978 in Brazil doing research on Brazilian Cinema at the cinemateque in Rio de Janeiro, raises these and other questions in an informative and disturbing look at a once-major national cinema.
The recent celebration of 80 years of film production in Brazil is no mean feat, considering the stranglehold foreign exhibitors have had over distribution. In 1978, 482 foreign films were dis tributed through 3000 35mm cinemas. Con currently, some 80 local films produced between 1977 and 1978 were battling for distribution, the majority being mediocre “pornochanchadas” (popular films with quasi-pornographic over tones). “ All national films have encountered an invin cible resistance from distributors as a result of foreign monopoly of the Brazilian market.” These words of Humberto Mauro, one of the great godfathers of Brazilian cinema, were pronounced in the early 1930s. Sadly, they are as relevant today in depicting Brazil’s major cinematographic battle: the conquest of the in ternal market. In latter years, Brazilian legisla tion has been co-opted in this battle, demanding by law that exhibitors mount Brazilian films for 112 days of the year. The obstacle course of distribution for national films also includes the insurmountable barrier of censorship. Brazilian censorship follows no point system and is totally arbitrary, with no guidelines on what constitutes subver sion or violence. In the last three years, 90 films have been banned. Zelito Vianna’s Morte e vida severina, for one, was allowed internal distribution, but banned from export and prevented from representing Brazil at the Locarno Film Festival in 1977. The film was considered too precise in its documenting of the poverty and living condi tions in the north-east. Publicizing these aspects to a foreign audience was not seen as be ing conducive to the promotion of national development. Vianna, producer in the Cinema Novo move ment of such films as Glauber Rocha’s Terra em transa (Land in Trance), and now president of the Association of Brazilian Filmmakers, feels strongly that the Brazilian cinema has lost time to catch up: “ 1958-1974 was a barren time; we were content just to survive. After 1974 the country began to breathe a little. With the petroleum crisis in 1973, the economic miracle program was finished. Our cinema was able to thrive once again.”
It seemed as if the basic premise of the Cinema Novo movement of the 1950s had been rediscovered: i.e., to create a national popular cinema which drew on the Brazilian culture as its source, but which was also capable of reaching a mass audience. However, the position of the makers has changed to the extent that, with the quasi-democratic policies of the current regime, culminating with the general elections of March 1979, the intellectuals have been absorbed into the system rather than repressed by it. This has been a gradual process, beginning with the congressional crisis of 1968, when, on December 13, 1968, the implementation of In Opposite page: Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ How Tasty was my Little Frenchman.
stitutional Act No. 5 dissolved the Brazilian Congress, suspending all individual guarantees such as habeas corpus, imposing control over the press and giving freedom of repression to the security system of the military. This infamous decree effectively silenced civilian protesters and vanguard political groups in Brazil. Clearly, it had a disastrous effect on film makers. Some, such as Glauber Rocha, were forced into exile from 1968 until 1975, and their work was much tempered upon their return. So, although the sense of the Cinema Novo move ment may have been rediscovered, the film makers themselves are talking a different language. One observes a very clear line of this process in examining the work of one of the architects of the Cinema Novo movement, and a Brazilian filmmaker most recently known to Australian audiences: Nelson Pereira dos Santos. In 1954, Dos Santos made a courageously solitary and consequential stand with the mak ing of the first truly committed Brazilian film, Rio 40 graus (Rio 40 Degrees). Censorship then went to work, prohibiting the film outright: Dos Santos’ treatment of people’s lives within urban Rio was considered disturbing and confronting to the white middle class. Rocha claimed in retrospect that it was the only film to examine the Brazilian reality of the 1950s, and that the audience was shocked on be ing brutally confronted by the reality of the peo ple. Rocha believed that it was this film that transformed the national polemic, and opened up a more consequential future for the Brazilian Cinema. It was also at this point that the one national film production company, Vera Cruz, collapsed. Brazilian Cinema had failed to establish itself as a viable industry, principally because of the monopoly of foreign distributors who occupied 90 per cent of projection time. From 1960-1965, independent producers demonstrated a self-conscious concern for national problems. Working without an organizational infrastructure to speak of, but “with an idea in the head, and camera in the hand” (slogan catch-cry of the Cinema Novo), idealistic filmmakers like Dos Santos and Rocha forced their cpuntrymen to look at the harsh realities of the north-east of Brazil. In films that later became classics, these filmmakers explored the peculiar drought-ridden landscape and strik ing social iniquities of that potentially-explosive region. In 1963, two classics were released: Rocha’s Deus e o diablo na terra do sol (Black God, White Devil) and Dos Santos’ adaptation of Gracilarno Ramos’ famous novel Vidas secas (Barren Lives). Both films eloquently protested the exploitation of the peasants and their beliefs. Dos Santos, in talking about his film, said: “ My intention when 1 began to make Vidas secas
was to participate politically in terms of a cultural form. People do not involve themselves politically in cultural activities. The intention is not to abandon a political vision, but to incorporate this into cultural practice.”
After the 1964 military coup, the Cinema Novo, like all art forms, reflected the increasing need to speak for the silent majority and the in creased pressure of censorship. Films such as Land in Trance indirectly depicted the enormous problems facing Brazil: political corruption, the development of Brazilian capitalism, the im potence of the intelligentsia and the crisis of Brazil as a nation unable to unify and organize its people. Cinema Novo, turning away from the cinema of imitation, had chosen another form of expres sion, with the responsibility of making films as cultural identity. Each author of the Cinema Novo developed his own path, some even various paths, and the eight to 10 filmmakers that comprised this movement were ligated by a broad political philosophy, rather than a un animous cinema style. It is no accident that by 1969 Cinema Novo was no longer a cohesive movement in any sense. One quality of the group had been its pluralism, the capacity to be many diverging themes in the one movement, but stronger than sheer variance in direction was the Institutional Act No. 5, which effectively blocked all forms of expres sion. In the aftermath of this period, Dos Santos produced Como era gostoso o meu Frances (How Tasty was my Little Frenchman), which, ac cording to a list published by the National Film Institute, ranked among the 25 biggest box office hits from 1958 to 1973. The film celebrates a curious mythology in popular Brazilian culture known as antropofagismo (cannibalism), denoting a radical form of Brazilian non-co-operation with European style and values imposed during colonization. How Tasty was my Little Frenchman is a historic re-enactment, set in the 17th Century, of a French ship which was shipwrecked, the sur vivors being rescued and incorporated into a tupi Indian tribe. In return for this generosity, the survivors lent their European technology to aid the Indians in their fight against the invading Portuguese. The difficulty for European audiences comes in understanding the dramatic finale of the film, when the French hero, having totally adopted the Indian way of life, is killed and ritualistically eaten out of love by his Indian lover. This cannibalism represented the Brazilian desire to conquer and absorb European knowledge and skills which they recognize as being important in their fight for survival. Such a notion was also the central premise of a leading intellectual movement of the late 1920s led by Oswald de Andrade, who had called for a Congresso de Antropofagismo to be held each Cinema Papers, December-January — 609
BRAZILIAN CINEMA
year on October 11, commemorating the last day of American Independence (Columbus had arrived on American soil on October 12). The strength of Dos Santos’ film was to break taboos and destroy the “colonial father” , valorizing local traditions over European models. Dos Santos’ film was all the more perti nent as he indirectly propagated cannibal consciousness as a solution to the cultural im perialism of Brazil, recognizing that the country had need of European models but that these needed to be eaten and digested to produce a Brazilian cultural form, rather than accepting the European models as the base of such culture. However, the dilemma which arises from this film is that only the country’s chief cultural can nibals have any notion of such cloudy precepts. Utilizing material drawn from popular culture in this manner, the film is virtually inaccessible to the very people whose culture it portrays. After this historic exploration of Brazil’s roots, Dos Santos turned to the contemporary popular culture to produce an urban thriller, reeking with the intrigue and incense of the African mysticism so present in Brazil, the legacy of the 18th Century slave trade. What the film The Harder They Come did for reggae music in terms of releasing Jamaican upbeat street music to the white mass audience, so Amuletto do Ogun (The Amulet of Ogun) celebrated Umbanda, Brazil’s unofficial religion of the blacks. Chiefly an intermarriage between Catholicism and Candomble, the religion brought from old Africa with the slave trade, it was a way of preserving old religious traditions in urban centres, such as Rio and the city of Bahia in the region of Salvador, in the face of ex treme persecution. The story-line of this film centres on a young man from the north-east of Brazil arriving in the northern outskirts of Rio to seek his fortune in the city. Protected by an amulet of the Umbandist god Ogun, a gift from his mother, his life revolves around the criminal fringe of the favela (slums). After the analogy of Brazil’s cultural cannibalism in How Tasty was my Little Frenchman, Dos Santos felt he was entering a more practical level of discussion about Brazilian culture. He claimed that the film “was destined to reach the people on the margin of the official culture, those discriminated against because of their economic condition” . He went on to explain: “ It is not sufficient to make a film-just based on popular values, but to accept and assume these values so that people will recognize themselves in [such a] way that the public’s relationship to popu lar culture will be affirmed .and at the same time constitute a public that will economically support the film.” This statement was a radical departure from the position held in the past few years by Brazilian filmmakers, and is fairly presump tuous, identifying the cinema public as a mass of people seduced into buying tickets in the name of social identification. With this statement, it is possible to observe a strong form of repression and auto-censorship active in post-Cinema Novo cinema. The continuing fight against foreign monopo ly of the market had created a situation where this was the main discussion in relation to the film’s value, and any other discussion had become pejoratively aesthete. So, in the name of conquering the market, any discussion — political, cultural or aesthetic — was eliminated as being of relative unimpor tance. But elimination of discussion on this level can only serve oppression and integration into the official cultural line of the regime. With this film was the demise of the Cinema Novo ideal of films being vehicles by which to analyse 610 — Cinema Papers, December-January
and comprehend the problems that exist within the society. It is interesting to note that Dos Santos in terprets the religious force of Umbanda as a positive force within the people’s lives, while the interpretation of Rocha in his Cinema Novo film, Barravento, was that of seeing Candomble as a negative force, the mystical belief of the people, and one denying them the possibility of analysing their situation in political terms. In Rio 40 Degrees, Dos Santos had climbed the hillsides of Rio to document, sociologically, the life of the people in the slums, and, with this distensation of the filmmaker, produced a more incisive statement (heavily influenced by the Italian Neo Realists, particularly Rossellini) than Amuletto do Ogun, where Dos Santos, the filmmaker, totally ingratiated himself into the culture he was filming. The question of national identity has long been a preoccupation in the light of Brazil’s
colonial past, as well as her current economic independence. Dos Santos regards himself as the father of the people, in the name of whom he feels he is creating a national popular culture which sticks to reality: it is the myth of joining the people and their culture. This kind of paternalization, where the key phrase is speaking with simplicity so that the people will understand, only serves to communi cate to the people the same alienation that they experience: their illiteracy, their birth in poverty which leads them to consider life with disgust and scorn. Dos Santos’ Tenda dos milagres (Tent of Miracles), shown at the 1978 Sydney and Melbourne film festivals, could be the exemplification of the most up-to-date language of the nationalist art or popularism. By utilizing the myth of popular culture once again, as he did in Amuletto do Ogun, Dos Santos has conquered general applause and consolidated the official policy of patriotic culture. Prizeworthy and profitable, his films of the past decade have spread out nationalistic ideas with evasive solutions; they involve the masses with these themes; they dominate the indecisive elite; they capture the youthful innocence; and they are easily used by the reactionary forces, which find in this type of pseudo-revolutionary nationalism a good escape valve. Dos Santos has gone from being a cursed
Top: Maria Ribeiro in Dos Santos’ The Amulet of Ogun. Above: Glauber Rocha (right) films the funeral of one of Brazil’s greatest painters, Di Cavalcanti, for his film, Di Cavalcanti.
author to one accepted by the powers that be. Tent of Miracles carried off the major prizes at the 10th Brazilian Film Festival in 1977, inclu ding best film and best direction, and has been the most successful answer to the integrationalist policy of the regime. It is, in a nutshell, the life-story of a filmmaker who is without doubt important to the Brazilian cinema, but who lost, with the rest of the Cinema Novo group in general, a critical view of the process. “ We should love our people and not the dogmas,” said Pedro Archanju, the hero of Tent of Miracles, to an ingenuous and characterized Marxist professor. Pedro Archanju is an incorporation of the ideal of the mixture of races, and is representative of the social ascen sion of the black through the ideology of whiten ing the race, which was first propagated in the treatise of Gilberto Freyer in 1933 called Casa grande. However, in an era of black emancipa tion — or, rather, an era of emancipation of black culture — this adherence to historic, retrograde values only serves to cover the real mechanisms of society’s domination and a strengthening of a mystifying ideology about Brazilian culture. The truth is that these myths
BRAZILIAN CINEMA
have no object other than to incentivate the integration of the blacks to the dominant white values of Brazilian society. Bruno Barreto, one of the children of the Cinema Novo movement, claimed that the greatest mistake of the older masters was the pretension that with their films they would be able to change the social situation, while they themselves doubted this naive, idealistic notion. He went on to clarify this statement by stating:
“ For me, cinema is above all a way of preserving our cultural identity, the habits and customs of our people.” Within this notion of preserving cultural iden tity, however, it is not permissible to talk about social contradictions — certainly not if the film is to be shown outside Brazil (as exemplified by Morte e vide severina). The irony of this is that the over-inflated rhetoric of the military regime has lately been proclaiming “ Brasil e feito por
sources: 1. “The contribution of foreign cinema to the development of Brazilian Cinema” at the rate of a tax of $4000 a film. 2. The government tax levied on the profits made by foreign films, mainly from the U.S. Embrafilme receives 70 per cent. 3. A tax on the provision of cinema tickets to the cinemas. 4. A percentage from the distribution of films that Embrafilme distributes. The annual budget for Embrafilme is about $15 million a year, and $5 million of this was given to finance films during 1978. The average budget for a Brazilian film is between $200,000 and $300,000, of which Embrafilme usually gives 30 per cent. Robert Farias, until March 1979 the director of Embrafilme, maintained that Embrafilme did not impose any level of censorship in terms of the projects submitted, and that it judged the professional, not the film. As a result, one can be sure that of the 30 films produced by Embra filme each year, none will be directed by fresh faced newcomers. Embrafilme also allocated $400,000 of its an nual budget for the dissemination of cinema culture, supporting a vast network of cinema clubs,* including the cinemateques in Rio and Sao Paolo, which organize courses in cinema and projection throughout the country. There is also a special budgetary allocation for the restoration of old Brazilian films, and for the organization of Brazilian retrospectives, in and out of Brazil. In 1978, 30 films were mounted in a special festival, first in Mozambique, where Brazilian filmmaker Rui Guerra is head of the National Film Institute, and then at the Cinemateque in Paris. Farias, reminiscent of one of the grand Holly wood moguls and polished by Harvard’s business school, claims that: “The increased interest in the national film product is evident. In 1974, 84 days of a year had to be allot ted to the screening of Brazilian films; it is now 112 days a year. And we have gone from having 30 million spectators of Brazilian films in 1974 to 56 million.”
Above: Dos Santos’ Tent of Miracles. Left: The worker from San Paolo, who is the centre of Cerebral Destruction.
nos” (“ Brazil is Made For Us”), but in the name of the construction of the country for the com mon good. This is the same way in which cultural production examines social contra dictions of rich and poor, black and white, which is to enmesh them in cloudy concepts and premises, presenting, as Dos Santos did in Tent of Miracles, Brazilian culture that is nationally popular, digestible and above all profitable. Dos Santos claimed paternalistically that what he wanted was “To help create a kind of cinematic folk art, capable of liberating the Brazilian people by strengthening a way of life other than the socially sanctioned one.”
In evaluating the repercussions of the Cinema Novo movement, the greatest legacy was the recognition of the need for financial support from the government. In 1.970 a national film production and distribution company was con solidated. The role of this company, Embrafilme, was to be a state-recognized agent fighting the domination of the internal market by foreign distribution companies by control over exhibi tion, and operating as a bank promoting local production. As an official organization in Brazil, Embrafilme has in common with many others the same source of funding: 60 per cent government in vestment, and 40 per cent from the private sec tor. Government money can come from four
But with this monopoly by Embrafilme over distribution and production, the fate of smaller, independent and more radical films remains very obscure. Their only hope of any kind of distribu tion lies through the cine-clubs and the univer sity campuses, reaching in the vicinity of 0.2 per cent of the potential public. So, the regime’s cultural policy, in relation to Embrafilme, can be seen as an effective measure to combat the creation of a militant cinema front. One extraordinarily powerful film of this genre is Destrucao cerabral (Cerebral Destruc tion), made and financed by a collective of five people, and winner of the short film section of the 10th Brazilian Film Festival in 1977. Easily the most powerful film to have been made in Brazil for some years, it is a tragedy it has not been distributed outside Brazil. The film details the tragic background of the existential aliena tion of a worker from Sao Paolo, who travelled 2000 km to commit suicide in Belem. Carefully understated, the film carries no overt messages. It leaves the question open as to whether the man’s suicide was caused by pres sures of the family, state or religion. The most important aspect the film examines is what oc curred in this man’s life to make him decide to end it. On an allegorical level, he represents the fate of the workers, forced to commit mass political suicide by denied representation and in formation. This is the only film with an active voice of dissent — the only continuing thread of the once living Cinema Novo. ★ Cinema Papers, December-January — 611
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àainterviewwithbnHolmes,President Will your role as president of In the past 19 years, the Grundy Organization has grown Grundys differ from that of your from a producer of television game shows to Australia’s largest predecessor, Reg Grundy? packager of television programs for the domestic and inter national markets. With the production o f three successful No. When I joined Grundys two years ago as managing director, television dramas (“The Young Doctors” , “The Restless Reg was looking for someone to Years” and “Prisoner” ) it has overtaken the position previous run his group of companies for him. ly held in this field by Crawford Productions. Thirteen episodes My appointment as president has of “Prisoner” have been sold to KTLA (Los Angeles), relieved him of any day-to-day representing the first success in the corporation’s major push responsibilities in Australia. into the U .S. market. Reg is still chairman of the The Grundy Organization has recently diversified into a organization, but my appointment number of different areas, including the merchandizing of inter gives him the opportunity to spend a lot of time overseas and help national films, such as “Star Wars” and “ Grease” , the staging develop Grundys in other parts of of conferences and selling travel. In November 1978, Grundys the world. received $1.5 million from the Australian Film Commission to produce feature films. One result was the organization’s at How does Grundys go about tempts to set up co-productions with Japanese and Indonesian marketing its product overseas? companies. Although these ventures have yet to prove fruitful, It depends on the territory; Grundys is determined to pursue such arrangements as a means selling to Latin America or South of breaking into the Asian film market. east Asia is totally different to In June 1979, the Grundy Organization also received selling in Europe and Britain. $15,000 from the Victorian Government and $50,000 from the In most territories we appoint sub-distributors to handle our Federal Government for the research and development of programs, but in others we do the children’s television programs. Grundys make no secret that artistic values come second to distribution ourselves. It is very hard to be definitive commercial considerations; the organization’s ambitious scale when you are talking about of projects, and its rapid progress towards diversification, bear activities overseas, because it is a very big and competitive market, this out. However, the announcements of “M elba” and particularly in the U.S. From time “ Smithy” suggest Grundys is venturing into the field of to time your direction needs to “prestige” mini-series. change according to what the buyer Another Grundys’ incentive is the move into broadcasting. at the other end wants. The organization was recently involved in the purchase of The way things are developing, more of our Australian-produced W IN4 Wollongong, and is also applying for a Sydney FM material will be sold overseas. We licence. Ian Holmes, 45, for two years managing director of the may also be in a position — and it can be a very dangerous position Grundy Organization, has recently replaced Reg Grundy as for a company of our sort — where president. Holmes has been in television for 23 years, beginning we mount our own productions, as distinct from just pre-selling with GTV-9 in Melbourne, where he served as technical direc tor and in the production and programming areas, eventually them. becoming general manager. In 1970, he joined Channel 10, What is the usual arrangement for Sydney, as director of programming, and was then general selling a program overseas, such as manager until 1977, when he left to join Grundys. “ Prisoner” to KTLA in Los Holmes’ connection with the organization began when, as Angeles? general manager of Channel 10, he supported the acquisition of the Grundy production, “ Blankety Blanks” , which other televi In North America, it is usual to sion stations had turned down. The program went on to become sell a limited number of runs. In some cases this is one run, like a hit. Holmes was also chairman of the Federation of Aus KTLA, in others two. So far, we tralian Commercial Television Stations (FACTS) from 1976 to haven’t made a major sale to an 1977. American network. In that case, This interview with Holmes was conducted by Liz Jacka, lec you would sell to one person who is turer in mass communications at the New South Wales buying on behalf of 160 or so Institute of Technology, and Ann Game, lecturer in the stations. Now, if you don’t sell to their syndication, you have to sell department of administrative, social and political studies at to th e in d iv id u a l s ta tio n s Kuring-gai College o f Advanced Education.
separately, or groups of six or 10. It is a very big operation. It is an intricately-structured market in the U.S., and quite distinct from Australia where we have three commercial networks. What is the standard deal in Aus tralia when selling drama series to a network or station? Once we get a project to a point where we can present it to a prospective buyer, we take it to a station or network. If the buyer likes the presentation, he is asked to commit himself to the next stage. By the time we put the material onto film or tape, we have already sold the project and have received the money. But up to that point, we don’t get much help. In television, you have to keep a lot of different projects and concepts going because the percentage of success is quite low, and you don’t know in the early stages what are the likely prospects. Television networks often change their requirements, as well. Today they might say, “ No, we don’t want any drama” , yet in two months they could demand more. If a project is successful and the ratings are high, does Grundys receive extra money? I wish we did, but things don’t work that way. Basically you have a cost structure for a show, and built into that is a profit area. Shows u sually run for a contracted period, and then, hopefully, are renewed. The program might run 13 weeks, 26 weeks, or even a year. And when it’s up for renewal, you have to convince the station that you need more money, because of inflation and so forth. But you are not in a position to be able ta demand large increases. If a show has been very successful, however, you are obviously in a better position to bargain. Apart from specifying the number of episodes, do you also contract the number of runs? Yes. The restriction on the number of runs depends on what Cinema Papers, December-January — 613
IAN HOLMES
The original cast of Grundys’ major success, Number 96.
the station wants and what we have been able to negotiate with the unions, casts and so forth. In some cases, particularly with game shows, you have a very limited number of runs, like one or two, but usually with drama there are three or four runs. What sort of audience research does Grundys do before going ahead with a concept? Basically, we rely on our own judgm ent. We also have an independent input from Tape in B ritain . Tape is a research organization which provides us with a prejudgment on how a concept will go. The system is quite complicated, and is essentially based on successes and failures of the past, and related to a whole multitude of factors. Does Tape operate off Australian data? Yes. They have researched Aus tralia over a long period of time, and provide their opinions and judgm ents on television and cinema, city by city, and nationally. How many people does Grundys employ? I think our last figure was about 140, and that does not include actors or freelance directors, who vary a lot. Some are with us permanently or semi-permanently, and others are engaged for four or six shows, or whatever. How many are on the administrative and creative sides?
Graham Kennedy in Blankety Blanks which Holmes bought for Channel 10, Sydney:
“The Restless Years”, a kind of Grundys stable of actors. These people also take part in some of our trade presentations. Would this e part oi their involvement with Grundys?
and the direction of the show comes out of discussion with those people. This includes the storyliners, Hugh Stuckey, who is in charge of story development, and our head of drama, Reg Watson. Reg, in fact, devised the show and was the Y es. F e lic ity G o sc o m b e executive producer for some time. (publicity manager) occasionally There is also the lesser input of organizes activities that have a people like myself. If you are prom otional advantage to an concerned about something, like I outside organization — whether it am, you obviously talk to the be a retail store, restaurant or people involved. whatever — and which also have a promotional advantage to one of Do you have any favorites among our shows. By displaying our stars the Grundys shows? to the public, we are primarily promoting a program. You are also Not really; I don’t have the time giving the actors money, and that’s to become involved in any one area. good, too. F o r m e, th a t is th e m o st
unsatisfying part of the job. As you know, I come from a technical background. I was a producerdirector at GTV-9 for many years, and did In Melbourne Tonight, the BP Super Shows and other variety specials. Then I was made pro gram manager, which is still in that side of it. From time to time I wish I could get into one of the programs and have a crack at it, but I don’t get the opportunity. My involvement is basically in the embryonic stages of development, and in the selling. It’s my job to find a buyer for a program. But once that is done, I step back from it. Why do you think “Prisoner” has
Do actors have the option of being involved? It depends on their contractural arrangement. But it is usually an option. There have been reports in the press that some of the actors in your television series work under a lot of pressure. The press, for example, suggested that Carol Burns left “Prisoner” for that reason . .. E v e ry o n e in t e le v is i o n , particularly in drama, is under a great deal of pressure, and I wouldn’t think actors are under any greater pressure. I suppose serials have less pressure in terms of time demands than an episodic show. There you have three or four people who have to cover most of the exposure time. In serials, there is usually a bigger cast, and each actor has less time on screen. I don’t recall how the press wrote up the case you are talking about, but basically she felt she had done all she could with the role. It was a very pow erful role with an enormous public reaction and she believed, w hether rightly or wrongly, that it might be wise to do something else.
I couldn’t answer that because we have so many different activities — we are not just producing te le v is io n . We have a merchandising operation; Grundy Presentations, which is a trade presentation company; and even a travel company. Obviously, the major part of our activity — and a major requirement for staff — is Who has the greatest artistic control television. But I don’t know how in the case of a long-running series many work in that area. I think, like “The Restless Years”? though, that the administrative side would be less than 50 per cent. The executive producer. On The Restless Years, it’s Don Battey. He There seems to be, at least with has a team of people around him, 614 — Cinema Papers, December-January
The Young Doctors, one of Grundys’ three current television dramas.
Gerard Maguire, Sheila Florence and Colleen Clifford in Prisoner, Grundys’ major break through into the U.S. television market.
IAN HOLMES
Jamie Gleeson and Diane Archer in The Restless Years, which Grundys is producing for the 0-Ten Network.
been so successful?
Two prisoners (Lesley Baker and Val Lehman) meet the governor’s niece (Sally Cahill) in Prisoner.
but it depended on how we portrayed it. So, we developed a group of characters which we thought was interesting and varied.
It is hard to determine what makes a show successful. However, we did go into Prisoner with a great deal of faith because it was so Why are women in prison more different to all the other drama interesting than men in prison? around. It looked at people in gaol, and that is a situation the public That’s a good question, but I doesn’t know much about. After all, 99 per cent of the public don’t don’t really know. Maybe there have been more portrayals of men know what a gaol is really like. Films about prisons have been in prison than of women, so women successful in the past, so we knew are a little more unique. It may also people would be intrigued. We also be th a t women in a captive felt there would be even greater situation, with the dangers that interest if it was about women in a exist, are more intriguing. Also, prison. How do they live? Is it men are probably more able to look after themselves physically than terrible? And so on. As a concept it was attractive, women.
Wim Umboh (Aries Films), Roger Miriams (Grundys) and John McQuaid (AFC) after the signing of an AustralianIndonesian co-production deal for Valley of Dreams.
The prisoners are very moralistic, particularly in regard to violence to children, drugs and so on. Why? That reflects what we found in research. People in gaol are not all bad. In most cases, they are there because they made one big mistake. A lot of research has been done on the show to make it accurate. Is there ever a clash between the desire to be realistic and the need to glamorize? That problem applies to any popular drama which sets out to deal with real-life situations and relationships. So, what you tend to do is condense the real things to a greater degree than would exist in everyday life. More events conse quently happen to one person in a continuing drama than in real life, but these sorts of things do actually happen. “Prisoner” and “The Restless Years” deal with immediate social and political issues, and, in some cases, put across quite strong messages. The message that comes across in “Prisoner”, for example, is that a liberal approach with prisoners is much more successful than a heavy-handed one . . . Producers and writers follow what the public would regard as satisfying. It is a trend in our community. Do you see Grundys just reflecting community opinion, or shaping it? I don’t see us shaping opinion. I am quite sure, however, that we do reflect what is going on in our community. Now, if you can reflect something before a lot of people have actually crystallized it in their minds, then you are more likely to be successful. Part of the attraction of a serial is its real-life aspects. And if you coincidentally, or on purpose, cover dramatically something that is in people’s minds, then it gives the show more realism.
Patricia Kennedy, Collette Mann and Carol Burns in Prisoner.
Does Grundys see “Prisoner” as being part of the prison reform movement?
It was not developed or bought for that reason. But when a program like Prisoner gets on air, you do have input from people who are very involved in prison reform. And I am sure this influences the people involved on the show. They learn things they have not been aware of, and in some cases discover a storyline that can be good. So, it’s not a premeditated thing; it is more a kind of reaction. At the same time, if we ever allowed ourselves to think that we were out to do something crusa ding, we would probably lose the essence of the program as an enter tainment vehicle. And you can’t allow yourself to be in that position. What is Grundys attitude to the “C” classification recently laid down by the Children’s Committee of the Broadcasting Tribunal? We are following the standards that are required, and developing projects which we hope will fit into the category. It is difficult, however, because you are unable to get a “C” certificate until you have a finished program. You can’t get a “ C” certificate on a script or format. You therefore have to convince someone to spend quite a lot of money and time to produce something which may eventually be rejected. Grundys has, like others, been endeavoring to convince the committee that there should be a s t a g e wh e r e f o r m a t s at n d thoroughly-written descriptions of th e program, including photographs, can get a provisional “ C ” . Then at least you can convince people to spend the money. It is a fairly unworkable situation at the moment, because no one is game to do the more risky sort of shows. This, of course, discourages the t ype of p r o g r a ms they presumably are looking to get produced. At the end of 1978, Grundys received more than $1 million from the Australian Film Commission. How is this being used? The money was a conditional Concluded on P. 676 Cinema Papers, December-January — 615
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM F E S T IV A L 1979 : __
Edinburgh’s international Film Festi val, now In its 33rd year, has established itself as an unrivalled showcase for maverick filmmakers. But while it has, over the years, helped bring substantial areas of ‘closet’ cinema and minority cults into the penumbral light of critical respectability and the art-house screen, the peculiar brand of eclectic specialism which it generally shares with its public makes it an unreliable barometer of commercial, as distinct from critical, trends. The distinctive business of this Festi val (which cheerfully juxtaposes semi ology, sexploitation and feminist tracts) should not be confused with “no busi ness like showbusiness” — at least so far as the home market is concerned. The dearth of British buyers and distributors on its attendance lists might provide one cautionary reminder of this. And such reminders are for once required to check the local euphoria which has greeted the signs of a healthy liberation struggle from what had appeared to be another vanquished minority. At last, something more than smoke is rising from the ashes of British cinema. And while it would be premature to equate this fledglling phoenix with a resurrected industry, it unequivocally attests a renascent art. Of Edinburgh’s encouraging signs of British life, the closest to home, as well as to its (and our) economic realities was a double rarity called That Sinking Feel ing: an independent Scottish feature film, and a triumph of stubborn ingenuity over impoverished circumstances. (Both of 616 — Cinema Papers, December-January
which latter elements its maker and characters have in common.) Equipped with a low budget and a resilient cast from the Glasgow Youth Theatre, writerproducer-director Bill Forsyth used adolescent unemployment in the Glas wegian slums as the point of departure for a jauntily optimistic comedy-thriller which, dexterously combining tough social analysis with joyous entertain ment, might profitably be recom mended as an alternative (if not an anti dote) to the tele-realistic school of ‘prob lem’ filmmakers. Forsyth’s film manages the difficult acrobatic feat of keeping its head in the clouds and its feet firmly planted in the muddy ground of the public parks and devastated playgrounds where, with or without their “0 ”-levels, his tattered teenagers seem fated to loiter away their damp days while wistfully anticipating their next bowl of cornflakes. Forsyth’s empathetic observation (of the process of killing time) attests his origins in docu mentary filmmaking, and it combines with his canny ear for native humour to make plausible and positive his juvenile gang’s enthusiastic discovery that there is still one type of job that doesn’t require either a union card or a deflationary economy. The answer is crime. Without facile moralizing or an ounce of patronage, Forsyth uses the adven tures of his denim desperadoes to sound a jaunty fanfare to the power of human survival. He describes and demon strates the existence of a society in which adolescent fantasy and resourcefulness are deprived of legitimate, channels; but
Ken Loach’s Black Jack: examining the bar baric treatment of the insane in 18th Century society.
he keeps his emphasis firmly on the pleasure that his youthful characters achieve in being occupied and develop ing a project of their own, leaving his audience to draw their own political con clusions. Somewhat surprisingly, a similar — and no less morally oblique — paean to human resourcefulness emerges from the latest Loach and Garnett collabora tion, Black Jack, which takes its title from the brawny French criminal who sur vives his own hanging in the film ’s opening sequence, but thereafter focuses its sprawling picaresque narra tive principally on the enforced adven tures of the solemn and diminutive York shire lad who accidentally witnesses his resurrection. Although Loach, in describing the immediate attraction of Leon Garfield’s novel and its 18th Century setting, has declared himself particularly drawn to that society’s barbaric treatment of the insane (from one of whose primitive asylums our young hero rescues a fanci ful girl of his own age), Black Jack is refreshingly free from the tub-thumping and tear-jerking that have characterized Loach’s best-known work. His script and direction reveal an unplumbed talent for inconsequent humour, lightness of touch, and the creation of marvellously muddled but-generally kindly characters
whom he trusts to out-rival the attrac tions of a picturesque landscape, and even of some colorful circus costumes, without the support of ceaseless closeups. Loach’s affectionately-observed col lection of knaves, mountebanks and pious hypocrites suggest the ‘comic relief’ from some Shakespearean history nudged gently forward in time. His film's spirit seems closer, at first glance, to the (neo) classical than does the daring interpretation of The Tem pest by Derek (Ju b ilee) Jarman. Yet on reflection, Jarman’s poetic popularism, intensi fying and refracting the oneiric proper ties of Shakespeare’s text, merely adds some Elizabethan muscle to the funda mental languor of the Bard’s musical masque. If Jarman reverses all the conventions which have become a kind of hallowed law for stage productions of the play — he sets nearly all the action indoors, in a crumbling island mansion where Heathcote W illia m ’ s m e la n c h o lic a lly smouldering Prospero develops his astrological skills, and dresses the elemental spirit Ariel in a business-like white boiler suit — he does so in a higher cause than a surface display of camp pyrotechnics. His Brave New World — revealed through a swirl of confetti and dancing sailors, for whom, dressed as a sun-goddess, Elizabeth Welch authorita tively performs Stormy Weather—grows out of the dust and weary corruption that has preceded it. And the film’s progres sion of images, from dark to light and sloth to energy, strengthens the links of “the great Shakespearean chain” while also reflecting the minor meteorological disturbance his text invokes. In austere contrast, the Festival screened a dauntingly controlled first feature film from Christopher Petit, until recently the film editor for the London magazine Time Out. His Radio On is a British road film (arguably the first): a bleak and lonely journey through an electronic reality which offers its human components the means to travel, but not to progress, and where communications systems (tapes, videos, telephone, even pylons) contain a potent intensity which is singularly lacking from the film’s abor tive human communications. Its p ro ta g o n is t, Robert (David Beames) is a factory disc-jockey, driving alone — first on the motorway and then on the country backroads — from London to Bristol with the irresolute pur pose of discovering something about his brother’s death. He talks only a little more easily to strangers than to his intimates: and each of the strangers he meets — a country service-station attendant obsessed with the late Eddie Cochran; an Army deserter haunted by seeing his comrade’s brains explode; a German actress (Lisa Kreuzer) looking for her daughter Alice — seems frozen in some past moment from which there is no obvious bridge to an equally bleak present. On the rare occasions when a per sonal note is tentatively sounded, Robert switches off, withdraws, to switch on the music (David Bowie, Ian Drury, Kraft werk, among others) which relates him and his omnipresent fear to the desolate world around. Its desolation is haunt ingly conveyed in the black-and-white photography of Martin Schafer, the film’s real star and former assistant camera man to Wim Wenders, who is its associate producer. The Wenders connection is evident;
EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL
but if Petit at times runs perilously close to parody in his description of the regres sive hero, he also goes further than the Wenders of Kings of the Road. Reversing the traditional roles of people and land scape, he eschews the comfort of a heart-warming central relationship and keeps his characters locked in their separate stereophonic cells — doomed figures in an indifferent if techno logically-sophisticated landscape. Radio On was co-produced by the British Film Institute Production Board, whose policies and tiny budgets have generally inclined it in the past to sponsor (with only a few notable excep tions by Bill Douglas or Stephen Dwoskin) films whose dubious and obscure experimental nature confines them at best to the ghettos of the academic underground. Radio On, besides reflecting the Board’s increased funding, also suggests an increasing concern with vigour and precision — qualities seen in the more obviously experimental films of Peter Greenaway, two of which were screened at the Festival. Greenaway's A Walk Through H, orchestrated by Michael Nyman’s specially-composed score, brings multi media film to a synaesthetic pitch, using a series of paintings (by Greenaway) to create a surreal and hermetic land scape, and to suggest the paths trodden by a mythical ornithologist, in develop ing his definitive treatise on bird migra tion.
First shown at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, A Walk Through H was repeated this year with Vertical Features Remake, in which, through an incisively witty narration, Greenaway satirizes some of the pretensions of the kind of academic criticism to which his films are peculiarly susceptible. Vertical Features Remake is at once a structuralist film (James Benning style) and a satire of structural and semiological criticism, keeping in mind, ear and eye engaged in its experiments with time and vertical lines while mocking fashionable tenden cies to elevate such experiments to cosmic significance. If the BFI’s productions are acquiring a new and more dynamic image, it’s hard, on the other hand, to ascribe any fixity of purpose to the policies of Don Boyd, a new independent British producer whose six films this year include The Tempest but also, unfortunately, Scum, an expanded version of the television play (writer, Roy Minton; director, Alan Clarke) for which the BBC, by banning it, has ensured an interested audience. If there is a case for censorship within a democracy, Scum is it. It’s a brutally and pruriently made study of life in a British Borstal, and it links its authority figures (warders, governors) and juvenile offenders in an unbroken circuit of violence and sadism which makes it hard for an unaligned audience to take moral sides. The film ’s young characters are initiated into a kill-or-be-killed world
The Tempest: Derek Jarman’s daring interpretation of the Shakespearian text.
where they are either raped or bloodily beaten (in leering close-up, of course), or driven to severing their arteries (with the blood gushing into camera). Without some glimpse of the positive side of human potential, the film’s professed indignation at what man has made of man turns to pure obscenity. The violence of Quadrophenia on the other hand — an epic magnification of the historic clash between Mods and Rockers on Brighton Beach in 1964 — is emotionally and dramatically justified within the film itself: its cathartic explo sion echoes the angry energy of The Who’s music, on whose moods and social background the film itself is a kind of exegesis. (In no conventional sense a musical, it uses their music to com pound the emotional intensity of its narrative, just as it uses the lyrics to express the pent-up rage of its largely in articulate characters.) Thematically, Quadrophenia is the darker side of That Sinking Feeling. Set for the most part in West London during the allegedly Swinging Sixties, it confines its scrutiny to the young, under-educated and futureless, seeking, through drugs, dances, and above all the trappings of being a Mod, to achieve a distinctive identity in a suburban context of total and predictable conformism. Inevitably the reaction against conformity merely begets a conformity of its own. The young hero, Jimmy, who had believed that being a Mod really made him differ ent, finally rejects the compromises of the only future open to him and steers his stolen scooter over the Brighton cliffs which had witnessed his hour of glory. D irected by Franc Roddam, a graduate from television, Quadrophenia works because it combines a no-holdsbarred analysis of the quality of workingclass life in Britain with a tough celebra tion of the frustrated energy for which the class society can offer no useful outlet. Unlike Scum, it has no individually monstrous characters, though the col lective behaviour of its pathetic and endearing individuals easily turns monstrous. It strikes a (musically com pelling) note of urgent social warning. The same note distinguishes Jonathan Kaplan’s Over the Edge from the rest of the American exploitation films on dis play this year at Edinburgh. Over the decade, the Festival has been primarily responsible for the critical cult of this low-cost genre that stimulates the filmgoer’s sensations (mostly terror and sadistic relish) through a loud and fast progression of comic-strip violence. Over the Edge begins quietly, in a cul tural wilderness that is an embryo suburb: a d e v e lo p e r’ s paradise and a wasteland for children. It builds to a veritable conflagration, in which the children of the town’s junior high school lock their parents inside the building and burn most of their possessions. The film is not without the standard quota of meretricious manipulativeness, but its escalating aggro is genuinely linked to its observation of the root causes of middle-class juvenile crime. Its characters (not least the petite and androgynous pusher) and its social por traiture transcend ¡stereotyping. Which was unfortunately not true of Rock ’n’ Roll High School (a Corman production directed by Allan Arkush), a vapid and mindless, if uncompromisingly nar cissistic musical trip to classroom arson, swerving wildly between heavy surreal humour and Disneyland corn, and generally as vapid as the New Wave band, the Romones, who figure all too large in its action and soundtrack. A more severe disappointment was Home Movies in which Brian de Palma, working in collaboration with students at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College, tries turning his back on shock and horror and returning to his quirkier Greetings style. The film’s central idea (or at least the one from which it takes its title) is appealing: a cult called Star Therapy (profitably administered by Kirk Douglas as a quintessential face-lifted Hollywood smooth-talker) in which everyone is on camera all the time and
students are trained not to “ be an extra in your own life.” The application of this therapeutic course unfortunately involves a heavy handed satire of American family life (aiming for a cross between Feiffer and Charles Adams but running perilously close to television sit-com), and the result has a curiously faded and dated feel — like 1968 stripped of its politics. A similar idea, of ubiquitous techno logical voyeurism, also informed the nastiest of the U.S. films: Effects, which exploits the fashionable fascination with snuff films in a hideously photographed and convoluted plot which has the director of a cheap horror film (visually indistinguishable for the one we are watching) setting up his unpleasant cast for some real and unpleasant death scenes. Edinburgh’s low-budget American films confirmed the impression of Cannes: that auteur cinema has passed into the hands of big business, while its genre films have little vitality left. It was an impression generally confirmed by the Festival’s European selections, of which the most distinguished, Krzysztof Zanussi’s Wege in der nacht (Night Paths), despite all its stunning locations, showed, in its predictable dramaturgy and in the superior vitality of its settings over its characters, the narrowing influ ence of television on a previously mobile director. (The film was co-produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk.) Night Paths did, however, contain two notably fine performances: from Maja Komorowska as a headstrong Polish aristocrat during the German occupation, and Mathieu Carriere as the courteous young officer who falls in love with her, only to react with a vindictive nervous hysteria to the shattering of his literary idealism, and to the discovery that the expediencies of political struggle can invalidate the inter national code of chivalry. Where Zanussi’s film followed many of the prescribed paths of the retro vogue, there was still a freshness of direction to be discovered in the program of Philip pine films which the Festival also presented. The most accomplished of these, As We Were, was directed by Eddie Romero, a former Roger Corman protege who began his directorial career with some appalling low-budget horror films. Through the wit, grace and elegant vision with which he presents them, his transition to social questions belies any suspicion that the move is merely an opportunistic one. Made in 1976, his film follows a satirical spirit, as well as an episodic structure, remarkably close to Voltaire's Candide, and obliquely rails against colonialism and the loss of national or cultural identity which it produces, by following the changing fortunes of a naive peasant boy, swindled out of his inherited plot of land by a neighboring speculator and intimidated out of his horse by a lecherous priest, then suddenly elevated to the status of a ‘gentleman’ when the Spanish (and with them, the same priest) are driven out of the islands. After a brief spell as a capitalist puppet, the boy is reduced to poverty again by the U.S. ‘liberating’ forces (the film is set in the 1980s) and, eventually awakening to his actual identity, sets off to join the Filipino guerrillas. The question of who the Filipinos actually are is raised throughout his travels, in his encounters with Chinese, Spaniards, and dark-skinned bandits. The Cunegonde of the hero’s youthful passion, a sluttish singer whose repertoire is adapted to suit the big spenders of the day, serves as a colorful barometer of the changing political climate. The misery of the masses is observed, for the most part laconically, as the background to the hero’s picares que adventures. At one point, he regains consciousness after an illness, awoken by the sounds of shooting in the streets outside. “ Don’t worry,” his lawyer reassures him as he sends him back to bed, “it’s just another revolution.” ★
Cinema Papers, December-January — 617
Arthur H iller’s career, which spans more than 30 years, started in radio at the Canadian Broadcasting Commission, where he directed public affairs programs. W ith a m aster’s degree in psychology, H iller was well qualified for the job. The advent o f television presented H iller with the oppor tunity to pursue his interests in theatre and drama. A fter working in Canadian television for several years he took up a position with the N B C N etw ork in the U .S ., and started a successful career in Am erican television. Am ong the many series for which he directed segments were “ Playhouse 90” , “ Alfred H itchcock Presents” , “ Gunsmoke” and “ Naked C ity ” . H iller’s first feature film was “ The Careless Y e a rs” (1957), which was followed by “ The M iracle o f the W hite Stallion” (1963), “ The W heeler D ealers” (1963), “ The Am ericanization o f Em ily” (1964) (which he now considers is one o f his best films), “ Penelope” (1966), “ T obru k” (1966) and “ The Out-ofTow ners” (1970). in 1970, H iller also directed “ Love S to ry” , the first block buster film o f the ’70s — and which is still one o f the 20 top grossing films o f all time. His later credits include “ P la za Suite” (19 71), “ The H ospital” (1972), “ M an o f L a M ancha” (1972), “ The M an in the Glass Booth” (1975), “ Silver S tre a k ” (1976) and “ W . C . Fields and M e ” (1976). His latest film s, a horror-thriller, “ N ightw ing” (1978), and a comedy, “ The In-Law s” (1979), have recently been released in A ustralia, and add two more Types’ to the wide range o f sub jects tackled by H iller. In this interview, conducted in Los Angeles, H iller talks to Cinem a P apers correspondent David Teitelbaum about select ing scripts for his film s, and his approach to directing.
How do you select the script for a film?
When I do read one I think is very good, I spend a lot of time evaluating it, and continually asking myself how I can change it, or develop it, so it will work on the screen; that is the most difficult part.
Frankly, that is the hardest part of the filmmaking process for me. I agonize over selecting my material, and it usually takes me ages to decide. I read dozens and dozens of scripts every month, and while Do you read the full text of all the there are some that strike me as scripts presented to you? terrific, most of them don’t interest Yes. Then, when I decide to go me. 618 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Arthur Hiller (right) directs Peter Falk in The In-Laws.
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with a particular script, I read it at least six times before doing any other research. With certain scripts — for instance, The Americanization of Emily, Hospital, Silver Streak, and Man in the Glass Booth — I knew part way through that if they kept going the way they were, I would want to do them. But with some, like Love Story and The In-Laws, I wasn’t sure how much I liked them at first; but finally, because of instinct, or some other reason, I decided to do them. Do you have a preference for directing a particular type of film? Not really. I find I like a lot of different kinds of stories. I enjoyed the deep p h ilo so p h ical and dramatic challenges of The Man in the Glass Booth, but I also enjoyed the simple approach to the human spirit, and the strengths of it, in Love Story. I also enjoyed working with the train in Silver Streak. I even liked The Americanization of Emily, the story of the Normandy landing, which involved so much special effects work. Do you have any difficulty directing such diverse material? No. The basic technique is the same for all films. But the hardest part of directing is the human relations aspect; that is, w orking with people —particularly with the creative people. You have to create a climate in which the juices flow the best; where the actors feel free to act. And yet you have to channel them in the direction you want them to go. That means you have to give them that feeling, and you also have to give that feeling to the cinema tographer and all the technicians. At times you must feel like a psychologist, dealing with all the egos . . . That’s true. In fact people often ask me if I use a lot of psychology when dealing with actors. I don’t do it consciously; I have simply developed a way of working. Although I am sure a knowledge of psychology would help.
A cto rs Do you have to ‘trick’ a reluctant actor into doing a scene your way? With a highly-sophisticated actor, such as George C. Scott, there is no simple way of tricking him into doing a scene if he feels the d ire c tio n is w rong. D uring Hospital, for example, there was a moment when the script called for him to explode with emotion; sort of shout to the world. He resisted the approach I suggested, calling it
cliched, and kept saying, “ I can’t do it this way. I simply can’t do it this way. It will be much more effective if I do it with great restraint.” Finally, in desperation I said, “Yes, you are right, you can’t do it.” My remark came as an unexpected challenge, and in fact spurred him to do it my way. Some actors need to be prodded, some provoked, chided, even insulted But generally, what works best is an atmosphere of trust and understanding. In dealing with actors, my first instinct is always to be a peacenik. I begin every pro duction thinking it is going to be a lovely experience. Some actors appear not to need a lot of direction. Peter Falk, for example, seems to be playing himself in “The In-Laws” . . . Some actors give you the impression that they don’t need direction, to make you feel that that’s them. That’s part of the, trick of doing a film well; the audience should not be aware of acting. I mentioned Peter Falk because his roles in “ Columbo” , “ Cheap Detective” and “The In-Laws” are very similar to the real life character who appears on talk shows . . . I don’t agree that they are identical. I think there are two kinds of actors, in that sense. There are actors who become the person that they are playing, like Rod Steiger. On the other hand, somebody like Peter Falk plays himself, but. with all the attributes of the character he is portraying. In the case of The In-Laws, Falk plays a CIA-connected character, an adventurer, a lover of his family, who gets involved in various escapades. So, the actors work differently that way. But Falk also selects films where he feels at home, and he feels at home in that kind of role. Although he happily played a romantic lead for me in Penelope, with Natalie Wood. When you read the script for “The In-Laws”, had Peter Falk already been selected? Yes. It was written for Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. It came about because they wanted to work together. Alan Arkin went to Warner Bros, and told them he and Peter wanted to do a film. Warners thought it was a terrific idea and gave them the money. They suggested that Andy Bergman write it, and then I became involved. Do actors pop into mind as you read a script? Sometimes. I find I have to read a script a few times before the visuals start appearing. Some directors see the film the moment they read the script, but I don’t. I have to read it four or five times. Cinema Papers, December-January — 619
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was just about the ability of two people to communicate with each other, even when there were differences. What made me do that film? I must have had some feeling that the audience was ready. But I didn’t think about it overly. Obviously the world around affects you, and pushes you in a certain direction.
How do you go about developing a script? Most of my inspiration comes out of a lot of preparation. I am very organized and I do a lot of groundwork. By the time day one comes around, I like to be able to answer all the questions the actors or crew might ask me. By then, I have the whole film in my head, and I find it gives me a lot more f l e x i b i l i t y , b e c a u s e w hen unexpected things occur, I find myself more able to adapt.
Why didn’t you do the sequel to “Love Story”, called “Oliver’s Story”? W ell, I was a lre a d y into Nightwing. I didn’t even see Oliver’s Story. I read the book and thought it would make a good film though.
When you look at your films now, do you want to change them? Yes, but not great changes. Some films — like Emily — I am very satisfied with, and others I am not. I watched Man of La Mancha again about six months ago. Alan Arkin asked me to show it because he Yes. Sometimes you don’t see hadn’t seen it. We watched it them com ing at all. I was together and I thought, “ Well committed to do Nightwing — Arthur, you have been away from it which would come under the horror for a few years. How would you do category — about two years ago. it now?” But I wouldn’t have done We delayed shooting for part of the it particularly differently. year so we could film in spring. At the time though, that film Then they didn’t want to release it threw me into a depression for at Christm as; they wanted a about eight months. When I summer release, so everything went started, I felt so secure. I had a play very slowly. Little did we know that that was popular worldwide; I had suddenly, instead of coming out Peter O’Toole, Sophia Loren and with something new and different, Jimmy Coco, who I thought were we were following Alien and all terrific; and United Artists were Prophecy, which were made after backing it. When it flopped the only us. If we had known we would have one I could blame was myself. I come out with it sooner. thought I’d really fallen short, and it depressed me. How have the techniques for But I finally realized that Man of frightening an audience developed La Mancha shouldn’t have been since the early horror classics? made into a film at all. It was really a stage play. The reality of film was The basic thing is still surprise. too much, because it dealt with the inner thoughts of its principal Surprise gives you the best shock, character. For example, in one and the best terror. That’s always scene Quixote says: “This is not a been the way. I recently saw the scullery maid, it is a princess” . But original Invasion of the Body when Sophia Loren is standing Snatchers, and the shocks were all there on screen, 40 ft tall, it’s hard there. The basic theme is something to believe. It put too much weight on the actor to bring out what was you cannot understand, but you believe it. It still works on the same going on in Quixote’s head. When you are in the tenth row of basis. You can use music to a darkened theatre it’s easier. But it enhance those feelings, and sophisticated special effects, but the doesn’t work on film. basic techniques are the same.
Fads Love S to ry Hollywood always seems to be going through some sort of film craze: recently we’ve had a spate of disaster films, horror films, and space films. What’s next? What we are going to see is a spate of films about husbands and wives well into their marriage, each going off and having an affair, and through the affair learning to love each other and come back again. I am being a little simple about it, but we will see that kind of theme next. Is it difficult to predict trends? 620 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Your biggest financial success to date has been “Love Story” . . . To this day that film has given th e g re a te s t re tu rn for the investment. And it only cost $2 million to make! When you make a film like “Love Story” do you discard your tastes and try to give the public what you think it wants to see? Why do you ask that, do you have any personal feelings about the film?
It seemed like one of those sequels which was made because the original was such a success .. . I often feel filmmakers are more sophisticated than the people who go to see their films, and must, therefore, allow for that . . . Some people make films like that, but I don’t. I find it very hard to predict what an audience will and w on’t like. You have to do s o m e th in g you w ill en jo y ; something you will feel satisfied with. Then you just pray that you are in contact with the audience.
Sometimes you have to be very careful. People have said, “Ah, The In-Laws. You have wonderful characters, let’s do the next step.” But you can’t do the next step, because a lot of what works in In Laws is because the two characters had not known each other before. So, the kind of mystery which is developed, with one being inveigled by the other, can no longer be done. Two-thirds of the film is based on that kind of relationship. That isn’t to say you can’t evolve another story, but it really isn’t a sequel.
What sort of feedback do you get about what the public is thinking Robert Altman said recently he and feeling at a particular point in thought filmmakers were becoming time? too preoccupied with the business of film . . . I don’t get a specific feedback; I am more influenced by my feelings It’s certainly one of the problems about society. For instance, I think we face. But it’s very expensive to the reaction to Love Story was make a film, and the people who enhanced by the fact that we were are investing in films, are, of going through a period where, if course, looking for returns. So, you disagreed with somebody, you naturally they lean towards projects hated that person. No one was they feel will make money; and so ‘accepting’ anyone else. do certain filmmakers. I think the world was ready for a The problem is that studios film about one person giving become enamored with certain himself to another for love alone. It types of films, certain action films
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creates the concept, the situations and dialogue from nothing. I try to avoid weak scripts, despite the fact that some films I did, did not turn out well. Sometimes it was my fault, but other times I think it was the script. But you do what you think is good, and hope it works. It seems very difficult, these days, for aspiring directors to get a start in the film industry? Do you have any advice to offer? I think if young people want to be directors they should direct. They should create some little 10minute film, find an 8mm camera, and get out and make a film. What is the best type of film for a young director to start on? David Warner, Nick Mancuso and Kathryn Harrold in Nightwing.
and comedies they think will always make money. But they don’t. In fact it’s often films that don’t appear commercial that make a lot of money. Like Cuckoo’s Nest, which is a marvellous film, but which nobody wanted to make for years and years; the studios said it couldn’t make money! The film makers proved that that sort of film can make money — a lot of money. Every time there is a little film that comes along that works, it helps the rest of us with certain projects we might otherwise not be able to do. I remember a series here called the American Film Theatre, where one bought a subscription for five films at a time, and on the last Monday of every month saw a new film. Each one was a play that had been turned into a film, and it was meant for an audience seeking a little more intellectual stimulation than usual. They were done for a certain price, and the actors, writers, and directors worked for a lot less money than we would ordinarily work for. Now, we were doing it because we wanted to bring theatre to the smaller cities, but, as I said in the magazine they gave all the subscribers, “ I thank you for being subscribers, because it gave me the opportunity to do a film that otherwise I could never have done, that no studio would ever have done.” I directed Man in the Glass Booth, which I loved doing, and which came out very well, too. But that was not an overtly commercial project. When we made Love Story, I didn’t think it would be as success ful as it turned out. I thought we were just making a nice little film about two people, each giving one to the other because of love. On the other hand, I had very high hopes for Man of La Mancha. I thought, “This is terrific, it will be ‘the big film’ for sure” , but it didn’t do well with the critics or the public.
D irecting Can film direction be taught, or is it largely intuitive? Both. I think any intelligent person can be taught to direct. But I don’t think you can be taught to be a really good director; that has to be an instinct, or a feeling. Is it possible for a director to make a good film from a weak script? It’s possible to camouflage it, so that the audience thinks they are seeing something good provided they don’t go back a second time, or look too closely. I think the most important point in my type of filmmaking is the script. I drop to my knees for the writers; the rest of us work from a floorplan or a blueprint the writer gives us. We bring something creative to it, but the writer is the one who sits in an empty room, and
A comedy, or a drama, it makes no difference, as long as you get out and do it. Lots of people who want to be directors come to see me, and the first question I ask is whether they have made a film. If they say, “ Gee, well how could I have made a film, I am only 18,” or “ I can’t afford a 35mm camera” , that’s the end of my discussion with them, because I don’t feel they really have a deep interest in filmmaking. There are so many people who want to be directors, and I think it takes somebody who really has a love for it to fight it through. Of course, today’s aspiring directors have a big advantage. Ten years ago, if you wanted to go to a film school in the U.S., there were only four you could go to. Now there are 600 schools where you can study film, and 400 are offering degrees!
Studios Are there studios you prefer to work with? Do some give you more
assistance, or a freer hand? No, not generally speaking. The studios have great faith in creative people, and once they make a decision to do a film, I find I have control of the project, and a great deal of freedom. I am sure, however, that if during the first week you send in very bad dailies, they will bounce on you. But if you are generally in the ballpark with the film and the budget you are okay; I have never had any studio put pressure on me. But sometimes it also depends on the head of production. They often change at studios. I remember one who worked at a particular studio, and when they would call about a film I would just say, “ I am busy” . I knew I would be getting myself into a difficult situation if I agreed to do a film with them.
T elevision As a filmmaker, are you concerned about the rising popularity of television, and the prospect that film could soon become obsolete? No, not at all. There will always be a great delight in sitting in a huge darkened room with 400 other people, watching a big screen and sharing the emotions with those around you. And besides, the film industry isn’t exactly dead; in fact it’s thriving right at the moment. For the past 10 years people have been crying, “ Oh, the film industry is dying, it’s on its way down; every body is watching television!” But now people are going to see film again in droves. What effect yvill television have on film in the long term? It may in fact help the film industry, because films will be made for cassettes and discs, to be played on television sets at home. Do you have any unfulfilled aspirations? Well, I just like to do great films. Although sometimes I think I would also like to be on the other side of the camera. I just love it when I have rehearsals, and I can’t afford to have all the actors in, or somebody doesn’t appear for a day. I sit and play the part we are working on and think, “Oh I should be doing more of this.” Then the actor arrives and does it, and suddenly I realize that I wasn’t so good; that somehow actors have a little more spark, a little more talent. I would like to direct a film using only directors in the cast, because each time I have worked with an actor who is also a director it has been very satisfying. They have an em pathy for you, and they understand what you are doing. ★ Cinema Papers, December-January — 621
622 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Cinema Papers, December-January
Brian W alsh
New ideas spread in different ways according to their shape and form. Usually the larger the change, the greater the potential friction, the slower the travel. As American critic Donald Schon says: “ Language about change is for the most part talk about very small change, trivial in relation to a massive unquestioned stability; it appears formidable to its proponents only by the peculiar optic that leads a potato-chip company to see a larger bag as a new product. Moreover, talk about change is often as not a substitute for engaging in it . . . Belief in the stable state is pervasive.” 1 Such has been the case with television. This distribution system has developed in a number of ways, but the guiding principles have remained the same. Screens are larger, images have become colored, inputs can arrive via satellite and computer, and outputs can interact with inputs via telephone lines or special wide-band cables. The language of television has expanded, thereby setting up new frontiers. The socially significant and acceptable frontiers of television are found spread across three conceptual ‘continents’: the alpha numeric world of ‘Teletext’, ‘Ceefax’, and ‘Oracle’ (depending on nationality and system); the ‘wired’ world of Qube, Higashi Ikoma, lasers, fibre optics, large screens and 1984; and the ‘high country’ and its ‘free flow’ trade routes occupied now by ‘Westar’, ‘Satcom’, Comstar’, ‘Yuri’, ‘Anik’ and their satellite brethren. These are the colonial outposts of a technol ogy that could turn the humble television set into a veritable Pandora’s box. Together, it is said, they will extend the trade routes of television to the edge of the present information world.2 While these are big changes in one sense, they are also trivial, in that the changes during the past 20 years of colonialism are little compared with the Third World’s first day of indepen dence. They are useful changes for the many who profit from them, but useless in the sense that they make no impact on the stability of tele vision as an extraordinarily strong dividing force. Wherever it has been used, television has divided communities between those who give, and those who receive; those who program, and those who watch; those who devise the quest ions, and those who respond; those who define, and those who are defined; those who distribute, and those who consume. 1. Schon, Donald A. Beyond the Stable State, Penguin, 1973, p. 9. 2. According to a recent German study there are something like 8 X 10” combinations of services for which the television set could be used. (Intermedia, Vol. 6, No. 1, February 1978, p. 32.) Les Brown, who covers the broadcast media for the New ' York Times, writes: “The ‘Big-Brother’ prophesised by George Orwell to arrive in 1984 appears to be on schedule.” (“Television vs Progress”, Saturday Review, August 16, 1978, p. 25.)
In essence, television has shown a remarkable capacity for reinforcing the reflex response of the well-conditioned consumer. Jerry Mander, in his Four Arguments for the Elimination o f Television, says that reforming television tech nology is “ as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns” .3 There is, however, one small frontier of change in television qualitatively different from the others: that of broadcasting reform and alternative broadcasting forms which began in the 1960s. Firstly, the Pilkington Committee in Britain began, in 1960, to question the philo sophical basis for broadcasting. Later, the BBC was given its second national television network (BBC 2) and an influx of new ideas, programs and program-makers stumbled over each other in the general furore of expansion, challenge and new horizons. Then, in 1966 in the U.S., after a battle lasting two years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was forced by law to allow public participation in its proceedings. Australia talked about an educational channel while dealing out a fourth commercial channel in the major markets. In Europe, the Netherlands was the first to lose a government over issues of broadcasting. Pirate radio stations sought to tap the commercial gold seam of Europe from ships and forts outside territorial waters. The plea that broadcasting was too important to be left to the broadcasters was born, along with such groups as Action for Children’s Television (ACT), National Black Media Coalition (NBMC), Standing Conference on Broadcasting, and The Grey Panther Media Task Force. The m ix tu re of e sta b lish m e n t and community-based expeditions often clouded issues instead of clarifying them; each had their own perceptions and priorities. Dynamic con servatism persisted on most fronts, and in several institutions a kind of sociological and cultural gangrene set in. It wasn’t the wealthiest frontier in broadcasting, economically or morally, but its most active adherents persisted into the 1970s, as broadcasting in nearly all the so-called “developed countries” was seen to be approaching a state of crisis. During the past decade it became possible to attempt alternative, though limited, experi ments in the electronic media — either within the institutions, or in such areas as educational broadcasting, and social and cultural change projects like the Australian Video Project, or the mother of them all: “Challenge for Change” in Canada. Experiments in alternatives aimed to find a new relationship between community as a “ source” and community as an “audience” ; between the reality of the medium being the 3. Attributed to Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, Blackpool, Britain. (Groombridge, Brian. Television and the People, Penguin, 1972.)
message, and the rhetoric of community communication; between the dichotomy of tele vision equals stability, and television equals division; between the art of the possible, and the possibilities of art. There have been various inquiries into nearly all the established broadcasting systems around the world during this period, and there have been, and still are, some useful small-scale experiments -into community or public tele vision in a number of countries.4 In North America, these are primarily small groups programming for and/or assisting others program for cable. In Canada, they appear to be most active on the west coast in British Columbia. CRTV in Cambell River is the larg est co-operatively-owned cable television system of its kind, and all its equipment is available for use by the community. The famous Videographe facility still functions in Montreal, and its tape distribution extends into U.S. cable systems, giving subscribers the chance to vote for programs they would like to see in special, seasonal offerings. Alternative video is still operating in Van couver with such groups as Video Inn, Pumps /Gallery and Western Front, and independent producers are continuing to investigate the possibility of UHF broadcasting. At the recent ‘5th Network’ Independent Video Conference in Toronto, 18 task forces were set-up to investigate a range of issues affecting video pro ducers, artistes, and centres across the country. These included broadcasting, fund-raising, spectrum allocations, multi-cultural television, central information bank, children and video, copyright, health hazards, distribution and standardization of equipment. New York has the largest cable output of ‘access’ programming, with services un Man hattan Cables’ Channels C, J and L. Smaller systems operate as far south as Austin Com4. For recent information on developments in overseas ex amples see: ASI/\ — Media Asia, A MIC, Singapore. (Quarterly.) CANADA — Chaplin, Henry and Stirling, Alison. Who Calls the Tune, Using the Media to Promote Social Change in Canada, Canadian Council of Social Development, Ottawa, 1977. Video Guide, Video Inn, Vancouver. U.S. — The Cable/Broadband Communication Book, 1977/1978. (Editor: Hollowell, M.L.), Communications Press, Washington. NFLCP Newsletter, Box 832, Dubuque, Iowa, 52001. (Bi-monthly.) Public Telecom m unications R eview , NAEB, Washington. (Monthly.) Videography, UBI, New York. (Monthly.) Videoscope, Gordon and Breach, New York. (Quarterly.) EUROPE — Council of Europe Reports (various), Strasburg. Educational Broadcasting International, British Council, London. Intermedia, IIC, London. (Bi-monthly.) Other — “Cable Around the World” , Access Video, Vol. 4, No. 2, April 1978, pp. 9-32. Cinema Papers, December-January — 623
COMMUNITY TELEVISION
munity Television in Texas, and as far west as Marin Community Video in California. The most notable experiment in community inter active cable use has been undertaken in Reading, Pennsylvania. In Western Europe, nearly all the national and regional broadcasting systems have experimented with some form of ‘access’ programming, such as the BBC’s “Open Door’’5 and the “ North Devon Project.”6 Although useful, developmental, and progressive, they are as marginal to overall output as, say, “ Broad band” is to the overall output of the ABC. The same is true for the community cable television experiments which have survived in Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. As with their North American counterparts, they have been small and hard-pressed to survive in other than a dependent state.
A ustra lia O pens a T h ird Fro n t Overseas evidence suggests there are diffi culties in finding a congenial environment to launch a broadcast community television model capable of surviving, developing and growing. It seems that unless new television services can provide a competitive choice with existing services, they can neither effectively comple ment them nor provide equal opportunities for viewers. It would be like expecting people to give up smoking without ever mentioning ‘health hazards’ — let alone lung cancer. Writing about Western European broad casting in transition during the 1960s and ’70s, Roberto Grandi pointed out: “ Although there was a convergence of opinions and forces for change in the broad casting system, the directions and purposes of their proposed changes was [sic] quite different. “ For certain groups it was a question of increasing the participation of citizen groups and making media responsive to public opin ion, for others it was a question of rationaliz ing the systems of media control, and for still others it was a question of introducing or increasing the role of private enterprise.”7 The same, or similar, pressures applied in North America and spilled over into the new satellite, cable and computer communication technologies. In the U.S., lack of spectrum space for new radio stations contributed to the early emerg ence of access television programs, such as GBH Boston’s Catch 44. Then an apparent lack of VHF and UHF television space helped push citizen access demands beyond broadcasting into cable television, where regulatory provisions required cable systems serving more than 3500 subscribers to supply a free access channel, together with programming facilities. In nearly every case, the pressurized broad casting systems were either monopolies (France, Italy) or two-tier systems (Britain, the U.S. and Canada). In fact, Australia was the first to for mally introduce a ‘third force’ into broad casting in the form of a fledgling public broad casting system, complementing the existing national and commercial sectors. This was quickly followed by a fourth force, in the form of radio stations (2EA, 3EA), controlled by the Government’s special broadcasting service. SBS ethnic television services are due to begin this 5 . Bonner, Paul. “A Future for Access TV”, JCA TS, Vol.
3, No. 2, 1975, London, p. 39. 6. Ibid. Also, Groombridge, Brian. Television and Partici pation, Council of Europe, 1973. 7. Grandi, Roberto. “ Western European Broadcasting in Transition”, Journal o f Communication, Annenberg School Press, Pennsylvania, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1978, p. 49. 624 — Cinema Papers, December-January
year, initially using the ABC’s resources and fre 2. A vailab ility of Resources quency space on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The thrust and timing of these initiatives had a (a) Passive: Australia, unlike the U.S., has number of powerful effects beyond the immedi ate sphere of intent. Firstly, the bottleneck of sufficient reserves of spectrum space to conflicting ideas witnessed by Grandi in Europe, accommodate new broadcasting stations in the and initially mirrored in Australia, was Finally UFIF band. This is different from radio, where eased in Australia (although not completely the new public stations had to be built from the resolved). Instead of the single or dual sectors of ‘ground up’. Community television can draw on broadcasting being given conflicting priorities, an effective nucleus of production facilities there were new answers for new problems, and already dispersed throughout the community, by new priorities for new sectors. Secondly, way of community video centres, educational legitimization of the need for greater citizen institutions, independent production houses and participation and control of media was ex independent filmmakers. However, despite tended from radio to television by the legislative wishful thinking about the performance and amendments to the Broadcasting and Television desirability of low-gauge video-production Act. Thirdly, recognition of the appropriateness facilities — especially the ubiquitous ‘portapak’ of government subsidy for new services was — it is only now, with the refinements to the achieved without prejudice to such subsidy in the equipment designed for Electronic News Gathering (ENG) and Electronic Field Produc long term. As a consequence, and with remarkably little tion (EFP), that there is a near-to-full range of fuss, Australia became the First in the world to equipment to fit the range of requirements of fulfil the preconditions for a truly com community television in Australia. Proposals now include examples of low and plementary and comprehensive community tele vision broadcasting service. These pre metropolitan coverage transmissions. It has conditions were essentially a matter of the avail been suggested that in the latter case, for ability, and of effective application of suitable instance, economies of scale would follow from time-sharing arrangements between ethnic and resources in response to needs. community services operating on a common fre quency. UHF transmitters for the proposed ethnic services in Melbourne and Sydney are scheduled to be installed later this year.9 (b) Active: The range of skills available, and the familiarity with using video and film in a community context is second to none. The Australian Video Project (AVP), which began five years ago under the auspices of the Film and Television Board of the Australia Council, has continued to receive subsidy through the Crea tive Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission. Independent centres in this project are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Whyalla and Fremantle. “ Video One” workshops, part of the Film and Television School’s Open Program, have been held in most states during the past few years. Other organizations, such as the Council for Adult Education, have courses in video — similarly with Super 8mm filmmaking, where there is a growing group in the community using this medium as a means of personal self expression and observational record. Pioneer ing work in teaching institutions, such as the Melbourne State College during the 1970s, has acted as a catalyst for a substantial increase in the amount of Super 8mm work emerging from schools. Super 8mm is being successfully broadcast on a regular basis in Australia. CBN 8 in Orange, New South Wales, has been using it for news stories since 1975, and, more recently, in con 1. Recognition of Needs junction with the Leyland brothers for their Ask the Leyland Brothers series.'0 In general, however, independent filmmakers Evidence of the existing needs for broad have not been well served by national or casting, beyond those satisfied by the commer commercial television. The ABC has always cial and national services, has had bi-partisan preferred in-house projects and co-productions, recognition since amendments to the Broad and the commercial stations appropriately place casting and Television Act recognized the pub profits' before minority audience needs. lic sector, and also established the SBS. This is The attitude of the filmmakers to a ‘third not yet the case in Britain, for example, where force’ in television will be interesting. Will they the present Conservative Government favors see it as anything more than a supplementary commercial operations of a new national ser distribution system for works produced vice than a new authority, such as the Open primarily for the cinema, something that allows Broadcasting Authority proposed by the former popular exposure of elements of an essentially Labor government.8 elite culture? Or, will they see it as a simple revenue earner or a new challenge?" 8. See Broadcasting, Commissioned Paper 7294, HMSO, London, 1978. (Summary in Financial Times, July 27, 1978.) ' Also, Report to the (Annan) Committee into the Future o f Broadcasting, Commissioned Paper 6753, HMSO, London, 1977.
9. “ Com m unity TV” , Access Videos MAVAM, Melbourne, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1978, p. 39. -— 10. Ibid, p. 27. I 11. A. D. Little, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Massa chusetts, estimates that by 1985 most people in the U.S.
COMMUNITY TELEVISION
As with the creators of film, the activity of the appreciators, agents, entrepreneurs, and dis tributors in establishing relationships between the community as “source” and community as “ audience” will help shape part of the foundations of the new television services.
M iddle Ground: Putting C om m unity Television on the Map Last year’s choice of Albury-Wodonga as the site for the annual conference of the Public Broadcasting Association of Australia (PBAA) was pragmatic and logistic. The intrepid, five year-old band of public radio station operators and associates had previously exhausted Sydney and Melbourne as meeting places, and Adelaide and farther west were too expensive for the organization. The result, whichever way one looked at it, had elements of nostalgia and futuristic symbolism. How appropriate, for instance, that a move ment that had a Labor government for a midwife in the middle of 1974 should now reflect on its future amid the avant-garde glass and con crete of the Clyde Cameron Trade Union Train ing Centre, a sort of mini architectural master broadcasting community programs on the piece along the lines of an industrial opera house set among the Wodonga plough furrows. The ABC; 3. Establish a second ABC television net locals call it the Red Square. work specifically designated as a community How appropriate, too, that the first time this network; organization tried its hand at coming to grips 4. Democratize the ABC by changing it with television, it should do so in one of the two from a national to a community station; places in Australia seriously considered as sites 5. Make appropriate arrangements with for cable television. That plan, however, has now been regarded as too expensive, and is being held the SBS; 6. Establish a metropolitan-wide commun in abeyance until copper cables give way to fibre optics. Meanwhile, broadcasting will be in Aus ity television station; 7. Establish a series of locally-based tralia for some time to come. Just as the FM community television stations; and radio debate opened the way for public radio sta 8. Establish community television on a fre tions and the PBAA five years ago, so the debate quency sharing basis as in the Netherlands. about the new UHF television frequencies PACT then proposed a metropolitan-wide should open the airwaves for public or commun station for Melbourne, but stressed that this op ity television stations. In fact, the PBAA’s determination to come to tion was not necessarily the best choice in other grips with the possibilities and practice of a kind areas. Its brief synopsis of the pros and cons of of television qualitatively different from metropolitan community television stations was anything now available puts it way out in front cautious. The advantages of this option were of just about every other national association of that: (a) The cost of television necessitates a largebroadcasters throughout the world. scale operation; The backbone of the PBAA’s move into tele (b) Identifiable and unifiable communities vision comes from community video organiza are dispersed throughout the metro tions, some of which have been around longer politan community; than the PBAA. Television delegates at (c) It is desirable to rationalize community Wodonga included Francis Giles from Frevideo resources; in Western Australia; Russell Herman from (d) Only a metropolitan-wide station could Western Access, and Nick Power and James attract the necessary funding; Steele from Southern Media, both in Sydney; (e) Only a metropolitan-wide station could and David Griffiths and Robert Randell with a effectively complement the ABC and large group from the Public Action for commercial networks; and Community Television Campaign (PACT) in (f) An accountable and participatory station Melbourne. could provide the most congenial environ PACT’S proposals at Wodonga were the ment for public acceptance of independent result of six months of debate about the most programs. appropriate shape for community television in The disadvantages of this option were: Melbourne, and, more importantly from some, (a) The difficulty of relating to the commun about which theories of community television ity and local communities; could provide the foundations for a co-operative (b) The inability to match the resources of the network of stations operating in all states. ABC and commercial networks; According to a PACT background paper (c) A metropolitan-wide station would be presented at the conference, there are eight basic seen as a threat by the ABC and commer options for community access, control and cial networks; and orientation of the airwaves; namely, to: (d) The station would never compete because 1. Make appropriate arrangements with of an isolation and restriction imposed by commercial television stations; inferior resources. 2. Make appropriate arrangements for Of all PACT’S proposed programs — nearly will watch films only in their homes. 20 series were outlined with a draft schedule — (See “ How Free Should Cable Be” , Village Voice, the time-slot for independent video directors, October 11, 1977, p. 40.)
filmmakers and photographers appears to be the most straightforward. Projected as a two-hour slot on a Friday night and given the working ti tle, Syncs, Sprockets and Stills, it would give priority to local filmmakers, videomakers and photographers. At least 10 per cent of the time allocated to the program over a six-month period would be additional material to the original films or tapes themselves: e.g., inter views, reviews, news, documentary material showing features in production, or views and photographic techniques employed in particular cases. Other programs would emphasize services by and for socially and culturally disadvantaged groups: Magazine for the Handicapped, includ ing special segments for the deaf; Vox Pop, by and for children; Girls will BE girls, a series of half-hour programs dealing with a broad per spective of women’s concerns and views; and Workshop, covering the unemployed. There would also be arts programs, experi mental formats, minority sports programs, pro grams for the aged, and so on. What would link many of the program types beyond their product, however, would be variety of processes suggested in terms of how the groups respon sible for the program might come together and work on a particular series or individual programs. The following outline of a group of programs for the aged is an example: Three series — a total of 13 programs focusing on the aged. Currently envisaged as: (a) A series of three professionally produced one-hour programs (each with a different director) illustrating a range of format and content possibilities for pro grams associated with problems, issues and challen ges facing the aged. The programs would be future-orientated rather than past-orientated. They would aim to appeal direct ly to the aged, but also more broadly to groups and in dividuals in close contact with the aged on a personal or professional basis: e.g., families, welfare organiza tions, service clubs, nurses, doctors, occupational therapists and tourist operators, etc. An example of this future orientation could be an animation segment contrasting lifestyles for the aged now, and as projected for 2040 — the retiring age for today’s ‘new’ generation. (b) A series of six feedback programs built on discussion groups formed around interest areas identified by audience response. Studio panels would be questioned by telephone and from participants in at least two temporary satellite studios set up in municipalities with a high percentage , of senior citizen residents. (c) Four ‘indigenous programs’ controlled and produced by a group of senior citizens formed for this purpose during the first two series. Without seeking to pre-empt the form and content of these programs, the alternative could include some of ' these elements: ( i) a countervailing perspective to those of experts and professionals; ( ii) documentary material uncolored by the presence of outsiders, in the form of mediators and com municators; and (iii) a pace and style in harmony with the lifestyle of the participants.12
While PACT progresses with pilot programs for a Melbourne metropolitan station, Frevideo in Western Australia has opted for a small scale of operations and a low-coverage station. Fre video pioneered community-produced program ming on commercial television stations more than two years ago with a Saturday morning series on TVW 7 in Perth called State Your Case. Frevideo then developed regional access tele vision with projects in Bunbury (Join the Queue) on BTQ 3, and in Kalgoorlie (Goldfields Playback) on VEW 8. These projects sought to provoke discussion on the social problems facing each region: the plight of the school-leavers in Bunbury; the shifting or sinking foundations for Continued on P. 678 12. The PACT Report, MAVAM, Melbourne, 1978, p. 19. Cinema Papers, December-January — 625
ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 1979 Noel Purdon and Peter Page
The 20th Adelaide International Film Festival opened in a climate of post election gloom which made many believe that the arts in this state were finished forever. But, as it happened, the Festival, organized by Claudine Thoridnet, was excellent, presenting a selection of the best new films from the Cannes, Edinburgh and San Francisco festivals. Ken Loach’s Blackjack set the theme for many of the Festival’s concerns: a looking-back, a questioning, and a re assessment, with styles torn violently between naturalism and formalism. He presents a carefully-recreated 18th Century, an antidote to historical frolic, in which children make their way in a brutal and mad world. Moreover they are tough, and they survive. By this stage in his career Miklos Jancso’s gigantic choreography of cameras and people has the ability to drive audiences either into raptures or catatonia. His two-part Hungarian Rhap sody and Allegro Barbaro confirms his vision of cinema as ritual, an open-air prolatkult ballet in which the antagonism of class and nationalism are endlessly circled, attacked, and again separated. From the pre-credit shots of fireworks over the lake, to the little red car ready to continue its journey into the misty future, the film ’s visual style, however depressing its historical allegory, is that of celebration. Hymns to water, fire, earth and air, to the beauty of human nudity and the ingenuity of human, motion are sung in full throat by the camera and the editor. The sense of life as a collective dance, with people freely varying their steps, has given rise to a style of film in which the unit is no longer the shot or the sequences, but the movement within the frame itself. One of the most welcome features of the film is the absence of Christian ideology or iconography. The film returns instead to a pagan Europe of horse worship and cremation on burning boats. And, as Jancso indicates in the titles, its form is completely musical. The pacing and returning crowds of extras beat out a bass rhythm against which the tighter melody of the principal actors winds in a series of czardas that are evermore sinuous and exciting. Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Ciogs, winner of the Palme d’Or at
Cannes last year, will cause much argument. There is no doubt that it is a masterpiece. The acting of the non professional Lombardian peasants, the grainy 16mm stock, the camera inspired by ottocento genre painting, the direction and editing creating syntax as carefully as a late 19th Century novel, are superb. But precisely because it deals with a situation of demonstrable class warfare, audiences are likely to be divided on its politics. A painting or novel of the 1890s which achieved what Olmi has in The Tree of Wooden Clogs would be justifiably hailed as extraordinarily perceptive. But a film of the 1970s which merely recapitulates (in how eve r a m a g is te ria l and sympathetic manner) the fragmentary consciousness of that period, needs more critical consideration.
Miklos Jancso’s Hungarian Rhapsody: conveying the sense of life as a collective dance.
626 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Olmi, who created the film from memories of his grandfather, is in danger of falling into the trap which Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci ultimately avoided: presenting peasant life as a sort of epic, sacred idyll. In interviews Olmi has posed the question whether memories are nostalgia or history, and has provided the convenient reply that the land gives vital and not demagogic answers, “and, therefore, never betrays the working man” . This sounds suspiciously like nostalgia, and orthodox religious nostalgia at that. The ultimate effect is an affirmation of the beauty of labor, of cyclical stasis, of the comfort of received ideas about sexuality, marriage, education and the Church — in short, of the nostalgia of oppression. Miguel Littin’s Viva el President® tackles its imagery and its subject d iffe re n tly , but poses the same questions. It is not as good a film as Olmi’s, despite its stronger political determination and consummate irony. Baroque rather than elegiac, with frenetic camera movement and shrewdly impudent performances, it takes refuge in detachment. Littin’s model is obviously Luis Buñuel. At one point, he even pays him the dubious compliment of imitating the famous Last Supper iconography of Viridiana. Unfortunately, after Buñuel, imitation is exactly what it is. The sexual attack which the old Spanish Sadian brings to Cet obscur objet dwindles in Littin’s film into titillation with nuns and w h o re s. I t ’ s as if the p o litic a l determination were running in one direction, and the sexual perception resolutely in another. Viva el President® is well performed, as well as lavishly dressed and set; and it is hugely enjoyable. It is also incoherent. Rather in the manner of an intricate facade on a Latin church, its detail overwhelms the whole. It seems as if Littin decorated one part, Costa-Gavras
Allegro Barbaro: confirming Miklos Jancso’s vision of cinema as ritual.
another, and Regis Debray hammered away resolutely at a third. The composition of the shots is wild, even deliberately messy, and the film’s exuberance doesn’t quite manage to sustain its length. At these points Littin’s sexual politics, if he ever had any at all, become completely unhinged. The four West German entries in the Festival were of the high standard we have come to expect from that country. Margarethe von Trotta’s The Second Awakening of Christa Kiages, in particular, was one of the great deiights of the Festival. The film is the first independently directed feature by von Trotta, who has been best known as an a c tre s s and c o - w r ite r /d ir e c to r , principally in connection with the works of Volker Schlondorff. The intriguing plot, written by the director and Luisa Francia, concerns Christa Kiages, a young mother who has already broken from an unwelcome role as wife, and who, though willing and able to act freely as her own agent, has yet to learn through experience to act to her best advantage. She and her casual lover, Werner, rob a bank with a view to saving the progressive kindergarten, with which they are involved, from financial collapse. On the run from police, and ultimately unable to put the funds to use, they shelter with an old friend who is also the victim of an ordinary but unfulfilling marriage. Meanwhile a key eye-witness to the robbery, searches for Christa out of fascination, but her motives are unclear. Engrossing and suspenseful to the last shot, The Second Awakening addresses, through its female characters, the difficulties faced by all women on the path to self-realization with a warm i
ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL
film director, Nouchka van Brakel, was represented by a far better film than her The Debut which premiered at last year’s festival. A Woman Like Eve continues the director’s focus on matters sexual and domestic, this time with attention to concern and extraordinary non-didactic the story of a woman who opts out of her lucidity. It is a prime example of the role as middle-class housewife into a value, in political and aesthetic terms, of lesbian relationship. In so doing she women making films about women, and loses custody of her children, and cannot a brilliant accomplishment for its ultimately follow her lover away from director, and her collaborators and cast. them to life on a co-operative farm in a Wolfgang Petersen, whose film The foreign country. Consequence was premiered at the The indignant chauvinism of the men, Adelaide Festival last year, was the oppressiveness of the family, the represented this time by the better but conservatism of co urts and the less politically-significant Black and difficulties of role-free, non-oppressive White Like Day and Night. Europe's romance are significant elements in the leading male actor, Bruno Ganz, stars as work, and it is good to see them covered. a com puter-program m er, Thomas Yet like The Debut, it suffers from a light Rosenmund, who submits to a lifelong weight, deodorized feel which belies and fascination with the game of chess, long subverts the intentions of its subject held in check after a breakdown which matter. Van Brakel must learn to be less resulted from losing a match as a child lyrical and sentimental. prodigy. Single-minded determination Jacob Bijl’s portrait of a family, Tiro, gives him the world championship, but was more satisfying for its evident paranoid obsession is brought on by an consciousness of class, matters which are curiously low-key in van Brakel’s vision. The protagonist, Tom, is the nearly adult son of stifling, landowner parents. His non-possessive love of their aquatic domain on the polder and friendship with an independent farmer, lead him into sharp antagonism with his father, who intends ,to sell property to the industrialists. The various antagonism s and sympathies are effectively set against the flat, rural expanse and claustrophobic bourgeois home, but the suicidal conclusion is gratuitous and difficult to swallow. Andre Delvaux’s Woman in a Twilight Garden is a careful piece of naturalism, and an allegory of 15 years of Belgian history. Like many of the films by women directors, it insists on the need for the integration of the public and the private, and the interconnection between events that occur in simultaneity — whether they are the break-up of a marriage, the change of a government or the chopping down of a tree. Delvaux’s sensibility as a director is so total that it is impossible to single out any one element. Like his painter namesake he has the capacity for presenting a Miguel Littin’s Viva el Présidente: containing strong political determination and consummate conscious and an unconscious world irony, which dwindles into titillation with nuns and whores. simultaneously. The Nazi invasion of Bruno Ganz as Thomas Rosenmund, an obsessed chess-player in Wolfgang Petersen’s Black and White like Day and Night.
e x h ib itio n m a tch in v o lv in g 60 simultaneous games played blindfolded. If there is a problem with the film, it lies with the certainty, from very early on, that the protagonist will end badly. The sp e c ific s of the action are not predictable, but the prelude, in which a pre-teenage Rosenmund launches himself across the board and bites his winning opponent, throws the rest of the narrative into an unduly melodramatic cast. That is, the events which precipitate his eventual collapse seem more convenient to the narrative than causal in terms of the character. Had this been a reconstructed documentary, and Rosenmund a real life character, his inevitable demise would have been far more fascinating than it is here. Nonetheless, the playing by Ganz is superb, and by Ljubo Tadic nearly as good; the photography of Jorg Baldenius is attractively subdued, and the modern score by Klaus Doldinger, atmospheric ally effective. The Netherlands’ only female feature
Belgium, for example, is heralded in an extraordinary scene, in which people of Antwerp pour into the dawn streets like sleepwalkers entering history. Like Jancso, Delvaux has a perfect sense of musical rhythm. His Flemish eye for detail, however, yields an even greater visual unification. Maternaie is a confident first film by Jancso’s Italian scriptwriter Giovanna Gagiiardo. A rare example of narrative impressionism in the cinema, it deals with the interstices of existence — the things in between — rather in the manner of Virginia Woolf’s narrative in Mrs Dalloway, or the paintings of Grace Cossington Smith. It is a vision of a ‘woman’s world’, a domestic day of apparent calm, marked by the rituals of food preparation and consumption. Mother, daughter and maid exist in a summer irradiated by cicadas and geraniums, in a garden insulated from the city. The mood is languorous, set by the deliberately slowed-down movement, the drifting arpeggios of Chopin and Beethoven. The Renoir-style camerawork is warm, sociable, and roving, yet detached (which Italy has taken as its own ever since Visconti). But behind the order and calm, nothingness and darkness are lurking in the shrubbery. The mother is the prisoner and the jailer of her daughter. And yet, she is no monster or dragon, but the essence of elegant Italian femininity. At the end, even her perfect coiffure is revealed as a wig, part of the hieratic costume and maquillage by which women are transformed into men playing roles. Carla Gravina, who plays the mother, faces us with her cropped haircut and fra n k, fine face. The im m ediate suggestion is of a drag queen at the end of an act; and the comparison, if pondered, is a very subversive one. Richard B rook’s Meetings With Remarkable Men is a disappointment from such a fine stage director. An account of J. V. Gurdjieff’s formative years, it has stunning locations, camera work which dutifuliy complements them, and little else. G urdjieff handles serpents, discovers ancient manuscripts, receives mystic pieces of authoritarian ism from a series of actors dressed as an ayatollah, levitates on pogo sticks in a sandstorm, and a great deal of other sub-sufic silliness. Only in the last reel does it become clear why Brook should have found the subject remotely interesting. In what are frankly a series of cleverly-staged performances, we are treated to views of the Brotherhood’s initiates doing their dance and movement exercises. They are fascinating, precise, and obviously excellent training for actors. Otherwise the meetings are mundane, the dialogue risible, and the men unremarkable. From Yugoslavia came two features, Bravo Maestro and The Foolish Years. Rajko Grlic’s Bravo Maestro concerns a composer, rapidly elevated to hero s ta tu s on the s tre n g th of one composition, who cannot live up to his reputation. His arrogance increases as the doubts of his peers set in, and the pressure to deliver a long-awaited second score in time for a scheduled production leads him to plagiarize the work of a former friend, and hit the bottle with a vengeance. Certain of disaster, he tries drunkenly to stop the first night performance, which, as it ironically turns out, is greeted rapturously by the audience. Like many recent works from Eastern Europe, this film turns a moderately critical eye on aspects of the national administration. A system which allows for such an unwarranted meteoric rise, the suppression of an artist whose work has been stolen from him, and a hopelessly corrupt but supposedly democratic opera management is undoubtedly in need of criticism, and it is good to see it coming, however weakly, from within the country. . The Foolish Years, written and directed by Zoran Calic, is a wellCinema Papers, December-January — 627
ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL
meaning and effective, but annoyingly romantic message film about adolescent sexuality, and in particular about the forces which lead to sexual ignorance among young people. Boba and Maria are a star-struck young couple who ‘accidentally’ conceive a child. For a host of reasons, which are well brought out and which centre on the appalling conservatism of schools and parents, they don’t do anything about it until it is nearly too late. Then, thanks to the m isguided generosity of friends, and despite the availability of legalized abortion in Yugo slavia, Maria has an illegal abortion which leaves her in hospital, lucky to be alive and unable to bear children. Ail the events and characters ring true, and there is no hint of condemnation of sexual activity among children. It is a shame, however, and more than a little dishonest, that the film so senti m entally celebrates the innocent romance of youth. After all, innocence and ignorance go hand in hand. Of the eight films from France which were programmed, only four were shown. Michel Andrieus’ Basfiene, bastienne accidentally wound up in Indonesia, Michael Mitrani's A Balcony in the Forest was misplaced by the French embassy, the controversial documentary Prisoners of Mao by Vera Belmont was not sent, and Joseph Losey’s Routes to the South Was withdrawn. European critics obviously consider Jacques Doillon a director to watch. In La drolesse, which was the official French entry at Cannes this year, he handles an extremely taboo subject — the abduction of an 11 year-old girl by a retarded youth. Doillon sticks to his characters like flypaper, and while he’s a fine director of actors in claustrophobic situations, the film is unpleasant and unbelievable. The documentary feature Simone de Beauvoir, by Malka Ribowski and Josee Dayan was also a great disappointment. I suspect that the favorable response to the film from many viewers can be measured, in part, by their admiration for De Beauvoir and knowledge of her work (and that of Jean-Paul Sartre who ap pears at length). For most, however, the film is like a claustrophobic game of ping-pong between novice players. The filmmakers apparently allowed De Beauvoir to choose friends and as sociates with whom she could talk on screen, let them loose unprepared or rehearsed in front of the camera, which held a relentless static television closeup, and then interspersed this with archival material of everyone but De Beauvoir. With more purist discipline than sense, they have also included an opening se quence in which De Beauvoir asks ques tions of her friend and associate Claude Lanzuraun, who is so nervous that he turns mute and inane. And when he does speak up later, one only wonders what De Beauvoir the feminist ever saw in him! This year, the Festival continued, and expanded, its welcome policy of pro gramming film not usually regarded as festival fare — begun last year with the French television section — to include refreshing and sometimes dazzling works from independent American film makers, the British Film Institute, and British television. The American documentary They Are Their Own Gifts succeeds where Simone de Beauvoir fails. Directors Lucille Rhodes and Margaret Murphy have taken a firm hold on their material to produce a warmly resonant portrait of three women artists whose social con sciousness and engagement permeate their work, and the film itself. Though more structured than the French film, its style is less obtrusive and far more lucid. In this work, a necessary connection emerges between people and events in the lives of the subjects on one hand, and their creative output on the other. Indeed life, art and politics mesh into a whole in which it is absurd to speak of one without the others. If painter Alice Neel does not seem as politically conscious as feminist 628 — Cinema Papers, December-January
and poet Muriel Rukeyser, she is no less humane or admirable. This is excellent filmmaking which gives lie to the facile idea, all too widespread, that feminist necessarily equals puritan and depress ing. Karen and David Crommie’s The Life and Death of Frieda Khalo, for all its careful research, does not come off nearly so well, mainly because the film unwittingly reveals a woman who was not the heroic figure it so earnestly wishes she was. Obsessed, yes; tragic, yes; but heroic, no. At one minute a friend tells us that Khalo is not concerned with politics, perhaps in reaction to the overtly political position of her mural-painting husband Rivera, and at the next the voice-over ex tols her involvement in a protest march against the CIA shortly before her death. To be sure, the film vividly conveys, by means of interviews and searching ex aminations of her turbulent paintings, the physical and emotional pains which wracked and killed Khalo. However, there is no virtue in sickness, and nothing courageous about obsessive work no matter how brilliant. Hollywood’s Musical Moods, by archivist Christian Blackwood, is a fine documentary which highlights the often overlooked importance of music in creating a film’s moods and themes, or, for that matter, an actor’s motifs and identity. The interview with composer Miklos Rozsa is particularly effective, since later in the Festival we heard his monumental score for The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, cunningly based on Ravel’s Concerto For Left Hand, and providing so much of the establishing mood for the film. The narrators of Hollywood’s Musical Moods, demonstrate their point about music’s integrity with editing and narrative, by re-running a sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, once with Rozsa’s shivery, nudging music, and once simply with the effects. It is a con clusive demonstration. Controlling Interest, by California Newsreel, has already been seen to a lim ited extent in this country by educational short film users. It is a sear ing indictment of the methods and motives of trans and multi-national cor porations, culled largely from the un abashed statements of top executives and government leaders. The enormous and exciting diversity of
animated short films from the U.S. was showcased in New Age Animation, a welcome feature compilation of works by a number of animators. Mention should at least be made of the dense, bom bastic, mercurial Fantasy by Vincent Collins, and the self-explanatory Help I’m being Crushed to Death by a Black Triangle by Carter Burwell. Curiously, midway between the docu mentaries and the narrative features stands an uncommon hybrid called The Bushman, the first feature by David Schickele, made in 1971. Documentary footage of a Nigerian student’s life in San Francisco is interwoven with shots of his homeland, speeches to the camera, and staged but essentially non-narrative episodes detailing his encounters with a variety of characters. This unlikely subject matter and form succeeds against all odds in being revealing and entertaining. The contrast between cultures produces a fresh and poignant vision of life in mad, urban U.S. Schickele’s film ends abruptly with the voice-over announcement that Paul Opokam, friend of the director and leading player, had, before completion of shooting, been jailed and deported on
Jacques Doillon’s La drolesse: touching on the delicate subject of the abduction of a young girl by a retarded youth.
fabricated charges, a bizarre real-life ap proximation to the intended conclusion to the work. Schickele’s talent is obvious, as is that of cinematographer David Myers, who renders the material in beautifully framed and textured, generally static black and white shots which owe much to still photographic ideas of composition and lighting. The most perfectly balanced combin ation of formalism and naturalism in the whole season came from the two features by Mark Rappaport, who is a new voice presenting a totally original vision. He provides a much-needed shock of recognition. Dramatically, Local Colour, the earlier film, is the richer of the two. Its black and white photography, its minimalist sets and continuity, and its eight characters give it a greater commitment to realism. Scenic Route is richer texturally. Shot in shadowy color, It revives what are clearly his forms: postcards, diaries, slide
Broderick Crawford as J. Edgar Hoover in Larry Cohen’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover.
ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL
shows, tableaux, myths and opera records; and themes of sado-masochism and power struggles of all kinds between siblings and/or lovers. The tone of both films is a paranoic as sertion of self and mutual reference, with dialogue so quick and moods so quickly changing that it is hard to keep pace, or even remember them. Discussing Nij insky’s fabled long-held leaps, one of the gay characters says, “When you’re up there just pause a little.” And this is a good description of the film’s style. No dramatic form — opera, theatre, ballet or film — is safe from Rappaport’s raids. He pinches freely from Salome, Spring Awakening, and Spectre of the Rose, sometimes with sly acknowledgment by his characters. His visual and musical sensibilities are similarly wide and acute. Renaissance painting, O p-art, M agritte, Ernst collages, television 2-shots, interior sets that simply roll up into the sky to place the characters hundreds of miles away in the country, are all deliberately com bined to provide a critique of the icons of the cinema. This is clearest during the card game sequence in Local Colour. The images of the cards — door, stair case, window, tower — are realized as the icons of film melodrama, and, at the same time, as the unconscious sexual and aggressive archetypes on which they are based. Rappaport switches pace and levels quite ruthlessly (e.g., by the use of music), and his situations have the ring of truth. He deals with shared dreams and a shared consciousness in which nothing from cannibalism to shoplifting is alien. Showboat 1988 is a warm and funny film which is supposedly a series of audi tions held by the director, Richard Schmidt, for a remake of the paddleboat musical. Set in a tongue-in-cheek Warholian frame, in which a librarian mortgages his house to get money for the film, it resolves itself into the realiza tion that the auditions are the film. With 16mm cameras and videotape recorders marking their stage debuts, various disparate and ridiculous people get up and make fools of themselves. A tap-dancing turtle, the invisible Blob, a bearded transvestite in a tutu, someone giving an impression of a Martian freeway at rush-hour, Mr Jesus Christ Satan who is “evolving at a more rapid rate by the constant use of drugs” , all stand up, ignite themselves, and let themselves go off like firecrackers. Gradually, set against the stock backdrops in a run-down theatre, these freaks that we have begun by patroniz ing, insist on their reality. And some, par ticularly the blacks and the gays, trans cend it by a kind of Shamanism of social courage. “ Be the Star in your Own Life" is the title which rolls up at the end, and coming from a film, it’s a good message. Phil Mulloy’s In the Forest is typical of the house style of a series of films
financed and produced by the British Film Institute. A glowering essay on social history, it makes a number of unexceptional points about the oppres sion of the British peasantry. But its broody voice-over rhetoric, and its obli que, underexposed camerawork, in cluding some clever inverted shots of oceanic pie-in-the-sky, were nonethe less sufficient to make sensitive souls feel they were being got at. Edward Bennett’s The Life Story of Baal, is also an ambitious but un compromising film based on Bertholt Brecht’s 1926 ‘documentary’ adaptation of his original 1918 expressionist play. Neil Johnston, in the title role of the anarchist poet, has obviously been cast and co stum ed fo r his p h y s ic a l resemblance to the young guitar-playing Brecht. The crew makes an intelligent attempt at a stripped-down, minimalist cinema. The style is unromantic, elliptic, and heavily signposted. However much one misses the raw sexual and creative frenzy of the earlier Baal, it must be ad mitted that a serious attempt has been made to set this individualism in its true urban context. The result, however, is to make it disappear in a shabby and hopeless void. Bennett seems an in telligent director who will necessarily resolve some of the questions he ex poses here. The other British section, comprising works made for the television companies Thames and Granada, was also welcome for Australian viewers sinking under the fatuities of Messrs Crawford and Grundy. Thames’ Superman And The Bride makes effective and hilarious use of a
Mark Rappaport’s The Scenic Route: a perfectly balanced combination of formalism and naturalism.
Phil Mulloy’s In the Forest: making a number of points about the oppression of the British peasantry. One of a series of films produced by the British Film Institute.
mixture of clips from film and television, acted satire, cartoons and songs to demystify the media, and in particular to expose the sex-role stereotyping rife in our daily diet of visual entertainment. Moderately mannered in the way that only British television can be, and elaborating visually on every bit of the carefully written voice-over, it is a thoroughly entertaining and widely ac cessible introduction to the sexual politics of culture, and the industry which produces it. It is a pity that it has yet to grace our living room screens. My Brother David successfully navigates a subject laden with easy pit falls — autism. Without offence to the family it documents, or sentimental con descension, it shows the special problems faced by David, his sister Karen and their parents. Indeed, Karen’s matter-of-factness about her brother’s disabilities is inspirational, and the film maker’s approach to the subject through her point of view is finely considered. In the two-part Clouds of Glory by Granada, Ken Russell demonstrates, once again, his affinity for the inner im agery of romantic artists. The section of Wordsworth, like its subject, is a bit mushy and stodgy, full of misty lakes, daffodils and dove cottages. But The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a knockout. The extravagant camera style and direction meshes with the stoned, raving and chanting Coleridge to
produce one of Russell’s best portraits, and one of David Hemmings’ best perfor mances. From the beginning, when a lurching, tripping camera and the cold-turkeying poet collide among piles of toppling books, we are in Coleridge’s world. At once fantastic and domestic, The Rime insists on the poem’s function as an allegory of marriage, with Sara stabbed through the breast as Sam’s weighty albatross. Russell’s usual shrewd use of location is again economically and aesthetically to the fore. Within what must have been a couple of hectares of the Lake District, he has abundantly created a series of mundane and laudanum -induced worlds. The offerings from the Third World, relatively few and far between, despite the adventurous programming, con sisted of films from China, Cuba, India, Mexico and the Philippines. Filipino d irector Lino Brocka’s creditable and speedily constructed ex amination of sexual politics and urban slum dwelling, Insiang, had already been seen in Sydney, but was nonetheless welcome in Adelaide. Not so with Rancheador, which proves that Cuba, no less than others, can produce cheap exploitation trash when it sets its mind to it. This pathetically simple-minded gory goodie-versusbaddie film, which indulges a mystical heroism on the part of its slave protagonist, is no better than a common television western, despite its more cor rect placement of sympathies. Jesus Salvador Trevino’s Roots of Blood has obvious thematic similarities with Robert Young’s Alambrista — which premiered at last year’s Festival — deal ing as it does with the exploitation of Mexican labor by U.S. capital and illegal migration rackets. Centred on an agency working for the rights of the Spanish-speaking native labor force just south of the U.S.Mexican border, the film draws its com mercial appeal from the romantic in volvement of a young woman activist, and a rather high-faluting lawyer, made good In the U.S., who returns to help the centre in its work. He eventually learns humility and solidarity in the face of the re a l-life horrors which the film catalogues. Laborers buy expensive one-way tickets to death across the border. Women workers in a clothing factory, where the union is the puppet of the U.S. owners, are forced to take cuts in pay, and are played off one against the other. This clever exposition of criminal prac tice and dirty tactic culminates in a brutal fascist attack by police and hired goons on a peaceful gathering of workers which successfully unites the hitherto divided population. Trevino is deft and economic in his treatment of his complex situation, and his film is genuinely stirring. ★
Richard Schmidt’s Showboat 1988: a tongue-in-cheek remake of the paddleboat musical.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 629
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How did you start writing about film history? I started as a film critic before World War 2. This was a crucial moment for cinema, because it was the end of the silent film and the beginning of sound. I wrote film reviews and criticism for almost nine years, with some interrup tions, but I had no intention of writing a history. After the war, I became in volved in starting the film school in Poland. I realized somebody was needed to teach film history, but there were no film historians in Poland. So I assumed this task, feeling prepared through my activi ties as a film critic. In the beginning, I was a film critic interested in film history; later I became interested in history as a specialist. I wrote the first short history of the cinema in 1948, but it was never published. I then decided I had taken the wrong approach, and chose to do some more study. Six years later I pub lished the first volume of my History o f the Cinema. Georges Sadoul was almost a contemporary with his Histoire general du cinema. There were also the histories of Francesco Basin etti, Carl Vincent, and Maurice Bardeche and Robert Brasillach. I was probably much closer to Sadoul than to any other writer, though I didn’t completely share his methods. I often felt he became lost in details; that he had no design or discipline in his selections. It is difficult for me to explain why I became a historian. The prin cipal factor was a combination of the film school needing a historian, and me being convinced that you cannot learn any kind of film making unless you understand the past, and the processes of change. Another factor was that I saw in film history a continuation of my activities as a film critic. I was, in a sense, a witness of what had happened. I had been a regular filmgoer and had seen many silent films, yet my main interest was to see how the films changed, what was new in the sound films, what was good or bad, what was fascina ting and what was to be rejected. The third factor was that I like to write. You cannot write a good history if you are not greatly impressed by the things you are trying to analyse. The main goal of a film historian is to let other people understand why something came into existence. I think this is the same with all historians.
Jerzy T oeplitz, director of th e A u stra lia n F ilm and T elevisio n School for seven years, retired in N ovem ber, 1979. Born in 1909 in R u ssia , h is life and career have been en tirely devoted to film criticism , film history and film education. T oeplitz w as founder-m em ber of “ S ta rt” , a P o lish A ssociation of Friends for the A rtistic F ilm , w h ich w as estab lish ed in 1930 and becam e the b a sis for critical (and su ccessfu l) P o lish film m a k in g . The follow ing statem en t, m ade by T oeplitz in 1933 (he w as secretary and v ice president of the m ovem ent from 1930 to 19 3 4 ), is typical of h is m ain concerns: “ The first step towards an im provem ent is the creation of a film culture in Poland; a cultured spectator who doesn’t believe in publicity w illy-n illy . . . a spectator who know s his film s and who can differentiate between a good film and a glam ourous blockbuster . . . and a film m aker w ith culture who has to say something when he m akes a film . . . ”
T oeplitz was rector of the State T heatrical and F ilm A cadem y in Lodz from 1948 to 1968. Follow ing political pressure, he spent several years teaching throughout the world, esta b lish in g various film and m edia study courses, w riting, adjudicating film s for fe stiv a ls from C ann es to M ar del P la ta and, even tu ally, in 1973, tak in g up h is position at the A FT V S. A s director of the A F T V S, T oeplitz had a sig n ifica n t in flu en ce on the first generation of stud en ts who gradu ated from the school. There can be little doubt that h is experience as a filh i h istorian has shaped the running of the School. B ut little is know n in A u stralia about T oeplitz, the film h istorian , a true scholar in the cla ssica l tradition. In 1955, h is first volum e, ‘H isto ria sztu k i film o w ej’, w as published in P o lish ; by 1971, the fifth volum e had appeared. T h is ‘H istory of the C in em a ’ is one of the best ever produced, com parable in size only to Georges Sad oul’s work. T oeplitz quotes more references and sources than any other French, G erm an or B ritish film h istorian . Each major developm ent and every major film producing country or region is m eticu lou sly introduced by way of in sig h ts into the p olitical, social and econom ic structure present at the tim e before any of the film s are d iscussed and evaluated. T oep litz’ ‘H istory of the C in em a’ is clear in sty le and structure, and could w ell serve as an exam ple to m any recent ‘film h isto r ia n s’ who th in k that reh ash ing old m aterial and adding som e subjective touches is good enough for yet another textbook. (John L. F e ll’s ‘A H istory o f F ilm s’, ju st pu blished, is such a product.) U nfortu nately, T oep litz’ ‘H isto ry ’ has so far only been translated into Germ an w ith the third volum e to appear in a few m on th s. W hat is know n in the E n g lish -sp ea k in g countries is m a in ly h is ‘H ollyw ood and A fter’, a fairly u n im p ressive account of the A m erican film scene: H o lly wood, its life , decline and re-em ergence. T h is interview by Dr Peter R . Gerdes, senior lecturer in M edia Studies at the U n iv ersity of N ew Sou th W ales, p resents Jerzy T oeplitz the em in en t film h isto ria n , rather th an Jerzy T oeplitz th e A FT V S director.
How do you rate the film histories that have recently been published? I don’t know enough to give an opinion. I don’t look at general his tories of the cinema because I don’t find anything interesting there. I prefer to look at specialized his tories. At the moment l am correct ing the fifth volume of my History and re-doing what I wrote about Nazi cinema. So, I am looking at the histories of Nazi cinema. What does interest me are books on the philosophy of history in general. 1 read a very interesting book written by Peter Geyle, a Dutch historian, which has many useful ideas. I think the method ology of writing any history is much more important to my work than looking at what my colleagues do. How do you cope with the wealth of material? Sometimes 1 think it is more important to know what happened off-screen than analyse what is on the screen. I think you should dedicate as much time as you can to examine the cultural, social and political background to a film. It helps you to place films in the right perspective. I think the art and aesthetics of film, and the forms of films, are very much the result of other factors, many of which do not appear on the screen. I am now writing the sixth volume and already I am sub merged by material. I have just finished the chapter on the Ameri can cinema from 1945 to 1953, and I don’t know how much 1 should write on television. For a chapter which will probably have 30 to 50 typewritten pages, I already have 300 pages of notes. How to deal with this material is a problem and one which is growing. Sometimes you must surrender. You must face the fact that what you are doing is not the ideal but the best you can do. Perhaps you will find the time in the future to correct it. in any case, others will come and point out any omissions. In my fifth volume, for example, I wrote about World War 2 in the American cinema. I didn’t mention Lifeboat by Alfred Hitchcock, which I realize was a great mistake b ecause it is an extrem ely important film, not only because it was made by Hitchcock, but because there is a positive hero who is a Nazi officer. The film was criticized when it was first shown and even Bosley Crowther wrote that this film was Cinema Papers, December-January — 631
JERZY TOEPLITZ
an appeal for a soft peace and that it should not be shown in 1944 when the U.S. was still fighting Nazi Germany. Well, not one Polish critic attacked me, but if they had I would have admitted my fault. For tunately, I am now correcting the German edition and I shall mention this film. To what extent is a film historian allowed to interpret? A personal view is indispens able. I agree with Peter Geyle who said that while all historians try to present a past reality as certairity, what they achieve is to give per sonal impressions about past reality. The historian is always condi tioned by his own circumstances: who he is, what tastes he has, how he was educated, and how he sees the past reality in reference to the present reality and the future reality. There is a popular saying that each generation writes a new history — that is true, because each has different terms of reference. It is not only a question of having different facts, but of facts being interpreted differently. However, I think it is the duty of the historian not to voluntarily change the facts. If, in a film, some body says, “ You are a bloody liar” , the film historian cannot say that this has not been said, or that something different was said. Only the question of what the quote means is open to interpretation. The facts are not only the films, however, but also the film reviews, the film laws, the box-office results, the' lives of the filmmakers. In the first chapter of ‘History’, you write of cinema as an art ersatz for the proletariat: “The art of film grew at a time of imperialism. Film has all the trade marks of this epoch. The people see film as a people’s art. Only the victory of socialism can remove the inner contradictions of film. Only then will the art of film become in its essence an art of the people, and will it be able to fulfil its education task.” Do you still believe in this view? It is a heavy political statement of which the first part is true and the second part is wishful thinking. But I still believe that the chances of film becoming an art are greater in the socialist system — what you can see as a Dubcek socialist system with a human face — than in the capitalist system. Certainly, 632 — Cinema Papers, December-January
in a dogmatic socialist system the dangers are as great as in the capitalist system, because there are other pressures. I have always believed that Lenin’s statement, “ Film is the most important art for us” , gave film some kind of nobilitation. Today, we probably don’t say “art is box-office poison” quite so often. Anyway, what kind of situation is preferable? To believe that the only purpose of film is to make money, or to believe that film should educate the people even if you are not in agreement with that kind of education. I would vote for educa tion as a purpose, seeing all the dangers. You can say that there are enlightened people in the capitalist system, and I suppose film produc tion, based on cultural considera tions not economic ones, shows there is a different stand. But this is not to be compared with the worse position of film as a money-making exercise. You are very critical of the capitalist system. Writing of the state of film at the time of World War 1, you claim that “the bourgeois countries knew how to prevent voices of pro test from [appearing on] the screen against the senselessness of a mass bloodbath.” Also, writing about Rene Clair’s “Le dernier milliard aire”, you claim that it shows, among other things, “what risks one takes within capitalist film pro duction, if one is touching ever so lightly upon political problems.” But was it, and is it, any different in the socialist system? I am quite critical of the Stalinist system of production and the “cult of personality” . This existed in Soviet films to such extremes that films never ended with the title “The End” , but by always with “The End of the Film” . And if the film showed or quoted Stalin in the last images, you couldn’t put “The End” . Certainly you find many pages where I am very critical, but even the West German critics — the bourgeois critics, not the socialist — said that my attitudes toward the avant-garde and surrealism are by no means in line with the dog matic socialist approach. I don’t believe everything should have a very distinct social message; film has different functions. It can bring joy to your eyes or ears, and not necessarily give you some edu cational lesson. After all, if you want to hear a lesson, go to church
Jerzy Toeplitz addressing the first national conference of the Australian Film and Television School Consultative Panel in March 1975.
or school, but don’t go to the cinema. How do you see the relationship be tween film history and film theory? I don’t understand the present film theory, and perhaps one reason I never could get through a learned book on semiotics was that I simply got bored. I have this personal theory that some of these people write about films as they would about cockroaches. They dissect them on the table like corpses in the morgue. I have doubts about the transfer of some of the general linguistic principles to film: I don’t know whether you can treat film as a language. I am also irritated because in many cases the theorists forget we have already celebrated the 50th anniversary of the exist ence of sound films. They are still only talking about visuals, which should not appear as separate entities. There is a great gap between filmmakers and film theoreticians, and there are many funny stories told about the meetings in Paris at the Cinematheque Française where famous filmmakers were asked very learned questions by the theorists. The most common answers were, “ I don’t know the answer because I don’t understand what you are talking about” , or “ I cannot tell you why I used that kind of a long shot at that particular moment, but it certainly doesn’t mean what you tell me it means.” So, I am perhaps old-fashioned, though I don’t like that word about myself. But I would always include in a history of cinema some theore ticians’ concepts. You cannot speak about Eisenstein or Griffith with
out mentioning how they con ceived the function of film. Theory has its place, but some modern theories don’t give me increased understanding, and they certainly give me little pleasure. In ‘History’ you launch scathing attacks at the bourgeois critics of the 1920s and ’30s. Do you think criticism has improved? There has, for example, been a lot of discus sion in Australia about the quality of critical writing . . . I try to keep up with contem porary Australian critics, and I regularly read Colin Bennett (The Age), Geraldine Pascal (The Aus tralian) and the reviews in The Sydney M orning Herald and Cinema Papers. Film criticism is extremely individual. But what you should ask of the critics is that they be con cerned not only with what is shown and said on the screen, but how it is shown and said. This is often miss ing, and maybe due to lack of space, but in serious criticism they should go further than they do. It is a question of the education of film critics. There is now at La Trobe Uni versity a special department of cinema studies, which I think is the only one in Australia, and it could help on this. But the important question is whether the students should just be concerned with the cinema, or whether they should ask for credits from the other depart ments, such as history of art or modern literature. At the Polish film school, we had a three-year course for film critics and the results were very good. This was an evening course for people who were working and already had
JERZY TOEPLITZ
quoted from the First volume is still my firm belief. For more than 50 years you have been observing and writing about the film scene, éven directing it in a cer tain sense. Some of your early pre dictions have come true — e.g., the one made in 1931 that the future of film would be in color — while others have not — e.g., that 3D would be another future develop ment. Based on your experience, 1 where do you see film going in the | future?
Jerzy Toeplitz addresses the audience after accepting the Raymond Longford Award
a university-type education. It gave not only the elements of the history of the aesthetics and techniques of cinema, but also a series of lectures on different arts. When I look at the Polish press and specialized journals, I notice that almost all the writers have come through this course. It shows they have learnt something. In Australia, there is the atti tude that you can start writing the sports pages, and then you can switch to writing film reviews. In the postscript to ‘Hollywood and After’, you are optimistic that film and media courses at universities would bring “not only a group of skilled enthusiasts but, generally speaking, a much higher intellec tual standard”. Yet, very little of your special field has found its way to the AFTVS . . . I think it is a question of time with the AFTVS. If we had, as most Eastern European schools have, courses over four years, we could give it more time. But you have to decide whether your main goal is to give the students skills and thereby make them as profes sional as possible, or give them what one could call general culture. The selection of candidates at the film school is not so much in terms of professional skills, but of general culture. I like to have people who have a cultural background, who are not narrowly interested in film making. If you ask a candidate “ Do you like music?” , and he says “ Yes” , and then you ask, “Can you give me an example of a classical com poser” , and he answers “Johann Strauss” , then I have some doubts.
Recently, we had one candidate who when asked what was his favorite film said Cabaret, a film I like very much myself. I then asked, “ What is the place and time of action?” I got the answer “ Italy in 1943” . I was slightly disturbed. In ‘Hollywood and After’ you wrote a chapter on film and television, talking mainly about the showing of features on television. In re-writing your ‘History’, you want to go a step further. How do you see the rela tionship between film and tele vision? I always speak about moving images, because a viewer doesn’t care very much whether he sees an electronic picture or a film on a screen. The question of Film and television is one of unification, not of merger; a merger is impossible, given that the functions are so different. Right now we are before the third revolution. Sound was the first, television the second, and the third is cassettes. If you have the possi bility of taping everything, even against copyright rules — and copyright, I suppose, is a very shaky issue — then the borderline between film and television will become even shakier. At present, I ask myself how far the cassette revolution will bring about a general re-assessment of films. By their very nature, Films are for one-time consumption; people rarely go to see a film twice. Then came television, which created ,a new habit, and now you can see Casablanca Five or six times. This raises the question of whether these films will gain or lose under the scrutiny. In changing
1 am a film historian and not a prophet. By nature I am eclectic. I think all kinds of art, and genres in at the 1979 Australian Film Awards. different arts, co-exist; only the accent changes. When radio was in vented, everybody said this would from one-time viewing to multiple be the end of concerts; when cinema viewing, perhaps the criteria of was invented, it was said that the Filmmaking will have to change as end of the theatre had come; and when television appeared, it was well. claimed that cinema would come to In ‘Hollywood and After’, you call an end. Now that video is invented, yourself a “Hollywood watcher”. people are predicting the end of Do you still regard Hollywood as television. I say “No, they will co the hub of the film industry? exist.” I make a distinction between No, but first let me explain that community arts and home arts, and quote. I was asked to write a pre there is certainly a tendency today face to the American edition of towards the home arts. It means Hollywood and After, and, as you having a television set, a radio, a know, there is a certain mistrust tape-recorder and some reproduc about someone from Europe — tions of good paintings in your particularly Eastern Europe — place. But does this mean that the w riting about the A m erican traditional, community arts will cinema. People probably expected a perish? No, I don’t think so. They political discourse about American will always attract people. Not cinema, but this I avoided. because of the gregarious instinct of In Eastern European countries, people, but because these arts help like Poland, one is also much more with pre-selection and selection. concerned with national cinemas, Pre-selection, because when put and Hollywood is less known. So I ting an exhibition of French found m yself a “ Hollywood Impressionists together, somebody watcher” for the Polish, Czech and pre-selects for you. Then you can Russian readers. I find national select. But you can also select by cinemas much more interesting, but deciding whether you want to see the A m erican cinema by its the Impressionists or Chinese art. quantity is very important. In the cinema, you will always have Ingmar Bergman and MoonWhy has your ‘History of the raker. It is difficult to say what will Cinema’ not been translated into be the next trend. There will always English? be a cinema because cinema has constants which are coming back I don’t have an agent, and in the again, and they will always attract capitalist world you need one. Allen people: the elements of Melies and and Unwin, who were the pub of Lumiere. These are the two basic lishers of Hollywood and After, at trends, and they will remain. one stage said they were interested, We shall always have films which but now it seems they are not. are very talky-talky, as well as I would like to have it trans poetic films based on the beauty of lated. I am not ashamed of my images. statements and I am not changing them for the German editions Will film remain the most important unless I consider som ething art to us, and to you? obsolete or anachronistic, or I cease to believe in it. That statement you Yes, definitely so. ★ Cinema Papers, December-January — 633
Compiled by Terry Bourke United States
Independent and studio production in the U.S. has accelerated in recent months, and an average of five films a week are being com pleted. The production of non-union low-budget films between $285,000 and $1.4 million has in creased, and the major studios are spending between $2.9 million to $14.6 million on their latest films. Foreign producers are using American loca tions with Increasing regularity, avoiding costly and troubled European locations. Bruno Corbuci is in Miami and Fort Lauder dale directing Ernest Borgnine and Terence Hill in the action-drama Harry, The Supercop, an Italian-financed production: Germany's Klaus Furhman is directing Nadine Gray, Horst Frank and Lili Laves in New Orleans-based The Last Time. France’s Alain Neuville is In New York shooting subway sequences for Leonie; while Egypt’s Bruno Herbek has chosen Nebraska for his farmland -segments of Return to the Land. John Guillerman is directing The Lion Feeds (on A frican locations, and in Am erican studios); Norman Jewison, Best Friends; Woody Allen is shooting his latest New York film under the title, A Woody Allen Film; Robert Altman is about to move to Malta for an earlyJanuary start of Popeye, starring Robin (Mork) W illiams; Michael Nankin is writing and directing Midnight Madness for Walt Disney Studios. Allan Carr is producing Nancy Walker’s Can’t Stop the Music; Shirley Maclaine and Anthony Hopkins are starring in Consenting Adults directed by Noel Black; Walter Hall is directing The Long Riders in Georgia; Michael Pressman, Those Lips, Those Eyes; Don Coscarelli Is directing Shapes for Avco Embas sy; and Michael O’Herlihy is back from Ireland where he has been filming The Flame is Love. Roger Vadim is preparing to start The God Daughter (it is now two years since he did Night Games in the Philippines); Wes Craven is directing Deadly Blessing for Max Keller’s Inter-Planetary Pictures. Paul Aaron is directing The Osterman Weekend; Barbra Streisand is to make her debut as a director with Fancy Hardware, a love-story involving an airline pilot and a spinster; Ridley Scott (who directed Alien) Is about to start The Knight; Neil Israel is to write and direct a sequel to Americathon called The Jerry Years; Michael Apted (who directed Dustin Hoffman, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Morse in Agatha) is preparing Kincaid’s Old Lady for MGM. Menahem Golan is directing The Year of the Cat; Don Taylor Final Countdown, starring Kirk Douglas; Ulu G rosbard, Children, Children, adapted from the Japanese classic Tokyo Story; John Carpenter (the director of Halloween, and Assault on Precinct 13) is making The Fog; and Sean Cunningham has started Friday the 13th In New Jersey (which will mean a title change for Sydney director Peter Maxwell’s film of the same name, soon to start in Queensland). Australia’s Marilyn Monroe look-alike, Linda Kerridge, is to star in Fade to Black, directed by Vernon Zimmerman In Los Angeles. The film is about a film buff who can’t separate reality from fantasy. Robert Scheerer is directing How To Beat The High Cost of Living; Ken Annaking is directing Coco Chanel; Alan Levy has started One Man’s Candy; and Michael Anderson has been lined up to direct The Cult. Robert Aldrich is preparing Seven Day Soldiers for a late-November start in Britain, but plans to do the post-production in Hollywood. John C assavetes is d ire c tin g Gena Rowlands in One Summer Night; John Frankenheimer is making Destinies; Harold Backer, The Black Marble; Alan Parker is directing Fame for MGM; Larry Peerce, Why Would I Lie?; Mike Levis, Oak Boy; George Bloomfield, Saving Grace; George Edwards, The Attic; Buzz Kulik, The Hunter, starring Steve McQueen; and Jack Hofsiss, After Mid night. Tom Kotani is directing The Ivory Ape in Bermuda; Robert Moore is directing James
634 — Cinema Papers, December-January
lip » « *
Caan in Chapter Two; Ted Roter is shooting A Small Case of Rape in Los Angeles and San Francisco; Herb Freed, Beyond Evil; Jon Peters is producing Caddyshack, starring Chevy Chase, directed by Harold Ramis. Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly are to star In Xanadu, to be directed by Robert Greenwald; Lily Tomlin has been lined up for Joel Schumacher’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman; James Gllckenhaus to direct The Exterminator; Bernard Girard, We’re All Crazy Now; Paul Glicker, Running Scared; Robert Downey, The Brave Young Men of Weinberg; and Joe Gage, L.A. Tool and Die. Canada
The Canadian film industry has expanded rapidly this year, and is now the third largest p ro d u ce r of film s for E nglish-speaking countries, after the U.S. and Britain. In the past 12 months Canadian films have accrued more than $36 million in local box office and worldwide sales. Of this, about $17.6 million came from deals negotiated at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival in May. (In comparison the 16 Australian films at Cannes this year sold for $1.2 million.) With investment from the Canadian Film Development Corporation at a record level (reported to exceed $14.9 million so far this year) and major co-productions with the U.S., Mexico, Japan, Britain and France, Canada will probably overtake the British industry grosses within two to three years. Among the big money-earners for Canada are — Fast Company, Agency, Meatballs, City on Fire (featuring Sydney stuntman Grant Page), Running, A Man Called Intrepid, Silent Partners, Fish Hawk and Claude Lelouch’s An Adventure for Two. At least 15 features were in production in September and October throughout Canada, including Superman II. Richard Donner (who is to be credited as director) finished principal photography on Superman II almost five months ago, and Richard Lester has been shooting pick-up shots and linking footage, with the final scenes at Niagara Falls. Paui Almond has replaced Silvio Narizzano as the director of Final Assignment in Montreal after what producer Larry Hertzog termed “creative differences". Robin Spry, the director of One Man, is directing Jennifer Dale in Suzanne. Jules Das sin is directing Circle of Two, starring Richard Burton and Tatum O’Neal, with locations in Toronto; Steven Stern, whose Running is being released by Universal at Christmas, is using Canadian locations for Fathers, Daughters and Other Endangered Species. Producers John Kemeny, Denis Heroux and Joseph Beaubin have scheduled three films for Canadian locations over the next seven months. The first to be made is Daniel Mann’s The Incredible Mrs Chadwick, starring Shirley Maclaine, followed by Louis Malle’s The Neigh bour and Don Shebib’s Popgun. Raymond Burr is to star in CeBe for writerdirector Leonard Yakir in Vancouver; and
Japanese director Kenji Fikasaku will spend January and February in Toronto’s Kleinberg Studios completing Interiors for Virus. The award-winning Israeli director Yaky Yosha is on location in Canada for the $3 million Adam Resurrected, a Canadian-lsraeli co-production depicting the days when a German clown entertained Jews going to their death. Peter Carter is directing Highpoint, starring Richard Harris and Katherine Ross, produced by Bill Immerman (formerly production chief of AIP and 20th Century-Fox television in Los Angeles). Paul Almond’s The Burning Book, which was to star Richard Harris, has been cancelled after the producers failed to Interest public subscribers in the $7.75 million production. William Fruet is producing and directing Cries in the Night in Toronto; Bob Clark has been named to direct a $10 million version of best-selling author Robert Ludlum ’s The Matarese Circle; producer-director George Mendeluk is preparing The Kidnapping of The President, to be shot In Toronto. Canada’s first musical feature, the $2.5 million Fantastica, is under way in Quebec, starring Carol Laure and John Vernon. It is directed by Gilles Carle, who also wrote the script. A Canadian-French venture, it will have English and French versions. Allan King is directing Tom Skerritt and Ellen Burstyn in Silence of the North; Harvey Hart has lined up with Timothy Bottoms and Linda Purl in The First Hello; Morley Markson is to direct Milton Berle in Off Your Rocker; Alvin Rakoff, Dirty Tricks; Paul Lynch, Prom Night; Orson Welles is starring in Never Trust An Honest Thief, d ire c te d by G eorge McGowan, and shooting in Toronto and Las Vegas.
Mike Newell is shooting The Waking, starring Charlton Heston, on location in Egypt, with studio work and editing in London; John Hough is to make A Watcher in the Woods for Walt Disney Studios, starring Bette Davis and Carroll Baker. Former Cinema International Corporation sales executive Rodney Webb is planning to produce a dolphin drama called Dorado, which he hopes to shoot in Sardinia and Australia. Director James K. Shea is preparing Swords of Sorcery for production; Mike Hodges is still shooting Flash Gordon at Shepperton and Elstree Studios fo r Dino de Laurentiis; Gabrielle Beaumont is directing The Godsend in London; Alan Bridges has started shooting Very Like A Whale in London and soon New York, starring Alan Bates; John Boorman is producing and directing Merlin and the Knights of King Arthur with locations in London and Ireland. Don Siegel who was dismissed as director of Rough Cut is back. Shooting has gone smoothly since his return. Warren Beatty is writing and directing Ten Days That Shook The World, but apparently plans to change the title to Reds; Rod Taylor and Rex Harrison are to star in Matt Cimber's Seven Graves for Rogan to be shot in London, Amsterdam and Paris; Benjl has overcome quarantine problems and will star in Oh, Heavenly Dog in London, Berlin, Paris and several Canadian cities, with Joe Camp directing. Producers Davina Belling and Clive Parsons are to shoot All Conquers Love in New York, with Jonathan Kaufer directing; David Lynch is directing John Hurt and Anne Bancroft in The Elephant Man; and Alan J. Pakula is preparing Sophie’s Choice for Lord Lew Grade, with a script based on Pulitzer Prizewinner William Styron’s novel of the same name.
Britain
The failure of British studios to win contracts for the shooting of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shin ing, Richard Donner’s Superman II, and Lewis Gilbert's Moonraker, did not cause the lull In production that had been expected. Seven new films got underway in July and August, three in September, two in October, and at least three more are set to go before Christmas. * Five Star Five, a $12 million science-fiction epic produced by Gerry Anderson and Sydney Rose, has started 17 weeks of principal shooting at Pinewood Studios, with 20 weeks of special effects to follow in early January. British film mogul Lord Lew Grade, riding high on the worldwide smash hit of The Muppets, has announced a string of big-budgeted films to be made in and around London next year, with some international locations. These include, Raise The Titanic, Sunset Limousine, Green Ice, Trans-Siberian Express, The Golden Gate, The Gemini Contender and a remake of Tale of Two Cities. Ian Eames is writing and directing another Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde; photographer David Bailey is to direct The Gossip Columnist;
Fiona Lindsay and Velese Petaia in Paul Maunder’s Sons for the Return Home.
New Zealand
Sons for the Return Home, the New Zealand film industry’s costliest and most ambitious production to date, is expected to make a ma jor breakthrough in the international market place. The film was financed with a major in vestment by the New Zealand Film Commis sion. Shot on locations in Western Samoa, the North Island and London, by writer-director Paul Maunder, Sons for the Return Home is a contem porary love-story centred on the marriage between a Pacific islander and a white girl. As a best-selling novel of the same name, by Polynesian author Albert Wendt, it caused con siderable interest when it was first published eight years ago. Sons for the Return Home is likely to be New Zealand’s official entry in the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. Another ambitious project for New Zealand is Nutcase, which finished shooting at Takapune Beach, in late-September, and is scheduled for a Christmas release. Nutcase is produced by John Barnett-snd directed by Roger Donaldson from a script by Ian Mune and Keigh Aberdein.
Concluded on P. 679
FILM CENSORSHIP LISTINGS Reprinted from JUNE 1979
Australian Government Gazette Published by the A ustralian G overnm ent Publishing Service
'
AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 28 - OCTOBER 2
FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONS
P re p a re z Vos M o u c h o irs (G e t Out Y ou r Handkerchiefs): Les Films Ariane/Capac, France (2914.11 m) Slaves of Love (Reduced version)2: D. Ackerman, U.S.A. (2007.94 m) A Taste of Decadence: Not shown, U.S.A. (2231.00 m) Warriors Two: R. Chow/Golden Harvest Film Co., Hong Kong (2566.56 m) 1. Version measuring 2441.27 metres registered (R) with cuts (January 1977 List). 2. Reconstructed Version measuring 1655 metres registered (R) (August 1973).
For General Exhibition (G) Addio Per Sempre: Ft. Amoroso, Italy (2220.00 m) The Adventures of the Wilderness Family: A. Dubs, U.S.A. (2733.02 m) Always for Pleasure (16 mm): Flower Films, U.S.A. (625.29 m) Citta’ Canora: Sud Films, Italy (2605.00 m) The Golden Age of Second Avenue (16 mm): Chronos Film, W. Germany (1015.00 m) The Golden Age of Second Avenue (16 mm): A. Can tor, U.S.A. (702.00 m) Kaiser Buerger Und Genossen (16 mm): Chronos Film, W. Germany (1015.00 m) Lagado (16 mm): Not shown, W. Germany (912.00 m) My Uncle: Specta-Alter Films/Fllm Del Centauro, France (3091.00 m) The Russians — People of the Country (16 mm): Film Australia, Australia (99.74 m) Sharks: F. Freiberger, U.S.A. (2537.81 m) Unter Denkmalschutz (16 mm): E. Fechner, W. Ger many (1058.00 m) Voyage of the Hokulea (16 mm): Hawaii Geographic, Society, U.S.A. (1018.00 m)
FILMS REGISTERED WITH ELIMINATIONS For Restricted Exhibition (R) Censorship U.S.A.: A. Roberts, U.S.A. (2128.00 m) Eliminations: 55 metres (2 mins) Reason: Indecency Private Nurse: La Persane Prods, U.K. (2139.54 m) Eliminations: 17.3 metres (38 secs) Reason: Indecency She Knew No Other Way (Recon. vers.)’ : Not shown, Greece (3228.90 m) Eliminations: 37.4 metres (1 min. 22 secs) Reason: Indecency 1. Previously shown on April, 1979 List.
FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATION
Not Recommended for Children (NRC)
Godfather’s Fury: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong (2831.90 m) Reason: Excessive violence
The Brothers Lionheart: O. Nordemar/O. Hellbom, Sweden (2900.35 m) The Champ: D. Lovell, U.S.A. (3374.45 m) Eagle’s Wing (Reduced version)’ P. Shaw/B. Arbeid, U.K./Mexico (2833.00 m) El Saka Maat (16 mm): Mlsr Int. Film, Egypt (1137.50
FILMS BOARD OF REVIEW The Dirty Mind of Young Sally (Reconstructed ver sion)': B. Buckalew, U.S.A. (2123.90 m) Decision reviewed: Refusal to Register by the Film Censorship Board. Decision of the Board: Uphold the decision of the Film Censorship Board.
m)
Home Sweet Home (16 mm): H. Kung, Hong Kong (1163.00 m) ....................... The Humanoid: G. Venturinl, Italy (2677.00 m) Hurricane (Reduced version)2: D. De Laurentiis, U.S.A. (2496.94 m) The incredible Hulk: K. Johnson/C. Bowman, U.S.A. (2844.58 m) The In-Laws: Hiller/Sackhelm, U.S.A. (2788.80 m) Just a Little Inconvenience: A. Balter, U.S.A. (2677.25
m)
The Lady Vanishes: T. Saches, U.K. (2733.00 m) Malavita: R. Amoroso, Italy (1810.38 m) Mareld Alep Way (16 mm): Sabbah, Lebanon (965.36
m)
Mera Naam Joker: R. Kapoor, India (6857.00 m) O Efialtis (The Nightmare): Not shown, Greece (2000.00 m) A Perfect Couple: R. Altman, U.S.A. (3039.00 m) The Prisoner of Zenda: W. Mirlsch, U.S.A. (2984.02 m) The Return of Lost Son (16 mm): Misr. Int. Film, Egypt (1341.00 m) The Shooting Party: Inter-Alliance Film, U.S.S.R. (2914.11 m) Unheimliche Geschichten (Strange Tales — 16 mm): R. Oswald, W. Germany (770.00 m) 1. Reduced by Importer's cuts from 2962.00 metres (January, 1979 List) 2. Reduced by Importer's cuts from 3236.74 metres (April, 1979 List)
For Mature Audiences (M) Alien: G. Carroll/W. Hill/D. Giler, U.S.A. (3179.23 m) An Almost Perfect Affair: T. Carr, U.S.A. (2482.00 m) The Apple Game (Hra O Jablko): A. Vanek, Czechoslovakia (2705.00 m) Autumn Sonata: Personafilm, Sweden (2538.00 m) Dolofonos Forouse Smokin (The Murderer Was Wearing a Dinner Suit): Not shown, Greece (2000.00
m)
Insiang: L. Brocka, Philippines (2537.81 m) Kostas: Illumination Films, Australia (2880.00 m) Manhattan: C. H. Joffe, U.S.A. (2621.47 m) The Meanest Men in the West: C. Warren/J. Rogosln, U.S.A. (2509.92 m) Moment by Moment: R. Stigwood, U.S.A. (2565.70 m) Mon Oncle Antoine (16 mm): National Film Board of Canada, Canada (1140.00 m) Nightwing: M. Ransohoff, U.S.A. (2872.46 m) The Rascal Billionaire: L. Tai, Hong Kong (2609.00 m) Shafia We Matwaly (16 mm): Mlsr Int'l Film, Egypt (1219.00 m)
For Restricted Exhibition (R) The Discharged: R. Tang, Hong Kong (2705.14 m) Fatal Needle, Fatal Fist: K. C. Ping, Hong Kong (2746.34 m) Gettin’ Even: M. Gortner, U.S.A. (3235.00 m) Girls for Sale: R. R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2726.00 m) Hollywood Boulevard: J. Davison, U.S.A. (2258.93 m) Homicides — The Criminals Part 2: R. R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2872.00 m) Life Gamble: R. R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2900.00 m) Mysterious Lady Killer: R. R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2760.91 m) The Proud Youth: R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2677.25 m) Return of the Con Men: R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2788.00 m) Sex and the Stars: B. Steln/A. Roberts, U.S.A. (1924.92 m) ' To Kill a Jaguar: R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2646.76 m) The World is Full of Married Men: M. Fancey/O. S. Lerman, U.K. (2928.24 m) SPECIAL CONDITIONS: For showing not more than
Howard Ross and Ligia Branice in Walerian Borowczyk’s Inferno di un convento (Behind Convent Walls/Within a Cloister). The film was registered "R” after cuts of 33 seconds. twice at 1979 S ydney/M elbourne/Brisbane/Perth and/or Adelaide Film Festivals and then exported. Adoption: A. Kohn, France (2524.00 m) The Citizen: Prince Yukol, Thailand (3292.00 m) Czlawiek Z Marmuru (Man of Marble): Film Produc tion 'X', Poland (4427.00 m) Die Ehe Der Maria Braun: M. Fengler, W. Germany (3155.00 m) Een Vrouw Tussen Hund en Wolf (Woman in a Twilight G a r d e n ): N lm /D e La G u e v ille - G a u m o n t, Belgium/France (2962.00 m) Ernesto: Clesi Cinematograflca, Italy (2750.00 m) Junior Godard (16 mm): H. Costard/Toulouse, Lautrec Institute, W. Germany (889.00 m) Legend of the Mountain: King Hu Prosperity Co., Hong Kong (5212.00 m) Messer Im Kopf (Knife in the Head): E. Junkersdorf, W. Germany (3100.00 m) Night Paths (16 mm): Westdeutscher, Rundfunk, W. Germany (1117.00 m) The Spiral: Tor, Poland (2469.00 m)
FILMS REGISTERED WITH ELIMINATIONS For Restricted Exhibition (R) Within a Cloister: G. Vezzani, Italy (2577.30 m) Eliminations: 15.3 metres (33 secs) Reason: Indecency
Ski a La Carte (16 mm): W. Miller, U.S.A. (1031.00 m)
m) m)
The 3,000 Mile Chase: J. Swerling Jr, U.S.A. (2673.50
FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATION
For Mature Audiences (M) Amalgan (16 mm): W. Nekes, W. Germany (757.00 m) Die Glaeserne Zeiie (The Glass Cell): L. Waldleitner, W. Germany (2539.82 m) Escape from Alcatraz: D. Siegel, U.S.A. (3039.79 m) The Killer Elephants: C. Ming, Thailand (2398.37 m) The Main Event: J. Peters/B. Streisand, U.S.A. (2984.00 m) The Marriage of Maria Braun: Albatross Films, W. Ger many (3262.00 m) Moliere: A. Mnouchklne, France (6978.00 m) Palm Beach: A. Thoms, Australia (2370.00 m) Players: R. Evans, U.S.A. (3318.00 m) Prophecy: R. Rosen, U.S.A. (2807.17 m) Ravagers: J. Hyde, U.S.A. (2459.62 m) Slithis: P. Fabian/S. Traxler, U.S.A. (2370.48 m) Stateline Motel (16 mm): L. Appignani, Italy/Canada (932.00 m) Time After Time: H. Jaffe, U.S.A. (3101.26 m) T-wo-men (16 mm):.W. Nekes, W. Germany (998.27 m) Viva Italia: P. Angelettl/A. De Michell, Italy (2314.00 m) My Wacky, Wacky World: R. Chow, Hong Kong (3039.00 m)
Nil
JULY 1979 FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONS For General Exhibition (G) Arabian Adventure: J. Dark, U.K. (2677.00 m) Changing (16 mm): Film Australia, Australia (741.00 m) Dionne Quintuplets (16 mm): National Film Board of Canada, Canada (982.37 m) Going the Distance (16 mm): National Film Board of Canada, Canada (1006.50 m) Has Anybody Here Seen Canada? (16 mm): National Film Board of Canada, Canada (955.85 m) Hill’s Angels: R. Miller, U.S.A. (2700.23 m) Interlude on Rails: R. R. Shaw, Hong Kong (2673.50 m) Man of Marble: Filmpolskl, Poland (4384.54 m) Mission Galáctica: The Cylon Attack: D. J. O'Connell, U.S.A. (2914.00 m) The Muppet Movie: J. Henson, U.S.A. (2677.00 m) My Brilliant Career: M. Fink, Australia (2795.00 m)
AUGUST 1979
Not Recommended for Children (NRC) Billion Dollar Threat: J. Daniel, U.S.A. (2621.00 ml Blacks Britannica (16 mm): Not shown, U.S.A./U.K. (614.00 m) Breaking Away: P. Yates, USA. (2872.00m) Creature From the Black Lagoon (3-D version) (16 mm): W. Alland, U.S.A. (856.00 m) The Devil in the City (16 mm): S. El Fan, Egypt (1264.00 m) Dominique: Subotsky/Donnelly, U.K. (2621.00 m) The Frisco Kid: M. Neufeld, U.S.A. (3290.78 m) The Grapes of Wrath (16 mm): 20th Century-Fox, U.S.A. (1416.00 m) In the Forest (16 mm): British Film Institute, U.K. (888.57 m) Making It: R. Chow, Hong Kong (2700.23 m) Moonraker: A. Broccoli, U.K. (3455.82 m) Pehchan: Not shown, India (4088.00 m) Reifezeit (Coming of Age) (16 mm): O. Kress, W. Ger many (1195.00 m) Rocky II: I. Winkler/R. Chartoff, U.S.A. (3262.00 m) Schwarz und Weiss Wle Tage und Naechte (Black and White as Day and Night): Monaco Film/Radiant Film/ORF/WDR, W. Germany (2956.00 m) Sunburn: J. Daly/G. Green, U.S.A. (2733.02 m) Take It Easy: Oliane/Garland Prods, France (2459.00
Assault — Criminals Part IV: R. Shaw/M. Fong, Hong Kong (2547.80 m) Reason: Indecency and excessive violence Unclothed Encounters: Not shown, U.S.A. (192.80 m) Reason: Indecency
FILMS BOARD OF REVIEW
1. Previously shown on May, 1979 List.
For Restricted Exhibition (R) Blue Collar: D. Guest, U.S.A. (3124.00 m) Can I Do It Til I Need Glasses?: M. Callie, U.S.A. (2147.00 m) Franchette (Les Intrigue): A. Shiffen, U.S.A. (1756.94
m) Game for Vultures: H. Adair, U.K./Sth Africa (3123.46 m)
The Hot House: Westfilm Prod., U.S.A. (1563.51 m) Infrasexum’: C. Toballna, U.S.A. (1924.00 m) Law Don: K. Tang/Wing-Scope Co., Hong Kong (2482.03 m)
FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONS For General Exhibition (G) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: D. Selznlck, U.S.A. (2576.00 m) The Alaska Wilderness Adventure: F. & E. Meader, U.S.A. (2398.37 m) Autumn Bells: Mosfllm Studio, U.S.S.R. (2128.00 m) Autumn Leaves: Not shown, Hong Kong (2342.59 m) Cry of the Wild (16 mm): Nat. Film Board of Can., Canada (943.00 m) Blind Man’s Bluff: C. Randell, U.K. (1590.54 m) David: Vletlnghof Film, W. Germany (3448.81 m) The Day the Earth Stood Still (16 mm): 20th Century Fox, U.S.A. (1008.00 m) Dreamer: M. Lobell, U.S.A. (2459.62 m) Echo of the Badlands (16 mm): Eady/Barnes, U.K. (1603.35 m) The Fifth Season of the Year: Mosfilm Studio, U.S.S.R. (2681.00 m) It was the Place, where Never Gulls have Made Their Nests: Mosfilm Studio, U.S.S.R. (2664.00 m) It was the Thursday when It Ever Happened: Mosfilm Studio, U.S.S.R. (2550.00 m) La Granda Rinuncia (16 mm): Not shown, Italy (1260.00 m) The Little Convict (16 mm): Y. Gross, Australia (877.00
m)
The Man from Olympus: Armen Film, U.S.S.R. (2005.12 m) Meetings with Rem arkable Men: S. Lyons, U.K./Afghanistan (2984.02 m) Peregrine Hunters: M. Forstater, U.K. (1536.08 m) Portrait in Blue: Not shown, U.S.S.R. (2342.59 m) Sammy’s Super T-shirt: F. Godwin, U.K. (1590.94 m) Unidentified Flying Oddball: R. Miller, U.S.A. (2537.81
m)
Not Recommended for Children (NRC) Badge 3, 6, 9: R. Chow, Hong Kong (2649.36 m) Coach: M. Tenser, U.S.A. (2677.25 m) A Deep and Passionate Love: Not shown, Hong Kong/Talwan (2620.03 m) Don’t Go Away: J. L. Wong, Hong Kong (2459.62 m) The Double McGuffin: J. Camp, U.S.A. (2760.00 m) Goldengirl: D. O’Donovan, U.S.A. (2860.64 m) Hallo Szblcbrodka (Hello Spade Beard): Film Polski, Poland (2633.28 m) Kizilirmak ’Karakdyun’: L. O. Akad, Turkey (2007.94
m)
Les Miserables (El Bouassa) (16 mm): F. Shawki, Egypt (1524.00 m) Love at First Sight: Georgia/Lenfilm, U.S.S.R. (2445.00
m)
Love-story: Mosfilm Studio, U.S.S.R. (3678.00 m) Meatballs: D. Goldberg, Canada (2539.82 m) Nut Bread: Lithuanian Studios, U.S.S.R. (1924.92 m)
Concluded on P. 680 Cinema Papers, December-January — 635
J
H
j
l
olirn e
anaaement
congratulates its artists on their recent nominations and awards. BRIONY BEHETS Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actress for "Long Weekend"
JULIA BLAKE Sammy Award — Best Supporting Film Actress for "Patrick" Nomination Sammy Award — Best Actress Single Television Performance for "Cop Shop"
TERENCE DONOVAN Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for "Money Movers"
GERARD KENNEDY Sammy Award — Best Actor in a Television Series "Against the Wind" Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for "The Last of the Knucklemen"
ALWYN KURTS A.F.I. Award — Best Supporting Actor for "Tim" Sammy Award — Best Supporting Film Actor for "Tim"
ROD MULLINAR Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for "Patrick"
TERRY NORRIS Nomination Sammy Award — Best Actor in a Television Series "Cop Shop"
MIKE PRESTON A.F.I. Nomination — Best Actor for "The Last of the Knucklemen" Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for / "The Last of the Knucklemen"'
'
“Film Australia was commissioned to produce a short film for the Department of Veteran Affairs. Its title: ‘Hospitals Don’t Burn Down.’ “It’s a training film to make hospital staff aware of the ever present dangers of a hospital fire, and what to do if one should break out. “It was a relatively low budget film that had to be very high on impact. “Shot on location in some of Sydney’s larger hospitals, we had to be as unobtrusive to the daily routine of the hospital as possible. That meant a light weight crew, lighting and a night shoot. And that’s where Kodak Eastman 16mm color negative 7247 film came in. “With no extra lab work, I was able to balance the power of the fire with the minimal lighting available. Breaking all the rules. At one stage I even shot under fluorescent lights covered with brown paper as the only compensation.
“7247 has the kind of extreme flexibility essential to fast action work. “The results were both gratifying and dramatic. “Hospitals’ has won the team, and myself, a
heap of awards. It’s the kind of film you can really be proud of. A film where all the hard work has paid off. And Kodak Eastman color was definitely one of the hard workers.” Ross Nichols Cinematographer of the yèar 1979.
Photography by G. Crane, Administrative Officer (Films), Department of Veteransâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Affairs.
EASTM AN Color Negative II Film 7247
Hospitalsdon’tbumdown. A Little Technical Information from Kodak. EASTMAN Color Negative II Film 7247 (16 mm) is a camera film intended for general motion picture production. The wide exposure latitude of this high' speed film makes it especially suitable for both indoor and outdoor photography under a wide variety of conditions. GENERAL PROPERTIES: Color Negative II Film is balanced for use in tungsten light, and in daylight with appropriate filters. The emulsion contains a colored' coupler mask to achieve good color reproduction in release prints. This film is characterised by a high degree of sharpness, fine grain and excellent color rendition. LIGHTING CONTRAST: The ratio of key-light'pluS'filUight to fill light should be 2:1 or 3:1 and should seldom exceed 4:1, except when a special effect is desired. COLOR BALANCE: This film is balanced for exposure under tungsten illumination at 3200K. It can also be used with tungsten lamps at slightly higher or lower color temperatures ( ± 150K) without correction filters, since final color balancing can be done in printing. When other light sources are used, correction filters are requiredoften for both camera and lights. EXPOSURE INDEXES: T ungsten- 100(3200K) Daylight*-64 *With KODAK WRATTEN Gelatin Filter, No. 85, or equivalent. REFLECTED'LIGHT READINGS: These settings are suggested for use with exposure meters calibrated in ASA speeds.
They apply (1) if the meter reading is taken from the camera position and the subject has average reflectance, or (2) if the reading is made on a grey card of about 18'percent reflectance held close to and in front of the subject. (The KODAK Neutral Test Card or equivalent is recommended for this purpose.) For unusually light' or darUcolored subjects, the exposure should be decreased or increased accordingly. INCIDENTLIGHT READINGS: These settings also apply if the incidentdight reading in footcandles is made at the subject and with the meter pointed towards the camera. For further information on Kodak Motion Picture Film contact your nearest Kodak branch office. MELBOURNE: 173 Elizabeth Street, Coburg. Phone: 3501222. SYDNEY: 62 Booth Street, Annandale. Phone: 660 6666. BRISBANE: 252 St. Paul’s Terrace, Fortitude Valley. Phone: 52 1911. ADELAIDE: 34 N orth Terrace. Phone: 212 2411. PERTH: 10 Chilvers Street, Kewdale. Phone: 458 9966. HOBART: 45 Elizabeth Street, Phone: 34 2099. CANBERRA: 1 Woolley Street, Dickson. Phone: 48 7838. TOWNSVILLE: 291 Flinders Street. Phone: 72 3366.
Motion Picture and Audiovisual Market Division KODAK (Australasia) PTY. LTD. “KODAK’ ‘W RATTEN’ and ‘EASTM AN ’ are registered trademarks of KODAK (Australasia) PTY. LTD.
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Niòk R a s i (D avid H em m ings), a w e ll-to -d o governm ent senator, and his w ife Sandra (C arm en Duncan) have a son A lex (M ark Spain) w ho is stricken w ith le u k a e m ia . T w o secu rity men and a top P R specialist guard th e ir mansichy but a m ysterious fa ith healer, G regory W olfe (R o b e rt P o w e ll), m anages to g et to th e ir son and ap p aren tly cures him. To th e consternation pf political m anip ulato r Doc W heelan (B ro d eric k C ra w fo rd ), N ick and Sahdra becom e increasingly attach ed to W olfe, at fir s t out of g ratitu d e fo r saving th e ir son’s life, and then, at least in S andra’s case, out of love fo r him. Doc W heelan, w ho is grooming Nick to be a new head of g overnm ent, a tte m p ts to p resent W olfe as a fraud, but w hen th at fails trie s ; to' have him killedii W o lfe re ta lia te s w ith p retern atu ral pow er in th e dram atic clim ax. S cripted by E v e re tt de Roche (w hose credits include “ P a tric k ” , “ Long W e e k e n d ” and “ Snapshot” ), “ H arlequin” is an updating o f the Rasputin legend. Even though m any elem en ts have been changed, several connections still exist, such as th e linking o f nam es: N ick Rast fo r Nicholas II, Sandra for Alexandra, G regory fo r G rigory, etc. “ H arleq u in ” is th e eighth film produced by Antony I. G innane, and th e second to be d ire c te d by_Simon W incer. Starring Robert P ow ell, Carm en Duncan, David Hem m ings and B roderick C raw fo rd , it recen tly com pleted film ing in P erth, W estern A u s tra lia ..
SIMON WINCER DIRECTOR H arlequin After Snapshot, which Everett and I weren’t happy with because it was such a rush job, we decided to spend some time doing a thriller. We wrote six ideas, and the one that we eventually chose was called The Minister’s Magician. It was basically an analogy of the story of Rasputin. So we set to work and did a rough treatment. Tony Ginnane heard about it, and approached us. Eventually we agreed that he would be the pro ducer. Once we had thrown in all the ideas, Everett wrote a 400-page first draft, which was just amazing. In that draft, the central character, Gregory Wolfe, was a priest. But when Tony and Bill Fayman shopped the script around the U.S., the one element they were warned about was that the por trayal of a priest, whether a real priest or someone posing as one, would limit the market in certain territories: i.e., Latin America, Spain and so forth. As these territories had been kind to Tony with his other films, it was decided this element should be removed. Also, there were doubts about whether Robert Powell would have played the part. After all, he can hardly play Jesus Christ in one film and a charlatan in the next.
Simon Wincer began his film and television career at the ABC in Sydney, where he worked as a studio hand, floor manager, and finally outside broadcast director. Wincer then moved to London where he spent 18 months as a 1st assistant at Rediffusion TV, and a similar period at the BBC as a pro duction assistant. While in London, Wincer also continued an interest in theatre, which he had cultivated as a stage manager at several theatres in Australia. Returning to Australia, Wincer joined Crawford Produc tions where he directed episodes of “ M atlock Police” , “Homi cide” , “ Division 4 ” and “ Ryan” . Wincer then left to work as a freelance director on “ Cash and Company” , “Tandarra” and “The Lost Islands” . His other television work includes episodes of “The Sullivans” , “ Bailey’s Bird” , “ Chopper Squad” (including the tele-feature) and the highly-successful “ Against The Wind” . Wincer’s first feature was “ Snapshot” (1979), which won a special award for innovative technique at the 1979 Asian Film Festival. “ Harlequin” is his second feature. In the following interview, conducted by Peter Beilby and Scott Murray, Wincer talks about his involvement in “ Harle quin” , as well as the making of “ Snapshot” and his work in television.
What elements did the overseas peo ple want changed? Did they want it made less specifically Australian? 638 — Cinema Papers, December-January
There is amatory adventure in the film. Wolfe, for example, gets involved with Nick’s wife Sandra (Carmen Duncan), as well as the household maid Alice (Alison Best). Originally there was a lot more, because Rasputin was a man with an incredible sexual urge — in fact, apparently he couldn’t perform (healing, etc.) unless he got rid of this urge. Consequently, he used to go to sex-orientated religious ceremonies in churches where peo ple did extraordinary things. Of course, we couldn’t get into those areas. The story is so complex, anyway, that these elements aren’t needed to make the film work. Couldn’t “Harlequin” suffer from such self-imposed constraints? As an outright commercial film, not at all. But as the film that Everett and I wanted to make, yes. However, we were not financing the film, and the financiers have a say. And they say they know the market. What is the market? In terms of an age group, between 18 and 60. Is it aimed at the same audience as “Patrick”? Yes, though I think Harlequin has a broader appeal. It is a much bigger film than Patrick, in all respects, although it is also an interior-orientated film.
The “Harlequin” screenplay went through four or five drafts. Did it benefit from this grooming process? Yes, though we could have done with more time. Unfortunately, Everett had to go to the U.S. at the time the script was ready to be edited. So, when Tony and Bill were on their world jaunt after Can nes, they gave the script to a couple of Americans who did a rough edit and re-write. When they showed me the script, I wasn’t happy with the changes. Since Everett was away, I went back to the second draft and sat with Russell Hagg, who had worked with Everett on Cash and Company and Tandarra. We then edited the script to suit the require ments that Tony and Bill had re quested in terms of marketing and so forth. But I would have liked Everett to have been there as it still has a few elements which I don’t agree with.
something you have touched on?
“Patrick” and “Snapshot” didn’t do very well in Australia. Does this suggest that thrillers are not in vogue in Australia?
Yes. The American market is fairly parochial, and you have probably noticed that Tony’s recent films could have been set anywhere. In fact, what the Americans did with Patrick was flop the car shots over so that people were driving on the other side of the road. Are there any elements in the film which will make an audience aware of the Rasputin connection? Oh yes; it is still an analogy of the story of Rasputin.
No. On one level the film is an out and out thriller, and whether people know it i$ an analogy of the Rasputin legend doesn’t matter. I think the analogy is what makes it interesting on a more intellectual level.
I don’t know. I find it very hard to be analytical about a film’s ap peal, particularly a film like Patrick. I think it was a very good film, and probably the best thriller made here so far. I have only seen Snapshot twice with an audience, and both times it was a fascinating experience because I was terribly aware of the areas that weren’t working, and those that were. What we intend to do with Harlequin is audience test it before the release. In a cutting room you tend to do what you think is right, but you never really know until you get it in front of an audience.
Rasputin was alleged to have had considerable sexual powers. Is this
Did you conceive the role of Wolfe for Robert Powell?
in certain areas, but it still follows fairly closely, particularly the events occurring around his death, and his method of death. Is any of the tension in the film derived from the ambiguity of the Rasputin character?
Does each “story” inform the other? More or less. It has drifted away
Preceding page: Bergier (Gus Mercurio) watches as Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell) and Alex Rast (Mark Spain) stare out to sea.
PRODUCTION REPORT
No, Everett and I actually wrote it for David Bowie, because we were fascinated by his performance in The Man Who Fell to Earth. We felt Bowie had all the qualities that were required, and we even got to the stage where David Hemmings was doing a bit of liaison between Bowie and Tony. In the end we got cold feet, and chose Robert Powell; he is stunning. Robert has an unusual and com pelling presence, a quality which a lot of actors don’t have, and Wolfe needs that presence. The film relies on this, even when Wolfe isn’t on screen. Were you involved in the casting of the other actors? Well, Tony and I talked about the possibilities, though he had already offered the part of Nick Rast to David Hemmings when he was out here doing Thirst. David hadn’t liked the first draft, but when he read the second he decided to come in with us. Who thought of Broderick Craw ford? Lovers The original choice was Orson Welles, though God knows how we would have worked with him. I gather even Mike Nichols had his performance. There are all sorts of problems, so I would hate to think ways of getting there, and we don’t what m ight have happened. particularly want an audience while Anyway, Orson wanted $80,000 a we were doing it. In fact, I don’t week for two weeks, and of course even let my director of photography we couldn’t afford it. or continuity lady stay. Now, and What we wanted was a tough, depending on the scene, this old, fat, cigar-smoking American, rehearsing can take anything from again with a strong screen presence. 10 minutes to half an hour. The process usually begins with a Broderick was Tony’s idea, and I must say he looks wonderful on talk to the actors in the morning in screen. He is quite an old man now, the make-up room. Once I get on but luckily he doesn’t have to be too the set we block the scene out. Naturally, things change in the mobile in the film. blocking, and an actor can suggest How have you found working with a move that is better than the one you have envisaged. So one tends to such experienced actors? just orchestrate things till one Wonderful. I was nervous about arrives at the best way of playing it to begin with, because David, the scene. I then call the key people back on Robert and Broderick have done an enormous amount of film work. I the set and, during a final runthought it was going to be difficult, but it has been quite the reverse. They all think so much about what they have to do, how they want to do it, and why they want to do it, that it becomes easy for me.
Gregory Wolfe and Sandra Rast (Carmen Duncan).
through, tell them the way I want to shoot things. The actors go away and get wardrobed and made up, and the crew sets up with stand-ins. Once the actors come back, we rehearse it again and then shoot it. Do you work from a carefully-pre pared shooting script, or do you decide how to shoot a scene during the rehearsal period? It is a combination of both. I never go onto a set, whether it is for a soap opera or feature, without a shot list. Breaking a scene down into shots is a fantastic way of get ting to know it better, and a shot list can be a security blanket in case you have one of those terrible mo ments where you have a blank and
Do you rehearse the leading actors? Yes. However, we had no rehear sal period before filming because we couldn’t afford one. That didn’t worry me overly because I am used to working with actors, week in and week out, for television. The way I work is to clear the studio, sending the crew out for a cup of coffee. I had great argu ments with Tony and Jane Scott (associate producer) over this on Harlequin because they felt it was a waste of time. I don’t believe it is. I also don’t believe anybody, other than myself and the actors, should see how we arrive at a final
David Hemmings as Senator Nick Rast during the penultimate scene of Harlequin.
think, “ How the hell am I going to shoot this?” At the same time, things do evolve out of rehearsals which are far better than what you have plan ned. For exam ple, when we rehearsed the co nfrontation between David and Robert in their final scenes, we realized it didn’t work as written. So we reversed the roles, and Robert did what David was scripted to do, etc. The scene was much more effective. This meant, of course, I had to shoot it quite differently. My television experience is help ful here because television trains you to change your mind quickly and efficiently, knowing at the same time what things you can get away with, and what you can’t. As a director you move your camera a lot . . . It is interesting you say that, because I wasn’t aware that I did. A camera movement should be motivated, whether dramatically or by another movement. Conse quently, I try to find the key ele ment in each scene and this tells me what I should emphasize. I evolve the shooting pattern from that. Of course, I also have to consider editing and camera movement in terms of the overall pattern of the film, so that it blends together. Harlequin has 170 scenes, and that makes it a very cutty film. The longest scene is four minutes, and I think there are only 10 longer than two minutes. Camera movement and cutting can often give a false sense of pace when you need it, and that is how I tend to use it. Cinema Papers, December-Januarf — 639
PRODUCTION REPORT
Why is “Harlequin” being shot in Panavision? Well, Tony wanted to shoot anamorphic, and, while I didn’t think it necessary for this film, I sure love the format. Panavision gives a film an added dimension — a fuller sense of production value, it is also better in terms of sound, in that the. sound department can work really close to people. But Panavision does have its disad vantages, such as the problem with focus . . .
What you have to do with Pana vision is be very careful about where you place people: i.e., play people in focus planes or decide definitely on whom you want to focus. That is why setting up shots in anamorphic takes so much longer; everybody has to have a mark, and everybody has to hit that mark. It is a hard discipline for an actor to get used to, but an essential one. However, I still regard the most important element in the film as the actors up there on the screen. They have to be considered, and I hate restricting them.
Yes. If you want to play someone heavily in the foreground Are special effects also better suited and someone in the background, to Panavision? you have to commit yourself to one or the other. Also, if I am going to I don’t think it makes any sig pull focus, then I like to do it for nificant difference, except when you emphasis, and nothing else. I don’t have something happening fore want the audience to be parti ground and background — that is cularly aware that it is happening. where the problem occurs. As we In other words, it should be motiva are doing a lot of front projection ted by a head turn or a movement, stuff, Conrad Rothman (special or to punch up a particular mo effects) can re-focus when he is ment. filming the front projection. Con There is one scene in the film sequently, we can shoot the back where I had David sitting in the ground or the plate sharp, and foreground, and Carmen and Conrad can soften it so that it Robert coming in the background. doesn’t look false. I wanted to play the scene in one shot because I wanted a sense of Why are you using front projec separation between the husband, tion? his wife, and her lover. But it turned out a bit too soft; you just don’t Conrad talked us into it because read their expressions in the back some of the effects couldn’t have been done any other way. Front ground. The size of the shot is okay, but it projection is, of course, a way of is the focus. It is one case where life in the U.S. what I should have done was have David turn his head to look at them What are some of the special and pull the focus on that move effects? ment. This way it wouldn’t have A bird flying into a plate-glass window, smashing it and then flying been too obvious.
In a special effects sequence created by Conrad Rothman, Nick is engulfed in a ring of fire ‘set’ off by Gregory.
off again. A bird flying down off a perch, landing on somebody’s head and getting sliced in two by a sym bol. That is a combination of front projection, animation and special effects. Were you ever tempted to shoot on location, as opposed to a set? No, because the film involved so many special effects. There was just no other way we could have found a big enough and good enough house for that length of time without do ing a lot of damage, and causing a lot of problems with neighbours. It is an interesting set, in that there are so many rooms joined together, and you can quickly go from one to another . . . I always wanted it to be a com
plex, rather than a series of separate sets, as that would have meant I had to cut each time a character went out a door. I am a great believer in geo graphy in films, and making sure that in every scene the audience understands where each person is in relation to the others. In a thriller that is particularly important. One of the mistakes inexperienced film makers often make is to fall down on their geography. It is also interesting that the rooms are all four-wall sets . . . Yes. Every set, except the dining room, was designed to run the way I wanted a particular scene shot, and I am a great believer in not making things easy for yourself by shooting outside the confines of the walls. The only times we took walls out were for Conrad’s special ef fects. Otherwise, we have worked totally within the four walls. It is as if we were shooting inside a real house, and being restricted by where we could put the camera. Do you follow that theory through, down to not placing the camera in an ‘unnatural’ position, such as at the back of a fireplace?
The dilemma of where to focus on Panavision: Nick sits in the foreground (and in focus) as Sandra and Gregory enter the room (slightly out of focus).
640 — Cinema Papers, December-January
I had a situation in Against the Wind where Ian Jones wanted me to shoot through a fire, and I said I didn’t think it was credible. Ian had envisaged the scene while writing it as shooting across flames from the back of a fireplace to Mary and Michael at the hearth, and mother in the background. But I felt that since we had spent such a lot of time creating the solid, smoky, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Irish cottage, it would be a pity to risk it with an unusual camera posi tion. Anyway, we agreed not to do it that way. There is one exception in Harle quin, however, and that is when we had to do a fairly complex sequence in a bathroom. But even though every wall in the bathroom floated out, the camera lens was always w ithin the co n fin es of the
PRODUCTION REPORT
The maid (Alison Best) is the victim of some malevolence when her shampoo turns out to be caustic soda.
bathroom. Even when we were shooting along the bath with taps in the foreground, the lens is within the room. So the lens doesn’t take on a perspective that the human eye can not . . . Correct, and the only reason we moved that wall was to make the scene quicker to shoot. Everything is governed by economics, and in this case it was cheaper and quicker to take the wall out. In terms of the main set, how ever, Bernard Hides (art director) and I decided we wouldn’t do this. In fact, we have done a couple of 360 degree pans, not for the sake of doing them, but because that was the movement required in the scene. Again, because so much happens in the house and the schedule is fairly tight, and because there are so many special effects involved, and they take an enormous amount of time, we employed a fairly flexi ble kind of lighting situation. Basically, Gary Hansen [director of photography] has lit from above and then just floated in various stuff on the floor to. give us that sort of flexibility. I think he has done a great job. He has come to grips with the ele
ments I want and has added a lot more, which is the way I like people to work — tell them what I want, and hopefully they will make it bet ter.
Snapshot Your first film was “Snapshot”. How did that project originate? Tony originally had a project called Centrefold, which Richard Franklin was set to direct. When Richard pulled out, Tony rang me — I was doing Against the Wind at the time — and asked me if I would like to do it. I read the script, but didn’t care for it. The only ele ments 1 liked were that it was set in the modelling world and there was a Mr Whippy van. I said I wouldn’t do it, but Tony said he wanted to make a film, and had the money, so I suggested he approach Everett de Roche to re work it. Tony said he had already tried that, and that Everett had turned him down. But Everett being an old mate, I rang him and he agreed. This left us three weeks in which to re-write it. Why couldn’t the filming have been delayed?
Tony wanted to take the film to Mifed, and he was committed to starting it then. Also, he was confi dent about Centrefold. It was only when Everett and I spoke so strong ly against Centrefold that he decided not to do it. We argued that even if we took an extra three weeks to do another version, we would still end up with a better film. And I am sure Snapshot is 100 per cent better than Centrefold would have been. The thing to remember about Snapshot was that it was written, produced and finished within about 15 weeks. It took 11 weeks from the first day of shooting till we sat down with the release print. One result of such a tight production period was that the final cut was too loose. But Tony was com mitted to having a fine cut within one week of finishing shooting. When Tony took it to Mifed, however, everyone said it was too long. Tony then went to the U.S. where he employed an American editor to sit down for a day to take out 12 minutes. Unfortunately, I think he took out the wrong scenes, and the result was a hotch potch. What elements were deleted? Basically, the lighter elements of
the film, and one key scene where it is explained that Elmer (Robert Bruning) is married to Madeline (Chantal Contouri). Most people can’t work this out and become confused. Why was an American editor given the chance to re-cut the film? It was a case of Tony wanting to show the Americans a shorter film and he being in the U.S. at the time. He had one print with him, and the editor actually cut that print. When Tony came back to Australia, those sections were then re-cut and re mixed. Which cut was shown in Australia? The American one. Do you think this cutting affected the commercial result? No, not at all. Are you happy with the final result? Not very. For what it is, it is quite a good little film, but not the way it looks to me at the moment. I would love to re-cut it, but it’s not feasible. Cinema Papers, December-January — 641
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Not even if the film were sold to Australian television? It is a case of the money being available — not from my point of view, but for an editor, re-mixing and that sort of thing. Another problem with the film is that the climax [the fire] happens too early. We tried to top it with another climax, but it doesn’t quite come off. You open with the firemen, smoke and the sound of the breathing, then you repeat it later. When one sees it the second time, however, it is differ ent. Why? Originally, the two sequences were identical, but when the U.S. editor had taken out his 12 minutes he called it quits and left the rest as it was. The first thing that I argued with Tony when he got back was how could he cut one part of the fire se quence and not the other; it didn’t make sense. One result of this was that it made the audience go look ing for clues. The first clue was cut out of the opening sequence, but not the repeat. So, it looked like we had planted it, and that wasn’t the intention. Originally, the clue was there both times. There has been a lot of criticism recently of films being rushed for the Cannes Film Festival and the Aus tralian Film Awards. Do you think that is a problem? It is a problem, and it is one I am not going to come up against again. My new contract with Tony has a clause which says I have a certain length for post-production period
for cutting Harlequin. With Snap shot, we had to have a fine cut within a week of finishing; I have eight weeks with Harlequin. This still isn’t long enough, but it is a lot better than one week. How do you think a film suffers from too short a post-production period?
it didn’t come out in the film, it is probably my fault. It isn’t a case of not coming out, but of there being so many potentiallyguilty characters that in the end one doesn’t care who, or why, someone did it . . .
did the right thing because she is the strong point of the film.
Television What have you learnt most from working for television which is appli cable to directing features?
This, of course, was a very hard thing to balance, and again some of Solving problems. The thing You don’t stop to consider the cuts didn’t help. Originally, about having grown up in tele important things. In the case of there were five guilty parties, and vision, particularly at Crawford Snapshot we just couldn’t be objec now there are three and a half. Productions, is that you have to tive about the material we had. Consequently, it doesn’t take too learn to do your job quickly and With a lot of tightening and re much nous to work out where the economically. Also, the sheer emphasizing, I think we could have film is going. amount of output from the place Actually, the film, as scripted, just rubs off on you. improved the film about 20 per cent. But once those post-produc had a different ending, which none One of the things that annoys me tion wheels start turning, you can’t of us were happy with, and that was about Australian features is the change things. only resolved a week before number of directors who make shooting. The final Whippy Van se basic cinematic mistakes, like Is this post-production rush some quence is new. In the original scenes that don’t cut. This is prob thing you also have in television? Angela just walked off into the ably because they don’t have many night, and caught her plane to Fiji. directing hours up. If you look at in television, you only shoot any television director’s work, what’s going to be on the screen. Why does Angela go off with Made whether it is from overseas or here, Television scripts are much more line? Is she finally attracted to her, you always Find that in the main tightly edited and are timed to fit a or is it out of fear? scenes cut together smoothly, and length of time. there is a sense of flow. This is pure Where else does she go? That was ly a result of mileage — churning Some people found the motivation of the intention. It is„pretty hard to out film week after week after some of the characters in “Snap say how anyone would react in that week. shot” confusing, particularly Made sort of situation. She is almost in a line’s. Was this because you were daze when she gets into the van, and Is there also negative rub-off, in that rushed in the post-production, or are doesn’t really know what she is do one might bring television devices ing. It is the easy way out because and techniques to feature films? there weaknesses in the script? she is so vulnerable and easily manipulated by other people. Yes. There are great dangers, Probably weaknesses in the Sigrid was actually cast two days and I am fighting them all the time. script. We didn’t have a script before shooting. We were origi You have to be very careful not to editor — we couldn’t afford one — nally planning to use an actress, but become casual and fall back on old so I sat down with Everett and she turned us down; she didn’t think television tricks. I shoot film every edited it with him. the script was good enough, which day of my life — it’s all I ever do — However, I do think Madeline is pretty amazing for someone who and I have become used to the has motivation, and that was she had only done television soap mechanical process. For someone wanted Angela (Sigrid Thornton), operas. So we took a plunge and who only makes one feature a year, and would do anything to get her. If went for Siggy. In retrospect, we however, the situation is totally different. I was talking to David Hemmings about this the other day. We had just done quite a complex scene with David, Robert and Carmen, and it was just one of those days when things weren’t going well. We had a lot of press on the set, which didn’t help matters, and we were having sound problems from out side the studio, because it was not totally soundproof. The atmosphere grew tenser and tenser, and what I should have done was kick everybody out of the studio, blasted the actors and said, “Now, let’s do it properly.” But I didn’t, and in the end the actors and I fell back on old techniques — which was the easy way out — in stead of trying to fix it. What you are talking about brings up the issue of training grounds for directors. Do you prefer film school or television-style training? Well, I am happy with my train ing, but that’s not to say I don’t agree with film schools. After all, three of the world’s most commercially-successful directors — Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas — are products of a film school. ★
642 — Cinema Papers, December-January
JANE SCOTT ASSOCIATE PRODUCER There is often confusion about what the various production roles on a feature film entail; in particular, the difference between an executive pro ducer, associate producer, produc tion supervisor, production co ordinator and production manager. What is your understanding of these positions? It’s difficult to define them because they differ so much from film to film. It depends on the number of production personnel involved, and how involved the producer is. Some producers raise the money and walk away, and in that case an associate producer is actually responsible for the com plete administration of the film. Some producers don’t understand the finances, some producers do. Of course, a film may be made with any configuration of pro ducers, but generally an executive producer raises the money and takes a back seat while the film is being shot. A producer may also adopt this role depending on exper ience and choice, but may maintain creative control. An associate producer is a production super visor handling the money and over seeing all the production tech nicalities. There may or may not be a production manager, who organ izes the day-to-day production matters, dealing more directly with e q u ip m e n t, crew and c a st, transport, accommodation, etc. On Harlequin, the producer, Tony Ginnane, is very exper ienced, and he carries quite a lot of weight. My involvement on this production, as an associate pro ducer cum production manager, is to handle all the day-to-day admin istration for him. I am also respon sible for the budget, and I have to know at all stages how the budget is going, and how each problem that arises may affect the budget. When did your involvement on “Harlequin” begin? It started while I was at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. I saw Tony, talked to him about the film and read the script. Then, when I got back, I came down to Melbourne, and later went on to Perth to set it all up. How many weeks was that before shooting started? We had seven weeks pre-produc tion. At what stage was the budget you were to work with set, and what role
From a background in journalism, Jane Scott took up her First position in the film industry as assistant to the head of film distribution at the British Film Institute in London. In 1972 she began her association with Australian film makers as production secretary on Bruce Beresford’s “The Adventures of Barry M cKenzie” . She came to Australia in the same year to work with Beresford on “The Wreck of the Batavia” , and soon after wards was invited to join the Reg Grundy Organization. Since 1973 Jane Scott has worked on more than 10 Australian feature films in capacities ranging from production manager to producer. Her credits as associate producer include Bruce Beresford’s “ Barry McKenzie Holds His Own” (1973); Chris Lofven’s “ Oz” (1976); Henri Safran’s “ Storm Boy” (1976); and Gillian Armstrong’s “ M y Brilliant Career” (1978). She has produced two tele-features for the South Australian Film Corporation: M ike Thornhill’s “ Harvest of H ate” , and John Power’s “ Sound of Love” . In this interview Jane Scott talks to Peter Beilby and Scott Murray about “ Harlequin” , and her role as associate producer.
did you play in drawing it up? When Tony gave me a script to read, he also gave me a budget, which had been calculated to raise the finance. He gave it to me with the idea that I would re-budget it to what I could administer. So I set about doing a number of budgets after that, based on the assumption that it would either be shot in Victoria, or in Western Australia. We eventually decided to shoot in Western Australia because of the financial involvement of the West Australian Film Council.
$100,000 more to shoot in Western Australia. “Harlequin” appears to be quite a complex film with a lot of action and special effects, although the budget isn’t particularly high. What sort of economies have you made to get the results you are aiming for?
Actually, it is a big budget film, but since most of the money has gone on above-the-line costs, it is quite cheap below-the-line. I always try to put the maxi mum value on the screen, and so, first of all, I attempt to cut costs in Is the budget higher because it is areas like studio and equipment hire fees. The studio we are using is being shot in Western Australia? a converted warehouse, and it has Yes. We worked out that exclud worked out very well. In fact, it’s ing contra deals it will be about cheaper than it would have been if
we had used a ready-made studio. It’s difficult to work out exactly where I tried to' cut corners, because the film involves a lot of elements which are expensive — like special effects and looking after international stars. Were many other economies possible because you were shooting in a studio? Yes, because we avoided moving, and moves cost money. Transport is one of the things that often goes over budget, and so does accommo dation. When you go on location with 25 people, and stay in a motel in individual rooms, you end up with a $30,000 motel bill. How do you go about drawing up a pro-forma budget? I go through several stages. After I have read the script, worked out a rough schedule and broken it down as much as possible, I do a first budget. This is a luxury budget which includes all those items one really wants. Of course, it is usually monstrous. I then have a meeting with the producer, or whoever I am doing the budget for, and we usually have a frightful discussion where everyone is appalled at the costing. Then it’s a case of cutting. Differ ent people want it cut down in different areas. But if I am actually going to do the film, there are certain areas I won’t allow to be cut down, and it is often a case- of cutting the script rather than cutting the budget. There are a number of areas in feature film budgets which seem to cause problems time and again. Art directors always complain that pro ducers hopelessly under-budget in their department, and composers complain that because the music comes last there is never enough money to score the film properly. Why do certain departments fre quently go over budget? Probably because the alloca tions are not worked out with the people who are actually going to work on the production. But often it is very difficult to do that. Art directors say, “Why didn’t you come to me when you were doing the budget, because I would have worked it out.” If you had known who the art director was going to be when the budget was set, of course you could have. But, unfortunately, a lot of those deci sions are made before the departCinema Papers, December-January — 643
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paid for through petty cash, or with an official order. Each department has an order book, and the orders come through me. All the petty cash vouchers come through me. How are these purchases related to the budget? We monitor it once a week, and we know roughly what we have in that area all the time. We also know roughly what sort of expenses are going to be incurred in that area. So, for instance, Bernard Hides, the art director, knows all the different areas and budgets he has, and we talk about various expenses as we come to them, like the labor costs, which have been huge on this, and the material and dressing costs, and so on. So, one keeps tabs on what you have spent, and what you know will be spent. ment heads are employed. Whenever possible I do go to the people involved to get their ideas on what the budget should be, or what they can happily work to. But there is another problem. Department heads will grandly say they need $100,000 in one area, but if they were allowed to do it for that the budget would end up at $1 million, so you have to cut them down. Ideally, you get an idea of what will be needed from them, but you are restricted by what finance you can raise as much as anything. I suppose in time people will gain enough experience to be able to keep to a budget; it is possible.
the Australian Film Commission. If you go over budget it must be a One of them is the conflict of deliberate decision . . . interest in having a producer cum director on a feature. I think this is As much as one can say that, yes, a very dangerous thing to allow, I suppose it is. because it really does take a great deal of strength to control a budget. What other elements are important You are up against it when you are in keeping track of spending? out in the field somewhere, and the director says a scene would look A very good production account better if you had 30 more extras, a ant. helicopter shot, and an 800 mm lens. You have to know that if you Should the production accountant be call in one, or all of those things, on location? you would push the budget over. Costs have to be continually judged Absolutely; it’s something I insist against needs. on. I suppose it’s just really knowing when to say “No” . And it is up to Do you think the budget for “Harle the AFC to know when to say quin” is adequate? Are there areas in a budget which “ No” , too. They might put some are usually cut down more than body on to a production every week No, not quite. The budget should others? to sign the cheques, but do they have been more, for comfort. actually know? Do they really know I think the art department does when the production is likely to go What about other films you have get a great deal lopped off, over budget? worked on, for example, “My Bril probably more than they should. liant Career”? But the art department suffers Does it come down to a question of more than anybody because it production methodology and It should have been more, too. covers such a wide range of things; accounting procedure? not only the sets, but also What are the corollaries of making wardrobe, make-up, special effects Yes, the facts are there before films like these on ‘low’ budgets? Do and animals. And when you cut you on the daily production reports you think the films actually suffer? down a budget, you take bits off and financial statements. here and there, and, in the case of the art department, all these cuts But by the time you write a cheque it add up. is already too late . . . Was the budget for the art depart No, it’s not. But of course I ment on your last film, “My Bril would find it very difficult to read a weekly financial report and know liant Career”, accurate? that what is going to happen in the The art department’s budget on next week will push the budget My Brilliant Career went way over, over. Obviously it does need a but was mostly contained within the greater understanding of the daytotal budget for the film. Other to-day events. things had to be cut down, and the crew probably suffered more incon It seems then that one of the prob venience than they normally would. lems is the rate at which money is spent. There are so many people There has been concern over the past spending money on a feature film few years about the tendency for feature films to go over budget. Why is it so difficult to contain spending But all expenditure should go through the one office. In this on a film? instance, everything goes through There are several difficulties me before it goes to the account which are just being recognized by ant. Everything that is purchased is 644 — Cinema Papers, December-January
They must suffer. But it does depend on the ingenuity of the director, as much as anything, to be able to work within those confines. Gillian Armstrong had to do it on My Brilliant Career. She was re stricted in a few areas; but she was able, by ingenuity, to work it out. While you say that the budgets should have been more on both films, there is also an upper limit a pro ducer must put on a budget based on the expected returns . . . That’s the argument that is always brought up, and i t ’s absolutely fair. You have to be aware of what you can recoup, andl the budget of a film has to take this into account. But if you are going to make a'film comfortably, then the budget may have to be increased. To make this film com fortably, the budget should have been more, and to make My Brilliant Career comfortably it should have been more. But rather than increase the bud get, aren’t there ways to reduce costs without affecting the produc tion value? For example, by re writing the script or reducing crew size? You can make cheaper films, but you have to work out a few very important things in doing so. First of all you have to make the film in the home town, without any impor ted cast or crew staying in hotels. As an associate producer I am between two stools. On the one hand, I am trying to administer a production to the best of my ability, and to get the very best effect for all departments to put on the screen unhampered by budget restraints. On the other hand, I am trying to serve the producer by economising as much as possible, so that he or she doesn’t have a monster to try and recoup. Of course, on something like In Search of Anna, we were trying to make a film very cheaply, and for Australia it was incredibly cheap.
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But it was an absolute hassle. Do you think Australian production methodology follows American and British patterns too rigidly and that Australian producers need to find new ways, or different ways, of going about making films? I think everybody is trying to investigate ways of producing films differently, because it is a constant battle to keep the industry going. Everyone is trying to work out whether they can make films cheaper, raise more money, recoup more at the box-office here, or go for international flavored films that sell overseas.
What is the AFC’s involvement in “Harlequin”?
shooting if we decided to move to Western Australia. So, it was just hanging fire for a couple of weeks. Maybe that’s when one should say: “ No, it can’t be done. There’s not going to be enough time.” But you have a pride in what you can do too, and I always hate to say something is impossible. I do think you can work it out, and it’s just a matter of working out how much more it will cost you, having less time. So I said: “ If we leave it any longer than this, it’s going to cost so much more because we are going to have to employ more construction people, etc.” And as it was, Bernard Hides had to build the very complex set for Harlequin in three weeks, which meant much greater labor costs, and of course it meant more heart ache for him.
They are Financially involved, so they are monitoring the accounting as they usually do. And what form does that take? A weekly visit from a project officer cum cheque signatory. Do you think the AFC has, in the past five years, built up consider able expertise in the area of budget ing and budget control? Do you find them a useful ally and collaborator in the job you do on a film like this? No.
Why then don’t Australian pro ducers experiment with using smaller, more effective crews? Ingmar Bergman, for example, used a crew of only seven to make “Cries and Whispers” . . . There are small-crewed as well as large-crewed films made here. The Batavia film I did with Bruce Beresford, for example, was a four-man crew, and that was a film which used a lot of actors in period costume. And it was, of course, quite possible to make it with that crew. Bruce, in fact, always believes in having as small a crew as possible to do a job. Why was it possible in that instance but not in others? I think that there is either a very small crew or what you call a large crew. I don’t think this is a parti cularly large crew on Harlequin. But to do what we are trying to do in six weeks with the actors invol ved and the size of the production, we probably have the smallest crew to do that job — other than going the other way and using a tiny crew and shooting in a real mansion. You can do it that way, but it’s a terrible hassle. I do agree that you can have productions with a much smaller crew, but you have to carefully work out what sort of production it is First. And you have to allow for things like the number of cast, whether it’s a period Film, whether it’s on location, whether it has big lighting set-ups, or needs a big art department. Do you have much contact with the WAFC? Not really. Did the New South Wales Film Cor oration follow the progress of “My irilliant Career” closely?
E
They monitored it far more, but they, are probably far better equipped, because the WAFC is extremely new, and this is their First major feature Film. So in fact the monitoring as such is done by the AFC.
Are they in fact a hindrance rather than a help? I think they act as a sort of Big Brother looking over your shoul der, so you tend to think twice before you do anything. But I honestly don’t think they are able to assist in any way. They sign the main account cheques once a week, but I don’t go to them for advice. Nor do I when I deal with a state financing body either. Given the number of Films that go over budget, I think it is a waste of time. If they are going to put those sorts of controls on spending I think they should take a long, hard look at how it all actually works. Because it’s obviously not working now. Do they offer valuable advice, for example, when you are drawing up a pro-forma budget? No, the budget is set before they are involved: the application is made with a budget. They do comment on the budget, but if you have drawn the budget up with any thought, you know why you put certain amounts in certain areas, and you can usually discuss these and point out why you have done it. I have never gone to them for advice on a budget. As an associate producer, do you find that questions about costs, budgets, crews and schedules are openly discussed in the industry? The producers have tried to get together and form an association, as you know, with the idea of collaborating. But of course when it comes to raising money and making a production you are on your own, really and truly. There is nobody else who is going to rush in and assist you, so I suppose Film production is an individual thing, until the crew is involved. I don’t get the feeling that there is a great deal of back-up from anybody. It’s very difficult when you have a group of people like the pro ducers in this country. They are a hard-headed lot of people by nature, and I think it’s very diffi cult to bring them all together into
But then you saved time by finding a cheap studio . ..
Camera operator Peter Moss prepares the scene where Gregory dangles Alex over the cliff.
one group working towards a common end. I do question the involvement of the federal and the state financing bodies. I don’t think they are working at perfect pitch yet, and I think it will take a long time. Whether the industry can outlast that period will remain to be seen. I don’t know really. One is constantly aware of the question of whether the industry is at a crossroads. I think it’s taking longer to get productions together because people are taking more care. People are now trying to put together strong packages of Films, rather than one-offs. What do you do if you are asked to cost out a film that you feel isn’t ready for production — that needs more work, say, on the script? I usually turn down productions that I feel aren’t ready, or exactly as I think they should be. Did you have doubts about the seven week pre-production on “Harle quin”? Yes, that was tight. Do you always walk into a given pre-production period? Usually.. I discuss how much time it needs, and indeed Harle quin needed, I thought, seven weeks. And it would have been possible had it remained in Vic toria. But, of course, after two weeks of pre-production we didn’t know if we would be shooting in Victoria or Western Australia. Now all the time that was in question, I was working out with Tony just how late we could start
Yes. We found the Channel 9 studio here wasn’t big enough for what we wanted, and the facilities there aren’t as good as they are here, where we have offices, changing room, parking, in fact everything we need. Apart from minimizing location charges, what other advantages does shooting in a studio offer? Well, this Film couldn’t have been made on location because of the special effects. We are wrecking the set bit by bit; we couldn’t have done that on an actual location. Usually it is cheaper and more effective to shoot on location, provided the locations are not too far away. In fact, the cheapest film is made on location, within 40 km of the GPO. But on this Film, a studio is perfect. It was beyond our wildest dreams to find this place, really. The director can whizz upstairs and see the rushes on a movieola before anybody else does, and be reassured about a certain scene, or he can see a cut, and know whether a scene works or not. And you can reshoot, if necessary Yes. You can pick something up on the spur of the moment. So it’s an economical way of doing this particular film. And I can also be in touch with the crew much more easily. Do you think feature film produc tion suffers from a lack of good studio facilities? Yes I do, but the old curly prob lem is whether a film studio could exist comfortably — a studio the size of this place for instance — in Melbourne or Sydney, and if anybody could afford to put one together. The problem with the existing, studio facilities, apart from availability, is that they are too expensive to use for a feature. ★ Cinema Papers, December-January — 645
BERNARD HIDES ART DIRECTOR At what stage were you brought in on the project? About five weeks before filming started. That’s not much notice . . . No, and I wish producers in Aus tralia would realize how much production designers and art direc tors can contribute to a film, given sufficient time. What was the reason for the short notice? It had to do with money being available, having to finish by a certain date, and having actors booked. Our pre-production was also reduced by the problem of whether we would be filming in Melbourne or Perth. I arrived in M elbourne and spent a day working there when I was told we were off to Perth. There, the plan was to build the major set in Channel 9 studios, but though I had been told the studios were 35m by 25m, we found they were much smaller. I knew I couldn’t fit the set into them, so I started to look for another site.
Bernard Hides has worked as a production designer/art director for 15 years, beginning at the ABC in 1965 on a onehour drama entitled “The Swagman” . Since then he has worked on more than 30 productions, including the features “The Nickel Queen” (1971), “The Dove” (1972) and “The Odd Angry Shot” (1979). After completing “Harlequin” , Hides was engaged as art director on Peter Collinson’s “The Earthling” . Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of Hides’ work on “ Harle quin” is his design and supervision of the principal set, a multi room, two-storey construction of Nick Rast’s home. Housed in a warehouse in an outer Perth suburb, the set is considered to be the largest so far built in Australia. The design and construction of this and the other sets, together with the question of an art director’s role on a feature, are discussed in Scott Murray and Peter Beilby’s interview with Hides.
Bond’s front door, and that is accurate down to the locks, mould ings and brass strippings inside the panel door. This meant Simon could cut directly from one to the other. When you walk into Bond’s house, you come into a foyer, with a big spiral staircase, before drop ping down a metre into another foyer area. Several rooms run off this, each with a separate function. The major room in our set had to have three functions in one: library, small cocktail area and functions area. Our windows also matched Bond’s. They are floor to ceiling, with anodized aluminium framing. The view from the windows in Bond’s house is across the Swan River, so we used a painted back cloth, which we put just far enough away from the camera for it to be slightly out of focus. Actually, we did shoot a scene in one room of Bond’s house — the bedroom. The only changes we made to the room were a differentcolored bedspread and a small table which we put in one corner — we wanted Sandra (Carmen Duncan) to be sitting at a desk looking out of the window. '
Why was it decided to build a set rather than use actual locations?
How would you describe the feeling of the house?
Nearly 80 per cent of Harlequin is interior, so a set seemed by far the best way of going about it. We were also influenced by the number and variety of special effects. It is not that easy to go into someone’s house and ask to break a window. On a set you don’t have to worry about other people, preserving their fufniture, or their carpets. It is also colonial or Victorian, but vaguely made it geographically correct, I much easier to light. American-European. Now while add the architecture. there are plenty of houses like that At the same time, of course, one Were you brought in as a production in Melbourne and Sydney, there are has to keep in mind the location one none in Perth. designer or art director? is trying to match. Basically you The house we were looking for match only the main architectural Art director. I am mainly had to be like a fortress, with high features — the windows, wall concerned with the look of the set walls, gates and a large landscaped treatments, front doors, etc. You and the locations. As a production garden. The only one we found in never have the whole set in widedesigner I would have had more Perth that was close was Alan shot, but you must give the feeling control over the costumes and such. Bond’s house. We weren’t able to that the house is there. I did, in fact, do a little research get inside at that stage — Bond was When I finally got into Bond’s into what the Harlequin should overseas — so I took photographs house, I found that my geography, wear, but I gave that to Simon of the outside and tried to work out which worked for the script, was Wincer (director) once the costume how everything related. I then gave nothing like his, though there were my assistant draftslady some some things which matched, like designer came onto the film. sketches, and, once she had taken a the internal doors. I have often look at the house, we started to wondered whether I would have What brief did Wincer give you? draw up a basic layout. been influenced if I had gone into I was sent the script, which I When I do a layout, I get hold of his place before building the set. thought was good. Then, when I the script and draw a square, was in Melbourne, Simon took me scribbling down notes as I read. I To what degree did you match your to a house and said, “ We need a then relate the script to the square, set to Bond’s house? house that has that feel about it.” It drawing in rooms, and putting in had a non-Australian feeling: not doors and windows. Once I have The only thing I matched is
From reading the script, I decided Nick Rast (David Hemmings) didn’t have money of his own, though he married money. (His wife is the daughter of an ambassador, and he married her for the political advantage.) Con sequently, we felt the house should reflect her tastes, but with some of his rubbed in. Overall, one could describe it as expensive kitsch — just a little step beyond good taste. We also attem pted to give character to people by the way we dressed the set. For example, since Rast has a property in the country, we decided he must breed horses. So, in his part of the room there are pictures of racing horses and that sort of thing. Also, the rooms have plants in them, except the dining room, and Sandra has a few flowers in her bedroom. We tried to give the feeling that there was a feminine touch about the place.
646 — Cinema Papers, December-January
What you have done with the set is create an entire two-storey house within a studio. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to fragment it? No, because the set was only strongly constructed where the
PRODUCTION REPORT
staircase is, and that’s to allow people to walk up it. If you are going to put a staircase in, you might as well take it right up to a second landing. And once you get to the second landing, where do you stop? Do you stop it so that the camera can look down, but not up? I ended up putting the ceiling at eight metres, so the camera could look up at people playing on the balcony, as well as looking down. Basically, a designer is a frustra ted director, and when he reads the script he thinks, “ Wouldn’t it be nice to do it this way” , and so on. So, you design the set to accom modate all the possibilities you can think of. You know that the director has to have access from one room to another, but if you can give him not only access but the chance to come out of a room upstairs, down a flight of stairs and out through the main door all in one shot, you can convince people you are not on a set. Every time you cut when a person goes through a doorway, you are basically saying to people. “ Look, we are not in a house; we are compromising by being on a set.” Did Simon give you specific require ments about such things? No. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of communication with Simon. Also, we were having prob lems at that stage getting a direc tor of photography. So, at the very time the director, cameraman and art director should have been working together, we had little time for communication. Have you had this kind of consulta tion on other Films? Yes. When we discussed the set of the Vung Tau street for The Odd Angry Shot, for example, I made a model, and with the help of pro tractors and a viewfinder, Tom Jeffrey (director) and I were able to see what was needed and what wasn’t. By planning the shots, we were able to cut out a lot of
unnecessary set construction. A week in pre-production can save you considerable money and time, and often gives a better result. It’s much too late to talk about an idea when you are on the set, because the director is far more concerned with other things. Given that there wasn’t that kind of collaboration on “Harlequin”, did you over-construct? No, Simon has taken advantage of every piece of the set. However, I do feel that if I had made a model of the foyer, I would have changed the relationship of some of the doors to each other. For example, we can’t relate the front door and the door into the living area in the same shot, except from down stairs, and even that’s difficult. It was only after the set started to go up that I realized this, and by then it was too late. Did Gary Hansen (director of photography) make any special requirements for lighting purposes? I had some light colors on the set, and he asked me to tone them down a step. Also, for the backing outside the windows, I wanted to go with transparent photographs, but Gary was a bit apprehensive. Photo graphs are slightly experimental on my part, although I have used them on several television sets. In the end we opted for large, painted back drops. The cost was about the same. Did you make any special allow ances for the Panavision format when designing the set? Yes. When I was doing the original floor plan I made a kind of cardboard protractor which gave me the basic camera lenses. I did two sections of the set to see whether it was going to shoot off at any places. Panavision is a very wide format, and it’s nice to have to break up the walls with texture and so on. I gave
the set textured, panelled and wall paper surfaces — not too many, and all within a tonal range. Also, instead of having a long run of wall, 1 broke things up. So, from whatever position you shoot, you have interesting angles and shapes. How long did you have to design that major set? A couple of days. I had no choice because I needed all the time left to build the thing. When we arrived here, we had no construction manager. I immed iately contacted some display people who do ads and so on, but they were too expensive and didn’t understand what I wanted. So I went to the theatre and found Steve Courtley, who understood what I wanted. Then, after I had explained the drawings to him, I got him ordering the materials. The supply of the materials was the next big problem, because just about everything we wanted was not available in Western Australia. This was not only timber, but also wallpaper and veneered surfaces. With what did you construct the major set? It is all plywood, strengthened
with timber at the back, like a normal flattage. I was going to use 4mm particle board, which is cheaper, and did in fact make two sets of it, but the stuff wobbled all over the place. This of course meant that the cost of the set went up a bit. Were the walls built so that they could be moved? Yes. The only walls we locked in were round the staircase area, and the fireplace. As I’ve said, I designed the set with shots in mind, and there wasn’t any advantage in moving a set in these places. Also, we needed a backbone to hang things from, and the staircase and fireplace were my backbone. Every thing else comes apart on the internal corners, and can float out. It is only a matter of pulling out a few nails or screws. Actually, Simon rarely floated the walls; he prefers to work within a set to help create the feeling of being inside a real house. When he does float a wall, it is only to save himself and the crew the dis comfort of working hard up against a wall. What are the advantages of working Concluded on P. 680
Cinema Papers, December-January — 647
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FE A TU R ES P R E -P R O D U C TIO N *
THE CLUB Prod, company ............... South Australian Film Corporation P ro d u ce r..................................Matt Carroll D ire c to r............................ Bruce Beresford S criptw rite rs.................. David Williamson, Bruce Beresford Based on the play b y ................................David Williamson
FRIDAY THE 13TH Prod, company .................Mutiny Pictures Dist. company ..................................... GUO P ro du ce r..................................John Pellatt D ire c to r................................Peter Maxwell S criptw rite r.......................... Peter Yeldham Based on the original story b y ............................ Peter Maxwell, Peter Yeldham Exec, producers ...............Peter Yeldham, Peter Maxwell B u d g e t.............................................$541,000 Length ......... .-................................. 90 mins. Gauge ............................................... 35 mm S y n o p s is: A c o m e d y -th rille r w ith a predominantly female cast. A group of at tractive young women take to crime to provide financial support for a school for underprivileged children. A series of mixups causes the women to lose the loot, their dignity, but not their freedom.
MONKEYGRIP Prod, company ........... Clare Beach Films P ro du ce r........... ..................Patricia Lovell D ire c to r..................................Ken Cameron S criptw rite r............................ Ken Cameron Based on the novel b y ....... Helen Garner Gauge ...............................................35 mm Shooting s to ck........................Eastmancolor Synopsis: "Smack habit, love habit — what's the difference? They both can kill you." Nora’s addiction Is romantic love; Javo's is hard drugs. They are trapped in a desperate relationship. The harder they pull away, the tighter the monkey grip.
ONE, TWO, THREE, UP Prod, company .........................Ross Wood Productions Producer/D irector...................Henri Safran S criptw rite rs.................... Graham Gifford, Henri Safran, Kit Denton Based on the story by . . . .Graham Gifford Length .............................................90 mins. Gauge ...............................................35 mm Synopsis: An adventure/comedy based on a true story about an attempt to start an il legal airline in. the South Pacific, In a con dominium ruled by the French and the British.
PACIFIC BANANA Prod, company ..................Pacific Banana Dist. company ............................Roadshow Producer/D irector.................John Lamond S criptw rite r......................... Alan Hopgood
Based on the original idea Art department runner . . . Peter Glencroff P ro du ce rs............................ Randal Kleiser, THE PROMOTION OF MR SMITH b y ....................................... John Lamond P ublicity................................... David White Richard Franklin Photography......................................... GarryWapshott Sydney Liaison ................ Brlanne Kearney Prod, company ....................... Smiley Films D ire c to r................................. Randal Kleiser Sound recordist ........... John Phillips Sydney officer runner . . . . Michael Weiley P ro du ce r.........................Richard Brennan S criptw rite r...............Douglas Day Stewart D ire c to r.............................Stephen Wallace E d ito r........................................................RayDaley C atering................................................. JohnFaithfull Based on the novel S criptw rite r..............................................BobJewson Prod, designer...................... Herbert Pinter Catering assistants.............................. SusieFaithfull, b y ........................H. De Vere Stacpoole Exec, producer ................ William Marshall Narell Brown Photography.......................... Geoff Burton Photography...................Nestor Almendros Sound recordist ..................... Gary Wilkins Assoc, p ro d u c e r...................................John Pruzanski Asst c h e f................................... Ray Fowler Additional photography . . .Vincent Monton E d ito r................................... Henry Dongar Prod, su p e rviso r................Judy Whitehead Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Sound recordist ........................ Paul Clark Prod, designer.................... Lee Whitmore Unit m a nager...........................John Chase Length ......................................... 100 mins. E d ito r.................................. Robert Gordon Prod, manager ...................Barbara Gibbs Prod, accountant ...................Norman Bell Gauge ...............................................35 mm C om poser.......................... Basil Poledouris Prod, secretary ...................... Barbara Ring Continuity .......................... Judy Whitehead Shooting sto c k ...................... Eastmancolor Prod, su p e rviso r...................... Barbi Taylor Key g r ip ....................................Ray Thomas Cast: William Holden (Foley), Ricky Shroder Prod, accountant ...............Digby Duncan Prod, manager ...................... Peter Bogart 1st asst director .................Mark Turnbull Boom operator ......................Ray Phillips (Shawn). Unit m anager...........................................PhilWorth 2nd asst d ire cto r.................................. ChrisMaudson Studios.................................................. SAFC Synopsis: A story of survival: an old, dying Prod, secretaries........... Rosalie Trencher, Mixed at ...............................................SAFC man finds a child lost in the bush and Continuity ......................... Caroline Stanton Helen Watts Casting................................. M & L Casting Laboratories.................Cinevex (Australia), teaches him to survive. Prod, auditor .......................Fred Harding Camera operator ...................Geoff Burton MGM (U.S.) Prod, accountant ....................... Patti Scott Focus p u lle r......................................... DavidForeman Length ............................................. 90 mins. 1st asst director ..................... Peter Bogart Clapper/loader ............................Gill Leahy GRENDEL GRENDEL GRENDEL Gauge ...............................................35 mm 2nd asst d ire cto r........................Mark Piper Key g r ip ................................. Brent Collins Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor For details see Issue 23 Continuity ..........................Marilyn Giardino G a ffer................................Brian Bansgrove Synopsis: The bawdy adventures of two air Focus p u lle rs ....................... David Brostoff, Electricians............................................. PaulHoyes, line pilots and their friends as they cavort Jack Endacott Paul Gantner around the South Pacific. Clapper/loader ...................Peter Collister THE MAN AT THE EDGE Boom operator ....................Mark Wasutak Key g r ip ..................................... Ray Brown OF THE FREEWAY Art d ire c to r.............................................. KimHilder Asst grip .............................Paul Thompson For complete details of the following Wardrobe ................................ Edle Kurzer Prod, c o m p a n y ....... Palm Beach Pictures Underwater p ho to g ra p h y ....... Phil Taylor, features see Issue 23: Ward, a s s is ta n t............. Lesley McLennan Dist. c o m p a n y ...................Hoyts Theatres Leonski Valerie Taylor P ro du ce r..................................... David Elfick Props b u y e r........................ Anni Browning Gaffer ............................................Hal Trusell Someone Left The Cake Out In The Rain D ire c to r........................................... Ian Barry Standby p ro p s ...................................... ClarkMunro E lectrician................................ian Dewhurst Special e ffe c ts ........................ Chris Murray S criptw rite r......................................Ian Barry Art d ire c to r.............................................. JonDowding Carpenters .................... Peter Templeton, Based on.-the original idea . Asst art directors .................... Clive Jones, Glen Finch, b y .................................................Ian Barry Allen Brown Lee Carey Photography............................ Russell Boyd Costume designer . . . Jean-Pierre Dorleac Set construction .................Herbert Pinter Sound recordist .................. Lloyd Carrick Make-up ................................... Irene Walls Asst editor ........................ Cathy STieehan E d ito r..................................... Tim Wellburn Wardrobe ...................... Aphrodite Jansen P R O D U C TIO N Assoc, producers ............... George Miller, Still photography................................ MikeGlddens Props buyer . . . .Nicolaas Van Roosendael Ross Matthews Tech, a dv is e rs ...................................... BobJewson, Special e ffe c ts ...................................RobbieKnott Tony Green Prod, manager ...................... Lynn Gailey Set construction ......................John Taylor, R unner....................................... Jenny Miles Unit m anager....................................... PhilipHearnshaw Gerry Powderly, Laboratory ........................................... Atlab Prod, s e c re ta ry ..................................MandyForster Greg O’Connell THE EARTHLING B u d g e t............................................ $485,000 Asst editor ............................... Prod, accountant .................... Penny Carl Dolly Fendel Length ............................................. 90 mins. Musical director ........................ Brian May Prod, assistants...................Louise Ferrier, Prod, company . . . . Earthling Productions Kathy Trubott, Gauge .............................................35 mm P ro du ce r................................................ElliotSchick Dolphin trainers.......................Kathy Troutt, David Trethewey Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor Director ................................Peter Collinson Bernadette Franklin S criptw rite r............................ Lanny Cotier 1st asst director .................Ross Matthews Release, date ............................... May, 1980 Stills ........................................... Roger Jans Cast: Bryan Brown (Ching), Max Phipps Photography........................ Don McAlpine 2nd asst d ire cto r...............Chris Maudson (Norton), Denis Miller (Redford), Peter Best boy ................................Tony Holtham 2nd unit d ire c to r.............................. GeorgeMiller Sound recordist ...................Don Connolly Ftunner................................. Warwick Ross E d ito r................................. Mick Beauman Continuity ................................ Sian Hughes Hehlr (McIntosh), Ray Marshall (Chalmes), C atering................................................ FrankManly Exec, producer ...............Stephen Sharmat Casting consultants . . . Mitch Consultancy Sid Heylen (Old Bob), Tex Morton (Gover Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Camera operator .................. Nixon Binney nor), Ted Robshaw (Partridge). Prod, su p e rviso r.....................John Weiley Synopsis: A prison drama where the build Lab. lia ison ................................................BillGooley Focus p u lle r..........................................PeterRogers Prod, co-ordinator .................... Jenny Day up of tension between 'crims 1 and ‘screws’ B u d g e t................................. U.S. $4 million Clapper/loader .................Laurie Mclnnes Prod, manager .....................Su Armstrong Gauge ...............................................3 5 mm leads to a large-scale confrontation. Key g r ip ...........................................Ian Park Unit m anager........................................ GregRicketson Shooting s to c k .......................Eastmancolor Asst g r ip ..................................Stuart Green Location m anager.................................JohnWarran Release date ............................ April, 1980 Special fx Transport manager ...............Ralph Clark SARAH Cast: Brooke Shields (Emmeline), Chris photography........... George Greenough Asst transport manager ....... Jack Skycer Atkins (Richard), Leo McKern (Paddy), Glen Prod, company ...................Yoram Gross Prod, secretary ................. Kathy Flannery G a ffer................................................. BrianBansgrove Film Studio Kohan, Elva Josephson, Alan Hopgood, Prod, accountant .................Trisha Ghent Electricians.............................................PaulGantner, Producer/director .................Yoram Gross Gus Mercurio. Bookkeepers .........................Cathy Barear, Paul Moyes Scriptwriter ............................ Yoram Gross Synopsis: Set in the 1890s, the adventures Lea Collins Boom operators ............. Andrew Duncan, of two eight year-old children marooned on Based on the story by ....... Yoram Gross 1st asst d ire c to r................... Mark Egerton Chris Goldsmith Photography .......................... Jenny Ochse a remote tropical island. 2nd asst director ............... Steve Andrews Art d ire c to r......................... Graham Walker Editor ............................................. Rod Hay 3rd asst d ire cto r.................................. ChrisWilliams Asst art directors ....................Llssa Coote, Animation designer .............Athol Henry 2 nd unit Sally Campbell BREAKER MORANT Assoc, producer ..................Sandra Gross asst d ire cto r.................David Le Maistre Costume designer ......... Norma Moriceau Prod, manager ...................Yolanta Pilllch Prod, company ................ South Australian Continuity .................................Jill Freeman Make-up .................Lesley Lamont-Fisher Prod, secretary .......................Meg Rowed Film Corporation Producer's assistant........... Su Armstrong Ward, a ssistan t...............Camilla Rountree Prod. Dist. company ............................Roadshow Standby p ro p s ...............Tobias Sheppard Casting consultants ........... M & L Casting accountant . . . . Christina Burton-Gibbs P ro du ce r..................................Matt Carroll Special e ffe c ts.................................... ReeceRobinson Camera operator .................Dean Semler Casting ....................................... Animation D ire c to r................................................Bruce Beresford Set construction ...........................Bill Howe Animation camera Focus p u lle rs .......................... David Burr, S criptw riters........................................ BruceBeresford, Asst editor ...........................Vicki Ambrose Peter Menzies Jnr operator .............................Jenny Ochse Jonathon Hardy, Neg. m a tch in g ......................................Atlab Art director ..............................Athol Henry Clapper/loader ..........Richard Merryman David Stevens Sound editor ......................... Tim Wellburn Camera assistants .................John Seale, Background layouts .............. Athol Henry, Based on the play by ....... Kenneth Ross Stunts co-ordinator ................... Max Aspin Frank Hammond Amber Vellani Photography......................... Don McAlpine S tunts................................... David Bracks, Key g r ip ............................Graeme Mardell Asst editors ...................... Phillip Colville, Sound recordist .................... Gary Wilkins Asst g r ip s ...................Graheme Litchfield, Bob Hicks Prue Byram E d ito r..............................William Anderson Rob Ricketson Still photography.................................. ColinBeard Still photography ...................Yoram Gross Prod, manager ................Pamela Vanneck Unit publicist ...................Hugh McGowan Camera g r ip .................... Merv McLaughln Animation ............................... Athol Henry, Prod, secretary .................... Barbara Ring 2 nd unit & Associates Cynthia Leech, Prod, accountant ..............Harley Manners camera assistants ......... Andre Fleuren, C atering....................................................RayFowler 1st asst director ................... Mark Egerton Irena Slapczynski, Benjamin Schick Mixed at ............................................... Atlab 2nd asst directors................Chris Williams, Ray Nowland G a ffer.........................................Rob Young Laboratory ........................................... Atlab Opticals ........... Yoram Gross Film Studio Ralph Storey Electrician..............................................ColinWilliams Lab. lia is o n ........................ Glenda Bartlett Studio ...............Yoram Gross Film Studio 3rd asst d ire c to r.................. Tolvo Lember Directors batman ........... Marshall Crosby B u d g e t............................................ $450,000 Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Continuity ................................Moya Iceton Gene o p e ra to r.................David Parkinson Length ............................................ 90 mins. Budget ...........................................$583,053 Producer’s assistant.............. Moya Iceton Boom operator .........................Joe Spinelli Gauge .............................................. 35 mm Length . . .......................................80 mins. C asting...................................Alison Barrett Shooting s to c k .........Eastmancolor Art d ire c to r.......................................BernardHides Gauge ............................................ 35 mm (S.A. Casting) Costume designer .......... Judith Dorsman Cast: Stephen Blsley (Larry), Arna-Maria Shooting stock .................... Eastmancolor Camera operator .................... Peter Moss Make-up ................................... Judy Lovell Winchester (Carmel), Ross Thompson Release date .................December, 1980 Focus p u lle r.............................. David Burr (Heinrich), Ralph Cotterlll (Gray), Hugh Synopsis: The story of a young girl, Sarah, Hairdresser...................... . Judy Lovell Clapper/loader .................... Simon Smith Keays-Byrne (Eagle), Richard Moir (Pig- who escapes from her war-torn Polish Wardrobe ...................Robyn Schuurmans Key g r ip .................................Ross Erickson gott), Lorna Lesley (Gloria), Patrick Ward village and takes refuge in the forests, P ro p s ..................................................... John Carroll Asst g r ip ................................................. RobMorgan (Oates), Laurie Moran (McSweeney), Bill where she joins the struggle against the Props b u y e r.......................................... JohnCarroll G a ffer..........................................Rob Young McCluskey (Ralph). Standby p ro p s .......................... Ken James enemy. Location m anager..................... Jenny Day Synopsis: A horror thriller about events that Set d ecorator......................... Terry Larsen Boom operator .......................... Jim Currie follow a catastrophic accident at WALDO, Scenic a rtis ts ........................ Bill Malcolm, Art d ire c to r...........................................DavidCopping THE Z MEN Ned McCann an atomic waste repository in Central Aus Costume designer .................Anna Senior tralia. Larry, an ex-racing driver, and his Prod, company ................ John McCallum Carpenter .................................Ian McGrath Make-up ................................... Judy Lovell wife, Carmel, meet Heinrich, a doomed Campsite ca rpe n te rs........... Errol Mason, Productions Hairdresser..................... Catherine Lamey Stuart Mason physicist, and through him become In P ro du ce r............................... Lee Robinson Ward, a s s is ta n t............. Ruth de la Lande nocently enmeshed In a conspiracy which Director ................................. Tim Burstall Asst editor ................. Frans Vandenburg Props b u y e r..........................................Chris Webster threatens their lives and the security of the t d i t o r .........................................John Scott Dubbing editor ........................ Bob Cotter Standby p ro p s ........................Clark Munro nation. Synopsis: A war drama. Asst dubbing e d ito r ........................... Phillip Cotter Special e ffe c ts .................................... MontyFleguth, G reenm an............................................... DonMurphy Chris Murray Assts Greenman .............. David McCann, Set dresse r................................ Ken James MANGANINNIE Peter Forbes Carpenters .................... Peter Templeton, Edge n u m b e re r.......................... Rick Lisle Prod, company ...............Tasmanian Film Glen Finch, P O S T-P R O D U C TIO N Campsite co-ordinators . . . John Shipton, Corporation Lee Carey Anthony Chartres Dist. company ..................................... GUO Set construction ...................Herbert Pinter Animal co-ordinators........... Ray Winslade, P ro du ce r...............................................GildaBarachi Asst editor .........................Jeanine Chialvo Warren Lloyd, Director ................................... John Honey Musical arran g e r.....................................PhilCunneen Keith Harris, S criptw riter................................. Ken Kelso THE BATTLE OF BROKEN HILL Music performed by ...................Tanunda Evanne Harris Based on the novel by ....... Beth Roberts Brass Band For details see Issue 23 Still photography...................Tom Townley P hotography......................................... GaryHansen Sound editor .................William Anderson D riv e r....................................... Doug Sayer Exec, producers ..................... Gil Breariey, Editing assistant ........... Catherine Murphy BLOOD MONEY T u to r.................................................... Shane Sullivan Malcolm Smith Mixer .............................................Phil Judd For details see Issue 23 N u rse s ..................................... Alan Bailey, Prod, manager ...............Pamela van Eck S tu n ts.................................................... HeathHarris, Vivienne Riches Art d ire c to r..............................Neil Angwin Tony Smart Best boy ............................... Peter Moloney Length ..........................................90 mins. Still photography................................... MikeGlddens, THE BLUE LAGOON R unners.................................................PeterKearney, Gauge .............................................. 35 mm Peter Richards Nick Reynolds Shooting s to c k ...................... Eastmancolor Prod, company ........... Columbia Pictures W ra n g le r...............................................HeathHarris Sue Clark Dist. company ............. Columbia Pictures Best boy ............................... Colin Williams
Cinema Papers, December-January — 649
R unner..................................................JennyMiles HARLEQUIN THE LITTLE CONVICT P ublicity.................. S.A. Film Corporation Prod, company . . . F. G. Film Productions Prod, company .................... Yoram Gross Unit publicists .................... David Sabine, for Far Flight Investments Film Studio Jacqui Sykes P ro d u ce r........................Antony I. Ginnane Dist. company ..........................Roadshow C atering............................Movie Munchies D ire c to r................................. Simon Wincer Producer/director .................Yoram Gross S tudios.................... S.A. Film Corporation S criptw rite r...................... Everett de Roche Screenplay ............................ John Palmer Studio Additional dialogue ................Jon George, Based on the original story Mixed at ............................................... Atlab Neill Hicks by ....................................... Yoram Gross Laboratory ............................................Atlab Script e d ito r............................Russell Hagg Sound recordists ...................... Phil Judd, Lab. lia is o n ............................Jim Parsons Based on an original Laurie Napier, Length ............................................. 90 mins. idea by ........................ Everett de Roche David McConnachie Gauge ...............................................35 mm Photography............................................DonMcAlpIne Editor .............................................Rod Hay Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor Sound recordist ..................... Gary Wilkins Composer ................................. Bob Young Release date .......................February, 1980 E d ito r......................................... Adrian Carr Assoc, producer ..................Sandra Gross Cast: Edward Woodward (Harry ‘Breaker' C om poser............................................. BrianMay Prod, managers ................. Yolanta Pillich Morant), Jack Thompson (Major J. F. Exec, producer ................. William Fayman (animation), Thomas), Bryan Brown (Lt Peter HandAssoc, p ro d u c e r........................ Jane Scott Richard Meikle (live-action) cock), John Waters (Lt Alfred Taylor), Prod, co-ordinator .................Jenny Barty Prod, secretary .................... Meg Rowed Charles Tingwell (Lt Col. Denny). Terry Prod, manager ..........................Jane Scott Prod. Donovan (Lt Simon Hunt), Alan Cassell Draftsperson.................Virginia Bieneman accountant , . . . Christina Burton-Gibbs (Lord Kitchener), Ray Meagher (Sgt Maj. Prod, accountant ...................... Lyn Barker Casting ................................ Richard Meikle Drummond), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Lt Witton), 1st asst director .............. Michael McKeag Casting consultants .. Mitch Consultancy Rod Mullinar (Maj. Charles Bolton). 2nd asst dire cto r................................. GrantHarris Lighting cameraman ....... Madd Lighting Synopsis: Based on the famous Boer War 3rd asst d ire cto r.................................JennyMilesCamera operators .............. Brian Probyn, incident, in which three Australian soldiers Continuity ......................... Caroline Stanton Chris Ashbrook, were court-martialled by the British army as Producer’s assistant.......... Sylvia Van Wyk Frank Hammond (live-action) political scapegoats and later executed. Casting consultants .............Marvin Paige Jenny Ochse, and Associates (USA) Bob Evans, Camera operator .................... Peter Moss Graham Sharpe, Focus p u lle r............................................ JanKenny Ted Northover (animation) EXITS Clapper/loader ................ Jeremy Robbins Camera assistants ...............Paul Murphy, Prod, company .............. Stringybark Films Key g r ip ............................... Ross Erickson Mathew Thane, P ro du ce rs........................... Pat Laugheran, Asst grip ..............................Robin Morgan Richard Michalak, Carolyn Howard, G a ffe r..................................................... MickMorris Christy Smith, Paul Davies Boom operator ................. Mark Wasuitak Peter Menzles jun. D ire c to rs ............................. Pat Laugheran, Art d ire c to r..........................Bernard Hides Animation director ............. Paul McAdarr, Paul Davies Make-up .............................. Lois Hohenfels Character design .................. Athol Henry, S criptw rite r.............................. Paul Davies H airdresser......................................... CherylWilliams Paul McAdam Photography............................... Paul Cavell Wardrobe ...................................Terry Ryan Make-up ........................... Josy Knowland, Sound recordist ....... Lynton Macfadzean Ward, assistan t.................. Vicki Rowland Patricia Cunliffe E d ito rs ................................. Pat Laugheran, Props b u y e r.........................................OwenPatterson Hairdresser ........................ Josy Knowland Carolyn Howard, Standby p ro p s ......................................ClarkMunro Wardrobe ......................... Judith Dorsman Paul Davies Special e ffe cts......... Conrad C. Rothmann Props .................................. Jan Carruthers Com posers............................ Peter Holden, Special effects assistant . . . . Chris Murray Background layouts .............. Athol Henry, Peter Botsman, Set construction .................Steve Courtley Amber Vellani Lynton Macfadzean Dubbing editor ........................ Adrian Carr Asst editor ............................. Prue Byram, Best boy .................................. Reg Garslde Prod, secretary ......................... Sally Webb Phillip Colville R unner................................................... DaroGunzberg 1st asst director ............... Kerry O’Rourke Neg. matching .................Margaret Cardin Unit publicist ...................Lynette Thorburn Continuity .......................... Suzanne Provls Songs performed by ...............Rolf Harris Mixed at ................................ United Sound Art d ire c to r................................Paul Cavell Sound editor ................................Rod Hay Laboratory .....................................Colorfilm Studios...................... Backyard Workshop Still photography .................Yoram Gross Lab. lia ison ............................................... BillGooley Mixed at ....................................Jan Murray Animation ............................... Athol Henry, Length ............................................ 94 mins. ’ Laboratories..........................Cinevex, VFL John Hill, Gauge .............................................. 35 mm Length ............................................. 83 mins. Cynthia Leech, Shooting sto ck ....................... Eastmancolor Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Wal Logue, Release date .Domestic — February 1980 Shooting sto ck....................... Eastmancolor Paul McAdam, Foreign — Cannes 1980 Release date ...................December, 1979 Ray Nowland, Cast: Robert Powell (Gregory Wolfe), David Cast: Robert Antoniades (The manager), Vivien Ray, Hammings (Nick Rast), Carmen Duncan Kim Bannikoff (The cabbie), Monica BanIrena Slapczynskl, (Sandra Rast), Broderick Crawford (Doc nikoff (The barmaid), Charlie Dale (The Kay Watts Wheeian), Gus Mercurio (Mr Bergier). digger), Paul Davies (George), Mary Anne Opticals ........... Yoram Gross Film Studio Synopsis: A 1980 version of the Rasputin Grey (Rose), Carolyn Howard (Anna), Pat Title designer ...................... Amber Vellani legend. Laugheran (The paper seller), Suzanne Publicity ......................Village Roadshow Provis (The secretary), Kerry O’Rourke (The Studios .............Yoram Gross Film Studio bomber). Mixed at ..............................................Atlab Synopsis: A freelance newspaper collector Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm and crossword enthusiast stumble across Budget ...........................................$423,467 the ultimate political clue to the sacking of Length .......................................... 80 mins. Gough Whitlam, but are powerless to act. Gauge ............................................ 35 mm Shooting stock ......................Eastmancolor Relase date ............. December 20, 1979 To be first released ....... Village cinemas FINAL CUT throughout Australia Prod, company ........... Wilgar Productions Cast; Rolf Harris and animated characters. Dist. com pany.......................................GUO Synopsis: The story of 13 year-old Toby, the Producer................................................MikeWilliams youngest convict to be deported to Austra D irector................................. Ross Dimsey lia from England, his friendship with WahScriptwriter.................... Jonathon Dawson roonga, an Aboriginal boy, and a pet koala, Original Idea by............ Jonathon Dawson Yo-Yo. Photography............................................RonJohansort Editor..................................................... TonyPatterson Prod, designer....................................JamesPenny Assoc, producer................................. FrankGardiner SAM Prod, manager .................... Terrie Vincent Prod, company ....................... Uklyo Films Prod, secretary............................ Liyn Miller Dist. company............................ Uklyo Films Prod, accountant .....................Judy Frazer Producers ............................Hilton Bonner, 1st asst director ........................Scott Hicks Zbigniew Friedrich Continuity ................................... Julie Bates Director ............................Don McLennan Casting consultants . . . Mitch Consultancy Scriptwriters .....................Don McLennan, Focus puller.........................................HenryPierce Hilton Bonner Clapper/loader ........................ Gary Wade Photography .................Zbigniew Friedrich Key grip.................................................. JackLester Sound recordist .................Lloyd Carrick Gaffer.......................... Graham Rutherford Editor ............................Zbigniew Friedrich Electrician................................................LyleBlnney Assoc, producer ...................Sonny Naldu Asst electrician ......................Alan Glossop Prod, manager .................... Rod McNicol Boom operator ...................... Max Bowring Prod, accountant .................Sonny Naldu Costume .......................... Camilla Rountree 1st asst director ...................Rod McNicol Make-up ...................... Margaret Llngham Continuity ............................... Julie Cutler Wardrobe ...................... Helen Weathered Camera operator ___Zbigniew Friedrich P rops..................................... Philip Warner Focus puller ..............................Phil Cross Special effects..................................... FrankLennon Clapper/loader ...............Virginia Brooke Set decorator..................................... JamesPenney Key grip ............................ Rod McLennan Mixed at ............................................... Atlab Gaffer .............. Gerry Lock Laboratory , ..........................................Atlab Boom operator ...............Chris Goldsmith Length......, .................................... 103 mins. Art director ................................Anne Moir Gauge ...............................................35 mm Make-up ............................... Carol Devine Shooting stock........................Eastmancolor Hairdresser .......................................Renartl Release date ............................... .........1980 Wardrobe ........................ Penelope Hester Caet: David Clendlnning (Dominic), Loul9 Neg. matching ..................Warrick Driscoll Brown (Chris), Jennifer Cluff (Sarah), Still photography ......... Maxine Rosewall Narelle Johnson (Yvette). Catering .................................Liza Rosewall Synopsis: A glossy thriller about a show Laboratory ............................................ VFL business tycoon with a shady background, Length ........................................... 90 mins. and a young documentary filmmaker and Gauge ............................................ 16 mm his girlfriend who are making a film about Shooting stock ......................Eastmancolor him. They believe the tycoon has been mak Cast: Tracy Mann (Sam), Kim Rushworth ing “snuff’ films, and try to get a confession (Tim), Kirsty Grant (Debbie), Penelope on film. He Invites them to his luxury pent Stewart (Raelene), John Arnold (Wally), house for a weekend of partying and film Hilton Bonner (Frank), Tony Barry (Barry), ing, and indulges In mind games until the Bill Hunter (Brady), Max Cullen (Newman), party ends in disaster. Jack Allen (Father).
w
following the success of 11?
Dot & the Kangaroo
the little convict STARRING
R O LF H A R R IS in a new production of YORAM GROSS
650 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Synopsis: A young girl, with a background of urban poverty and juvenile crime, at tempts to become a fashion model. The hypocrisy and double standards of society are juxtaposed against the confusion and frustration she feels as she struggles to become part of a community that has no place for her. Surrounded by people who offer plenty of advice, but little understand ing and help, she soon realizes that she will be lucky to escape her past.
WRONSKY For details see Issue 23
A W A IT IN G RELEASE
Gauge .............................................35 mm Shooting stock .....................Eastmancolor Release date .................August 24, 1979 First released .......................Melbourne, Russell Complex; Sydney, Pitt Centre Cast: Judy Davis (Sybylla Meivyn), Sam Neill (Harry Beecham), Patricia Kennedy (Aunt Gussie), Wendy Hughes (Aunt Helen), Robert Grubb (Frank Hawden), Max Cullen (Mr McSwat), Aileen Britton (Grandma Bossier), Peter Whitford (Uncle Julius), Carole Skinner (Mrs McSwat). Synopsis: A love story, based on the novel by Miles Franklin, about a girl divided be tween the stirrings of passion and her need for self-fulfilment.
THIRST
Prod, company .. F. G. Film Productions Dist . company .. . GUO Film Distributors Producer ...................... Antony I. Ginnane Director ...................................... Rod Hardy Scriptwriter ........................... John Pinkney ALISON’S BIRTHDAY Based on an original idea For details see Issue 23 by ...................................... John Pinkney Photography ......................Vincent Monton THE JOURNALIST Sound recordist ...................... Paul Clark For details see Issue 23 Editor .........................................Philip Reid Composer ................................. Brian May Exec, producer ................William Fayman Assoc, producer ...................Barbi Taylor Prod, manager .......................Jenny Barty Prod, secretary ........................ Ann Pierce IN RELEASE Prod, accountant ........... Michael Roseby Prod, assistant .....................Vicki Rowland 1st asst director .....................Tom Burstall 2nd asst director...................John Hipwell 3rd asst director....... ...........Stuart Beatty KOSTAS Continuity ........................... Joanna Weeks For details see Issue 23 Camera operator ....................Louis Irving Focus puller ........................ David Brostoff .......................... Ian Jones THE LAST OF THE KNUCKLEMEN Clapper/loader Key grip ................................... Noel Mudie For details see Issue 23 Asst grips ............................. Terry Jacklin, Geoff Richardson Aerial photography ..............Tony Holtham MY BRILLIANT CAREER Gaffer ....................................Tony Holtham Boom operator ...................... Phil Sterling Prod, company ....... Margaret Fink Films Art director ............................ Jon Dowding Dist. company . . . . GUO Film Distributors Asst art director .......................... Jill Eden Producer ..............................Margaret Fink Make-up ...............................Jose L. Perez Director ....................... Gillian Armstrong Make-up assistant ....................Leo Reyes Scriptwriter ..................Eleanor Witcombe Hairdresser ......................Ursula Wertheim Based on the novel by . . . .Miles Franklin Wardrobe ...................... Aphrodite Jansen Photography ...................... Don McAlpine Ward, assistant ........................Gary Smith Sound recordist .................. Don Connolly Props buyer ................ Georgina Greenhill Editor ................................. Nick Beauman Standby props ........... Georgina Greenhill Prod, designer .................Luciana Arrighi Special effects ___Conrad C. Rothmann, Assoc, producer ...................... Jane Scott Chris Murray Prod, supervisor ...................... Jane Scott Location manager ................Toivo Lember Set construction .....................Ian Doig, Geoff Richardson, Unit manager .......................Toivo Lember Clive Jones Prod, secretary ........... Helen Everlngham Prod, accountant ............... Treisha Ghent Asst editor ............................ Ken Sallows Neg. matching .................Margaret Cardin Bookkeeper ............................ Pam O’Neill 1st asst director ................... Mark Egerton Sound editor ..................... Terry Rodman, Peter Burgess 2nd asst director.................. Mark Turnbull Mixer ..................................... Peter Fenton 3rd asst director................................. SteveAndrews Continuity ............................... Moya Iceton Stunts co-ordinator ............... Grant Page Stunts ....................................... Grant Page, Casting ......... M & L Casting Consultants Phillip Brock, Children’s dialogue Dale Aspin coach .......................... Michael Caulfield Still photography ...................... Suzy Wood Camera operators ...............Louis Irving, Peter Moss Opticals .................. Opticals and Graphic Wrangler ...................... Brian Beaverstock Focus puller ..............................David Burr Best boy .......................... ..Colin Williams, Clapper/loader ......... Richard Marryman Ian Dewhurst Key grip ...................... Ross Erickson Asst grip ...................... Graham Litchfield ~ Runner ............................Craig Emanuel, Tony Shift Gaffer ............................Brian Bansgrove Publicity ..........................Lynette Thorburn 3rd electrix ..............................Paul Moyes Catering ................................ Keith Heygate Generator operator ......... Sam Blenstock (Cecil B. de Meals on Wheels) Boom operator ...................... Joe Spinelll Studios ........................Cambridge Studios, Art director ............................. Neil Angwin Universal Workshop Costume designer ................ Anna Senior ............ AAV Australia Make-up ................................. .Jill Porter Music studio Mixed at ............................. United Sound Hairdresser ...................... Cheryl Williams Colorfilm Wardrobe ................................. Terry Ryan Laboratory ............ Lab. liaison .................... BillGooley Ward, assistant ...............Melody Cooper Length ...........................................98 mins. Standby wardrobe .................Robyn Hall Gauge ............................: .............. 35 mm Props buyer ..........................David Whan Asst props buyer ............. Sally Campbell Shooting stock ...................... Eastmancolor Release date ........... September 28, 1979 Standby props ...................... Clark Munro Sydney Choreography .......................... Keith Eiain, First released ........ Cast: Chantal Contouri (Kate Davis), David Michael O'Reilly Set dresser ........................ Sue Armstrong Hammings (Dr Fraser), Henry Silva (Dr Scenic artist ........................ . Bill Malcolm Gauss), Max Phipps (Mr Hodge), Shirley Cameron (Mrs Barker), Rod Mullinar (Derek Animal standby props ........... Harry Zettel Construction manager ..............Kim Hilder Whitelaw), Walter Pym (Dichter), Robert Thompson (Sean), Rosie Sturgess (Lori), Construction ................... Ken Hazelwood, Paul Martin, Amanda Muggleton (Martha). Danny Daems Synopsis: The macabre story of an attempt Standby construction ................Phil Worth by a secret society to brainwash a beautiful young career woman into believing that she Asst editor ................. Frans Vandenburg is an heiress of their goulish traditions. Neg. matching ...............Margaret Cardin Musical director .................Nathan Waks Painter .................................. Ned McCann Dubbing editor ....................... Greg Bell Asst dubbing editor ........... .Helen Brown Still photography .................David Kynoch Animal/vehicle wrangler ....... John Baird Saddle horse wrangler . .Harold Greenslll Best boy ............................... Paul Gantner Hunner ................................. Cathy Barber Unit publicist .......................... David White Catering ...............John and Lisa Faithfull Laboratory ................................. Colorfilm Lab. liaison ..............................Bill Gooley, Dick Bagnell Budget .........................................$830,000 Length ................................. ....1 0 0 mins.
W ra n g le r.............................. Lucy Maclaren Arthur Pease (Mr Caricature Oz), Tom Bas Synopsis: A positive statement on old age. NATURA MORTA R unners................................ Lucy Maclaren, sett (Meat pie vendor). Three migrant women, whose lives span the Ian Fowler, Synopsis: A satirical glimpse at the way history of the 20th Century, reminisce about P roducer/director.............Ettore Siracusa Tony MacDonald Australians, Americans, and Europeans their philosophies and experiences. S c riptw rite r........................ Ettore Siracusa Laboratory ..............................................VFL look at themselves. Based on the original idea B u d g e t..................................................$1200 b y ................................... Ettore Siracusa I LIKE TO GO FAST Length .............................................10 mins. Photography...................... Tim Morriesson DOWN THE SLIPPERY DIP Gauge ...............................................16 mm EVICTIONS Sound recordist .......................... Ian Bone BOX FLAT Shooting s to c k ............. Eastmancolor Prod, c o m p a n y ........University of Sydney E d ito r...............................Ettore Siracusa Prod, company ...................Berry St Films Progress ........................... Post-production P ro du ce r....................................... Jim Dale Producer/director ................. Kathy Fenton Composer .........................Pietro Mascagni P ro d u ce r..............................Lyn Nicolson Release date ...................December, 1979 D ire c to r......................................... Jim Dale Prod, assistant............... Antonio di Pierro S c rip tw rite r........................................... KathyFenton D ire c to r.............................................RichardLowenstein Cast: Nick Bourke, Cathy Gaynor, Jim 1st asst director ...................Frank di Blasl Based on the original idea S criptw rite r.................. Richard Lowenstein Original Idea b y ....................... Morrie Shaw Gaynor, David Thompson. Photography..........................................ColinHawke Still photography...................Frank di Blasi b y ......... ............................... Kathy Fenton Based on the original idea Synopsis: A children's program made for Laboratory .............................................. VFL P hotography.............................................JanMurray by .............................. Wendy Lowenstein, Sound recordist .................... Paul Turner the International Year of the Child. It deals B u d g e t.................................................. $2500 Sound recordist .....................Narja Kaspar Noel Counlhan, E d ito r.............................................Jim Dale with violence and revenge. Mixed at ................................. Palm Studios Length ........................................... 14 mins. E d ito r......................................Kathy Fenton Tom Hills Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Gauge ...............................................16 mm C o m p o se r.............................. Allison Gross Photography.................. Andrew De Groot Length .............................................20 mins. Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor 1st Asst d ire c to r.................................. PeterHopson Sound recordist ....................... Jacqui Fine DESIRE Continuity .......................Lindsay Colborne Progress ....................................... In release E d ito r............................Richard Lowenstein Gauge ...............................................16 mm Shooting s to c k .......................Eastmancolor Camera operator ..................... Jan Murray Synopsis: A short film on immigration, of Prod, company .. R & R Film Productions C om poser................................................ TimMcLaughian, places and distances. Clapper/loader ............. Lindsay Colborne P ro d u ce r..................................................RonBrown John Elliot Progress ..................................... In release Release date ........................ October, 1979 Camera assistant ............... Peter Nearhos D ire c to r................................................ RuthBrown Exec, producer .................. Murray Brown Synopsis: 170 children play In a small G a ffe r..................................Dave Aberdeen S criptw rite r.......................................... RuthBrown Assoc, p ro d u c e r...................... Ian Fowler, NEWSBOY Boom operator ..........Graham Blackmore Based on the original idea Miranda Bain schoolyard. They discuss their hopes and P ro du ce rs............................Tony Mahood, ambitions for a new landscaped garden be Mixer ....................................... Kathy Fenton 1st asst director ...............Michael Bladen b y ........................................... Ruth Brown John Prescott ing created for them behind their school. Asst m ixe r................................................ JanMurray Photography................................John Lord Continuity ............................................ Jenna Director/scriptwriter ..............John Prescott They invite the audience to share their real Mixed at ................. Murray Film Sound Sound recordist ........................Ron Brown Camera assistant ............... Beamish Elliot Sound recordists ............. Peter Brighton, world and the fantasy games they play, and Laboratory ..................................... Colorfilm E d ito r....................................................... RonBrown Key g r ip ................................ Norval Watson Grant Davis in doing so some of the discomforts of inner B u d g e t..................................................$3556 C om poser................................................. BillFontana Boom operator ................. Tony McDonald E d ito r.................................... John Prescott Length .............................................12 mins. G a ffe r....................................... Gary Plunket Art d ire c to r............................. Miranda Bain city life are revealed. Asst d ire cto r........................ Dianne Friend Gauge ...............................................16 mm Music performed by ............... Bill Fontana Asst art director .................Norval Watson Continuity ............................Dianne Friend Shooting s to ck........................Eastmancolor Sound editor ........................ Ron Brown Costume designer ......................... Val Pitts Casting.................................. Tony Mahood KEVIN IS FINE Progress ......................................Production Mixer ...........................................Ron Brown Wardrobe ............................ Lucy McLaren Camera operator .................John Prescott Cast: Simon Venning (Son), Kevin Dean, Still photography........... Robert Loughman P ro p s ...................................... Miranda Bain Prod, company ........................ Acme Films Camera assistant .................... Paul Larkin (Father), Edna Strudwick (Mother), Rod O p tic a ls .................................................KevinWilliams Special e ffe c ts ...............Demar Demolition S ponsor.................Noah’s Ark Toy Library Length ............................................. 15 mins. Coates (Police officer). Title d esig n er..........................Mike Hudson Company D ire c to r................................. Gordon Glenn Gauge ...............................................16 mm Synopsis: A narrative based on the Boxflat Make-up ............................ Anne Pospichil No. of shots ................................200 to 250 S criptw rite r............................Gordon Glenn Progress ............................ Post-production mine disaster in Ipswich, England, in which H airdresser........................ Anne Pospichil S tu n ts......................................... Mark Ryan Photography ...........................Jaems Grant Synopsis: The story of a boy who sells 17 men were killed. The film Is about a close Choreography ...............Bob Thorneycroft Still photography................. Norval Watson Sound recordist ........................ Ian Wilson newspapers. One day he finds a raft on the relationship between a 14 year-old boy and Neg. m a tch in g .................. Warwick Driscoll Title d esig n er............................ Peter Hirst Continuity .................Michael Balderstone Yarra and heads off in search of adventure. his father, who was one of the men killed in Mixed at ................................ Studio Tracks C atering............................ Abbey Nathanie, Laboratory ..............................................VFL the accident. Laboratory ..............................................VFL Jo Fletcher Length ............................................. 24 mins. Laboratory ..............................................VFL Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Lab. lia iso n ............................ Steve Mitchell B u d g e t..................................................$6500 Lab. lia is o n ...................Peter Watson (Jnr) NOW AND THEN Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor CIGARETTES AND MATCHES Length ...............................................9 mins. B u d g e t..................................................$4100 Progress .............................Post-production Prod, company ................... Phantom Films Prod, company ..........................Jerry Elder Gauge ...............................................16 mm Length .............................................25 mins. Cast: Nancy Black, Ross Williams. P ro du ce r................................ Mark Turnbull Film Productions Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor Gauge ................................................16 mm Synopsis: A woman living In isolation on a D ire c to r.................................. Mark Turnbull P roducer/director....................Jerry Elder Progress ............................Awaiting release Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor farm in north-western Victoria believes her S criptw rite r.............................Mark Turnbull Scriptwriter ................................ Jerry Elder Cast: Jackie Kerin (The Girl), Joe Bolza Progress .............................Post-production child may be partially deaf. Her husband Photography...................Brian Bansgrove Based on the chapter “ Cigarettes and (The Pool Player), Phil Motherwell (The Release date ...................December, 1979 does not agree, and tries to dissuade her Sound recordist .................. Kevin Kearney Matches” from Colin Thiele’s book S u n o n Salesman), Bob Thorneycroft (The Hero), Cast: David Scott (Dave), Marion Edward from making her thoughts known in the dis E d ito r................................... Trevor Hawkins th e S t u b b le Don Munroe (The Gin Drinker), Alison (Neighbor), Cathy Hurley (Cath), Adam trict. Her dilemma is intensified by the visit C om poser............................... John Bushelle Photography.................... David Foreman, Richards (The Barmaid), Nancy Lang Briscomb (Jake), Ron Pinnell (Ed), Tom of someone from outside the district who Prod, manager .........................Lynn Galley Geoff Tanner Hills (Himself), Noel Counihan (Himself). (Dancer), Sally Gardner (Dancer). could provide help and anonymity. Prod, assistants.................................... Chris Maudson, Sound recordists ......................Livia Rusic, Synopsis: Tom Hills and Noel Counihan Synopsis: A girl asks for a glass of water in Phillipa Brennan, Jenny Miles reconstruct their experiences in the militant a public bar, and during the events that Sonia Hoffman MAN OF THE EARTH E d ito r........................................ Jerry Elder unemployed groups of the 1930s, relive the follow she is not sure whether she is ex Continuity ........................ Caroline Stanton C om posers............................... Paul Boate, eviction of a young couple forcibly thrown Prod, company .................... Palm Studios periencing a horrible reality or a nightmare C asting..................................M & L Casting Graham Smith out, and the action taken by the un fantasy. Film Productions Camera operator .................Nixon Binney Assoc, p ro d u c e r.............Robert Campbell employed to make sure it doesn't happen Director .......................................Peter Butt Camera assistant ...................... Jan Kenny Prod, manager ........................ Rex Menzel again. Comparisons are drawn between the S criptw riter................................... Peter Butt Key g r ip ................................................StuartGreen DIRTY BUSINESS Prod, secretary ...................Gemma Booth present social situation and those of The Script E d ito r..........................................PeterWeirBoat g r ip .................................................PaulReed 1st asst director .................Paul Blackwell Prod, company ..................Swinburne Film Great Depression in Australia. Photography.............................. Peter Butt, G a ffe r...................................................... PaulMoyes ^ Department Continuity .......................... Marilyn Menzel Tom Cowan Boom operator ................... Jack Friedman P ro du ce r................................................... IanFowler Camera assistant ...............Carmen Galan Sound recordist v. . . . Alasdair Macfarlane Art d ire c to r..........................Chris Maudson FOREST AND DOVE D ire c to r................................... Robert Grant Key grip . , .......................... Kieran Kennedy Editor ................................. Robert Cogger Asst art director .............. Brlanne Kearney S criptw rite r..............................Robert Grant Asst grip ................................... Kym Elson Prod, company . . . . Beauty and the Beast C om poser.......................... Stephen Doran Wardrobe .......................Lesley McLennan Photography........................ Ralph Strasser Productions 1st asst director .................... Jo Horsburg 2nd unit photography .. .Robert Campbell Asst editor ...................................Liz Stroud Sound recordist ............. Richard Zatorski P ro du ce r........................ Debbie Lamberton Mixed at ................................. Palm Studio's Make-up ..............................Lynette Fisher Neg. matching . Negative Cutting Services E d ito r....................................... Robert Grant Director ............................... Raymond Quint B u d g e t.............................................. $17,682 Hairdresser..............................Sheila Elder O p tic a ls................................. Acme Opticals Original m u s ic ................. Richard Zatorski Wardrobe .......................... Mark McKenna S criptw rite r..........................Raymond Quint Length .............................................30 mins. Title d esig n er...................... Lee Whitmore Camera assistant ............. Tony McDonald Based on the original idea Asst editor ..................................Livia Rusic Gauge .............................................. 16 mm C atering................................Keith Heygate b y .....................................Raymond Quint Progress ......................................Production Music performed by ....... Glenn Henrich, Grips ........................................... Geoff Hall, Mixed at ................................Film Australia Photography........................Raymond Quint Release date ........................ January, 1980 Bob Butler Robin Plunkett, Laboratory ............. Colour Transcriptions Sound recordist ....................... David Willis Synopsis: The tragic story of an oil town that David Thomson Mixer ........................................... Bob Allen B u d g e t.............................................$37,500 E d ito r.........................................Sue Coady R unner..........................................Alan Love 2nd unit photography ......... Natalie Green died in 1951, and how it relates to today’s, Length ............................................. 48 mins. Mixed at ...................Soundtrack Australia G a ffe r................................ Tim McLaughian 1st asst director ................... Colin Bridson energy crisis. Gauge ...............................................16 mm Continuity ...................... Debbie Lamberton Boom operator .................... Martin Wilson Laboratory ..................................... Colorfilm Progress ............................Post-production Camera operator .............. Raymond Quint Laboratory ..............................................VFL Length .............................................19 mins. Cast: Ian Gilmour (Garry), Margo Lee (Mrs MIKE’S BLOOD Camera assistant ..................Colin Bridson B u d g e t..................................................$1500 Gauge ...............................................16 mm Georges), Tony Barry (Marina manager), Neg. m a tch in g ..................... The Neg Room Director ............................David Shepherd Length .............................................15 mins. Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor Stephen Thomas (Steve), Lisa Peers (Sue), C atering................................................. Chris Lever Gauge ................................................ 16 mm Progress .......................... Awaiting release S criptw riter...................... David Shepherd Brian Wenzel (Bert), Bill Vincent (Jones), Laboratory .......................................Cinevex Photography.......................................... NinoMartinetti Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor Release date ...................December, 1979 Robert Morton (Bob), Alister Smart (Mr B u d g e t..................................................$4300 Sound recordist ....................Lloyd Carrick Progress .............................Post-production Cast: Timothy Edwards, Hetty Rolings, John Georges). Release date ...................November, 1979 Length ............................................. 25 mins. E d ito rs ..................................... Rodney Jay, Remynse, Michael Moody, Rada Claridge, Synopsis: A young man loses his job. In try Gauge ...............................................16 mm Cast: Jan Marnell (Tony), Simon Beattie .Louise Blackwell, Mary McKenna, Philip David Shepherd ing to find work he encounters people who Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor C om posers.......................... Lenny Barlow, (The Kid), George Vidalis (Crash Helmet), Laylor, Glenn Evans, David Dudman. Progress ............................Awaiting release Alethea MacGrath (The Woman), Peter John Grant challenge his values and promote am Synopsis: Set in the Australian bush in the bitions that are unattainable. He turns Cast: Lesley Hardcastle (The Woman), Er Producer’s assistant............................... LynCheong Peshut (The Man), Anna Kannava (The Girl late 1920s, the short feature is about a towards a conservative solution to a radical nie Grey (First Shooter), David Glazebrook Lighting cameraman ......... Nino Martinetti on roller skates), “ Henrietta’’ the dog. German migrant boy. He joins his Aus problem: his own expectations. (Second S hooter), Dennis Gill (The Camera operator ................Jaems Grant Synopsis: Two desperate louts turn to crime tralian friends in the usual boyhood mis Husband), Robert Quint (Man in truck), Clapper/loader .....................Tracy Harvey for some easy money, but are foiled by a chiefs, like smoking, and as Guy Fawkes Colin Bridson (Man on editing room floor). Camera assistants ................. Allan Coop, bathroom door. night draws near his adventurous spirit PLAY HOOKEY IN THE SNOW Synopsis: A woman leaves her husband John Smith lands him in unexpected trouble. after an argument and goes to their country Key g r ip ............................ Colin Coxhead, Prod, company ...................... Di Net Films DOWN UNDER DOWNUNDER17I? house. Two inept shooters arrive for the Ben Grant Dist. company ........................ Di Net Films CRAYPOT SONATA Prod, company ............. Sydney University “ hunt” . The ensuing struggle and her even Boom operator ......................Tim Isaacson Producer/director ........... Diana Nettlefold Filmmakers Society Prod, company . . . Behemoth Productions tual escape become the key to her self Art d ire c to r.......................................... SarahCurtis Scriptwriter ....................... Diana Nettlefold P ro d u ce r............................................... PeterCribb in association with the understanding. P ro p s ....................................................SarahCurtis Based on the original idea Director . 7 ......................... Gary O’Donnell Swinburne Film Department Music performed by ..........Leslie Bowker, by ...................................Diana Nettlefold S criptw rite r........................ Gary O'Donnell P ro du ce rs.............................. Robert Grant, Chris Knowles Camera operator ........... Diana Nettlefold Photography....................................... RobertBondy GRANDMA ROSE, ELISE MAE Timothy McLaughian Dubbing editor ...................... Frank Llpson Length ........................................... 27 mins. AND LOTTE Sound recordists ...G re g o ry MacFarlane, D ire c to r........... ....... „Tim othy McLaughian Mixer ..................................David Harrison Gauge ....................................... . 16 mm Gregory Burgmann Scriptwriter ............Timothy McLaughian Prod, company ......... Funded by the AFC Runners.............................. Colin Coxhead, Shooting stock .....................Eastmancolor E d ito rs ................................. Robert Bondy, Photography......................... Natalie Green P ro du ce rs..........................Kimble Rendali, Ben Grant Progress ................................... Production Gary O’Donnell Sound recordist ............ - .Jacqui Fine . Carole Sklan C atering............................ Jenny MacIntyre Release date .................December, 1979 Prod, manager ......................... Peter Cribb E d ito r.......................... Richard Lowenstein D ire c to rs ............................Kimble Rèndali, B u d ge t................................................ $7000 Cast: Sam Nettlefold, Stuart Nettlefold, Continuity ..........................Katherine Gould C om p o se r.................................................. KitBovan Carole Sklan Length .............................................33 mins. Marion Murri, Carl Lyon, John Thomas, Make-up ............................Mark Lamprell, Photography...................... Kimble Rendali, Gauge .............................................. 16 mm 1st asst director ........................Rosie Haas Leigh Adams, Karla Endelmanis. Bronwyn Bassett Continuity .................................. Jenny Haas Carole Sklan Shooting s to c k ...................... Eastmancolor Synopsis: The adventures of two children Asst editor ...................... Timothy Segulln Script a ssista n t................. Brian Robinson E d ito rs ................................Kimble Rendali, Progress ..................................... In release on a skiing holiday. C atering............................Susan Harriman Carole Sklan Cast: David Shepherd, Fran McRedie, Camera operator .................Natalie Green Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Studio d ire cto r.......................Steven Jones Camera assistants ........... Lucy Maclaren, Susan Heinz, Mikki Allen, John Laurie, Length .............................................. 6 mins. Richard Lowenstein Lighting cameramen .. .Wendy Freecloud, Mitchell Faircloth, Rob Scott, Mick Duncan. POINT OMEGA Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Asst grip .......................... Warren Coleman Michael Pursche Synopsis: A drama about a young man Shooting sto ck....................................... Fuji 2nd unit photography Richard Lowenstein Special fx photography....... Steven Jones whose ’anima’ physically takes him over. Prod, company .................. Theatre Visuals Progress ..................................... In release Boom operator .....................Don Margan Art d ire c to r...................... ,. Lee Whitmore One morning he awakens and finds himself Grant assistance....................................AFC First released....... Union Theatre, Sydney Special e ffe cts ...................Michael Bladen Mixed at .................Paddington Town Hall transformed Into a woman. After stumbling Dist. company ....................Theatre Visuals Cast: Andrew Tighe (Jasper), Wiki Oman Asst editor ........................ Michael Bladen B u d g e t................................................ $4700 through a series of thought-provoking en P ro du ce rs.......................... Gabrielle Dalton, (Elizabeth), Kim Donaghue (Spinner), Alan Musical director . . . . Timothy McLaughian Length .............................................42 mins. counters, he realizes what has happened George Glttoes Music performed by ................... Kit Bovan Sissley (The professor), Gregory Howard Gauge .......................... %" color videotape and why. D ire c to rs............................ Gabrielle Dalton, (The clown), Sinan Leong (Asian student), Progress ............. I ......................In release Still photography...................Robert Grant George Gittoes
SHORTS
Cinema Papers, December-January — 651
S criptw riters.......................Gabrlelle Dalton, Grant Hilliard, E d ito r..................................... Lefkos Greco WATTAMOLLA George Glttoes Elizabeth Chapman Exec, producer .................. Ralph Rodgers Based on the original Idea Laboratory .......................................Cinevex Commissioned b y .............. National Parks Mixed at ............Studio Film Laboratories b y ....................................George Gittoes, Length .............................................25 mins. and Wildlife Services (London) Gabrlelle Dalton Gauge ...............................................16 mm Prod, company .................Theatre Visuals Laboratory ....... Studio Film Laboratories Photography......................... George Glttoes Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor Administrated by .. NSW Film Corporation (London) Sound recordist ............... Gabrlelle Dalton Progress .............................Post-production Dist. co m p a n y __ NSW Film Corporation B u d g e t.............................................$10,000 E d ito rs ............................................... GeorgeGittoes, Cast: Neil Melville, Dayle Alison, Alan P ro du ce r............................Gabrlelle Dalton Length .............................................20 mins. Gabrlelle Dalton Bowles, Bruno the Blunderdog, Paul Kelly Director ............................. George Gittoes Gauge ...............................................35 mm Prod, designers................................ GeorgeGittoes, and the Dots, Hilary Brown, Dennis Power. S criptw riters..................................... GeorgeGlttoes, Progress ............................ Post-production Gabrlelle Dalton Synopsis: A film about two Inner suburban Gabrlelle Dalton Release date ...................December, 1979 Composer ...............Martin Wesley-Smith musicians, Neil Meville, a busker, and Paul Based on original idea Synopsis: A film about wind-surfing and Prod, manager .................Gabrlelle Dalton Kelly, who has a rock ’n’ roll pub band. b y .................................................. GeorgeGlttoes, surfboards with sails. Filmed in the U.S. Camera operator ...............George Glttoes Gabrlelle Dalton Special fx photography . . . George Gittoes Photography........................ George Glttoes SLACK VANGUARD Art d ire cto rs......................................GeorgeGlttoes, E d ito rs ...............................................GeorgeGlttoes, Gabrlelle Dalton Gabrlelle Dalton For details of the following films see Issue Prod, company .......................... Black Star Costume designer ........... George Glttoes, Com posers...............Martin Wesley-Smith 23: Illumination Gabrlelle Dalton and WATT A Boy on the Wing P roducer/director............................... OliverRobb Special e ffe cts.................................. GeorgeGittoes, Exec, producer .................. Richard Davis S criptw rite r.......................................... OliverRobb A Face of Greekness Gabrlelle Dalton Photography..................................... Andrew Vial,Prod, manager .................Gabrlelle Dalton Challenging Years Choreography ........... Ronaldo Cameron, Camera operator ............. George Gittoes Oliver Robb I Ching on a Double Bed Michele Messis Special fx photography . . . George Glttoes Just out of Reach Sound recordist .............. Trevor Prouse Neg. m a tch in g ...................................... Atlab Special e ffe c ts.................. George Glttoes E d ito r....................................................OliverRobb (Portrait of a Diarist) Music performed Choreography ........... ’. Ronaldo Cameron, Mixer ........................................... Ian Adkins Lifecla88 by .......................... Martin Wesley-Smith Michele Messis B u d g e t................................................ $3051 The Last Goodbye Sound editor ........... Martin Wesley-Smith Asst editor ........................ Gabrlelle Dalton Length .............................................25 mins. Luck of the Draw Mixer ........................ Martin Wesley-Smith Neg. m a tch in g ......................................Atlab Thunderballs Gauge ...............Super 8 to be distributed Still photography........................... Gabrlelle Dalton Music performed by Martin Wesley-Smith on %" video Voxpop O p tic a ls ................................................. Atlab and WATT Shooting sto ck........................ Agfachrome Title d esig n er.................................Gabrlelle Dalton Sound editor ........... Martin Wesley-Smith Progress .......................... Awaiting release S tudios.............................. Bundeena Studio Mixer ........................Martin Wesley-Smith Synopsis: What does the future hold for B u d g e t...............................................$14,000 Still photography........................... Gabrlelle Dalton, Australia’s unemployed? An experimental Length .............................................25 mins. George Gittoes examination of some options. Gauge ...............................................16 mm O p tica ls.................................................Atlab Shooting stock ........................ Eastmancolor B u d g e t................................................. $5000 Progress ......................................Production TOM ROBERTS Length ............................................ 12 mins. Release date .......................... March, 1980 Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Prod, company ...................Media Centre, Cast: Ronaldo Cameron, Bernum Bernum, Shooting stock ...................... Eastmancolor Canberra CAE THE BUNCH OF FLOWERS Michele Messis. Progress ........... ......................... In release Director ............................................ Ian Hart Synopsis: A short film exploring, through a Release date ...................... October, 1979 Prod, company ....... Harvettl Productions S criptw riters............................................. IanHart, dramatic presentation of dance and special Producer/director ...............Tracy Harvey Cast: Michele Messis, Ronaldo Cameron. Alan Byrne effects, the various Interpretations and the Synopsis: A film on the Royal National Park, Scriptwriters .................Mitchell Faircloth, Photography.................. John Houldsworth series of time — from the Aboriginal con Gary Adams, which expresses the aesthetic qualities and Sound recordist ........................... Jim Wise cept of dreamtime to various modern ex Script assistant ............. Helene Jamieson inspirations of the natural environment. Tracy Harvey planations of time. Based on the original idea Special fx photography .John Houldsworth by ..............................Mitchell Faircloth, Length ............................................. 20 mins. WHITE WAVES Tracy Harvey Gauge .............................................. 16 mm RA TAT TA Prod, c o m p a n y........... Sumpter Brothers' Photography ...................... Nino Martlnetti Shooting sto ck.......................Eastmancolor D ire c to r.................................................. AndiConnell Production Sound recordist ...............David Williams Progress ................................... Production S criptw rite r............................................ AndiConnell Dist. c o m p a n y......... David Sumpter Films Editor ..................................... Tracy Harvey Release date ........................... March, 1980 Original Idea b y ..................................... AndiConnell P roducer/director...................Rod Sumpter Prod, designer ...................... Tracy Harvey Synopsis: Conservation of Tom Roberts’ Photography.......................................... AndiConnell, Based on the original idea Composer ..............................Tracy Harvey painting ’’Opening of the First Federal Paul Cox b y ................................... David Sumpter Art director ............................Tracy Harvey Parliament". Work is being carried out by Sound recordist ................. Sarah Hopkins Photography......................... Rod Sumpter Neg. matching ................................Cinevex the School of Art Conservation at the E d ito rs ........... .........................Andi Connell, E d ito r.................................... Lefkos Greco Musical director ...................Tracy Harvey Canberra CAE. Paul Cox Prod, designer...........Peter Watson-Wood Music performed by ......... Tracy Harvey C om posers.............................................AndiConnell, Exec, producer ....................Ralph Rodger Sound editors .................... Tim Isaacson, Sarah Hopkins Assoc, producers .................. Val Warren, Tracy Harvey WAGERUP WEEKEND Casting..................................... Andi Connell David Sumpter Mixer ................................. Bob Gardener Prod, company .................I.F. Productions Camera operator ..........................Paul Cox Prod, supe rviso r..................Lefkds Greco Narrator ...................................Gary Adams Dist. company Sydney Filmmakers Co-op. Make-up ..................................Andi Connell Camera operators ............. Rod Sumpter, Animation .............................Tracy Harvey, P ro d u ce r............................ Bryan McLellan P ro p s ....................................... Andi Connell David Sumpter Mitchell Faircloth Director ................................. David Noakes Special e ffe cts ........................ Andi Connell Focus p u lle r.................. Rod Sumpter Title designer ........................ Tracy Harvey Scriptwriters .................... Bryan Mclellan, Choreography ........................ Andi Connell Art d ire c to r................ Peter Watson-Wood Mixed at ............... Crawford Productions David Noakes, Neg. m a tch in g ........................ Ricky Maine Asst art director ................. David Sumpter Laboratory ..................................... Cinevex Diane Shaw, Musical director .....................Andi Connell Asst editor .............................Rod Sumpter Budget ................................................ $1150 David Rapsey Music performed by ......... Sarah Hopkins Music performed by . .Vangells and Yanis Length ............................................ 7 mins. Photography..........................David Noakes Sound editor ................................. Paul Cox Sound editor ........................Lefkos Greco Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Sound recordists ........... Bryan Mclellan, Laboratory ..................................... Cinevex O p tica ls.............Sound Film Laboratories Shooting stock ...................... Eastmancolor Diane Shaw Length ............................................... 8 mins. Title opticals . . . . Studio Film Laboratories Progress .......................... Awaiting release E d ito r...................................Bryan Mclellan Shooting sto c k ................................... Kodak Tech, a d v is e r........................Lefkos Greco Synopsis: A children’s story using animated Prod, manager ............................Al Kemp Progress ....................................... In release Publicity ............................. David Sumpter puppets. Diane, a young girl, works as a Prod, se cre ta ry...................... Rhonda Joy Release date ...............November 16, 1979 Laboratory ....... Studio Film Laboratories cleaner at the circus. She runs foul of the R esearch............................. Howard Smith, First released....... Adelaide Film Festival, B u d g e t.............................................. $15,000 ringmaster and gets Into all kinds of strife. Bill Hare September, 1979 Length ............................................ 20 mins. Prod, accountant .................. Eric Sankey Synopsis: An experimental film which pre Gauge -----16 mm for blow up to 35 mm GRENDEL GRENDEL GRENDEL Prod, assistant........................ Diane Shaw sents everyday objects — In this case hands Shooting s to ck......................Eastmancolor Length .............................................35 mins. — in a context which they are not generally Progress .......................... Awaiting release Gauge ...............................................16 mm For details see Issue 23 considered. Release date ................ November, 1979 Shooting sto c k .......................... Ektachrome Cast: Buttons, Mark Ladell, The New Wave Progress ................................... Production of Hawaiian and Australian artistes. RECOGNITION Release date ..............................May, 1980 THE LITTLE CONVICT Synopsis: The film covers the historical D ire c to r................................... Leigh Tllson See details In Features (under Post-pro WINDSURFER events that lead to the confrontation C re w ....................................John Anderson, duction) this issue. between the public, environmentalists, the Lucy McMillan, Prod, company ....... Rod Sumpter Films Government, and Alcoa of Australia over Nicole Ma, Dist. company .........David Sumpter Films the expansion of bauxite mining in the Darl Simon Embury, P roducer/director................ Rod Sumpter SARAH ing Ranges and the building of a new Vicki Cheshire, Based on the original idea alumina refinery at Wagerup in Western Michael Barbleri, b y ...................................... Rod Sumpter See details in Features (under Production) Australia. Mark Hinton, Photography......................... Rod Sumpter this issue.
QUICK FOLLOW THAT STAR Prod, company
............... Kim Humphreys Animation Producer/director ........... Kim Humphreys Scriptwriter ........................... Ned McCann Based on original Idea by ........................................Ned McCann Photography .....................Kim Humphreys Sound recordist ...................Fly By Night Editor ..................................... Bruce Ezard Composers ........................Val Udawanko, Kim Humphreys Music performed by ...................... Kim Humphreys Band Sound editor ........................ Bruce Ezard Mixer ....................................... John Marsh Animation ........................Kim Humphreys Opticals ............................... Acme Opticals Title designer ........................................ XTO Studios ............................... Raymond Lea, Film Graphics Mixed at ...............Klngcroft Productions Laboratory .............Color Transcriptions Lab. liaison ............................. Cal Gardiner Budget ............................................. $10,000 Length ........................................... 18 mins. Gauge ............................................. 16 mm Shooting stock ......................... Ektachrome Progress ........................ Awaiting release Synopsis: An animated rock ’n’ roll fantasy.
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D O C U M E N TA R IE S FEATURES
ASIA — THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY? Prod, company . .Andromeda Productions D ire c to r...................................Ewart Wade S criptw riters........................... Alan Carroll, Ewart Wade Sound recordist ...................John Phillips E d ito r........................................... Ray Daley Camera operator ......... Lee Wong Chang Camera assistant ............... David Walpole Neg. m a tch in g ............. Victorian Negative Cutting Services Mixer ....................................David Harrison Maps ........................................Modelmation Post-production facilities . . . Cutting Point Length ........... ................................. 60 mins. Progress .......................... Awaiting release Synopsis: A documentary dealing with the economies of the Aslan nations, with special emphasis on the role of the ASEAN bloc and its place in the future economy of the region.
BAND ON THE RUN Prod, company . . . . Henry Roberts Films Producer/director ..................Harry Hodge Scriptwriter ........................ Drew Kampion Photography .......................... Harry Hodge, Phil Sheppard, Scott Dittrich Editors ..................................Scott Dittrich, Phil Sheppard Exec, producers ...................Peter Wilson, Chris Brown Production co-ordinator . . Shirley Wilson Business director ..................Grant Young 1st water unit .......................Hoole/McCoy 2nd water unit ........................Greg Huglln, John Ware, Chris Gardener Continuity .......................... Drew Kampion Research .................................Tony Murrell
Music performed by
.....................Wings, Van Morrison, J. J. Cale, Flrefall, Al Stewart, The Tim Gaze Band Mixer ..................................... John Leslie Mixed at ................................Dubbs & Co. Laboratory ............... Color Transcriptions Budget ..........................................$198,000 Length .......................................... 90 mins. Gauge ....... 16 mm (for 35 mm blow up) Shooting stock .................... Eastmancolor Progress .........................Awaiting release Release date ......................January, 1980 Cast: Paul N eilsen, W ayne “ R ab b it” B artholom ew , B ruce Raym ond, Brian Cregan, Peter Drouyn, Michael Tomson, Jeff Hakman, Wayne Karmarda, Rick Neilsen, Karen James-Nielson, Wal Atwool. Synopsis: The story of “ Old Paul Neilsen" who lives on an Island in the South Pacific. Neilsen reflects on his younger days when he travelled the world with three friends, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, Bruce Ray mond and Brian Cregan.
MICK
AUTISM, WHO CARES?
FOR A CHILD CALLED MICHAEL
RACCOLTO D’INVERNO
(previously Birth) (WINTER’S HARVEST) Prod, company ...............Horizontal Films Dist. co m p a n y ................Victorian Autistic Prod, company ...............Illumination Films P ro du ce rs.......................................... Angelo Gigliotti, Children’s Association P ro du ce rs.............................................BraynGracey, Brian McKenzie P roducer/director.................................. IvanGaal Helen Bogden D ire c to r................................................. BrianMcKenzie S criptw riter............................................. IvanGaal D ire c to r...........................................Paul Cox Sound recordist .................... Mark Tarpey Photography............................. Leigh Tilson S criptw rite r..................................... Paul Cox Camera operator ........... Wolfgang Kress, Sound recordist ........................Ron Brown Photography.................... Vittorio Bernini Brian McKenzie E d ito r.......................................................RonBrown E d ito r......................................... John Scott G a ffe r.................................... Gregory Harris C om poser........................Franciscus Henri Length .............................................33 mins. Laboratory ..................................... Cinevex Exec, producer .............Jennifer F. Coller Gauge ...............................................16 mm Length ............................................. 35 mins. Prod, manager ...........................Kevin Duff Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Camera operator ...................Leigh Tiison Progress .............................Post-production Shooting s to c k .......................Eastmancolor THE WOMEN AND WORK FILM Neg. m a tch in g ........................................ VFL Cast: Wendy Hughes, Chris Haywood. Progress .............................Post-production Prod, company .............. Flashback Films Sound editor ............................. Ron Brown Synopsis: A dramatized documentary on Release date ...................December, 1979 P ro du ce rs.....................Megan McMurchy, childbirth, made for the Royal Women’s Title designer........... Louise Merryweather Synopsis: A documentary account of a Margot Oliver, Publicity ........................ Jennifer F. Coller Hospital. community of Italian families who have Jeni Thornley Laboratory ..............................................VFL made an in te re stin g co m bin a tion of D ire c to rs .......................Megan McMurchy, B u d g e t................................................. $5000 Southern Italian provincial custom and GETTING THE MESSAGE Margot Oliver, Length .............................................20 mins. Western consumer culture. Jeni Thornley Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Prod, company ..................AVEC Film Unit B u d g e t...............................................$17,597 Shooting sto ck....................... Eastmancolor Dist. c o m p a n y ..................................... Audio Visual STAIRWAY TO THE MOON Length .............................................90 mins. Progress ......................................In release Education Centre Progress ............................ Pre-production Release date ........... September 30, 1979 P roducer/director.................................. IvanGaalProd, company ........................Circle Circle Synopsis: A com pilation documentary Productions First released.................State Film Centre S criptw riters............................................IvanGaal, which recounts the labor history of Aus P ro du ce rs.........................................GrahamVarney, Melbourne Barbara Boyd tralian working women, juxtaposed with im Phil Snow Synopsis: A survey of the activities of the Photography......................................... LeighTilson ages of women in Australian films. D ire c to r............................................ Graham Varney Victorian Autistic Children's Association. Sound recordist ...................David Hughes BEG, STEAL OR BORROW Sound recordist ..........................Phil Snow E d ito r..............................................Ivan Gaal Prod, company . .Andromeda Productions E d ito r................................................ GrahamVarney Exec, producer ..............................Jim Tate BIG H P ro d u ce r............................................. TrevorLucas Lighting cameraman ......... Roger Dowling Prod, manager ................... Barbara Boyd D ire c to r..................................................Chris Lofven Prod, company ........................ Quest Films Continuity ........................... Laurie Hastings 2 nd unit underwater P hotography..............................Dan Burstall Dist. company .................. Tasmanian Film Lighting cameraman ...............Leigh Tilson photography.....................................RogerDowling Sound recordist .....................John Rowley Corporation G a ffe r.......................................................RobMcCubbin Mixed at .................................................AAV E d ito r..................................................... GuyeHenderson P roducer/director............................. DavidPerry Length ............................................. 48 mins. Make-up ...............................Lois Hohenfels S E R IE S Prod, assistant.........................Helen Lofven S criptw riters............................David Perry, Gauge ............................................... 16 mm Sound editor .........................David Hughes Additional photography........Chris Lofven, Howard Spicer Mixer ......................................David Hughes Shooting s to c k ................ Eastmancolor Malcolm Richards Based on the production Progress ......................................Production Mixed at ................................................. VFL Camera assistants ...................Phil Gross, b y ..................................... Howard Spicer Laboratory ..............................................VFL Synopsis: A documentary on the pearling David Walpole Photography........................Fabio Cavadini Length ............................................. 25 mins. industry, past and present, operating out of DISCOVERY 4 Key g r ip ..................................... Paul Holford Sound recordist ............. t . . . Mark Thorn Broome, Western Australia. Gauge ................................................ 16 mm Concert lig h tin g ..................................... John McKissock E d ito r.....................................................DougCraig Prod, company ...............Perth Institute of Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor G a ffers...................................................... TedNordsvan, S ponsor.......................................... Australia Council Film and Television Progress ........................... Post-production THANK YOU Lindsay Foote Exec, producer ............... Australia Council Release date ...................December, 1979 P ro du ce rs.......................... Owen Paterson, Prod, c o m p a n y ....... Samarai Productions Make-up ................................ Carol Devine Assoc, p ro d u c e r...............Peter Campbell Glenda Hambly Cast: Ian Gilmore, Barbara Boyd, Jean P ro p s .............................................. Georgina Greenhill for the Freemasons Benevolent 1st asst director .........Christine Ataminak Length ....................................... 9 x 6 mins. Holkner, Sue Dunstan, Lance Balchln, Set construction ................. Joel Witherden Institution of New South Wales Camera operator ............... Fabio Cavadini Sacha Wood. Gauge ...............................................16 mrp Musical p ro d u c e r.............................. TrevorLucas P roducer/director.................Terry Bourke Asst editor ............................Shelley Craig Progress ....................................Production Synopsis: Tony recalls the frustrations and Music engineer ........................Ross Cockle S criptw rite r............................Terry Botirke Neg. m a tch in g ................................NegativeThinking Synopsis: Discovery 4 attempts to produce failures of his past caused by illiteracy. The Dir. of p ho tog ra ph y............. Ray Henman Progress ............................ Post-production N arrator............................... Howard Spicer documentary shows how he is taught to short films for a young audience, using non Sound su pe rviso r................................... PhilJudd Cast: Maurie Fields. Still photography.................Cliff Manning professional or fairly inexperienced film overcome this failure, and how he begins to Exec, producer ...........................Allan Grey Synopsis: The story of the Stockley See O p tic a ls ................................................AcmeOpticals makers on the crew. The structure under read andwrite through language ex Mixed at ............................. Sound On Film perience. Mason Band from concept to concert. which the series is mounted, is intended to Prod, lia is o n ............................................ RonKirwood, Laboratory ....................................... Kinelab Doug Wade-Ferrell give the crew professionally-oriented film Length ............................................ 26 mins. Location lia is o n .....................................JohnBarr, experience. The theme of the series is “ Life ENID LORIMER I AM FIJIAN Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Jack Goldsmith, styles of Teenagers” . Prod, company ................Australia Council Keith Buckton, Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor Prod, company .................... Juniper Films P ro du ce r/d irector................................ PeterCampbell Tom Marshall Progress ............................ Post-production Producers/directors..........David Tristram, WORKING UP Interviewer .........................Joanna Parsons Prod, assistant.....................................JamieMirams Cast: Howard Spicer, Lee Moore, Dancers Jamie Wilson Photography............................. David Perry Prod, company ........................ Trout Films Camera assistants ...............Roger Boyle, from the Aboriginal and Islander Dance S criptw riters.......................David Tristram, Sound recordist ................. Fabio Cavadtni Dist. company .......................... Trout Films Com pany, and pupils from M elrose, Mike Harley Jamie Wilson E d ito r......................................... Doug Craig P ro du ce rs.............................. Chris Warner, G a ffer....................................... Ken Mackay Weston Creek and Woden Special High Camera operator ...................Keith Chatto Make-up ................................Gay Gallacher Maureen McCarthy Film editor ............................ Ron Williams Schools. Editing fa cilitie s.................Film Production Neg. matching .............. Negative Thinking D ire c to r................................... Chris Warner Editing assistants ....................Lee Smith, Synopsis: Howard Spicer is known to Services Music performed by ....... Bernadette and S criptw rite r.......................... Chris Warner, Cathy Sheehan school children all over Australia as Big H, Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Michael Harvey Maureen McCarthy Still photography.................... David Miller the Operatic Bikie. Dressed in leather, he Length .............................................26 mins. Editing assistant ...................Shelley Craig Based on original idea Graphics ...............................Rupert Sparke rides his motor-cycle into classrooms and Gauge ................................................16 mm Mixer ................................... Brett Robinson b y ........................................Chris Warner, Post-production s u p e rv is o r___Alan Lake introduces young people to opera. Using Shooting s to c k ...................... Eastmancolor Mixed at ........................... -.Sound on Film Maureen McCarthy Laboratory ..................................... Colorfilm Spicer's work as an example, the film il Progress ........................... Post-production Laboratory ........................................ Kinelab Photography.................... Jaems Grant Length ............................................. 26 mins. lustrates the concept of Innovative arts Synopsis: A documentary illustrating Fiji’s Length ............................................. 61 mins. Sound recordist . . . . Annemarle Chandler Gauge ...............................................16 mm education projects. multi-cultural society. Gauge ............................................... 16 mm E d ito r......................................Chris Warner, Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor Shooting s to ck ...........................Ektachrome Maureen McCarthy Progress .............................Post-production EAT THE RICH IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK Progress ............................. Post-production Prod, secretary ......................... Fiona Colin Release date .................... December, 1979 and Prod, company . . . Black Star Illumination Synopsis: One ofaseries of film profiles to Continuity .....................Maureen McCarthy First released.................................... Sydney Photography.......................................... MikeBajko GIVING UP IS BREAKING be made by the Australia Council on dis Cast: Chard Hayward (Early Mason), Bob Camera assistant .................Gail Haglund E d ito r..................................................... MikeBajko tinguished Australians in the arts. Lundgren (House Master), Barry Donnelly Still photography.................. Ruth Madison MY HEART C atering................................................ FionaColinSound recordist ...................... Oliver Robb (Stonemason), Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler Prod, company . . . . Redheart Pictures for Lighting cameramen ....... Rod Freedman, (Singers), Dorothy Upton (Annuitant), and Laboratory ..................................... Colorfilm THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED the NSW Film Corporation Mike lubetski M em bers of the Tam w orth H istorical Lab. lia iso n ................................Bill Gooley Prod, company .................... Phonic (Films) Graphics ................................... Oliver Robb Dist. company . . . . NSW Film Corporation Length ...................................... 2 x 25 mins. Society. Dist. company ...R ich a rd Price Television Length .............................................10 mins. P ro du ce r............................... Daniela Torsh Gauge ...............................................16 mm Synopsis: A documentary depicting 100 P ro d u c e r.................................. John Oakley Gauge ............................. Super 8 mm (for Director ..............................Susan Lambert Shooting sto c k ........................Eastmancolor years of the Freemasons Benevolent Insti D ire c to r.................................... John Oakley transfer to video) S criptw rite r........................ Susan Lambert Progress .............................Post-production tution’s work in New South Wales, focusing S criptw rite r.............................. Bill Bemister Synopsis: When Prime Minister Malcolm Sound recordist .......................... Pat Fiske Release date ........................ October, 1979 on their community work. Based on the original Idea Fraser turned up at a Liberal Party fund E d ito r.......................... Rhonda Macgregor Synopsis: Adocumentary about nine b y ..........................................Bill Bemister raising dinner at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel, C om poser..............................................TonyBurkys women who work in non-traditional oc Photography.............................. Phil Murray an eager crowd of 400 was waiting to greet Exec, producer ................... Richard Davis cupations: a computer systems analyst; a Prod, manager .................... Daniela Torsh Sound recordist ..........................Phil Judd him. printing compositor; a livestock drover; a For details of the following films see Issue Prod, accountant ...............Janice Duncan E d ito r......................................Ron Williams process worker/shop steward; an appren 23: Lighting camera ........................ Jan Kenny Exec, producer .....................Bob Sanders tice motor mechanic; a flying instructor; an Animals of Australia Camera assistant ....... Shalagh McCarthy Assoc, p ro d u c e r.....................Bill Bemister actor/singer; a union organizer; and a THE ELEVEN POWERS Born to Lead Set construction ......................... Carol Ruff Prod, secretary .......................Clem Wilson surgeon. Musical director ..................... Tony Burkys Build and Destroy Prod, company ...............Larry Gartenstein Producer's assistant............ Lesley Blayney . . . But Not By Chance Productions in association with Music performed by ........... Tony Burkys, Lighting cameraman ............... Phil Murray The Country Editor Carol Ruff Cinetel Productions Camera operator .....................Phil Murray Imprinting in Ducklings Dist. company ................ Larry Gartenstein Sound editor ............. Rhonda Macgregor Neg. m a tch in g ...........................Pam Toose Still photography...............Sandy Edwards It’s a Nice Feeling to be the Winner Productions in association with Music performed by ........................Library My Survival as an Aboriginal Cinetel Productions Graphics ...................................... Carol Ruff Sound editor .......................... Ron W illia rÿ Robin Campbell — Old Felier Now P ro du ce r..............................Frank Heimans R unner................................Carol Kostanich Mixer .......................................Mike Maxwell SHO RTS A Secret Place D ire c to r................................Frank Heimans B u d ge t...............................................$25,000 N a rra to r......................................................BillBemister Length ..........................20 mins., 15 mins. Some of our Airmen are no longer Missing S criptw rite r...................... Bryce Courtenay Still photography.....................John Oakley Gauge ................................................ 16 mm Star-spangled Illusions Photography................................... Geoffrey Burton O p tic a ls .................................... Larry Wyner We Built Some Great Ships Sound recordists ............... Kevin Kearney, Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor P ub licity........... Seven Television Network The Wetlands Problem Progress ............................ Pre-production Fabio Cavadini S tudios..................................Phonic (Films) Why Wilderness Editor '................................... Frank Heimans Release date ...............February 18, 1980 Mixed at .............................. Sound on Film AUSSIES ALL Exec, producer ...............Larry Gartenstein First released . . . . Pan Pacific Conference Laboratory ............. Colour Transcriptions on drugs and alcohol Camera operators ......... Geoffrey Burton, Prod, company ..................AVEC Film Unit Lab. lia is o n ............................................... CalGardiner David Perry, Cast: Carol Ruff, Emu. Dist. company ....................AV,EC Film Unit B u d g e t............................................... $75,000 Michael Dillon Synopsis: Two films which show the dif P roducer/director................. Barbara Boyd Length ............................................. 75 mins. Camera assistant ................. Jeremy Rabie ficulty women experience giving up drugs S criptw rite r.......................... Barbara Boyd Gauge ............................................... 16 mm during pregnancy. The emphasis is on Asst editor .............................Louise Meek Photography...................... Mike Brayshaw Shooting s to ck........................Eastmancolor tobacco and alcohol — the most commonly Mixer .....................................Peter Fenton Sound recordist ................. David Hughes Progress .......................... Awaiting release used drugs — which are known to increase N arrator............................................... Orson Welles E d ito r.................................... Barbara Boyd Release date ................. November, 1979 Still photography...............Douglass Baglin the likelihood of developmental and birth Exec, producer ............. Ross R. Campbell First released.................. Seven Television problem s. The film s include positive B u d g e t............................................ $75,000 Prod, manager .......................Sacha Wood Network Length ............................................ 50 mins. suggestions for women and health workers Length ............................................. 25 mins. Synopsis: A documentary on the search for on how to reduce drug usage during Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Gauge ...............................................16 mm Nazi war criminals which includes secret pregnancy, and where to go for help. Shooting sto ck...................... Eastmancolor Progress ................................... Production footage of two of the most wanted war Progress ...................................... In release Synopsis: A depiction of the interactions, criminals still living, and Interviews with Release date .................September, 1979 complexities, ambiguities, advantages and members of the Israeli intelligence services, Synopsis: A record of the magical '11 ironies inherent in Australia as a multi Jewish Nazi hunters, members of executed powers’ festival and ceremonies held in Bali war criminals’ families and war crime vic cultural society. during February and April 1979. tims. Prod, company .. Geoff Beak Productions P ro d u ce r....... , f : ........................Geoff Beak S criptw rite r..................................Geoff Beak B u d g e t.............................................$200,000 Length ............................................. 90 mins. P ro g re s s ........... ............... Pre-production Release date ......................................... 1980 Synopsis: A documentary drama on a would-be battler who finds the ground con tinually cut from under his feet.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 653
T E L E V IS IO N D O C U M E N TA R IE S
For details see pp. 652, 653.
P ILO TS
Based on the original idea by .................................. Diana Nettlefold Photography ..................... Diana Nettlefold Sound recordist .................... Spectangle, John Enler Editor ................................ Diana Nettlefold Composers ................................. Don Kay, John Enler Laboratories .................De Luxe General, VFL Length ................................. 13 x 27 mins. Gauge .............................................16 mm Shooting stock ...................... Eastmancolor Progress ..............................In production Cast: Sam Nettlefold, Stuart Nettlefold, Edith Timming, Ethel Trethewey, Vita Endelmanls, Marion Muttl, Carl Lyon, David Williams, The Rea, Cutts and Winspear families. Synopsis: A series which traces the life of two boys as they grow up. Their parents travel a lot and leave them in the care of unsuitable people and families with child ren of different ages.
Props ................................. Stephen Walsh Set construction ............. Peter Barbedos Musical director ............. William Motzlng Music performed by ................... Australian Screen Music Sound editor ........................Greg Gurney Still photography ........................ Ray Hand Publicity ...................... Felicity Goscombe Catering ........................ Anne Dechaineux Studios ....................................... Channel 0 Length ...................................2 x 50 mins. Progress ..................................... In release Release date .................... February, 1979 First released ....... National 0-10 Network Cast: Val Lehman (Bea), Patsy King (Erica), Pelta Toppano (Karen), Colette Mann (Doreen), Barry Quin (Greg), Elspeth Ballantyne (Meg), Gerard Maguire (Jim), Sheila Florance (Lizzie), Fiona Spence (Vera), Lesley Baker (Monica). Synopsis: A drama on life In an Australian women’s prison.
SECRET VALLEY LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY Prod, company . Reg Grundy Productions in association with the Nine Network and Prod, company ................................... ABC the Australian Film Commission Exec, producer ............ Oscar Whitbread P ro d u ce r................................Roger Mlrams Director ..............................Douglas Sharp Directors ........................... .TerryBourke, Scriptwriter .................. Everett de Roche Prod, manager ....................Frank Brown Howard Ruble Scriptwriter ............................Terry Bourke 1st asst director ...................Glenda Byrne 2nd asst d ire cto r...................Peter Murphy Based on an original idea by ....................................... Roger Mlrams Producer’s assistant .. Joanne McLennan Length ...................................3 x 50 mins. Photography............................................RayHenman Progress ................................... Production Sound recordist ...........................Phil Judd E d ito rs ................................... Ron Williams, Cast: Frank Gallacher (Jan), Beverley Alan Lake Blankenship (Anna), Jane Norris (Nikki), Prod, manager .................... Michael Lake Sarah Norris (Tassy), Tim Robertson (The R everend C h a rle s), J u lie B lake (Dr B u d g e t.............................................$150,000 Fletcher). Length ........................................... 120 mins. Synopsis: A drama series about the effect Gauge ................................................. 16mm Shooting s to c k ........................Eastmancolor of Inexplicable sightings on a small seaside town. Children in the town witness visions Progress ............................ Pre-production that are unseen by adults, and their parents Synopsis: A group of country children react in different ways to what becomes a decide to help save an old man from being disturbing puzzle. evicted from his gold-fossicking property, and turn a ghost town into a weekend PRISONER holiday camp for city children. Prod, company ...................... The Grundy Organization THE COAST TOWN KIDS Dist. company .....................0-10 Network Prod, company ..Andromeda Productions Producer ..................................Ian Bradley D ire c to r................................ Peter Maxwell Directors ..................................Leon Thau, S criptw rite r....... . Roger Vaughan Carr Marcus Cole, Sound recordist .....................John Phillips Leigh Spence, Phil East E d ito r..........................................Ray Daley Exec, producer ...................... Ewart Wade Scriptwriters ........................ Sheila Sibley, Michael Brindley, Prod, manager ...................... Sue Hornby 1st asst director .....................Tom Burstall Denise Morgan, Ray Kolle, Lighting cameraman ...............Ernie Clark John Upton, Camera assistant .....................Rod Murray Margaret McClusky, Key g r ip ............................ Paul Ammitsboll Dave Worthington, Asst grip .............................. Peter Kershaw Ian Bradley G a ffe r..................................................... BrianAdams Based on the original idea Boom operator ........................Phil Sterling by .........................................Reg Watson R unner....................................Duncan Wade Sound recordists ................... Gary Hayes Standby p ro p s .................. Paddy Reardon Rob Saunders, Post-production facilities . . . Cutting Point David Keates Progress .............................Post-production Editors ................................. Keith Elliott, Cast: John Wood (Tom Wilde), Frank David Jaeger Gallacher (Len Wolding), Alan Hopgood Prod, designer ........................ Ian Costello (Mick James), Peter Felmlngham (Fred Composer .............................. Alan Caswell Farnell), Robert Korosy (Peter Martin), Exec, producer ...............Godfrey Philipp Missy Martin (Sally Wilde), Justin Stanford Prod, co-ordinator .......... Fay Rousseaux (Skinny). Prod, manager ...................Valerie Unwin Synopsis: A pilot for a children’s series Prod, assistant .......................... Maura Fay based in the coastal resort town of Lome, 1st asst director ................... Bruce Dunlop Victoria. Casting ............................... Suzette Jauhari Camera operators ................. Peter Hind, Ken Mulholland, Noel Penn (studio), S ER IE S Joe Battaglia, Steve Man (location) Boom operator .............Paul Covington Make-up .................Vivienne Rushbrook, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK Adrienne Lee Hairdresser .............. Gilbert of Broadway Prod, company .....................Dl Net Films Director ........................... Diana Nettlefold Wardrobe ...................... Jennifer Carmen, Jan Petersen
TIMELESS LAND Prod, company ................................... ABC Dlst. company .....................................ABC Producer ................................... Ray Alehin Directors ............................... Rob Stewart, Michael Carson Scriptwriter ......................... Peter Yeldham Based o n .................... T h e T i m e l e s s L a n d , S to rm
f
VITTORIO BERNINI Director of Photography 30 years of world wide experience Feature - Documentary - Commercials Phone Melbourne Agent (03) 598 5104
654 — Cinema Papers, December-January
o t T im e ,
and N o B a r r i e r Dir. of photography ........... Peter Hendry Sound recordist ............. Syd Butterworth Editors ............................Richard Francis, Bruce Thumpston, Nell Thumpston Prod, designer ...................George Liddle Composer ........................ Bruce Smeaton Prod, co-ordinator ........... Jenny Couston Prod, manager .................... Dennis Kiely, Michael Baynham Unit manager ....................... Val Wlndon Prod, secretary ...................Debbie Davies 1st asst directors ..................... Ray Brown, Peter Wilson 2nd asst dire cto rs............... David Tunnell, Tim Higgins Continuity ............................Carolyn Gould Casting ................................. Jennifer Allen Camera operator ........... Graeme Galton Focus puller ..........................Roger Lanser Clapper/loader ................... Russell Bacon Key grip ................................... Andy Glavin Asst grip ..............................Alan Trevena 2nd unit photography ___John Shinerock Gaffer ................................. Jack Kendrick Electrician ............................Martin Perrott Boom operator ........................ Nick Wood Episode designer ......... Neave Catchpool Make-up .....................................Val Smith, Norman Blanchard, Christine Ehlert Wardrobe .......................... Elsie Rushton, Barry Lumby Ward, assistant ...................... Edna Surgul Props .......................................... Don Page, Igor Lazareth, Laurie Dorn Props buyers ............... Paddy McDonald, Adrian Cannon Special effects ...................Jack Armltage Set decorator ................. Ken Muggleston Set dresser ...................... Bob Hutcherson Carpenter ...............................Austin Nolan Set construction .................... Laurie Dorn, Stan Woolveridge Asst editors .................... Peter Townend, Adrienne Overall Neg. matching .................Rosemary Dodd Music performed by . . . Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sound editors .....................Helene Harris, Lindsay Frazer Editing assistants ........... Tony Kavanagh, Mark Darcy Mixer ...................................... Peter Barber Asst mixer ................................. Phil Tlpene Still photography ................. Martin Webby
Wrangler ..............................Graham Ware Publicity ............................Virginia Sargent Catering .................Alexandra Receptions Studios .................ABC Television Drama, Frenchs Forest Mixed at ............................Forest Studios Laboratory ................................... Colorfilm Lab. liaison ................................Bill Gooley Length ................................... 8 x 60 mins. Gauge .............................................16 mm Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor Progress .................................... Production Cast: Michael Craig, David Gulpilll, Peter Collingwood, Angela Punch, Brian Hinsel wood, Brian Moll, Brian Blain, Patrick Dickson, Peter Cousens, Chris Haywood. Synopsis: This series spans New South Wales from 1788-1811, depicting the lives of a group of convicts and settlers, against the background of Governor Phillip’s attempts to understand the Aboriginals and his conflicts with the military. The tragic story of Bennelong, Governors King and Bligh, the Rum Rebellion, Macquarie and the crossing of the Blue Mountains.
YOUNG RAMSAY Prod, company . . . Crawford Productions Dist. company ......... The Seven Network Producer ..............................George Miller Script editor .....................Graeme Farmer Lighting cameraman ___Ross Berryman Sound recordist .................Paul Maloney Editor .........................................Philip Reid Exec, producer ............. Hector Crawford Assoc, producer ................... Kevin Powell Prod, manager ...................... Irene Korol Unit manager .......................... Ralph Price 1st asst directors ............. Ross Hamilton, Stewart Wright Continuity ................................... Jo Weeks Casting ................................. Helen Rolland Clapper/loader ........................ Chris Cain Camera assistant ....... Peter van Santen Key grip ............................... Ian Benallack Gaffer ................................... Stewart Sorby Electrician ............................... Laurie Fish Boom operator .............Andrew Ramage Art director ...............................Harry Zettel Asst art director ...................... Julie Skate Make-up ............................. Kirsten Veysey Wardrobe ................................ Phil Eagles, Gail Mayes Props ........................................ John Stabb Set decorator ........................Brian Holmes Set construction .. Crawford Productions Asst editor ..............................Ken Sallows Tech, a d v is e r....................Christine Powell Best boy ........................David Parkinson Runner .......................................Peter Dick Studios ...................Crawford Productions Mixed at ...............Crawford Productions Laboratory ..........................................Atlab Length ................................. 13 x 46 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Shooting stock ...................... Eastmancolor Progress ......................................In release Release date ................ September, 1979 Cast: John Hargreaves (Peter Ramsay), Serge Lazareff (Ray Turner), Louise Howltt (Cassie McCallum). Synopsis: The adventures of a country veterinarian (second series).
For details of the following television series see Issue 23: And Here Comes Bucknuckle Ride on Stranger This Fabulous Century Water Under the Bridge Shirl’s Neighbourhood Skyways The Sullivans
A U STR A LIA N FILM C O M M IS S IO N PROJECT DEVELOPMENT BRANCH Projects approved at the AFC meeting In August 1979.
Script Development Forest Home Films (NSW), additional script development and pre-production for The Factor — $20,000.
Production Investment Mariner Films (Vic.), production Invest ment for a television series, A Town Like Alice — $390,000. Tasmanian Film Corporation, conditional approval of production Investment for Manganinnie — $160,340. Wilgard Production (Qld), production investment for Final Cut — $44,000.
Loans Paul Drane Productions (Vic.), for The Prophesies of Nostradamus — $30,000. John McCallum Productions (NSW), for Fly to the Wolf — $175,000. John McCallum Productions (NSW), for The Z Men — $175,000.
Provisions for Overage Loans Mariner Films (Vic.), provision for overage loan for A Town Like Alice — $195,000. Wilgard Productions (Qld), provision for shared overage loan for Final Cut — $15,000. ' Projects approved at the AFC meeting In September 1979.
Script Development Phillip Adams (Vic.), script development for The Jewish Ticket — $7300. C ra w fo rd P ro d u c tio n s (V ic .), s c rip t development and pre-production for All The Rivers Run — $94,080 Ginny Lowndes (NSW), script development for The Idealist — $3000 Michael Moses, additional to April approval for Sky — $505.
Pre-production C ra w fo rd P ro d u c tio n s (V ic .), s c rip t development and pre-production for Ail The Rivers Run — $94,080
CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT BRANCH Projects approved at the AFC meeting In September 1979.
Script Development Ronald Allan (NSW), for a first draft script of The Johnny Fairy Story — $3000 Rod Bishop (Vic.), test scenes and script development for Slow Burn — $3527 M a ry C a lla g h a n (N S W ), fo r s c r ip t d e v e lo p m e n t o f G r e e t i n g s Fr om Wollongong — $1000 Richard Cole (NSW), for a treatment of The Forest People — $1200 Robert Eagle and Alexander Gutman, for a first draft script of Death Intervenes — $1500 Paul Harman and Michael Brindley (NSW), for a first draft script of Double Exposures
—$2000
Michael Hill (NSW), for a first draft script of Two Lovely Young Girls — $750 The Law Collective (NSW), for a treatment of The Legal Machine — $1100 Doug Ling and Ian Pringle (Vic.), for a first
t
CLIFFORD HAYES FILM EDITOR Features (Mad Max). TV Series (Young Ramsey The Sullivans - Cash & Co.)
PHONE (03) 592 3695 Mail to 50 Warleigh Grove, North Brighton, Victoria 3186
draft script of The Ballad of Jack and the Soldier — $2400 Pam Lofts, Bill Sykes and Mike Edols (NSW), for script development o f Animation of a Dreamtime — $2361 John Lord (Vic.), for a second draft script of an untitled drama — $2000 Michael Pattinson (Vic.), for a first draft script of A King of Shred« and Patches — $2000 Stephen Ramsay (NSW), for a treatment of The Strange Case of Morris Singleman — $300 Oliver Robb (NSW), for a first draft script of No Dice — $3000 Mark Ruse (Vic.), for a second draft script of Melaney Apples — $3160 Albie Thoms (NSW), for a storyline of The Big Smoke — $300 Jo hn T rig g , C h ris B atson and W ill McConough (Vic.), for a pilot script of This Seems Very Strange — $2496
Production William Anderson (Vic.), Cross Sections Part Two — $8238 Peter Butt (NSW), Men of the Earth — $13,382 Julie C unningham and John Hughes (NSW), Wotsabody on a Pedestal — $6005 Roger de Zilwa (Vic.), Burial — $4055 Alan Ingram (NSW), Desire — $15,977 Craig Lahiff (SA), for test scenes of The Coming — $1496 Gillian Leahy (NSW), S trip -M in ing — $32,769 Michael Nicholson (Vic.), The Presence of an Australian — $4297 Chris Noonan (NSW), Stepping Out —
$10,000
Roger Plant (Vic.), Harvest — $5255 Jeremy Rabie (NSW), for test scenes of Mary Quite Contrary — $1100 Monique Scharz (Vic.), for test scenes of On the Prowl — $1500 Brendon Stretch (NSW), Travelogue — $4347 ’ Peter Surguy (SA), Bridge — $2904 Gary Willis (Vic.), Is This What You Call Love? — $2225
Post-production Tim Burns (NSW), for a re-cut of Against the Brain — $4418 Jo hn D avis, G ary S te e r and R oger Whittaker (NSW), Search for the World’s Deepest Cave — $4521 Digby Duncan and W endy Freecloud (NSW), One In Seven — $5293 Chris Fitchett (Vic.), Blood Money — $8207 A n to ine tte S ta rkiew lcz (NSW), Pussy Pumps Up — $3644
Women’s Film Fund Jane Oehr (NSW) and W.E.S.T. Film/Video (Vic.), Just An Ordinary Life — $4590
FILM A U STR A LIA ARCHITECTURE - A PERFORMING ART Prod, com pany..............Michael Robertson Productions Dist. com pany..................... Film Australia Producer.............................. Peter Johnson Director ......................... Michael Robertson Scriptwriter.....................Michael Robertson Photography.......................... David Gribble Editor........................................... Alan Lake Camera assistant .................John Warran Length .............................................26 mins. Gauge ...............................................16 mm Shooting stock........................Eastmancolor Progress .............................Post-production Release date ..............................November/ December, 1979 Synopsis: A documentary on the famous Australian architect John Andrews.
BEYOND HELL’S GATE Prod, com pany........Satonyx Productions Dist. com pany.....................Film Australia Producer.............................. Peter Johnson Director ................................David Roberts Scriptwriter.......................... David Roberts Photography................................. Paul Tate Sound recordist .................Kevin Kearney Editor........................................Bob Cogger Camera assistant ................... Tony Galley Length ...........................................26 mins. Gauge .......................... - .................. 16 mm Shooting s to ck........................Eastmancolor Progress .............................Post-production Release date ..............................November/ December, 1979 Synopsis: A documentary on the Palmes River Goldfields in Northern Queensland, recounting the horrors and loneliness of the original gold mining fraternity.
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E d ito r..................................... Nick Torrens THE CAPITAL Length .................................... 6 x 1 1 mins. Prod, company ........................Cameracraft Gauge ............................................... 16 mm Dist. c o m p a n y .......................Film Australia Shooting s to c k...................... Eastmancolor P ro d u ce r...............................................PeterJohnson Progress ..................................... In release D ire c to r..................................... Greg Parry Release date .................September, 1979 S criptw rite r....................................... MichaelFalloon Synopsis'. A series of information films on Photography...................... Jim Gilbert ACS Australia's ethnic societies. Length .............................................20 mins. Gauge ...............................................35 mm ROAD SAFETY AND TOWN Shooting sto ck....................... Eastmancolor PLANNING Progress ..................................... Production Prod, company .................... Film Australia Release date .......................January, 1980 Dist. company ...................... Film Australia Synopsis: A documentary on the National P ro d u ce r............................... Peter Johnson Capital and the lifestyle of the people of D ire c to r.................................Greg Reading Canberra. S criptw riter........................... Greg Reading CHASE THAT DREAM Length .............................................25 mins. Gauge ...............................................16 mm Prod, company ..................... Film Australia Shooting sto c k......................Eastmancolor for the Department of Progress .............................. Pre-production Housing and Construction Release date ..............................Early 1980 Dist. company .......................Film Australia Synopsis: A short film on the need for P ro d u ce r............................Tom Manefield liaison between those involved in the D ire c to r................................................... KenCameron planning of community areas with officers S criptw rite r..............................................KenCameron of road safety councils. Photography............................ Dean Semler Sound recordist .................. Howard Spry SEAWATCH E d ito r..................................... Mark Waters Prod, c o m p a n y ___Kingcroft Productions Camera assistant .............Peter Viskovich Dist. company ...................... Film Australia Gauge ...............................................16 mm P ro du ce r............................ Peter Johnson Shooting sto ck....................... Eastmancolor D ire c to rs ............................ Terry Ohlsson, Progress ..................................... In release Bill Stacey Release date ...................September, 1979 S criptw rite r...........................................Geoff Pike S y n o p s is : A s e rie s of d ra m a tiz e d Sound recordist .................... John Marsh d o c u m e n ta rie s , based on real life E d ito r........................................Bill Stacey experiences, which illustrate some of the N arrator.................................................. PaulRicketts difficulties faced by young fam ilies in Length ............................................. 20 mins. today’s housing market. Progress ............................Post-production Release date .................... November, 1979 ENLISTMENT Synopsis: A documentary on the Aus Prod, company ..................... Film Australia tralian navy. Dist. company ....................... Film Australia P ro du ce r............................................... PeterJohnson SOVIET STYLE D ire c to r..................., .............. David Stlven Prod, c o m p a n y ......................................FilmAustralia S criptw riter............................. David Stiven Dist. co m p a n y ........................................Film Australia Length .............................................15 mins. P ro du ce r............................Tom Manefield Gauge .............................................. 16 mm D ire c to r..............................Arch Nicholson Shooting sto ck ....................... Eastmancolor S criptw riter............................Roger Milliss Progress ............................ Pre-production Photography.......................... Dean Semler Release date ..........................March, 1980 Sound recordist .................. Howard Spry Synopsis: A documentary aimed at the E d ito r..................................... Martyn Down enlistment of young men into the Aus N arrator.......................... Margaret Throsby tralian army. Length ...................................... 5 x 27 mins. Gauge .......................................... 16 mm THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENTARY Shooting sto ck....................... Eastmancolor SYSTEM Release date ...................September, 1979 Prod, company ..................... Film Australia Synopsis: Five educational films produced Dist. company .......................Film Australia from original material shot In the Soviet P ro du ce r................................Peter Johnson Union in 1977. Part 1, music; Part 2, D ire c to r................................. Brian McDuffie working; Part 3,farming; Part 4, Schools; S criptw rite r............................. Clare Dunne Part 5, Politics. Photography........................... Kerry Brown Sound recordist ....................Don Connolly THE THINGS WE WANT TO KEEP E d ito r..................................... Louis Anivitti Prod, company .................... Film Australia Camera assistant .................. James Ward Dist. company .................... Australian Film N arra to r...................................Clare Dunne Commission Length .............................................30 mins. P ro du ce r..........................................Malcolm Otton Gauge ................................................ 16-mm Director ...................................Oliver Howes Shooting sto ck ....................... Eastmancolor S criptw riter.......................................... OliverHowes Progress .............................Post-production Photography..................................... Andrew Fraser Release date ...................December, 1979 Sound recordist ......................George Hart Synopsis: A documentary on the Aus E d ito r................................... Lynne Williams tralian Federal Parliamentary system for C om poser........................................... SimonWalker educational outlets. N arrator................................................ GeoffAshby
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Length .............................................21 mins. HORSES Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Prod, c o m p a n y ........................ Bob Talbot Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor and Associates Progress .............................Post-production Dist. c o m p a n y ....................... Film Australia Release date .................... November, 1979 P ro du ce r...............................................PeterJohnson Synopsis: Produced for the Australian Director .......................................Bob Talbot Heritage Commission, this short film S criptw rite r............................................. BobTalbot illustrates the richness and variety of Aus Photography.......................................... KeithWagstaff tra lia 's National Estate ranging from Sound recordist ................... Ian Jenkinson Aboriginal rock paintings to Murray River E d ito r........................................... Mike Read paddle-steamers. It alms to encourage Length ............................................. 20 mins. more responsible attitudes towards the Gauge ..............................................16 mm things we want to keep, and proposes Shooting sto ck........................Eastmancolor practical ways In which Australians can help Progress .............................Post-production to protect their heritage. Release date ............................. November/ December, 1979 WAR WITHOUT WEAPONS Synopsis: A documentary aimed at people Prod, company ......................... Curtis Levy who are about to own their first pony, and Productions the role played by Pony Clubs. Dist. co m p a n y ........................................FilmAustralia P ro du ce r...............................................PeterJohnson NAVY AVIATION D irector/scriptw rlter........................... CurtisLevy Prod, company ..................... Film Australia Photography......................................... GeoffBurton, Dist. company ....................... Film Australia Malcolm Richards, P ro du ce r...............................................PeterJohnson Dean Semler D ire c to r................................................ DavidBarrow Sound recordists .................. John Rowley, S criptw rite r...........................................DavidBarrow Geoff White, Photography..........................................John Hosklng, Garry Wilkins Ross King E d ito r.......................................David Stlven Sound recordist .................... Max Hensser Length .............................................26 mins. Camera assistant .................... Tony Gailey Gauge .............................................. 16 mm Length ............................................. 10 mins. Shooting s to c k ....................... Eastmancolor Gauge ............................................. 16 mm Progress ............................ Post-production Shooting sto ck ....................... Eastmancolor Release date ............................. November/ Progress ..................................... Production December, 1979 Release date ...................... February, 1980 Synopsis: A film on a VFL football team, Synopsis: A documentary aimed at the featuring the North Melbourne Football recruitment of young men for the Naval Air Club. Arm.
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Prod, company .......................Nick Torrens Productions for Film Australia Dist. company .......................Film Australia P ro du ce r................................................Joan Sharp D ire c to r.................................................. NickTorrens S criptw riter............................................. NickTorrens Photography....................................BrendanWard Sound recordist .................Warwick Finlay
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0 0 0 0 STRAIMO 0 0 A D IV IS IO N O F 0 RANK 0 AUSTRALIA 0 12 Barcoc Street, East Roseville NSW 2069. Phone: 406 6186 60 Rosebank Avenue, Clayton South Vic 3169. Phone: 541 8502 0 299 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane 4101. Phone 44 2851 101-105 Mooringe Avenue, Camden Park SA 5038. Phone 294 6555 0 430 Newcastle Street Perth WA 6000. Phone: 328 3933 120 Pany Street Newcastle NSW 2300. Phone: 26 2466 0 0 0 0 000000000000000000 B P R O F E S S IO N A L S E R V IC E S G R O U P
Cinema Papers, December-January — 655
FILM IDEAS ON % AUSTRALIAN CRAFTS N The Joint Film Committee of the Crafts Board of the Australia Council and the Crafts Council of Australia is involved in an ongoing program of filmmaking. One of its aims is to broaden public access to the understanding of the crafts by commissioning many different films, including documentaries ranging in length from 5 to 5 0 minutes. The Committee is looking for suitable ideas for films which project and advocate the crafts, both in Australia and overseas. Professional filmmakers who are interested in the crafts and craftspeople are invited to submit suggestions for inclusion in the program over the coming years. The program is a major initiative of the Crafts Board and the Crafts Council and is run by a committee of representatives of each organisation. The committee canvasses ideas for the program from craftsmen, filmmakers, teachers and craft groups and seeks financial support from a broad cross section of the community. Arrangements for co-production are made with other government bodies and private enterprise where possible. The committee also encourages Australian filmmakers to direct their interest to the production of craft films and seeks to widen their involvement in the program. Some examples of films made in the program are: ® Gillian Armstrong — A Busy Sort of Bloke (Harold Hughan, potter). ® Meg Stewart — Not Ju s t the O bject (Heather Dorrough, textiles and Ray Norman, jeweller). ® Dinah van Dugteren — G a rry Greenwood — Leatherw orker; and L arsen a n d Lewers (jewellers). • and Peter Weir’s film on Peter Rushforth (potter) soon to be released.
What have these Producers in common? Australian International John Lammond Tim Burstall Martin Williams F. Stop Productions
The answer is that each have used or are using all or part of B&C’s equipment and production facilities for the following motion pictures. Blue Fire Lady Last of the Knucklemen Asia Partners, Mystery Partners Eliza Fraser Through the Rip
SURER 8
High Rolling Kostas Final Cut Felicity
B&C supply full production facilities for Independent Producers of motion pictures, including equipment, production offices, cutting rooms, theatrette with Double-Head facilities for 16mm and 35mm and a wealth of experience to help in all legal and financial dealings. Sharing a common address at....
For further details please write to: Joint Film Committee, Crafts Council of Australia, 2 7 King Street, Sydney NSW 2 0 0 0 .
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BOX-OFFICE GROSSES Distributor
TITLE
Tim
GUO
My Brilliant Career
GUO
PERIOD 26.5.79 to 7.7.79
PERIOD 8.7.79 to 20.10.79 SYD.2
MLB.
PTH
ADL.
(4*)
(11/3*)
(3*)
(2*)
54,790
117,491
21,738
12,407
BRI.
Total $
Rank
206,426
1
176,672
2
N/A
3
SYD.
MLB.
PTH
ADL.
BRI.
Total $
Rank -
(9*)
Mad Max
RS
176,672 (15*)
(4/1/2/5)
(2/6)
(9*)
(5*)
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
(7*)
(2*)
N/A
N/A
N/A
1
15,693
5
104,431
2
30,579
3
N/A
9
)
(1/4)
(6/1)
RS
20,091
30,579
(4)
(5)
GUO
20,628
23,442
The Last of the Knucklemen
RS
(3)
(4)
23,972
11,281
The Odd Angry Shot
RS
Felicity
RS
Cathy’s Child
In Search of Anna
(2)
(5)
5,553
22,346
50,670
4
44,070
5
35,253
6
27,899
7
N/A
8
(1*)
(2*)
8,838
6,855
(5)
(3/4*)
(4/2)
26,535
35,264
42,632
(3)
16,705 (2)
N/A (2/1)
7,755
GUO
7,755
Dawn!
H TS
N/A
N/A
(2)
(3)
6,869
23,710
(1)
Australian Total
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Foreign Total0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Grand Total
9
10
53,890 74,620 A 1,750,020
4,105,579 3,650,249 2,052,996 1,276,540 1,052,875 12,138,239
☆ Figures exclude N/A figures. • Box-office grosses of individual films have been, supplied to C i n e m a P a p e r s by the Australian Film Commission, o This figure represents the total box-office gross of all foreign films shown during the period in the area specified. * Continuing into next period NB: Figures in parenthesis above the grosses represent weeks in release. If more than one figure appears, the film has been released in more than one cinema during the period.
7,234 ☆
1,803,910 1,671,211 1,004,100
(1)
(1*)
N/A
N/A
N/A
45,649☆
181,393*
N/A
539,705
463,801 5,482,727
(1) Australian theatrical distributor only. RS — Roadshow; GUO — Greater Union Organization Film Distributors; HTS — Hoyts Theatres; FOX — 20th Century Fox; UA — United Artists; CIC — Cinema International Corporation; FW — Filmways Australasian Distributors; 7K — 7 Keys Film Distributors; COL — Columbia Pictures; REG — Regent Film Distributors; CCG — Cinema Centre Group; AFC — Australian Film Commission; SAFC — South Australian Film Corporation; MCA — Music Corporation of America; S — Sharmill Films; OTH — Other. (2) Figures are drawn from capital city and Inner suburban first release hardtops only.
BOX-OFFICE GROSSES
Cinema Papers, December-January
Dimboola
(o w e
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ty fá a m jx M & m s W
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is proud to represent
TOM RICHARDS
KAREN PETERSEN
Dawn! (Harry Gallagher), Matlock Police.
Godspell, The Young Doctors, Petersen.
APOLOGY In an article about the Sydney Film Festival written by me in the Nation Review issue of 22-28 June 1978, I stated that Jeremy Thomas, the producer of the British film The Shout, had spent time in Australia during the making of The Last Wave, and that The Shout contained "a swag of ideas and images lifted whole” from The Last Wave. I also stated that Mr. Thomas owed money to me and to other persons. I regret that there was no truth in any of these statements, nor in their implication that Mr. Thomas was guilty of plagiarism and had unjustifiably failed to pay his debts. I now know that The Shout was based on a 1928 short story, and that no one concerned in its production knew anything of The Last Wave. Mr. Thomas has never owed me money. I apologise to Mr. Thomas for my defamatory remarks, and for any distress and embarrassment that they have caused him. Robert Ellis, Writer.
S H A R M IL L FILM S announces with m uch pride the acquisition of Erm anno O im i’s highly acclaim ed Italian m asterpiece
THE TREE OF WOODEN CLO GS (L’Albero Delgi Zoccoli) Winner of the coveted GOLDEN PALM, CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 1978. ". • • ‘The Tree of Wooden Clogs’ is incomparable. It towers over the contemporary cinema. After only a tew minutes of the film, I felt myself magically transported to the realm of sublimely expressed feelings. That exultation, of which only the most magnificent art is capable . . . A CINEMATIC MIRACLE". .
Andrew Sarrls, VILLAGE VOICE.
Watch for details of forthcoming theatrical release.
BRIAN EVIS
CAN D Y RAYMOND
The Odd Angry Shot.
Don’s Party, The Sullivans.
BRIAN M OLL
ROS WOOD
Alvin Purple, The Young Doctors (Dr Snape).
Currently starring in The Young Doctors (Kate Rhodes).
DIANA M cLEAN Ben Hall, This Week in Britain, The Young Doctors.
MICHAEL CATO N The Sullivans.
Sharmill Films 27 Stonnington Piace TOORAK 3142 AUSTRALIA Phone: (03) 20 5329. Cable: Sharfilms Director: Natalie Millar
Distributors of Quality Movies . . . PADRE PADRONE, ALLEGRO NON TROPPO, LEMON POPSICLE, BUÑUEL CLASSICS, etc.
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1 st Floor, 52 High Street, Toowong 4066 or: P.O. Box 529 Toowong 4066
The Life of Brian
Dennis Altman There is a firm tradition of British humor, from World War 2 BBC comedies through The Goon Show to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which depends upon the juxta position of the unexpected with the ordinary, and sends up the absurdities of everyday life by carrying it to its logical conclusion. Thus Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. The Life of Brian, by applying this principle to the life of Christ, has predictably been at tacked for bad taste, vulgarity and even blasphemy. Blasphemy is by no means dead in Britain, as the recent condemnation of Gay News, for publishing a poem portraying Christ as homosexual, reveals. But The Life of Brian has nothing about it as shocking to the faithful as this, and is saved indeed from blasphemy by its sheer vulgarity. It is so clearly the Monty Python gang having a bit of a lark in a desert set, that an attempt to prosecute for blasphemy would merely seem ridiculous, although we have yet to see the reaction of Australia’s religious purists. Shorn of its religious overtones, the life of Christ is one of the original Cinderella
An ex-leper (Michael Palin) and Brian (Graham Chapman) in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
stories, except that in this case Christ goes from lowly birth in a manger to martyrdom on the Cross, rather than finding his prince. The Life of Brian tells the story of a mythical counterpart of Christ’s, born in a less lavish manger down the road, and ends in a mass crucifixion scene on the Jerusalem hills with the crucifees singing Look on the Bright Side. Brian is played with doltish charm by Graham Chapman, while George Harrison makes an entry in a part so big that only the titles reveal his presence. While the film is inevitably tagged as highly irreverent, its satire is directed more at biblical films than the original story, and indeed it is left-wing shibboleths, rather than religious ones, that come under most fire. As an attack on the Christian myth, it is remarkably lightweight, though the final crucifixion scene will probably distress those who believe the original story. But The Life of Brian is neither savage nor clever enough to be an anti-religious film; or indeed anything other than a piece of expen sive slapstick. Rather, it is as if the writers of the Carry On films have teamed with the design staff of Dino de Laurentiis, and, as in the Carry On shows, the film depends on its
humor for the transposition of very British characters and dialogue into an alien setting. Thus Michael Palin plays a lisping Pilate who is clearly influenced by Norman Wisdom, and John Cleese plays a badtempered rebel leader, Reg, who belongs much more to Lancashire than to Palestine. Much of the humor is directed against political rather than religious targets, Brian being an ardent Jewish nationalist who is caught painting “ Romans go home’’ (in bad latin) on the walls of the palace. The rebels of the People’s Front of Judea (their chief enemy is the Judean People’s Front) provide the basis for the plot, such as it is, while Pilate’s lisp is the central gag for at least 15 minutes. (At times one wonders if the enor mous stress on physical disability in British humor is not yet another product of its public schools.) The Monty Python team — the film hav ing been written essentially by its actors, though not its actresses — has an acute ear for the more pretentious rhetoric of wouldbe revolutionaries, but in directing their barbs at them one feels they are ducking the much less acceptable target of Christianity itselfi .
The Life of Brian is far less funny than a Monty Python television show, for the reason that the plot line forces a linear and even logical approach on performers whose genius always lay in the lack of such a next step approach. The one time the film really breaks away from this — in a short science fiction sequence — is so out of character with the rest of the film that it seems totally gratuitous. Of course, there are some very funny mo ments, and some wickedly acute lines. Not many of them have much to do with the life of Christ, though the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion come in for some ribb ing. But there is no Last Supper, no betrayal by Judas, and the Mary Magdalene charac ter is badly conceived and allows for some anti-feminist humor. If there is a message in this film it comes when Brian is besieged in his house by a huge crowd of followers. “ You are all in dividuals,” he tells them, “you’ve got to think for yourselves.” “ Yes master,” they answer in unison, “we’re all individuals. We’ve got to think for ourselves.” It might have been more appropriate had the crowd been dressed in Hare Krishna orange, rather than what appear to be discontinued sheets. At a time when the Pope is reaffirming traditional teachings against contraception, Cinema Papers, December-January — 659
PALM BEACH
not to mention all the rest of the Church’s sexophobic doctrines, it would have been nice to see a really offensive film about Christianity. The Life of Brian is not such a film. It may have the illusion of being daring, but in prac tice it remains sophomoric. The Life of Brian: Directed by Terry Jones. Producer: John Goldstone. Screenplay: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin. Music: Geoffrey Burgon, Eric Idle, Andre Jacquemin, David Howman. Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin. Production company: Handmade Films. Distributor: GUO Film Distributors. 35mm. 94 mins. Tunisia. 1979.
Palm Beach Noel Purdon In Palm Beach, Australian director Albie Thoms has posed himself the problem that confronted Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman and other filmmakers who set themselves against conventional film gram mar. Briefly, the problem is this: to con struct a narrative which is not merely one stream of consciousness, yet remains coherent; which can interweave a constant commentary on itself without sticking it on like a false nose; and which can reach a mass audience without violating the libertarian principles from which the film experience begins in the first place. Tim Burns is engaged in the same struggle with Against the Brain. Bruce Beresford, by successfully cultivating the accent of accep table artistry, and Tim Burstall, by adopting the values of the alternative patriarchy, have left the process behind. Albie Thoms, like his Ubu films co-founder Aggy Read, remains faithful to it. There are many misconceptions, inside as well as outside the industry, about the ability of experimental film to deal with narrative. Even a review of this length, then, must at tempt to deal with this basic question. A description of Palm Beach will draw it close to the existential narratives of Andy Warhol and Jacques Rivette. Three groups of characters from places south of Sydney’s peninsula make their way there looking for work, LSD, mates, and lost children. All end up at a party in which paths cross and a gun goes missing. A supermarket is robbed, a policeman is shot, an LSD deal is set up, someone is betrayed and busted, and a manhunt is set in operation. Yet, these events are less important than the subtle imagery, dialogue, locations and soundtrack used to explore them. What does this mean on the level of the structure and visual style of the film? Perhaps a few comparisons with other recent Australian features will make this clear. Michael Pate’s Tim, for instance, uses the structure of Sirkian melodrama with total dishonesty, with neither the pace of the original, nor a trace of the irony which, say, Rainer Werner Fassbinder might have given such a borrowed form, by way of com menting on it. Donald Crombie’s Cathy’s Child is a perfect tele-feature, edited almost as if for commercial breaks. The narrative is straightforward and sequential. The mon tage throws in a headline, or a two-shot or a close-up at the proper place. And just after the apparently essential shots (in Australian films) of airports and botanic gardens, you can imagine the Coca-Cola people blasting their hard-sell out of the screen. Instead of constructing Palm Beach as if commercials might break into it, Thoms has sardonically embodied them inside the film. The electronic media provide a constant hysterical chatter as background to the characters’ dulled consciousness. And in an 660 — Cinema Papers, December-January
BLOOD RELATIVES
Australian film, that isn’t just symbolic — it’s naturalism! As the DJ’s and the beautiful people bab ble about their ersatz fun, they provide the context in which we read more deeply the plight of a group of numbed and shallow people who are the real inhabitants of the beach — runaways, hasbeen surfies, drop outs and others. When they try to break out of their torpor, as Paul (Bryan Brown) does, the result is ridiculous tragedy, and the media will still be there to sensationalize, moralize, and throw in a few inappropriate jingles. Palm Beach, like Thoms’ Bolero, has an end which is predicted by the set-up at the beginning. In Bolero this is achieved by the interaction of the slowly moving camera, its end-aim always in view, and the sinuous music, which has nowhere to go except to repeat the same theme louder and faster. Palm Beach complicates the process by putting the still relatively long takes against four tracks of discontinuous sound. The dominant shot is of forward movement. From the beginning, the nature of this movement is in the form of a journey to Barrenjoey Head, the long road to death, with Australian urban death-knells for com pany. One fine tracking shot, for example, backed by a dropped-in quote from Kangaroo, follows that winding road to Broken Bay where the light and the heat suggest that, just around the next corner, before the sun sets, some Australian apocal ypse is at hand. Thoms’ observation of the pathos and rigidity of Australian aimlessness — scoring an epiphany, a deal or a fuck — is the very opposite of the leering celebration of smartarsed hipdom in Igor Auzins’ High Rolling. With detached humor he hits the special quality of Australian hedonism — its contra dictions; at once male-bonded and anti-gay;
in search of women and misogynist; adoles cent and senile; careless and compulsive in the same gesture. It is as if the people in Thoms’ Sunshine City had been turned into their least attrac tive and most animal types, and instead of being smart and articulate, forced to play themselves within a ruthlessly restricted frame of reference. Thus John Flaus’ deliberately hollow and empty detective, Larry Kent, a genre study out of a genre film, or Bryan Brown playing at the top of his form — again, better than his apparently similar method performance in James Ricketson’s Third Person Plural, simply because the improvization here is based on formal observation and not conventional psychology. In this way, however different they appear on the surface, the characters Fit together as types, like pieces in a jigsaw forming a single picture of Palm Beach life. This picture is completed only by the last shot, a helicopter lift which begins the long track back to Sydney — a journey which, in this film, will never be completed. The narrative, characters and visual style of Palm Beach ultimately insist on the simul taneity of experience. For a while I disliked the placing of the party sequence in the mid dle of the Film, wondering why it hadn’t been reserved for pulling threads together tightly at the end. But this, of course, would have altered the Film’s structure totally. As it is, this is more like a reef-knot than a noose, with the separate loops of character and event irresistibly bound by the party, but still pushed out as separate threads at the end. Palm Beach marks a decisive turn in Aus tralian visual narrative. Without recourse to the winning lushness of the 1890s, where eyes already delighted by Charles Conder, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton will supp ly a thousand associations to extend the
frame, Thoms has drawn us back to contem porary urban Australia. The temptation in doing this is to make either a documentary or a tele-feature. The last shot of Palm Beach could be straight out of Cop Shop. But what is rigorously avoided is the inner structure of television narrative; the structure that, whatever the story-line, is provided by fast cutting, obedient reverse angles, trick shooting, up-classed set dress ing, and a visual concentration on sexual and violent energy which is lied about by being at the same time glamorized and de-sanitized. In Palm Beach, Paul’s response to being on the run is to vomit, and Kate performs her cabaret act amateurishly in a truly loath some RSL club. But, at the same time, despite these touches and the use of inter views, Palm Beach is nothing like a documentary. It is rather a kind of discourse on a culture which was created and defined by the mythology of surFing, and which is now economically and sexually dependent on it. It recognizes that in central New South Wales this touches universities, ar tists, and dope dealers. Thoms was one of the first critics in Aus tralia to call attention to the autonomous power of the surf Film. Out of that genera tion of Midget Farrelly and Albert Falzon, Thoms has taken Nat Young and set him down like a beached dolphin. This is surfing without the waves, and it will be astonishing if a great many people don’t recognise themselves in it. Palm Beach: Directed by: Albie Thoms. Producer: Albie Thoms. Screenplay: Albie Thoms. Director of photography: Oscar Scherl. ^ Editor: Albie Thoms. Music: Terry Hannigan. Sound recordist: Michael Moore. Cast: Nat Young, Ken Brown, Amanda Berry, Bryan Brown, Julie McGregor, John Flaus. Production company: Albie Thoms Productions Pty Ltd. Distribution company: Albie Thoms Productions Pty Ltd. 35mm. 88 mins. Australia. 1979.
Blood Relatives Tom Ryan " What amuses me is to create an imbalance in a universe that tries hard to stabilize itself.” Claude Chabrol1. The films directed by Claude Chabrol have one feature in common: a supreme awareness of the game they are playing with their audience. Regularly working within the framework of what might loosely be described as the murder thriller, Chabrol’s films strive against the constraints it imposes. Essentially, the narratives of such films revolve around patterns of crime and resolution, and construct a web of motivations which allows an audience to Fix characters in their place. In accordance with the rules of this game, a vindictive evil or a psychological disturbance is set against the forces of the normal and, after a struggle, is either eliminated or controlled. A social order is thus preserved, its agent being the policeman, the detective, or the innocent who finds himself caught up in the chain of events. He (rarely she) provides a secure point from which the audience can safely acquire knowledge and approve the resolution that has been inevitable. C ha b ro l’s films have consistently delighted in upsetting such expectations. Significantly, most of his representatives of the law have been characterized as comically awkward, as out of tune with the context of the melodramatic situations into which they intrude, as nuisances, or as corrupt. The success they might achieve in uncovering guilt is thus rendered irrelevant. The dramas Albie Thoms’ Palm Beach: a discourse on a culture created and defined by the mythology of surfing.
1. Dan Yakir, “The Magical Mystery World of Claude Chabrol: An Interview” , F ilm Q u a rte rly , Spring, 1979, p. 8.
BLOOD RELATIVES
of the films (with the exception of NADA) lie elsewhere, as do the interest or sympathies of an audience. . From one perspective, films like Les cousins, Le boucher. La femme infidele and Les noces rouges deal with questions of moral responsibility, or, more broadly, with the place of sexuality within bourgeois ideology. In such a context, the question of guilt becomes problematic, too much for any legal concern to handle. From another perspective, the Films can be seen as intellectual exercises, lacking emotional commitment, leading Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with a righteous zeal, to describe them as “inhuman . . . fatalistic, cynical, and contemptuous of mankind” .23 The schematic narrative play and the black comedy which assume prominence in Landru, Ten Days Wonder (La decade prodigieuse), and Innocents With Dirty Hands provide ready illustrations of this aspect of Chabrol’s work, though one is under no obligation to damn such films for their lack of humanist qualities. A c o n v in c in g a r g u m e n t can be constructed for the presence of both these general impulses in almost any Film which carries Chabrol’s name. For the purposes of this brief review, it will suffice to note them as part of a context in which Blood Relatives can be viewed. In one sense, Blood Relatives is adapted faithfully from Ed McBain’s novel of the same name.' A narrative outline of both would yield similar results: much of the dialogue has been retained, along with the sexual nature of the murder and its incestuous connotations, and the film pursues the novel’s ‘red’ motif (Patricia’s “ bloody palmprints” on the police station door, Muriel’s “ red leather diary with a little strap that locked on to the front cover”). However, although the novel adheres fairly strictly (and intelligently) to a crime formula, the film moves in other directions, far more evocative in their implications. While the book manages to disturb with its use of blatant shock tactics — the graphic details of the stabbing, the emphasis on the horror that the “lunatic” killer turns out to be the victim’s 15 year-old cousin and quasi sister — the film works in more subtle ways. 2. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “ Insects in a Glass Case: Random Thoughts on Claude Chabrol’’, S ig h t a n d S o u n d , Autumn, 1976, p. 252. 3. McBain has written more than 20 novels around the “ 87th Precinct” of an anonymous American city, while under his real name, Evan Hunter, he is the author of numerous novels (including B la c k b o a rd Ju ngle) as well as the screenplay for
The Birds.
Its major strategy can be initially located in the visual detail: the locations evoke a monotonous environment into which the characters merge with very little sense of individual identity. The florid camera movement and the rich, cluttered interiors of Jean Rabier’s images for Chabrol, in almost all their previous work, is here eschewed," creating the sense of an ‘other world’ in the light of their customary wealthy middleclass settings. For the first time, Chabrol’s main character is a policeman. Detective Inspector Carella (Donald Sutherland), and the film follows his movements back and forth from the lifeless rooms of the police station, to the everyday suburban world of Montreal, and to his own more comfortable
Blood Relatives: Andrew (Laurent Mallet) breaks down at the funeral of his murdered cousin.
home. Only when he visits Patricia (Aude Landry), the single witness to the crime, and, from very early in the film, chief suspect, is there any visual release. S utherland’s performance is very reminiscent of his role in Klute, although here he is denied even a momentary reward for his endeavours. He is depicted as bewildered by and fearful of the situation into which his professional work has led him, his passive demeanour locked into, rather than conquering, the social milieu he occupies. Like everyone else he meets, he has found his way of coping with the horror that lies concealed beneath its surface. Faced with the ghastly mutilation of the corpse in the darkened alleyway, he looks away, as one colleague comments on the weather and another offers a matter-of-fact description. The Film offers an abundance of further examples of the way in which the common place becomes a defence against the nightmare that threatens its precariously balanced sanity: Carella’s “No Sugar!” is interspersed with his station activities: the television news juxtaposes its report of the murder with information about the garbage strike; the innocent veneer of the step-sister’s bedroom, with its floral wallpaper, religious pictures, fragile glass animals and “ Fonze” poster, is one that denies a repressed sexuality; a suspect, Doniac (Donald Pleasence), defends his latest infatuation with a little girl with “ But I love her!” ; the suave Armstrong (David Hemmings) disguises his lust for Muriel (Lisa Langlois) beneath a paternal facade; Patricia’s father, Mr Lowery (Walter Massey), in defence of the domestic sanctity which has been undermined by the murder of one member of his family by another, offers a revealing plea of personal innocence (“ I took better care of her than I did my own daughter. No one can blame me . . . I was trying to do the Christian thing”); and his wife (Stephane Audran) finds her defence is best supplied by a bottle. And, in a shot that recalls a similar one in
Aude Landry as Patricia, in Claude Chabrol’s
Blood Relatives.
Frenzy, the camera tracks back along a corridor, away from a happy Lowery family at the dinner-table, until Muriel’s voice-over replaces the synchronous sounds of laughter and conversation with “This house terriFies me . . .” The film’s structure is informed by a concern to suggest rather than explore what lies concealed. Its most important addition to the novel is Carella’s daughter (Nini Ballogh). She only appears in two brief scenes. In the first, she and her father walk arm in arm in a park, an apparent moment of respite for Carella. They are, of course, intruded upon by a policeman bringing the latest word on the investigation. Responding to his warmth towards her, she observes, “ Dad, we’re like lovers.” The comment is innocent enough, but the context into which it is placed bestows upon it a significance that reverberates throughout the patterns of relationships which are constructed by the film. Carella’s questioning of Patricia, even when he knows of her guilt, suggests his identification of her (albeit an unconscious one) with his daughter, a point which is reinforced by their exchanges against a rural landscape, visually echoing the scene in the park. His aggressive questioning of Doniac suggests a hostility born of a repressed desire for his own daughter, introducing a pattern which is extended in the scene where Lowery ‘tends’ to his niece, Muriel, who is feigning sickness (to keep from him her sexual liaison with his son, played by Laurent Mallet), and again when Armstrong bestows his fatherly concern on Muriel. The movement of the film is towards Patricia’s chilling scream as she is made to confess the sexual desire that has motivated her crime (directed at her cousin’s vagina, as well as her life). Cinema Papers, December-January — 661
BLOOD RELATIVES
JUST OUT OF REACH, MORRIS LOVES JACK, AND CONMAN HARRY
p r o f o u n d , C a t h ’s t e e n a g e m o n o l o g u e s o n t h e m e an in g
o f life b o r d e r
on
th e
b an a l.
The
n a i v e t y o f C a t h ’s t h o u g h t s , h o w e v e r , is e x a c tly w h a t m a k e s th e m
real.
Just Me and My Little Girlie, w h i c h d e a l s w i t h f a t h e r - d a u g h t e r i n c e s t , Just Out of Reach is a b r a v e c h o i c e o f s u b j e c t . O n e o f L ike
th e m o st c o m p e llin g n o tio n s o u r society h a s th ro w n
up
is
th e
id e a
th a t
p sy c h o lo g ical
w e l l - b e i n g is a m a t t e r o f p e r s o n a l c h o i c e . I t is n o a c c i d e n t t h a t t h i s t h e o r y g o e s h a n d i n hand
w ith
th e
n o tio n
th at
w ealth
m a terial success a c cru e fro m
and
in d iv id u al in
itiativ e a n d h a rd w o rk . B oth a re p a r t o f an ideology
w h ich
h erited
denies
b ac k g ro u n d
th at
pla y
lu c k
a
role
and
in
an
in
in
d i v i d u a l ’s l i f e . A film lik e have
becom e
L ifeline,
Just Out of Reach c o u l d an
but
ex ten d ed
B lag g
easily
com m ercial
avoids
th is
for
by
con
ce n tratin g on m o tiv atio n s an d o u tsid e p res su res, r a th e r th a n a so lu tio n to th e p r o b le m . B la g g s a y s th e film
is a b o u t l o n e l i n e s s a n d
a l i e n a t i o n r a t h e r t h a n s u i c i d e . D e s c r i b i n g it a s a “ k i t c h e n s i n k d r a m a ” , s h e s a y s t h a t i n it she
w a n te d
to
ex p lain
b eh a v io u r th ro u g h A u d ie n c e
self-d estru ctiv e
fa m ily b a c k g ro u n d .
re a c tio n
and
co m m ercial
v ia b ility w ere n o t im p o r ta n t c o n s id e ra tio n s
Just Out of Reach,
in t h e p r o d u c t i o n o f
and
it is n o t e x p e c t e d t o r e c o v e r i t s c o s t s . D e s p i t e th is, th e c ritic a l re a c tio n to th e film h a s b e e n g o o d , a n d it h a s a t t r a c t e d f u l l h o u s e s d u r i n g its S y d n e y s c r e e n i n g s . It s h a r e d t h e B r o n z e A w ard 1979
in t h e s h o r t
A u stralian
fic tio n c a te g o r y
F ilm
A w ards
w ith
Morris Loves Jack. Morris Loves Jack f e a t u r e s
a t th e S o n ia
H o f m a n n ’s Q uade
(w ho
starred
in
K ris
S tev e n
M c-
W a l l a c e ’s
Love Letters from Teralba Road)
as
p o l i c e w o m a n J a c q u e l i n e ( J a c k ) H o g a n , in a T h e film e n d s w ith a f a d e to b la c k C a r e l l a ’s
an g u ish ed
response
to
from
P a t r i c i a ’s
hysteria. A t th a t m o m e n t, her scream could b e his, fo r h e, a n d th e a u d i e n c e , h a v e b e e n b r o u g h t to th e b rin k o f a te r r ib le k n o w le d g e . A n d a t t h a t m o m e n t , C h a b r o l ’s f i l m t u r n s u s o u t — to o u r c o m fo rta b le re a d in g s o f F re u d , o r to th e sa fe ty o f critic al review s c o n c e rn e d w ith
stab ility
c o m fo rtab le
rather
than
‘t r u t h ’ r a t h e r
tu rm o il, than
one
w ith
sto ry o f m isp la c e d a ffec tio n s a n d sexual a m
Just Out Of Reach, Morris Loves Jack, Conman Harry and The Others.
Lorna Lesley in Linda Blagg’s Just Out of Reach.
J a c k l i v e s in K i n g s C r o s s w i t h M o r r i s , a n a s p irin g y o u n g a c to r w h o
Loves Jack, a n d S t e v e n Harry and The Others.
Barbara Alysen
h ibited
w h ich
Blood Relatives: Directed by Claude Chabrol. Producers: Denis Heroux, Eugene Lepicier. Executive producer: Julian Melzack. Screenplay: Claude Chabrol, Sydney Banks. Director of photography: Jean Rabier. Editor: Yves Langlois. Music: Howard Blake. Art director: Ann Pritchard. Sound engineer: Patrick Rousseau. Cast: Donald Sutherland, Aude Landry, Lisa Langlois, Laurent Mallet, Micheline Lanctot, Stephane Audran, Donald Pleasence, David Hemmings. Production companies: Classic Film Industries, Cinevideo of Montreal, Filmel of Paris. Distributor: Michael Klinger (London). 35mm. 95 mins. Canada. 197.8,
by
an o th er
A u stra lia n
a n d o p t i m i s m w h a t h e c l e a r l y l a c k s in t a l e n t .
w ill b e e x
s u p p o r ts th e m b o th u ntil sh e finds h im n e c k
In
in d e p e n d e n t venue,
F ilm
I n s t i t u t e ’s
th e
L o ngford
return
in g
w ith
fo r his
ro m a n tic
atten tio n , Ja c k
a n o th e r b lo k e d u rin g
a la te -n ig h t
raid o n a n o isy d isco . H o v erin g betw een th e p ath etic an d th e a b
O n l y a h a n d f u l o f A u s t r a l i a ’s c i n e m a s p a y
C i n e m a in M e l b o u r n e , w h i c h , l i k e t h e F i l m
a n y sig n ific a n t a tte n tio n to lo c a lly -p ro d u c e d
m a k e r s ’ C i n e m a , is c o m m i t t e d t o t h e e x h i b i
surd,
1 6 m m f ilm s , a n d e v e n f e w e r s p e c i a l i z e in e x
tio n o f lo c a ll y - p r o d u c e d s h o r t film s.
s o m e o f it i n s p i r e d , s o m e b o r r o w e d . F o r e x
h ib itin g
p ro d u ctio n s
not
tied
to
m a jo r
c in e m a ch ain s. The
Sydney
Just Out of Reach is film .
F ilm m ak e rs
C o - o p e r a t i v e ’s
F ilm m a k e rs’ C in e m a,
how ever,
A u s t r a l i a ’s
film
altern ativ e
is
venues,
one
of
w h ich
has, over th e y ears, p u rsu e d an a m b itio u s ex
H er
earlier
L i n d a B l a g g ’s s e v e n t h
w ork
includes
the sho rts
Birthplace, Just Me and My Little Girlie, a n d t w o d o c u m e n t a r i e s in F i l m
Our Multi-cultural Society L o o sely
based
on
A u s t r a l i a ’s
series.
B l a g g ’s
Just Out of Reach
own
periences,
m a k e r s an o u tle t fo r s h o r t film s w h ic h m a y
y o u n g w o m a n ’s a t t e m p t e d s u i c i d e a f t e r t h e
never be sh o w n othe rw ise .
breakdow n
T hree
such
to g e th er
for a
F ilm m ak ers’
film s, season
rece n tly
gathered
o f screenings
C in e m a,
are
L in d a
H o f m a n n ’s
at
th e
of her
m a rriag e.
d ea ls
ex
h ib itio n p r o g r a m , o ffe rin g in d e p e n d e n t film
Just Out of Reach, S o n i a
w ith
a
It b e g i n s a n d
A Streetcar Named Desire,
a p a r t in
D an iels ( J a n e F o n d a ) w h en sh e a u d itio n s for
Saint Joan in Klute. S t i l l , o d d m o m e n t s deja vu a s i d e , Morris Loves Jack a t t e s t s
fam ily
life, e a r l y
of to
th e c o n s id e r a b le ta le n t o f e v e ry o n e in v o lv ed in i t s p r o d u c t i o n . S o n ia
H o f m a n n ’s e a r l i e r
won
her
h e g iv e s
m u c h th e s a m e sort o f p e r fo rm a n c e as B ree
te d to h o s p ita l a f te r s la s h in g h e r w rists, a n d ex am in es
is f u l l o f i r o n i c w i t ,
a m p l e , in a s c e n e w h e r e M o r r i s a u d i t i o n s f o r
the a n im a te d sh o rt th e R o u b e n
w ork
M am o u lian
1975 S y d n e y F ilm
in c lu d es
Letter to a Friend,
w hich
A w a rd at the
F estiv al. L ik e
Letter to a
B l a g g ’s
in b e t w e e n
Morris
r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d m a r r i a g e , in a n a t t e m p t to
Friend, Morris Loves Jack
sh o w th e forces th a t c re a te a d e p ressiv e p e r
c o n s i d e r a b l e c r i t i c a l s u c c e s s . T o d a t e it h a s
sonality.
w o n t h e F i c t i o n S e c t i o n A w a r d in t h e 1 9 7 9
is
th e
elder
m ig ran t parents.
daughter
of
B ritish
H er fath er w o rk s on m in
h as also m e t w ith
G r e a t e r U n i o n A w a r d s , a B r o n z e A w a r d in the
short
fiction
at
th e
1979
A u stralian
in g f a m ily d is c i p lin e to his w ife.
in t h e s h o r t f i l m s e c t i o n o f t h e 1 9 7 9 B r i t i s h
d a u g h t e r ’s th re ats,
g en eratio n ,
v io le n c e ,
C a t h ’s
and
th e
parents
use
w ith d raw al
of
F ilm
F ilm
categ o ry
i n g s i t e s a n d is o f t e n a w a y f r o m h o m e , l e a v B ad ly o u t o f tu n e w ith th e m o r e s o f th e ir
Others
m a k in g
film s, in c lu d in g
Road ( t h e
a p p ro v a l the y she
fail to p r o v id e .
tu rn s
to
—
her
B u t the
b o y frien d ,
a
te a c h e r w h o later b ec o m es her h u sb a n d , an d h e r sister — For a
a re u n a b le to help.
w om an
in c ap ab le
o f d e a lin g w ith
h e r p ro b le m s alo n e , su icid e se e m s th e o nly The
A u stralian o rd in a ry ,
m o tiv atio n
for
C a t h ’s
o fte n
in
f u r i a t i n g b e h a v i o u r is d e a l t w i t h b y h a v i n g h e r s p e a k h e r t h o u g h t s in a v o i c e - o v e r . T h i s
Love Letters from Teralba
w in n e r o f th re e p riz es a t th e 1977 F ilm but
A w ards)
little-seen ,
and
the
ex tra
Brittle Weather
Journey. I n Brittle Weather Journey, a n d Love Letters from Teralba Road,
a g a i n in W a llac e
p la y s w ith th e k in d o f d ia lo g u e u sed by th e in a rtic u la te .
answ er.
Conman Harry and The
S te v e W a lla c e d ire c te d several sh o rt
in t u r n l o o k s o u t s i d e t h e f a m i l y f o r t h e l o v e p eople
A w a rd s, an d a n o m in atio n
A w ards.
B efore
a ffe c tio n to c a jo le h e r in to c o n fo rm ity . S h e and
The lively closing scene of Steve Wallace’s Conman Harry and The Others.
Morris Loves Jack
e n d s w ith C a t h ( L o r n a L esley ) b e in g a d m i t
C ath
Others,
In
Conman Harry and The
h e ta k e s th is o n e step fu rth e r, a n d
d o e s a w a y w ith d ia lo g u e . T h e film fo llo w s a n a s s o r t m e n t o f o s t e n s
te c h n iq u e invites c o m p a r is o n w ith o th e r d is
ibly
courses
ivities d u r i n g t h e e a r l y h o u r s o f a w e e k d a y
on
suicide
p articu larly Jo h n
and
w here
fa m ily
break d o w n ,
H o p k in s ’ te lev isio n p la y s
Talking to a Stranger, But
662 —• Cinema Papers, December-January
m a k e s u p in g a l l
Conman
W a l l a c e ’s
E a r ly n e x t y e a r th is p r o g r a m
a
d istu rb s.
big u ity .
th ese
and are
Stevie. articu late,
random
ch a ra cte rs
th ro u g h
th eir
ac t
m o rn in g . By c o n c e n tra tio n on p la ces, faces, a n d g e s tu r e s , th e film e m p h a s is e s e a c h p e r
and
s o n ’s l o n e l i n e s s a s t h e y m a k e t h e i r w a y t o
JUST OUT OF REACH, MORRIS LOVES JACK, AND CONMAN HARRY
the same workplace — the Sydney Showgrounds. Once there, they begin preparing food for a stall, and gradually the individual characters emerge from the general gloom. The Film ends with the formerly icy protagonists dancing together to a lively accompaniment. Certainly many who were infatuated with Love Letters from Teralba Road will be dis appointed by Conman Harry. While the Film is essentially an experiment in style, it is like ly to be viewed and judged as narrative, although as a narrative it lacks the pace to sustain audience interest and involvement.
------------------------------------------ y.-----------Just Out of Reach: Directed by Linda Blagg. P roducer: Ross M atthew s. D irecto r of photography: Russell Boyd. Editor: Ted Otton. Music: William Molzing. Art director: Grace Walker. Sound recordist: Kevin Kearney. Cast: Lorna Lesley, Sam Neill, Martin Vaughan, Judi Farr, Ian Gilmour, Jackie Dalton, Lou Brown. 16mm. 62 mins. Australia. 1979.
Morris Loves Jack: Directed by Sonia Hofmann. Screenplay: Dave Marsh, Sonia Hofmann. Direc tor of photography: Erika Addis. Editor: Sonia Hofmann. Music: Monsoon, Michael Norton. Art director: Cathy Grey. Sound recordist: Dasha Ross. Cast: Kris McQuade, John Hargreaves, Bill Hunter. Production company: Australian Film and Television School. 16mm. 26 mins. Australia, 1979. Conman Harry and The Others: Directed by Steve Wallace. Producer: Lawrence Hill. Editor: Henry Dangar. Music: Ralph Schnieder, Louis Mc Manus. Sound recordist: Lawrie Fitzgerald. Cast: Bryan Brown, Sally Edwards, Clive Marshall, Harry Neilson, Sidy Roll. 16mm. 32 mins. Australia. 1979.
Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair
Meaghan Morris Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair is something of an event in British feminist
John Hargreaves as Jack, in Sonia Hofmann’s
Morris Loves Jack.
cinema. With a budget of about $47,000, it is the outcome of a British Film Institute production grant — the first large sum of money ever given to a group of women to write and produce a feature film in Britain. Secondly, it is a special kind of feature film. As the filmmakers, Susan Shapiro, Jcsther Ronay and Francine Winham, stress in their statement on the film, it was made in the context of a particular discussion on the development of a feminist film aesthetic, which moved towards an interest in the problems of narrative film and away from the documentary tradition. All three women were members of the London Women’s Film Group, which was formed in 1971 and devoted much of its time, initially, to simply acquiring filmmaking skills, making them available to other women, and fighting discrimination within the industry. Of the first documentary films made by women involved with this group, the best known here are probably Fakenham Occupa tion, and Susan Shapiro’s Women of the Rhondda. Later films — The Amazing Equal Pay Show, on a women’s street theatre group, and Whose Choice on abortion — experimented with a combination of docu mentary and drama. Rapunzel, which was completed after the Film Group split in 1977, has no documentary footage and works with an interaction of animated and acted narrative sequences. Rapunzel is a remarkably exciting and innovative film, which is inspiring in the best sense — it gives not only the feeling that something new has happened, but that other things are becoming possible in feminist filmmaking and feminist aesthetics in general. But before going any further it is worth saying two things. Firstly, the above account of the genesis of Rapunzel, provided by the
RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR
women who made it, may contain a suggestion which ought to be qualified. If the fact that for once it is a feminist film made with lots of money (relatively speaking at least) has a great deal to do with its success, it does not follow that Rapunzel is a significant achievement for feminist cinema, because it is simultaneously the product of a shift away from the documentary tradition. Rapunzel is not the punchline in a story of feminist films which would lead from grotty documentary beginnings to the glorious conclusion of big-budget narrative features which stay experimental enough to be one jump ahead of co-optation. Secondly — and nevertheless — the film does arrive in a context where questions about the relation between finance and feminist aesthetics, and about the relative values of documentary and narrative tactics for feminist cinema, are delicate ones in the discussion of feminist filmmaking in Aus tralia. I would like to come back to this briefly, and to the very first problem which Rapunzel raised for me as a feminist reviewer — the shameless intensity of the relief I felt when 20 minutes into the film I realized that I was actually going to like it. For if all these preparatory qualifications to discussing Rapunzel seem to be laborious but necessary, it is because for a feminist reviewer who usually prefers to avoid reviewing feminist films, the distinction becomes slippery but vital between pussy footing about, and stepping softly on dangerous ground. Rapunzel is certainly not the only feminist narrative film; and it is not the only film to pose the relations between narrative and ideological structures as a problem for feminism — Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen did that in The Riddles of the Sphinx. What is unusual about it is that it opts neither for filling a modified conventional narrative form with feminist content (a set of terms appropriate for describing Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends for example), nor for the traditional avant-garde method of disruption and deconstructing narrative structures in a way which leads us to reflect on the agony we might feel in the process (The Riddles of the Sphinx). Instead, Rapunzel works with the pleasure we get from stories (and from fairy-stories, the most elemental of all); and oh the peculiar pleasure we get from hearing stories repeated. The Rapunzel story is narrated several times, in several different ways, using different film genres and presenting the events successively from the different points of view of the main participants — the prince, the wicked witch, and the fairy princess.
Each time the story is re-told, it is thus re-interpreted. And as the re-tellings accumulate and qualify each other, three things happen sim ultaneously; the symbolism of the fairytale and its ideological function are dissected; the story itself and its meaning for women are transformed; and the possibility of a feminist aesthetic pleasure is opened up (the film ends, approp riately, with a women’s rock concert), in a way which does not involve painfully ‘breaking’ with the tales your mother told you, but starts from them as a basis to bend . them another way. The mother-daughter relationship emerges as the crucial aspect of the matter of Rapunzel. The Film begins with a mother reading the original Grimm Brothers version of the tale to her child. This is transformed into a child’s dream in which the mother becomes the witch, and then into a new version of the story — in imagery provided by the magnificent animations of Asa Sjostrom, highlighting the history of mythrepresentation in art and in children’s books. The prince’s version of the fairytale is a cheap thriller. The modern prince is a hardboiled ‘dick’ (who dreams of ‘saving’ the princess from her evil stepmother who has her hooked on heroin), whose pleasure is that of the voyeur, peering through the keyhole at the woman beyond. Venus and the Witches is an animated sequence looking at the divorce between good and bad female sexuality, and its history, in terms of the ambiguous relation between goddess and witch. Then the witch’s point of view is put in a ‘women’s weepie’ segment which tells the tragic tale of a parting of the ways between a w^man doctor — independent, but over-anxious and possessive — and her daughter who wants to lead her own life by getting married. F in ally , R apunzel becom es a contemporary young woman; a princess seeking release, but no longer passive and with children of her own. This segment borrows not from the history of commercial cinema nor from art history, but from established style of short feminist Film which shows the details of a woman’s struggle to lead an independent life. Rapunzel is an enchanting Film, largely because it is so technically rich. But it is also a film which has a certain power to displace old problems in favor of new possibilities; not because it is exciting in a vague way, but because it is strictly a Film about reading, and viewing, rewriting and Filming, and transformation. A number of things follow from this. Firstly, Rapunzel actively transforms a story in a way which might lead us to question the fruitfulness of arguments over whether
Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair: dissecting the symbolism of the fairytale and its ideological function.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 663
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RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR
narrative is or is not male — a point of view which I last heard voiced at the Women and Film Forum at the Sydney Film Festival. This argument has a number of variants, but in its crudest form (one which also makes it very difficult to take the leap into maleness and ask for some further definition of the two disconcertingly global terms of its formulation), it comes very close to contrasting lies with reality, thereby implying that nothing can be done with lies. Rapunzel suggests that a great deal can be done — which has no bearing whatsoever on the questioning of feminist documentary, except perhaps to argue that the opposition of narrative and documentary is a false one indeed. Secondly, Rapunzel cuts across some venerable debates about audiences, accessibility, and the politics of pleasure in the cinema. In theory, these debates often rigidify into an opposition between an ideal of the film accessible to all women, and one of a demanding and inaccessible avant-garde practice which side-steps co-optation. In practice, this opposition is simply not pertinent. A recent example I saw of this involved a discussion of The Riddles of the Sphinx, a film which many feminists regard as elitist for its “heavy theory” , which I was objecting to as the most intolerably authori tarian lecture I had sat through since school, and which was defended most warmly by those women in the group who had children and who saw in it a direct expression of their personal experience. If such an opposition, which organizes so much of the speculation about audiences, is no longer pertinent, it is not because practice in its fullness always out-runs the dry limita tions of theories; but because, in this^case, certain problems are still posed in terms which have been rendered obsolete already by feminist filmmaking itself. Feminist filmmaking — like feminist writing — has always worked by exploding the blanket category ‘audience’, and by choosing to select and define quite explicitly, its desired viewers fn some way. How important — and how restrictive — this has been is often not recognized. The most restrictive — or selective — feminist films of all are probably counter image films, which are addressed (with varying intensity) to ‘all women'. These films, with subjects like the body, birth, abortion experiences, and sexual oppression, require that as a woman you not only accept to join with other women in rejecting a certain image, but that you also accept to identify with a definite alternative. Even in a talking heads film, which puts several points of view to the audience, that audience is still placed firmly in one basic position in relation to the film — sharing, consent, identification (or the opposite). This process works wonders. It is also part of the process that some women, and some feminists, will be unable to take up the required position, and will reject the film. That is in no way a problem, or a disadvantage in itself. It does become a problem when this happens to a feminist asked to review the film — in other words, to publicize it — and therefore doubly expected to consent to it some way. 1 am thinking here of the scandal which followed Denise Hare’s review, “ Femflicks: Like our big boys they lack imagination” , in Filmnews’, and of the violence in the review itself. Rapunzel does not pose that problem, because it doesn’t place viewer or reviewer in that position. The retellings of the story, the playing with film genres, and the shifts of perspective inside the film give the audience room to move. Rapunzel actively uses processes of change and transformation; although in this case, at least, the possibility I.
April 1979, p. 7; and correspondence in following issues.
F ilm n ew s,
ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ
of doing so seems a question of more money rather than superior imagination. Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair: Directed by: Susan Shapiro, Esther Ronay, Francine Winham. Producers: Susan Shapiro, Esther Ronay, Francine Winham. Editor: Esther Ronay. Music: Laka Koc, Benni Lees, Ruthie Smith. Art director: Diana Morris. Sound recordist: Judy Freeman. Cast: Margaret Ford, Rachel Steele, Dave Swarbrick, Suzie Hickford, Mica Nava, Patricia Leventon, Jessica Swift, Laka Koc, Jean Boht, J a m T oday. Production Company: British Film Institute. Distributor: Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative. 16mm. 80 mins. London. 1978.
E sca p e from Alcatraz
Jack Clancy Escape from Alcatraz opens with the camera panning across San Francisco Bay and the bridge, and then to the grim, gloomy island of Alcatraz. The first sequence, as the credits come up, shows the arrival, through rain and darkness, of a prisoner for the “ Rock"; it is shot in tight, constricted closeup and mostly in shadow. Almost the last shot of the film is of three men, supported by a flimsy, makeshift raft and lifebelts, splashing out into the blackness of San Francisco Bay. The long shot remains on them until all that can be seen is the darkness; convicted criminal and persistent escapee Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) has returned to the darkness of the outside world and is swallowed by it. In between these two sequences one is shown, in almost documentary fashion, the only successful, or unresolved, escape attempt in the 29-year history of supposedly escape-proof Alcatraz — the prison reserved for America’s toughest and most trouble some prisoners. It is an ideal project for Eastwood, who doesn’t have to work too hard to be totally convincing as an intelligent hood, and for producer-director Don Siegel, for several reasons. Siegel had already made one of the best Hollywood prison films, Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), and his talent as action director is also evident in this film, though his cautious liberalism is more specific. Escape from Alcatraz is essentially an all male film. Siegel has always been one of Hollywood’s more misogynist filmmakers (“ Women are capable of deceit, larceny, murder, anything. Behind that mask of innocence lurks just as much evil as you will find in members of the Mafia” , he once
said). And the prison setting, with its loner against the system, is the ideal arena for another of Siegel’s individualist, social outcasts to wage his struggle in a universe which is hostile, irrational and uncaring. It is the sort of place where, when an inmate asks “ Why?” after a particularly pointless and arbitrary injustice has been done to him, one knows that he will get no answer. The question “why” simply has no meaning. What fascinates Siegel, and first-time scriptwriter Richard Tuggle, is the mechanics of survival in such an appalling place, and then, an hour into the film, the mechanics of escape. The two threats to Morris’ survival are the warden (Patrick McGoohan, looking more like English cricketer Geoff Boycott than ever) and the other prisoners, particularly the black prisoners, and a repulsive giant named Wolf (Bruce M. Fisher). The warden is concerned only with efficiency and security. He makes Morris aware that no one has ever escaped, and that Alcatraz has nothing to do with rehabili tation. “ We don’t make good citizens; we make good prisoners” , he says. Or, as one of the prisoners puts it, ‘They don’t want you doing anything here but time.” Ironically, the warden provides the means and the motivation for the escape: by being careless with a pair of nail clippers, and by an act of arbitrary egotism. When he finds that Doc (Roberts Blossom), an aged prisoner who has been given permission to paint, has completed a portrait of him which he doesn’t like, he withdraws Doc’s painting privileges. Doc’s painting and his attachment to flowers (“ It’s something inside me that they can’t lock up, with all their bars and walls”) are his means of survival. Deprived of them, he mutilates himself in a scene that is saturated in the sort of tension Siegel can manage so well. The threat from Wolf is, inevitably, a sexual one, and Siegel’s keen, not to say eager, interest in sexual perversity is blatantly evident in his handling of WolFs attempted seduction of Morris, the new “ fish". (Rarely can a single strand of spaghetti have been used so lasciviously.) Morris' violent rejection of Wolf ensures that, within the system of total repression, he has a mortal enemy. His friends are Doc, some of the black prisoners, and an ageing prisoner called Litmus (Frank Ronzio) because his skin changes with the weather — blue in the cold, red in the heat. In a nice variation on the racist theme, the blacks call Morris “boy” , but Morris, or the
Eastwood persona, wins their respect sufficiently for them to protect him against Wolf. One is forced to wonder,.after Attica, whether this sweetness and light view of race relations in prison can be taken too seriously. The film is d o m inated, and its documentary tone negated, by Eastwood as Morris, and by touches of what can only be described as melodrama. (The worst in stance of this is the moment when Morris is first put into his cell, and the guard’s harsh “ Welcome to Alcatraz” is followed by rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning.) Morris is given little background, except a vaguely-sketched career of crime and escape. He has no family, and when asked, “What sort of childhood did you have?” he replies, “Short!” Any further elaboration would interfere with the man-of-steel super hero figure to which the Eastwood persona and the script contribute. The escape, by means of ventilator grilles through to a shaft which leads to the roof, and aided by dummy heads left on the pillows in the cells, is as tension-filled as fans of this genre have a right to expect. One of the intended escapees, Charly Butts (Larry Harkin), has a predictable failure of nerve, and is left behind; it only underlines the implausibility of super-efficient Morris agreeing to take him in the first place. In Siegel’s world, those who aren’t tough enough go under. Morris and two fellow prisoners escape into the darkness, and their bodies are never found; the warden is recalled to Washington. Siegel was one of the overlooked Hollywood directors to be re-discovered in the auteur flurry of 1960s film criticism. (There is a story of Siegel facing a large French audience of applauding film-buffs, putting out his arms to them and saying, “ Where were you when I needed you?”) And while this film shows every sign of satisfying the audience for whom it was made, and the auteurists who admire Siegel, I suspect it does very little to enlarge sympathy or understanding. The liberal gestures are predictable and perfunctory, and the case against the penal system is more devastatingly made by the film on the Attica rebellion. Perhaps the film may be of interest to people like structuralist critic Alan Lovell, who dabbles in the auteur-structuralist game and finds that, sure enough, there are in Siegel’s films patterns of binary oppositions: adventurer/society, crime/law, passion/control, anarchy/organization, and violence/tranquillity . Those who wish to join Lovell in such a game might add another — darkness/light — noting that in this case there is a reversal in process. Darkness here is positive and represents security and, ultimately, freedom; light means menace and threat. It might well be Siegel's most telling comment on the America he sees. Perhaps too, the rather tatty auteurist stream of criticism, still in vogue in this country for want of anything more substantial, might need to be re-assessed. Siegel is established as not only a most efficient technician, but as a director with auteur status. It might be time to wonder whether, beyond that, he is important for anything he has to say.
Directed by Donald Siegel. Producer: Donald Siegel. Executive producer: Robert Daley. Associate producer: Fritz Manes. Screenplay: Richard Tuggle. Director of photography: Bruce Surtees. Editor: Ferris Webster. Music: Jerry Fielding. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Roberts Blossom, Jack Thibeau, Fred Ward. Paul Benjamin, Larry Hankin, Bruce M. Fisher, Frank Ronzio, Fred Sluthmun. Production company: Paramount Pictures Corporation. Distributor: Cinema International Corporation. 35mm. I i 1 mins. U.S. 1979. Escape from Alcatraz:
Cinema Papers, December-January — 665
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ALIEN
films in which much of the dialogue (apart from the odd fashionable expletive) would be perfectly at home. “ Let’s not be too hasty,” says Ash as they observe the creature plastered over Kane’s face. “ It’s amazing. What is it?” asks Ripley. “ I don’t know yet”, says Ash, noting that it has “ prolonged resistance to.adverse environmental conditions” . “ You do your job . . . and let me do mine,” he warns her, and someone in fact says, “This place gives me the creeps.” None of this would matter at all if the film respected the limits of its genre, or if it sub verted these with sustained intelligence. Instead it simply suffers from intermittent delusions of significance. If it is not going to pursue the political and/or moral issues it adverts to, it would be better occupied with devoting itself to scar ing us silly. Again, it hints at real fears — of worlds frighteningly different from ours; of a creature that is perhaps indestructible, that belongs to a nightmare that just may turn out to be true. But mostly it settles for short term visceral effects. Alien certainly builds some persuasive suspense and achieves some lively shocks. The sequence in which Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), the oldest crew member, stalks the alien is a good example of the way Scott uses his ominous sets, lighting and sound, to create a tension that grows out of man’s vulnerability in the face of the unknown. In the end, though, the film seems over whelmed by its own technical ingenuity as if its makers were having the time of their lives and hoped this would be enough for ours.^k
Alien Brian McFarlane Two years ago, Ridley Scott made one of the most striking directorial debuts of the 1970s with his film of Joseph Conrad’s novella The Duellists, a sharply observed study in destructive obsession, set in a variety of handsomely composed tableaux of the Napoleonic Wars. Alien, his first film since then, is a distinct let-down. The visual flair persists with marvellous shots of spacecraft taking off, or landing bumpily on giant claws, and the art direction from the Star Wars team of Les Dilley and Roger Christian is predictably brilliant in its detail and look of authen ticity. But at heart Alien is no more than a semi-adult horror comic that sometimes ravishes the eye and twists the gut, but leaves the heart and mind alone. It certainly does not come within light years of the complex beauties of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A commercial space-tug, Nostromo (Conrad, thou shouldst be living at this hour!), is towing three oil refineries through distant time and space when it meets up with a metamorphosing galactic horror deep in side a wrecked spaceship. The rest of the film shows the attempt? of the Nostromo crew to deal with this remarkably ubiqui tous menace, as, one by one, they come to their grisly ends. The reference to Conrad leads one irresist ibly to ponder what he might have made — and Scott does not — of the opportunities for observing human behaviour under horrifying stress. Initially, there is a pleasing sense of everyday lives that just happen to be lived in a space-tug, with sly fun about eating and sleeping arrangements; but the film quickly loses interest in building tension among its confined characters. From the moment Kane (John Hurt), the first crew member to be infected by the alien presence, is taken back on board the Nostromo, Scott’s chief concern seems to be to scare hell out of the audience with each
new manifestation of the presence. But there is a limit to how far the audience can be shocked by special effects directed at human beings they have not been persuaded to care much about. The effects, by Brian Johnson and Nick Allder, are indeed nastily imaginative as they present the alien creature erupting from the bodies it has possessed. But there is nothing in Alien as genuinely alarming as Val Lewton’s suggested terrors, some 30 years ago, in Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. Those modest triumphs scared us by what they implied about terrifying forces, whereas Alien insists on showing us every thing. The first manifestation of the presence, as it emerges from a sealed ‘egg’ on the wrecked spacecraft, looks like a lump of heaving veal. This is repulsive enough, but Scott and his team have set themselves the task of ensuring that each new appearance will be more horrific than those before. And they don’t quite succeed because we are too busy admiring the cleverness of it all without being much interested in where the alien will strike next. Apart from the engagingly sulky-faced Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the carefully idiosyncratic cast remains curiously anony mous. This would matter less if the film had fewer pretensions. One doesn’t necessarily expect detailed characterization in a lark like this, but those less interested in intricate model work and nasty creatures may have felt compensated by a more charismatic crew. As it is, they neither dazzle as stars nor interest as people. The pretentiousness of Alien is most ap parent in its spasmodic references to the “Company” in the background. The “Com pany” , which transmits orders that ‘priority one’ is the return of the organism and that the crew is expendable, seems to suggest a heartless capitalist menace, but the film never makes anything coherent of this. Nor does it develop the sort of moral choices it hints at in the clash between Ripley and Ash (Ian Holm), the science officer, about whether Kane should be allowed to reboard the Nostromo. Kane will die if he is not
Ridley Scott’s Alien: brilliant in its detail and look of authenticity.
allowed back; they may all die if he is. The tensions hinted at here could have been worked to give the film a richer psycho logical texture. However its affiliations are not with Conrad, but with tatty old horror
Alien: Directed by: Ridley Scott. Producers: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill. Ex ecutive producer: Ronald Shusett. Screenplay: Dan O’Bannon. Story: Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett. Director of photography: Derek Vanlint. Editor: Terry Rawlings. Music: Jerry Goldsmith. Art director: Les Dilley. Sound engineer: Derrick Leather. Cast: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto. Production com pany: Brandywine-Ronald Shusett> Distributor: 20th Century-Fox. 35mm. 124 mins. U.S. 1979.
The crew of the Nostromo search for the organism in Alien.
Cinema Papers, December-January — 667
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No Bed of Roses Hutchinson, Australia 1978 Joan Fontaine
By Myself Jonathan Cape, U.K. 1979 Lauren Bacall
Mommie Dearest Granada, U.K. 1979 Christina Crawford
Brian McFarlane The reading public’s continuing fascina tion with the lives of cinema luminaries must be a source of wonder and delight to publishing houses around the world. What is the basis of our voracious interest in these often unremarkable lives, and what sort of urges prompt the authors to ‘tell all’, between expensive hard-covers and, usually, at unwarranted length? In considering the first part of that double-barrelled question, I wonder whether we as readers are ever likely to be satisfied by these far-from-brief lives. Do we want to be reassured that those great iconographic presences that have helped shape our imaginative growth are really as extraordinary as their films have led us to believe? Or do we want an opposite kind of reassurance: that is, that when, say, Bette Davis or Joan Crawford is not empty ing a revolver into the prone form of a faithless lover, she is at home peeling potatoes or sweeping floors like the rest of us? The fact that these two wishes are irrecon cilable perhaps helps to account for the general unsatisfactoriness of the genre, and I write as one who reads compulsively in it. The autobiographies tend to fare less well than accounts written by other hands, though there are some obvious exceptions. Bette Davis’ A Lonely Life (1964, and out of print as far as I know) was a fairly toughminded mixture of honesty and necessary egoism; Mary Astor’s A Life on Film (1972) took an intelligent and (inevitably?) dis enchanted view of her 40-year career; and David Niven brought a saving wit and good nature to the two volumes of his more-thanusually varied history. Indeed, for the most part, his films seemed the least interesting thing about him. The two autobiographies under review here — Joan Fontaine’s and Lauren Bacall’s — are in their different ways deplorable. The biographies, unless they fall into the hands of brazen scan dal-mongers or shameless sycophants, clearly stand a better chance of objectivity, of providing some sort of perspective on the life in question. Charles Higham’s biography of Charles Laughton is a superior piece of work giving some real insight into the star’s working life and a genuine assessment of his achieve ment on stage and film. Sheridan Morley’s Gladys Cooper (1979) is an excellent account — coherent and perceptive — of the life of his remarkable grandmother. In view of his relationship to his subject, he maintains an admirable critical detachment which is not under mined by his obvious devotion, and which enables him to appraise a career undertaken
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
conscientiously in the spirit of an absorbing job. Grandsons as biographers, however, are one thing; daughters, it seems, are another. Actors thinking of having their biographies written would be well-advised to retain Bob Thomas or any other competent hack, rather than to count on serpent's-toothed children to do the job. Brooke Hayward’s Haywire offers an often-moving account of her mother Margaret Sullavan’s attempts to be mother and film star, and a painful insight into what it meant to be the daughter of so much mis guided devotion. It is in some ways a shock ing book, but it is never sensational. The same cannot be said for Christina Crawford’s sustained attack in Mommie Dearest; and one gathers that Tyrone Power’s daughter is the latest contributor to this potentially ugly sub-genre. What so few of the apparently endless line of ‘Lives of the Stars’ gives us is any real sense of what it felt like to work in the films that presumably made us interested enough in them to want to read about them. To read star biographies and autobiographies is no way to find out how say, Max Ophuls or Joseph Losey (vide Evelyn Keyes’ passing comment on The Prowler in Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister) went about their work. At best one tends to get flimsy com ments like this on Alfred Hitchcock from Joan Fontaine: “ He combined two attributes of a great cinema director — he knew acting, he knew visual mood. He would sketch on an oversized drawing pad exactly the effects he wanted.” ' Or this, on Ophuls, who directed the same lady's best film. Letter from an Unknown Woman: “ With Max Ophuls . . . 1 communicated intuitively. After a take. Max would come over to me and start to speak in German, which 1 scarcely understood. I would nod before he had said six words and then he would resume his position behind the camera. After the next take was com-1
pleted, he would rush over and say, ‘How you know egg-zactly vot I want? Preent dat!’ Revealing stuff, indeed! Fontaine is one of the screen’s enduring beauties and, at best, an actress of great sen sitivity. Apart from Hitchcock and Ophuls, she has worked with directors as varied and distinguished as George Stevens, George Cukor, Fritz Lang, Nicholas Ray, Billy Wilder, Sam Wood and Jean Negulesco — and she has scarcely an interesting word to say about any of them. Her responses to the films she made led one sadly to the conclusion that the sen sitivity one had admired was less hers than that of her directors. Further, her screen career seems to have absorbed her less —• at least as she tells it with hindsight — than her burgeoning social life which reached dizzy heights in 1957 when she acted as Sir Charles Mendl’s hostess and entertained such jetsetters as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Mme Schiaparelli. She gives a great deal of boring detail about her social arrangements; one can only hope she finds her success in this field gratifying because she seems to have pursued it with much more zeal than ever went into her career. Perhaps coincidentally, as her screen per sona changed from the shy put-upon heroines of Rebecca and Suspicion to the sleek sophisticates of, say, Born to be Bad, her chief energies seem to have been chan nelled into her career as a socialite. After 1950, with the possible exception of Baby Warren in Henry King’s stodgy Tender is the Night, there is scarcely a performance worth noting. Her autobiography, slickly enough writ ten to ensure readability, is a dispiriting ex perience, not merely for its lack of dis crimination, but for its overall tone of blaming and whingeing. None of her hus bands emerges with much credit from her account of the marriages: they are all humorless or negligent or both. Sister Olivia de Havilland gets it in the neck from the 2. p. 185
word go, insensitive clod that she is: “The day she (her mother) sailed, I was inconsolable. I clutched the legs of the dining room table and would not come out until nightfall. Olivia went out to play." Father De Havilland is beastly; step father Fontaine is worse; mother, actress Lilian Fontaine, is never properly grateful for Joan’s selfless devotion; daughter Debbie Dozier acts as a spy for her father, whose let ters to her had been “thoroughly deriding and reviling me to our daughter.” It is no pleasure to record that an actress who gave two or three of the most exquisite performances in American films should emerge through her own words as so selfregarding and ungenerous a woman. Whatever the faults of Lauren Bacall’s By Myself, they are not those of egoism and un generosity. She deals warmly and honestly with the major influence in her life — her mother, Humphrey Bogart, Jason Robards — and there is real affection in the treatment accorded her numerous friends — Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, David Niven and many more. Inevitably, it is the Bogart years that com mand most interest and, in answer to the se cond half of my opening question, these seem to be an element of necessary exorcism in Bacall’s motives. It was her association with Bogart (under Howard Hawks' direc tion) that made her a star. Equally, it may be argued, that, as long as she was seen by the public as half of a smouldering team, this in itial association may have been a hindrance to her subsequent career. Certainly, she had no further unqualified success in films. Though she worked with Jean Negulesco, Douglas Sirk and Vincente Minnelli, no role ever seemed quite right for her; none ever quite succeeded in capitalizing on the sexy, witty promise of her '40s films. That she is a name to conjure with today is partly due to her 1970 Broadway triumph in Applause, but chiefly to the lasting impres sion she made in those four early films with Bogart. The book not merely records but also con stitutes her efforts to get out of the shadow of being Bogart’s widow. It is a tribute to her sheer likeability and honesty that one is able
1. p. 115
Cinema Papers, December-January — 669
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A behind-the-scenes look at the studio that produced more than 200 Our Gang comedies, with photographs and profiles of the stars. W ill the R e a l Ian C a rm ich a el . . .
The following books were released in Australia between September and October 1979. All titles are on sale in bookshops. The publishers are listed below the author in each entry, and the local distributor is shown in brackets. If no distributor is indicated, it denotes that the book is imported. The recommended retail prices listed are for paperbacks, unless otherwise indicated, and are subject to variation between bookshops and states. This list was compiled by Mervyn R. Binns of the Space Age Bookstore, Melbourne.
Popular and General Interest D eerstalker!
Ron Hay dock Scarecrow (James Bennett) $15 (HC) Holmes and Watson on screen. Flesh an d F antasy
Penny Stallings MacDonald and Jane (Novalit) $12.95 The truth behind the ‘Great American Dream Machine’. F red A sta ire
Benny Green Hamlyn (Gblden Press) $19.99 (HC) A biography, with details of his stage and film career. Illustrated. The G reat S cien ce F iction P ictu res J. R. Parish and M. R. Pitts
Scarecrow (James Bennett) $18 (HC) The book includes a selection of the best, and worst, science fiction films. The G reat S p y F ilm s
Leonard Rubenstein Citadel (Davis) $22.50 (HC) A selection of 50 of the most original and creative in the field. More than 300 photographs.
to stagger through the 377 pages of her atrociously-written history without losing respect for the lady herself. Fontaine’s book is much more competent ly written but by the end one scarcely cares. Bacall’s style is too often bedevilled by cliche (“ I didn’t realize then that you take yourself with you wherever you go”) and her dealings with punctuation are hair-raising. Almost every page is littered with dashes, until to contemplate each new page induces something like sea-sickness. Nevertheless, though her writing style is characterized more by accidents than syn tax, the woman herself emerges with credit. She is decently reticent about her love af faires: there is nothing here like Fontaine’s smirking recollection of her deflowerment by Conrad Nagel (a choice bit of esotérica indeed) or Evelyn Keyes’ blow-by-blow ac count of the passes made at her by everyone from Fredric March to Harry Cohn. Bacall’s appraisal of her career, which clearly mattered to her, is modest if not par ticularly discriminating. She dismisses Writ ten on the Wind as a “soap opera” and ap pears to accept Bogart’s warning about it (“ I wouldn’t do too many of these”) as a sign that “ His standards were as high as ever.” Her appraisal of her relationships — with husbands, children, and colleagues — is devoid of blame-seeking, and she is able to see where she has been at fault. In the end, she has earned the right to say “ I’m not ashamed of what I am — of how I pass through this life” . Along with the cliches there are a genuine receptivity to experience and a set of values which ensure that knowing the woman better doesn’t disillusion us about the star. Words very nearly fail me about Mommie Dearest. There is no doubt a serious and painful study to be made of the mangled lives of Hollywood children, but Christina Crawford is not the one to do it. The book is an act of revenge, clumsy, tedious and repetitive, in which the writer, preserving match-girl innocence, accuses Mommie of everything from obsession with tidiness to furtive and, later, embarrassing alcoholism, to sexual promiscuity, including a hinted lesbian episode, to heartless manipulation of everyone in sight.
Joan Crawford emerges as a monster in her daughter’s book. Moments of generosity or devotion to her daughter are quickly glos sed over so that Christina can get on with the absorbing business of recording every infrac tion of liberty, every bizarre cruelty. I do not doubt that it was difficult to be Joan Crawford’s child, but if the book is in tended to be therapeutic for her one wonders whether its revelations might not more properly have belonged in the psychiatrist’s consulting room. Unlike Brooke Hayward, Christina Craw ford makes virtually no attempt to under stand her mother’s potency as a star. The few comments she makes on Crawford’s Films are worthless. Of Johnny Guitar she writes: “ In spite of the efforts of a good cast, good director, and interesting locations, it wasn’t a good movie.” This book is, of course, not about Joan Crawford as a star, but as a mother. It might, however, have had more balance, achieved more understanding of the alleged cruelties, if it had at least considered how the sorts of intensity that made her a domestic tyrant also fed into the often startling per sona of some remarkable films. The book is almost impossible to review. It is sloppily written: everything is treated in the same numbing accusatory tone (“ What she couldn’t control, Mother either dismis sed or destroyed”, strikes a typical note); but the real problem is in trying to decide just what to believe. The insistence worries not just because it is so wearying, but because it too often seems to elide periods of harmony as if the writer were afraid of qualifying the vision of arch-fiend she has made of her mother. Why has Christina Crawford written this book? She cannot have hoped to tarnish the star image of Mildred Pierce or A Woman’s Face. Perhaps she is after compensation for, along with her brother, being excluded from her mother’s will “for reasons which are well known to them” . The public is apparently helping her achieve this aim. For the rest, we can only speculate on what makes a daughter want to spill in print every repellent bean about her mother — and on why we wish to read about it.
H o lly w o o d on H o lly w o o d
.1. R. Parish and M. R. Pitts Scarecrow (James Bennett) $21 (HC) The book discusses films which producers have made about Hollywood and its most famous in dustry. Popeye: The F irst F ifty Years
Bud Sagendorf Workman $11.20 S h erlo ck H o lm es on th e Screen
Robert W. Pohle Jnr and Douglas C. Hart Barnes/Tantivy (Remal) $32.85 (HC) Biographies, Memoirs and Experiences in Filmmaking and Filmographies The F ilm s o f S h irley T em ple
Robert Windeler Citadel (Davis) $22.50 (HC) All of Shirley Temple’s films documented with casts, credits and synopses, with nearly 400 photographs The Film s o f W arren B ea tty
Lawrence J. Quirk Citadel (Davis) $22.50 (HC) A retrospective of Beatty’s career to date, with cast lists, credits and synopses of all his films. Exten sively illustrated. G la d ys C ooper: A B iograph y
Ian Carmichael Macmillan (Macmillan Aust.) $14.95 An engaging autobiography on the man behind the actor. Directors The F ilm s o f F ritz Lang
Frederick W. Ott Citadel (Davis) $26.95 (HC) A retrospective look at his life and career. More than 500 photographs illustrate the text. The F ilm s o f L eni R ie fen sta h l
David B. Hinton Scarecrow (James Bennett) $8.40 (HC) A comprehensive reference-book on the work of the famous German director. The M o vie B rats
Michael Pye and Lynda Myles Faber (Oxford University Press) $16.70 (HC) The story of six of Hollywood’s most celebrated new wave directors. Critical Film in S w ed en (S ta rs a n d P la yers)
Peter Cowie Barnes/Tantivy (Remal) $11.85 (HC) The second in a series of important monographs which will eventually encompass all aspects of Swedish cinema, past and present. Film T h eory an d C riticism
Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen (editors)' Oxford (Oxford University Press) $14.95 A new edition of the popular collection on film aesthetics and criticism. To the D ista n t O b server
Noel Burch Scolar $15.75 Form and meaning in the Japanese cinema. The author’s dialectical analysis produces some new in sights into the elements of film structure. History of the Film Industry and Accounts of Filmmaking C in em a an d H isto ry
Anthony Aldgate Scolar $18.95 British newsreels and the Spanish Civil War are studied in great depth to enlighten the reader on the news reporting process and' the degree of audience manipulation involved. Scripts The Blue D ahlia
Raymond Chandler Popular Library $3.25 The full-length film script, with stills and posters. Filmmaking, Acting Technique and Marketing A C hange o f Tack (M a k in g th e S h a d o w Line)
Boleslaw Sulik British Film Institute $5.45 Charts the cultural tensions which were added to the more usual problems of the filmmaking process. G ettin g S ta r te d in F ilm m a k in g
Lillian Schiff Sterling $7.50 The author uses her teaching experience with young filmmakers to confront the specific problems which face the beginner.
Sheridan Morley Heinemann (W. Heinemann Aust.) $27 (HC) The portrait of an extraordinary woman who started out as a postcard girl and ended up a Dame of the British Empire.
M u sic f o r the F ilm s
A H u n d red D ifferen t L ives
Film Novels
Raymond Massey Robson (Hutchinson) $21.95 (HC) Raymond Massey’s story of his distinguished acting on stage and screen, and that of his contem poraries. L ife with G o o g ie
John McCallum Heinemann (W. Heinemann Aust.) $17.50 (HC) A candid insight into the workings of the world of stage and screen. M arvin: The S to r y o f L ee M a rvin
Donald Zee N.E.L. (Australian Publishing Co.) $15.95 (HC) An absorbing illustrated biography. M o n tg o m e r y C lift
Patricia Bosworlh Bantam (Gordon and Gotch) $2.75 The biography of the actor who Marilyn Monroe said was “the only person I know who is in worse shape than 1 am.” N ed 's G irl
Bryan Forbes Elm Tree Books (Thomas Nelson) $17.95 The life of Edith Evans. O ur G ang: The L ife a n d T im es o f th e L ittle R a sca ls
Leonard Maltin and R. W. Bann Crown $7.45
Leonard Sabaneev Arno $19.95 A handbook for composers and conductors of sound films. The B reaker
Kit Denton Arkon (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95 C aligula
Gore Vidal Futura (Tudor) $2.95 The C ham p
Richard Woodley Fontana (William Collins) $2.95 The C hina S y n d ro m e
Burton Wohl Bantam (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95 J a m e s B o n d a n d M o o n ra k er
Christopher Wood Triad/Panther (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95 The M o n e y M o vers
Devon Minchin Marlin (Review Enterprises) $2.95 An Australian crime thriller. M y B rillian t C areer
Miles Franklin Angus and Robertson (Angus and Robertson) $2.95 Thirst
John Pinkney Circus (Hutchinson) $2.95
★
Cinema Papers, December-January — 671
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SAM â&#x20AC;&#x153; A young girl from the back streets of Melbourne, who had been jailed for armed robbery, becomes a fashion model. The film follows her life from the time she was involved in crime.â&#x20AC;? S a m ................... T i m ................... Wally ............... Debbie............... Raelene............. Brady ............... Newman........... Frank ............... Father ...............
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Clockwise from top: Sam (Tracy Mann) and Wally (John Arnold); Sam learns by phone that her modelling career is finished after she has refused to sleep with an advertising executive; Sam models at a fashion parade; Sam is interviewed by Brady (Bill Hunter) and Newman (Max Cullen) after being arrested for armed robbery; Sam is chased by Newman down a back-street alley.
BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH
Brian Trenchard Sm ith
Continued from P. 603 screen time to make the point, and the frame has not gone dead, some a c tiv ity in th e b ack g ro u n d motivates a person to drop stone dead in your immediate bottom frame foreground, thereby linking the rear of the shot with the front. This is an interesting shot because it makes the audience’s at tention roam all over the screen, and is motivated by them seeking information from different parts of the screen. The staging of the action should get hold of a person’s eyeballs, and then force them to follow the action. The thud of the body hitting the ground in the foreground is also a nice cutting point, and you can go to something else. Better still, as the body falls into foreground, a pair of legs in extreme foreground rushes from right to left, and that gives you a right to left movement to carry you into the next shot.
A ctors
Traditionally, direction of actors has not been regarded as my strong point; I am just the action man. This view has certainly counted against me in attempts to do anything other than straight action features, even though it has been no handicap in Hollywood. But I do recogqize that I could use some help in this area. So, I am doing a 12-week course with Nina Foch, the best dramatic coach in Hollywood. I want to learn an acto r’s problems from his point of view, just as I learned the problems of stuntmen from their point of view. This will then help me communi cate with actors better in the future. Directing actors is a business of drawing something out of them; making them feel comfortable and confident that they are not going to look stupid. Robert Lansing once said this to me after I had directed him badly in a television special called The Big Screen Scene. I noticed he felt the same way, so I said to him, “ Look, tell me what I did wrong. I am just a raw kid. Give me some pointers.” He told me that an actor feels naked in front of a camera, and that he depends on the director to make him look good. He said there was nothing worse for an actor than to feel the director didn’t have the same grasp of the scene that he did.
W orking O verseas
I am allowed to work in Britain, Australia and the U.S. It is my am 674 — Cinema Papers, December-January
bition to organize productions with Against the Wind opened on investment from these three major television and rated very well. English-speaking markets. If any of Prisoner also started, but I won’t the projects involve Australian in comment on that. vestment, I believe the film will have to be made in Australia. The But “Prisoner” rated very well . .. investment pot in this country is so limited by comparison with other Rating-wise, it did well. I just countries that one can’t afford to wish that our soap operas didn’t give any of it away to productions have to be pitched at such a low that aren’t made here. common denominator of public taste and intelligence. The gay Do you still see an opening for action groups stood outside the strictly indigenous films being made television station in Los Angeles the day after Prisoner started wav in Australia? ing placards at all who came by. The program rated , but I Yes. It is very important that we consider it to be largely an insult to continue to make films like Sunday the intelligence — though there is a Too Far Away, Storm Boy, In lot of American television you can Search of Anna and Mouth to say that about, too. Nonetheless, Mouth. It is often the indigenous one must give the producers credit quality that makes these films for selling it in the U.S. attractive to foreign audiences. If In Search of Anna had been rigged to be a sort of Australian Straight T railers Time, let’s say, with strong con cessions to the American market, it would not be the extraordinary, hypnotic film that it is. I have done two product reels for Take also The Last Wave: it the AFC, promoting something like might have Richard Chamberlain 30 Australian features, and have in it to make it more attractive to made quite a lot of local trailers.2 I like trailers because they are a the American audience, and indeed that has happened and they are discipline, and there is no better going to see it, but they are seeing it way of keeping one’s brain in theatres that normally play operating than looking at someone Italian, French and German films. else’s film and assessing what the It has the advantage of being in filmmaker’s intentions were. You English, yet with the foreignness then have to assess what parts of the film realize those intentions, they want. At the same time, we must put and, finally, what are the best ways together international packages, of presenting those intentions in the just like EMI did with The Deer- commercial market place. Sometimes you have to make a hunter. EMI decided, in Britain, to make a film about the Vietnam war highbrow film appear less high and they backed an American film brow, so that an audience comes to maker (Michael Cimino) to do it. see it. And when they come, if the Death on the Nile and Murder on film is any good, they will the Orient Express were also appreciate it. Whereas, if you had British-packaged films, with money informed them by way of the trailer from various sources. They were that the film was as highbrow as it two films calculated to appeal to is, they mightn’t have come. There have been occasions when the international audience, and I don’t see why we in Australia can’t Australian filmmakers have felt I be doing the same. The Canadians was cheapening their films by going are way ahead of us in making for the most exploitable elements, American or international’ films at or by suggesting there were certain Canadian prices. I think we should ideas in the film that weren’t there. be m aking A u stralian in te r By and large, though, most Aus national features at Australian tralian producers have been happy with my work. prices. Occasionally, there has also been a concern that I have given too Above or below the line? much away in a trailer, but I Well, if you want Donald Suther dispute this. I am very careful land I understand the price is about what I give away, and I $750,000. So obviously while we obviously don’t give away major can make an indigenous film very plot points, like who is the nicely for $750,000, if you want murderer. In the trailer for My Brilliant someone of Sutherland’s stature, you have to add another $750,000 Career, I used the scene where to the budget. However, that film Sybylla (Judy Davis) and Harry would probably cost an American (Sam Neill) have their little tiff, company a minimum of $4 million. and she slaps him across the face We are beginning to develop the with a riding crop. Now Gillian expertise in all departments of film Armstrong, who I think is a very making to make a film that stands fine filmmaker, apparently felt that up alongside a Hollywood produc I shouldn’t have shown that scene tion. The Last Wave ran for 18 because it was a dramatic high spot. weeks in Los Angeles. Simul I contend that I should have, taneously, Picnic at Hanging Rock because it was a confrontation was playing a couple of miles away. situation between two characters
which revealed some of the excitement and potential of their relationship. It made an audience want to go and see the relationship in full. Also, the surprise they might have received from seeing him struck across the face for the first time was not, in my opinion, diminished by seeing it in a trailer a week or so before, and in a situation where they were beyig bombarded by countless images and events as they awaited the start of another film. They have had plenty of time to relegate that event to the back of their memory. So, with all due respect Gill, I think I was right. I think it is in every respect a good trailer, and I believe it is enticing people to see the film. I do understand the filmmaker’s concern, though. He or she has given birth to a wonderful child, and wants to see the child treated and dressed properly, and then taken out and exposed to the p u b lic. I can u n d e rs ta n d a director’s sensitivity, but I have to maintain a certain objectivity and ask myself how can I market these goods to the public. By and large, I think I have been successful.
Footnotes 1. Landraiders, Columbia; Gross Plot, United Artists; Mission Impossible versus the Mob, Paramount; Once Upon a Time in the West, Paramount; A Man Called Sledge, Columbia; two tele-features for NBC: Destiny of a Spy, and Run a Crooked Mile; Take a Girl Like You, Columbia; The Last Grenade; Cinerama; The Virgin Soldiers, Columbia; The File of the Golden Goose, United Artists; Hell Boats, United Artists; Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Hammer; Horror of Frankenstein, Hammer; Moon Zero Two, Hammer; The Vampire Lovers, Hammer, Julius Caesar, Commonwealth United; Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, “a splendid title; it really means business”, Rank; The Bellstone Fox, Rank; and The Italian Job, Paramount, “which was directed by Peter Collinson, who 1 understand is so popular with the crew of The Earthling”. 2. The principal ones are Libido, Sunstruck, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Dog, Storm Boy, The Love Epidemic, Man From Hong Kong, Deathcheaters, Petersen, Break of Day, Summerfield, The Irishman, Snapshot, Thirst, The FJ Holden, The Journalist, The Last Wave, Money Movers, Blue Fin, Long Weekend, My Brilliant Career, In Search of Anna, The Fourth Wish and Stone. Film ography F eatu res
1974 1975 1976 1978
The Love Epidemic The Man From Hong Kong Deathcheaters Stunt Rock
D ocu m en taries
1977 Hospitals Don’t Burn T elevisio n
1972 1972 1972 1973 1973 1974 1976
Marty Feldman in Australia The Big Screen Scene For Valor The Stuntmen , The World of Kung Fu Kung Fu Killers Danger Freaks
customer
coorn m 35 Missenden Road, Camperdown, N.S.W. 2050 Telephone: (02)5161066
IAN HOLMES
P roduction Survey Continued from P. 655
V IC T O R IA N FILM CO RPO R ATIO N CHANGES Prod, company ...............Filmpartnershlp Producer .......................... Mike Brayshaw Director ................................ Karin Altman Photography .................... Mike Brayshaw Sound recordist ..................Ian Jenkinson Editor ..........................................Peter Bray Music performed by ............. S w e e t J a n e Exec, producer ..................Kent Chadwick Research .............................. Barbara Boyd Prod, manager ................... Barbara Boyd Length ............................................24 mins. Gauge .............................................16 mm Progress .......................... Awaiting release Synopsis: A documentary on the changing nature of the workforce and the increasing contribution women are making to it. The film features profiles of women in unusual and challenging occupations. Produced for the Department of the Premier (Womens Affairs Section).
FRESHWATER FISHING IN VICTORIA Scriptwriter .......................... Russell Porter Exec, producer .................Kent Chadwick Length ...........................................18 mins. Gauge .............................................35 mm Progress ............................ Pre-production Synopsis: The native fishing resources of Victoria's rivers and the need to conserve them. Produced for the Department of Con servation, Fisheries and Wildlife Division.
GIPPSLAND LAKES Prod, company ................................... ABC Director ............................. Dionne Gilmore Scriptwriter ........................ Ronald Strahan Photography .......................... Keith Taylor, Peter Parks, Densey Clyne, Jim Frazier Sound recordist .................John Boswell Editor ................................ Jeremy Hogarth Composer ........................... Greg Snedden Length .................................... 4 x 30 mins. Gauge .............................................16 mm Progress .......................... Awaiting release Release date .................... February, 1980 Synopsis: A series of documentaries on the Gippsland Lakes region of Victoria. Pro duced for the Department of Conservation for television release In conjunction with the ABC.
GOONAWARRA PROJECT Producer .................... David Bilcock sen. Photography ...............David Bilcock sen. Exec, producer .................Kent Chadwick Length ...........................................25 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Progress ...................................Production Synopsis: A documentary on the building of a m ajor housing developm ent, p ro gressively filmed over two years. Produced for the Housing Commission.
ON THE OUTSIDE Prod, company
........... Phil de Montignie and Associates Director ........................ Phil de Montignie Scriptwriter ......................... Russell Porter Photography ...................... David Haskins Sound recordist ...................... Ian Wilson Editor ............................... David Pulbrook Exec, producer ................Kent Chadwick Technical adviser ...............Doris Liftman Length ...........................................24 mins. Gauge .............................................16 mm Progress ....... ................. Post-production Release date .................November, 1979 Synopsis: Set In the streets, the courts and in the prisons, this documentary is about two young people and their confrontation with the law. It examines some of the prob lems faced by offenders and the support systems offered. Produced for the Depart ment of Community Welfare Services.
SHRINE ...............Cambridge Film Productions Producer ...................................John Dixon Director .....................................John Dixon Scriptwriter ............................... John Dixon Editor ............................................ Jill Rice Exec, producer .................Kent Chadwick Length ........................................... 25 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Progress ........................... Post-production Synopsis: A documentary about the history and contemporary significance of Mel bourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. Pro duced for the Department of the Premier and the Department of Crown Lands.
Director .............................Terry McMahon Scriptwriter ....................... Terry McMahon Photography ........................Peter Bilcock Sound recordist ................... John Phillips Editor ...............Edward McQueen-Mason Composer ..........................Bruce Smeaton Exec, producer ................. Kent Chadwick Producer’s assistant ........... Christine Sull Length ...........................................21 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Progress .....................................In release Release date ...................... October, 1979 Synopsis: Documentary on the Port Phillip Sea Pilots from 1838 to the present day. The film highlights the hazards of one of the most dangerous harbor entrances in the world and the vital role played by the pilots in the operation of this major port. Pro duced for the Marine Board.
WINNING Scriptwriter ............................... Nina Syme Exec, producer .................Kent Chadwick Length .......................................... 17 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Progress .. I ..............................Production Release date .................December, 1979 Synopsis: A profile of two young intellec tually-handicapped people — their day-to day life, their history and aspirations. The documentary follows a week In their lives and is set against a background of new care available for the treatment of the mentally handicapped. Produced for the Health Commission.
Prod, company
SMOKE Scriptwriters ............... Solomon Shulman, Russell Porter Exec, producer .................Kent Chadwick Length ............................................15 mins. Gauge ............................................ 16 mm Progress .............................Pre-production Synopsis: The Immediate short-term effects of smoking as a deterrent to early addic tion. The documentary Is aimed at the teen age consumer. Produced for the Depart ment of Youth, Sport and Recreation.
THROUGH THE RIP Prod, company ....... F. Stop Productions Producer ......... Edward McQueen-Mason
The Grundy O rganization
TA SM A N IA N FILM CORPORATION THE AUTOMATED MARINER Dist. company
.................Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ............................. Damien Parer Director ............................... Roger Lupton Sound recordist ......... John Schlefelbeln Composer ............................Richard Mills Camera assistant ....... John Jasiukowicz Musical director ......... Pinchas Steinberg Music performed byTasmanian Symphony Orchestra Sound editor ...............Mike Woolveridge Mixer ................................. Peter McKinley Editing assistant .................Posie Jacobs Narrator ............................... Frank Bansel Length .......................................... 17 mins. Progress .....................................In release Synopsis: A review of the exploitation and future potential of Tasmania’s marine resources. Produced for the Tasmanian Fisheries' Development Authority.
BASS STRAIT HIGHWAY Dist. company
.................Tasmanian Film Corporation
Producer .................... .. Anne Whitehead Director ............................... Don Anderson Scriptwriter ..........................Don Anderson Photography ....................Russell Galloway Sound recordist ..........John Schlefelbeln Prod, assistant .................. .Gary Clements Camera assistant ....... John Jasiukowicz Length ...........................................15 mins. Progress ..........................Post-production Synopsis: A look at Tasmania’s ports and shipping facilities. Produced for the Trans port Commission.
DICK SMITH, EXPLORER Dist. company
................ Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer/director ................ Bob Connolly Scriptwriters .........................Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson Photography ........................... Tony Wilson Sound recordist ...................... Tim Lloyd Prod, manager ...............Robin Anderson Composer ............................... Bob Young Length ........................................ 50 mins. Progress ........................... Post-production Cast: Philip Geeves, Dick Smith and family. Synopsis: A pilot program for a television series involving electronics millionaire Dick Smith and his family, retracing Australia’s early history of the helicopter.
IMPRESSIONS OF A COLONY Dist. company .................Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ...............................Damien Parer Director ...................................Barry Pierce Sound recordist ...............Peter McKinley Editor ............................Mike Woolveridge Unit manager ...................Daphne Crooks Camera operator ..........Russell Galloway Assistant cameraman . John Jasiukowicz Asst editor .......................... Debbie Regan Length ...........................................10 mins. Progress ..................................... In release Synopsis: A short film tracing the historical and cultural events which shaped the development of Tasmania. Produced for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
THE LAST WILDERNESS Dist. company
..................Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ........................ Anne Whitehead Scriptwriter ............................ Tom Haydon Length ...........................................25 mins. Progress ............................Pre-production Synopsis: A documentary aimed at creating greater awareness of, and support for, the retention of Tasmania’s natural waterways and surrounding wilderness areas. Pro duced for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
MINING AND CONSTRUCTION ................. Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ............................. Damien Parer Director ............................ Damian Brown
676 — Cinema Papers, December-Januafy
SLIPPERY SLIDE Dist. company
................. Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ...............................Damien Parer Director .......................... Donald Crombie Scriptwriter .....................Donald Crombie Sound recordist ......... John Schiefelbein Editor ..................................... Kerry Regan Camera operator ................ Chris Morgan Length ........................................... 60 mins. Progress ............................ Pre-production Synopsis: A documentary examining the lives of a boy and his sister who have gone through the ‘welfare’ system as neglected children.
A SPORTING CHANCE Dist. company
.................. Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer ........................ Anne Whitehead Director .................................Jack Zalkalns Scriptwriter .................Christine Schofield Photography ......................... Gert Kirchner Sound recordist ___, . John Schiefelbein Unit manager .................... Daphne Crooks Assistant cameraman . . . .Gary Clements Length ...........................................25 mins. Progress ................................... Production Synopsis: This short film is aimed at encouraging girls to take a more active interest in sport and other physical pursuits, and to create awareness of the Influence of sex-role conditioning In inhibiting physical self-expression. Produced for the Educa tion Department.
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Dist. company
.................Tasmanian Film Corporation Producer/director ..........Anne Whitehead Scriptwriter .....................Anne Whitehead Length ........................................... 25 mins. Progress .............................Pre-production Synopsis: A dramatized documentary examining the case history of a schizo phrenic patient in a mental institution. Pro duced for the Mental Health Commission.
SO UTH AU STR A LIA N FILM CO RPO RATIO N
Dist. company
$300,000 or $350,000 each. They storyline has elements of Asianare intended initially for the Aus Australian relationships. As for other Asian projects, we tralian cinema market, but in different parts of the world they have a couple that are very close to reaching co-production deals. As could well become tele-features. The problem of making viable yet, though, no project has been films in Australia demands that we finalized, and this has confounded develop marketing overseas. One of us a bit. We have also had a number of the reasons A u stra lia ’s film industry has not been particularly talks with Japanese producers, and viable is that our marketing outside there is one project that is moving A ustralia has not been very quite nicely. We have just re sophisticated. It has not developed opened talks on that. to the same level of expertise that other world filmmakers have. Is the basis of Grundys’ interest in co-productions a desire to break into The AFC’s investment is very large. Grundys has worked towards the Asian market? What does it mean in terms of making films under co-production fostering the Australian film in arrangements with Asian film and Yes. Asia is a very big market, dustry? television companies. One project, and that attracts us. A large That’s a big subject. Firstly, “Valley of Dreams”, is a co number of people go to the cinema without the AFC and similar state production with an Indonesian there, and pay big money for the bodies, there would be no, or very company. How is that project pleasure. Clearly, the Asian film companies are doing very well at little , film prod u ctio n . It is progressing? mining this market. We aim to do necessary to gain those sorts of likewise. We are quite a long way along funds to be able to produce films. the track, but our Indonesian Are these films tele-features and will partner recently dropped out. He What percentage of Australians became ill and wasn’t able to would be involved on a co-production they be made in Australia? continue on the schedule we had. like “Valley of Dreams”? No, they are not tele-features in The film is being delayed until we Valley of Dreams was projected the Australian sense. Five of them get our financial act together. It has are low-budget films of either to be a co-production, because the basically as an A u stralian Continued from P. 615 loan and covers seven different projects. If we come up with the scripts, casting and other elements that satisfy the AFC, then the money will be loaned to us to produce the films. One of our other projects is R & R Murders, which Sterling Silliphant is writing for us. He is due to come up with something in November. That is an inter national film and would require a lot of finance from overseas.
Scriptwriter ........................ Damian Brown Length ........................................... 15 mins. Progress ............................ Pre-production Synopsis: The standard of living which we enjoy today is dependent on the use of mineral resources. This short film examines the co nflict between the demand for minerals and the desire to preserve the environm ent. Produced fo r the Mines Department.
Details next Issue.
★
produced film, using Australian crews and cast with the exception of two main characters. The majority of the film was to be shot in Aus tra lia , with some scenes in Indonesia. We planned to have an Indonesian co-director, and some local crew members, but not many. Do you intend to preserve this balance on future co-productions, where possible? We would like to, but it depends on the relationships with the other party. For example, if Grundys became involved in a film that was primarily set in Hong Kong, and secondarily set in Australia, then our relationship might have to be very different. In such a case we would be viewed as the lesser party. But we don’t have a plan of that sort, and prefer it the other way round. We w o u l d c o n s i d e r s u c h an arrangement, however, if it was the onl y way of d e v e l o p i n g a relationship with a major partner. Obviously the hardest part is getting things started, and if it needs that kind of deal, then it may be worthwhile agreeing to one. ★
STUDIO FOR HIRE 60' x 30' — area — drive-in. 2 sided painted fixed Cyc 40'. Floor to ceiling 14'. Changing rooms, single and 3-phase power. Available 7day week.
IAN SMITH & ASSOCIATES 30 4 Coventry Street, South Melbourne Bookings: (03) 69 9 8533
URSULA JUNG Negative Cutting Service 16 mm and 35 mm Prompt, reliable service including pick-up and delivery. 29 Rosebud Parade, Rosanna East, Vic. 3084 Phone: (03) 459 6192
FOR SALE 1 only 16mm single/double system sound, news/docum entary outfit. 1 Frezzolini LW16 crystal sync single system camera. Angenieux 12-120 zoom lens with V30 zero finder. MCA16 amplifier. Auricon recording head. 1 Mitchell 400ft. magazine. 1 PLC4A 400ft. magazine. 3 ni-cad batteries. 2 battery chargers. 2 filter holders. Spare drive belt, fuses, and magazine studs. Camera manual. “ U” tube 2,000 ohm headset. 2 lapel mikes and accessories. 1 cartoid AKG D190c mike. 1 JVC M -510/T/U electret super directional/uni directional mike. Assorted mike leads. Boom for camera mounting mikes. Desk top mike stand. M iller Pro. fluid head tripod with wire spider. 1 shoulder pod. 1 pr. Eastern winders. 1 Leo Catozzo M2-16mm-2T splicer. 1 set close-up filters. 1 UV filter. . Wratten gelatin filters.
This complete set up is available as a package deal for $9,000. A ll the equipm ent is in excellent working order and only needs to be loaded with film to start new s/docum entary work. With the exception of the tripod, all the items listed are less than 6 months old. All enquiries to:
Territory Productions, P.O. Box 40156, Casuarina, N.T. 5792 Phone: B /H Darwin (089) 81 8195, A /H (089) 85 2860
COMMUNITY TELEVISION
C om m unity Television
Continued from P. 625 economic activity, and its consequences in Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. Both sought to incor porate audience participation and feedback dur ing each phase of development up to and beyond the broadcasts themselves. Frevideo continues to help groups wishing to make programs, and get them to air. Channel 9 in Perth has shown a number of them, including Friends of East Timor, Fringe Dwellers (on urban Aboriginals), and Volunteer Task Force (a community service organization). This small video centre is now investigating the establish ment in Fremantle of the type of television sta tion common in the mining towns of the West — i.e., a low-power transmitter fed entirely with pre-recorded programming. The proposal has much to offer in the short-term — simple tech nology, cheapness, established precedents — all of which make for a useful experiment in the right circumstances. Just how different the face of community tele vision in Sydney could be remains to be seen. A lot, no doubt, depends on the re-development of the video facilities at the Paddington Town Hall; formerly the home of the now-defunct Padding ton Town Hall Centre Ltd, it now stands as a fit ting memorial to the folly of a large portion of Australia’s filmocracy. Paddington’s re-emergence as a video centre is not necessarily a precondition, but obviously a major influence, as it is the largest repository of non-commercial equipment in Sydney which is likely to be developed in the community context. After two days of workshops and plenary ses sions at Wodonga, the outline of PBAA’s pro file of television had become clearer. Com munity television would complement commer cial and ABC television, but in practical terms it would need to be seen as competing, “inasmuch as it is a third alternative it offers a competitive choice” . The objectives of community television were set down as being to: (a) Maximize community involvement; (b) Enable community groups to initiate, pro duce, and present their own programs. (c) Provide programs that would otherwise not be available; (d) Experiment with programming content, style and format; (e) Establish and identify programming and viewers’ needs which could provide im petus to all areas of television. (0 Maximize accountability to viewers; (g) Provide a competitive service to viewers; (h) Encourage and promote Australian programming; and (i) Maximize involvement of disadvantaged groups. 13 This first draft policy, presented by the CTV sub-committee, argued that the three critical ele ments in community television were direct ac cess, direct control and community orientation. Accountability to viewers would be achieved through feedback mechanisms, including feed back on specific programs during and after broadcasts, and regular feedback on program ming policy through public meetings and the ap pointment of a programming ombudsman. Also, there should be no separate category licences for community television stations, and “all reven ues of community television should be used sole ly for promoting the objectives of community television.” The PBAA said that “funding conditions and ¡3. First Draft o f a Policy on Community Television, PBAA CTV sub-committee, Wodonga, December 1978.
678 — Cinema Papers, December-January
Melbourne, July 13, 1979. Government or no Government, those of us on the conference trail hadn’t had much sleep. In the Panorama Room at the Melbourne Town House, the “rich bold decor” of the publicity blurb appeared strangely anaemic. The conference display-board by the lift read, “Television — The New Direction” . It was about time. By March, the reformers’ advance against entrenched commercial television interests had ground to a halt in the Broadcasting Tribunal’s Sydney hearings. By May, in Melbourne, the public had faded away from such forums. Their champion in the lists, the former Deputy Censor, Ms Janet Strickland, had resigned from the Tribunal in protest at the conduct of the hear ings, leaving Queen’s Counsels and chroma-keyblue-suited executives to seek advancement amid the wreckage. By July, the Special Broadcasting Service had nearly completed Australia’s first 13-week experiment in “ Ethnic Television” , managing, according to its chairman, Dr Grisha Sklovsky, “without asking anyone in Australia to make a film for ethnic television. ” 14 This feat, in some small manner, might have contributed to the rich and lavish criticism which the whole affair attracted from a few members of the ethnic com munity. An Ethnic Television Review Panel had been established under the chairmanship of the emi nent and inimical criminal lawyer, Mr Frank
Galbally, who on June 24 informed ABC televi sion News viewers that, “ You can get any result you like from a survey, depending on how you go about it. As they say, there are lies, lies and statistics. ” 15 By July 14, it was indeed time for a New Direction. For just on 21 hours the conference brought together 24 speakers, five session chairmen, and an audience of about 100 people. Watched by a video crew, media researchers, politicians, bureaucrats, unionists, lobbyists, students, broadcasters, journalists, social workers, parents, teachers, ethnic representatives, video makers and filmmakers, employers and un employed sat together for two days to consider the future of the new media. This writer, always the optimist, suggested that Australian media watchers should be look ing in their own backyards, rather than overseas, if they wanted to see significant changes and challenging new forms of television. With an urgent need for diversity and room to move — room to build the new media without having to demolish the old — Australia had serious environmental advantages compared to Europe and North America. A seductive if hazy argument, it seemed to place great faith in the pioneer approach to the development of the undeveloped — though hard ly supported by the great Australian ugliness which, 200 years after the First Fleet, finds 60 per cent of the population locked in the urban metropolises of the East Coast. The pessimists would have none of it. Who voted? Who paid? And how much? These were the important questions. Julie James Bailey had cogent arguments for adapting existing media forms, instead of launching alternatives. During the debate on ethnic television, Giovanni Sgro MP, stressed that political party promises for ethnic services only followed a dramatic upturn in the ethnic vote brought about by simplified naturalization proceedings. Sarah Gues, staunch Tory-sounding advocate of a better deal for children, regretted the expen sive nature of a reformist program such as Stax, and said how good Shirl’s Neighbourhood was. She didn’t say, but might have, that no one in their right mind would buy an expensive car seat for their children if a cheaper one, which fulfilled all the standards, was available — at least, not if they still meant to make money out of the deal. It all seemed to say something about the hid den agenda, about why a station, HSV-7, had failed to appeal against a provisional ‘C’ Classi fication for one of its programs. Jon Cassidy, speaking as a communications unionist after 16 years with the ABC, went more directly to the prospects for community tele vision. Focusing on the dangers broadcasters faced if they became too dependent on govern ment funding, Cassidy looked at the ABC and public radio experience, and compared it with that of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the U.S. Cassidy’s theme, “When you go to bed with the government you get rather more than a good night’s sleep” , 16 had come rather like a jaded Olympic Torch all the way from Wodonga, where it had been used by Post and Tele communications Minister Tony Staley to justify public broadcasting groups using divide-and-rule tactics with funding agencies. In Melbourne, Cassidy gave the argument new life, parti cularly in relation to the magnitude of finance needed for community television compared to radio. Concluded on P. 680
14. (in) Studio discussion program on ethnic television. Broadcast ABV-2, Sunday, July 22, 1979.
15. ABV-2. 7 p.m. News, June 24, 1979. 16. Proceedings: “Television — The New Direction” , Mel bourne, July 14, 1979.
arrangements should be flexible, regularly reviewed and ultimately determined by the licence holders.” The following possibilities for funding were suggested as: (a) Licence fees; (b) Direct taxation; (c) A predetermined portion of tax on the sale, rental and servicing of television and radio receivers; (d) A tax on broadcast receivers; (e) A tax on commercial stations gross turn over; (0 Advertising varying from total to ‘buffer’ finance and including cross-subsidiz ations; (g) Sponsorship of programs; (h) Co-production; (i) A tax on the hire and sale of pre-recorded video cassettes; and (j) Sponsorship of the station. The PBAA said that, subject to the provision of funds, it would set up a research unit to en courage stations to undertake appropriate research and evaluation. The PBAA will also “ request the Common wealth government to assist in the development of community television and to increase public awareness of new initiatives in these areas” . Specifically, it will seek funding for a public in quiry into community television that would help determine the most desirable form of imple menting community stations — and their likely impact. The PBAA left Wodonga substantially better equipped to deal with television than when it arrived, but the debate on the draft policy suggested by its CTV sub-committee had only just begun.
Fo re g ro u n d : “ W hen you go to bed w ith the g o ve rnm e nt you get rather m ore than a good night*s sleep « .. ”
INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTION ROUND-UP
In te rn a tio n a l Production Round-up Continued from P. 634 Other films originally scheduled for produc tion this year, but now delayed until 1980, in clude Michael Black’s Pictures; Roger Donald son’s Smash Palace; and a film of the best selling novel, Gunner Inglorious. The New Z ea la n d Film C o m m issio n marketing director, Lindsay Shelton, expects a minimum of eight features to be produced in New Zealand next year. These include Ian Mune’s End of the Golden Weather; the U.S.New Zealand venture Teacher (scripted by Barbara Turner, and produced by American Robert Radnitz and New Zealander Michael Firth; Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a thriller; and Roger Donaldson’s The World’s Fastest Indian. Sydney actor-writer Roger Ward has teamed with Perth doctor-entrepreneur Jon Sainken to make Reflex, a contemporary action drama, in New Zealand in February. The two Bounty films — The Law Breakers and The Long Arm — scheduled to be directed in New Z ea la n d by David Lean, have floundered, and the replica of the mutineers’ boat intended to be used in the film lies in a harbor near Auckland with a bailiff's note for $750,000 attached to the mast. The $2 million boat finished sea trials off the New Zealand coast, but director David Lean and his backers cannot claim the vessel until the money due on it is paid. Dino de Laurentiis, whose costly remake of Hurricane fared dismally at the box-office, pulled out of the Bounty project. After double taxation problems in New Zealand, the failure to get a commitment from United Artists, and De Laurentiis’ withdrawal, producer Phil Kellogg and Lean are now looking elsewhere for finance. Jon Voigt and Anthony Hopkins have already been signed for the $20 million film. Europe
A general slowdown in production in Europe is evident in all major film-producing countries with the exception of Italy. France has been hit by economic problems which have affected film production; Spanish
film producers have experienced problems with censorship and bureaucracy from the Government’s arts office; and Germany has not continued its usual co-productions with European and U.S. companies. A major Spanish film in production at the moment is The Sabina. Directed by Jose Luis Borau, it stars Angela Molina and Carol Kane, and is the fir s t S p a n ish -S w e d ish c o production. It is being shot mainly in the Spanish village of Ronda, as well as Madrid, and p o s t-p ro d u c tio n w ill be done in Stockholm. The few French productions underway in clude Franz Antel’s Oysters With Mustard, shooting in France, Italy and Austria; Conan Le Cilaire's Faces of Death; and Andre de Toth's Jan, starring Van Johnson. Rosa Productions (Paris), Isram Films (New York), and Universal Studios (Los Angeles) will co-produce the $8 million Sutter’s Gold, to be directed by Israeli producer-director Moshe Mizraki on European locations, with Paris as the main base. Sutter’s Gold was originally bought in 1920 by Universal for Soviet director Sergei Eisen stein, who never got to the U.S. to start it. Franco Zefferelli is shooting Maria Callas on location throughout Europe; Ernst Hofbauer is shooting The Temptress, starring Lilli de Milo, in Paris and Munich; and Serge Lensten is shooting Madness Magnified in Stuttgart and Nice. Despite continuing court cases involving provincial judges, Italy is still producing films with sexual, political and anti-religion themes. Church leaders are already decrying Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s The Divine Nymph after three weeks of location shooting near Naples; Claudio Baretti is directing Monique Van Dirra in Veil of Nuns; Louis Calerno is directing The Passionate Priest; and director Benito Caliante satirizes the political world in The Premier’s Bordello. Dino Risi is directing Alberto Sordi in Pape Satan, an adaptation of Alighieri’s Inferno; Marco Steno is to -direct Bud Spencer in Piedone On the Nile; Ettore Scola, The Terrace; Marco Vicario, The Astrakan Coat; Massimo Pirri, Lycanthropus; Enzo Marra, Emmanuelle in Sex Hell; and Gianni Barcelloni is to direct Catherine Deneuve in The Interior Life, based on Alberto Moravia’s best-selling novel. Michelangelo Antonioni is preparing a tele feature called Kranz Mystery, an adaptation from Jean Cocteau’s The Two-Headed Eagle.
IN S Y N C EDITING SERVICE 16mm & 35mm Post Production E diting service for com m ercials and docum entaries
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COMMUNITY TELEVISION
PRODUCTION REPORT
Censorship Listings Continued from P. 635 Tha School-waltz: Gorkly’s Mosfllm Studio, U.S.S.R. (2683.00 m) Starcrash: N. & P. Wachsberger, U.S.A./ltaly (2677.25
m)
To My Beloved: Sovexport Film, U.S.S.R. (3697.55 m) The Wolverine’s Trail: Lenfilm, U.S.S.R. (1978.39 m)
For Mature Audiences (M) The Amityvilie Horror: Saland/Geisinger, U.S.A. (3290.78 m) Concorde Attair: L. Martino/M. Loy, Italy (2593.58 m) Dracula: W. Mirisoh, U.K. (3011.90 m) Hot Stuft: M. Engelberg, U.S.A. (2509.92 m) II Regno Dl Napoli (The Kingdom ot Naples): D. Geissler, W. Germany/ltaly (3716.16 m) In the Beach House (16 mm): Berardi/Picioli, Italy (1140.88 m) The Jail (16 mm): Anderson/Yahraus/Jacobs/Lan- , dau, U.S.A. (866.63 m) Knife in the Head (Messer Im Kopf): Bloskop Film, W. Germany (3127.99 m) Kostas (Revised Version)1: B. Eddy, Australia (2578.00
m)
A Man Called Intrepid: P. Katz, Canada (3318.67 m) The Mantis Fights Cock: Guo Hwa Motion Picture Co., Hong Kong (2565.70 m)
Sextette: D. Brlggs/R. Sullivan, U.S.A. (2426.00 m) The Six Directions Boxing: Not shown, Hong Kong (2509.92 m) Sleeping Fist: C. C. Ling, Hong Kong (2432.88 m) A Very Big Withdrawal: Samuelson/Bennett, Canada (2753.70 m) Waiting for Caroline (16 mm): W. Hewltson, Canada (921.48 m) Airport 80 — The Concorde: J. Lang, U.S.A. (3095.57
m)
1. Revised by producer; previously shown on June, 1979 List.
For Restricted Exhibition (R) Anita: Editing Place Inc., U.S.A. (1684.30 m) Assault on Precinct 13: J. S. Kaplan, U.S.A. (2482.03
m)
The Association: Golden Harvest, Hong Kong (2379.41 m) Blooded Treasury Fighting: Chen/Yang, Hong Kong (2482.03 m) Construction Gang: B. Mansy, U.S.A. (1533.84 m) Ernesto: Clesi Clnematograflca, Italy (2593.00 m) The Hills Have Eyes (American Television Version1): P. Locke, U.S.A. (2072.20 m) Horn A’ Plenty: Not shown, U.S.A. (1645.39 m) In Einem Jahr Mit 13 Monden (In a Year with 13 Moons): R. W. Fassbinder, W. Germany (3430.22 m) Intimate Relations: G. Dimltropoulous, Greece (2807.17 m)
Com m unity Television
Continued from P 678 However, Cassidy also pointed out that, “ Even under the present very severe budget and staff restrictions, the ABC is still better off than public radio, or what is planned for public tele vision. If Auntie is a kept woman,” he said, “ custom has at least demanded that she be kept in a certain style.” A discussion group continued from where he left off, and much thought was given to the idea of an Open Broadcasting Authority as a means of providing the infrastructure for community television, while keeping the stations and programming at arm’s length from government. It was a pity that Commonwealth government representatives declined to attend the con ference. Their reluctance to enter into the debate naturally raised more questions than it solved. Noticeably absent also, after his llth-hour cancellation, was SBS chairman, Dr Sklovsky, who felt he was constrained from giving a paper Bernard Hides
Continued from P. 647 in a large warehouse, such as you have here, as opposed to a studio? None. A studio is built as a sound-proofed stage, whereas this is just three warehouses joined together: one we have used as a workshop and the other two as sound stages. We had to make two of them soundproof, so we bought some underfelt and draped it like the inside of a huge tent. A studio is also better in that it has a timber floor, and you can affix things to it. -This warehouse has a concrete floor, and an uneven one at that. We had to fill it in with cement to try and get it level. The floor of the set is raised . . . I did this because it is nice to have an entrance into a room either up or down; walking on a flat level gives everything a bland look. I would have done that in a normal studio, anyhow. The floor treatment might have been better if there was a timber floor. We could have nailed down pine or particle board so it wouldn’t move. We have had problems with our floor resting on the concrete. We glued down timber-grained wallpaper and' then filled it with 680 — Cinefna Papers, December-January
The Iron Monkey: L. W. Feng, Hong Kong (2513.09 m) It’s Not My Body ‘Lady Della’: Jahk Prods., U.S.A. (1980.05 m) Kelek (16 mm): W. Neke, W. Germany (636.26 m) The Love Cycle: F. Sebastian, U.S.A. (2085,33 m) One Armed Against Nine Killers: K. Dah-Chuan, Hong Kong (2454.14 m) Panorama Blue2: A. Roberts, U.S.A. (1729.00 m) The Passage: J. Quested, U.S.A./U.K. (2705.14 m) Popcorn and Ice Cream: L. Barthonla, W. Germany (2566.00 m) Scorching Sun, Fierce Winds, Wild Fire: Not shown, Hong Kong (2621.47 m) Yvonne . . . From 6 to 9: Not shown, U.S.A. (1549.00 m)
David: Vietlnghoff Film, W. Germany (3425.00 m) F la m in g H earts (F la m m e n d e H e rz e n ): W. Bockmayer/R. Buhrmann, W. Germany (2630.00 m) Good-for-nothing (Taugenichts): ABS/Solarls-Film, W. Germany (2500.00 m) Trilogy of Meeting Again (Trilogie Des Wiedersehens) (16 mm): Eine Reglna-Zlegler-Filmproduktlon, W. Ger many (1408.00 m)
1. Previously shown on March, 1979 List. 2. Previously shown on July, 1974 List.
Sextet: Gemini Films Inc., U.S.A. (1701.17 m) Eliminations: 50.4 metres (1 min. 50 secs.) Reason: Indecency
SPECIAL CONDITIONS: For showing not more than twice at 1979 Canberra Film Festival and then exported. Attention, Les Enfants Regardent: Adele Prods.-U.A., France (2743.00 m)
SPECIAL CONDITIONS: That the films be shown only to its members by the National Film Theatre of Australia in its 1979 ‘Recent German Cinema’ Season. Albert — Why? (Albert — Warum?): HFFF-Munlch, W. Germany (2875.00 m)
because of the Ethnic Television Review Panel deliberations. His cancellation was all the more puzzling because he had originally approached the organizers asking for time to speak. Regrettable though such gaps were, the con ference still achieved a remarkable momentum from its pluralist approach and the consequent wide diversity of questions and issues it raised. After 23 years of television (or, with apologies to Phillip Adams, one year 23 times), it at last appears that there is a very real choice to be made. It is now that the cornerstones of the policies and procedures for the 1980s and beyond are being laid. On present indications, the electronic media and telecommunications framework we erect now will be with us and our children till the year 2000 at least. If television is to adapt according to the needs of many, rather than the designs of a few, now is the time to find out which offers can be refused, and which opportunities need to be supported. Donald Schon’s “bigger bag of chips” may well have owed its development to television; it
polyurethane coating to harden it, but it is still scuffing. When they mark the floor with tape it tends to lift off, and at the moment it is like a patchwork quilt. Every time they go out on location, we have to strip and repair it. One of the interesting things I have done is give the main lounge room a false ceiling. It starts at about three metres, comes out from the wall a metre, and goes up verti cally another metre. In this area one has the air-conditioning ducts, lights and so on. Now, Gary’s used this to throw heavy shadows on to the wall to give it a nice “ceiling” look.
FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATION The Hottest Show in Town': P. & E. Kronhausen, Den mark (2277.50 m) Reason: Indecency Raquel’s Motel: Fantasia Films, U.S.A. (1608.70 m) Reason: Indecency Refinements of Love2: C. Tobalina, U.S.A. (1729.30 m) Reason: Indecency 1. Version measuring 2734 metres previously rejected (July, 1975 List). 2. Version measuring 2350 metres previously rejected (November, 1974 List). ★
For more information about community television contact the nearest video centre: New S o u th W a le s :
S o u th e rn M e d ia C o -o p e ra tiv e ,
11-13 Mattill-law Ave, Bardwell Park, NSW, 2207 Telephone: (02) 599 2522 W e s te rn A ccess,
269 Bigge St, Liverpool, NSW, 2170 Telephone: (02) 601 4489 V ic to ria :
PACT,
13 Victoria St, Fitzroy, Vic., 3065 Telephone: (03) 419 5111 S o u th A u s tra lia :
W ood v iile C M A ,
3 Norman St, Woodviile, SA, 5011 Telephone: (08) 268 1451 W e s te rn A u s tra lia :
Is this a set? No, it is a room at the Cottesloe Town Hall. It was built sometime at the turn of the century, and is panelled in jarrah. We also shot a sequence in a park, where we had to plant a thousand-odd pot plants to give the feeling of spring. The park didn’t have any flowers in it at the time. Tony Ginnane’s films tend to be international in character. Was part of your brief not to include any elements which could betray nation ality? Yes. That’s why, when the hoilse was selected, we had to find one that wasn’t Australian, colonial or Georgian.
The only changes were to put up a surveillance camera just outside the gates and a small intercom inside. Also, the drapes we have hanging inside the front door on our set were put up at Bond’s place.
What about exteriors, like road ways and driving on the right-hand side of the road?
There is the party office of Doc Wheelan (Broderick Crawford), the man who manipulates everybody. His office is all panelled walls, leather chairs and fathers of the community hanging on the walls.
For Restricted Exhibition (R)
would, however, be more than somewhat of a tragedy if television itself became little more than a bigger bag of chips. ★
When you shot exteriors at Bond’s house, did you make any changes?
Are there any other sets or loca tions?
FILMS REGISTERED WITH ELIMINATIONS
We had made a whole batch of American number plates, which we were going to put on to the cars, but we finally decided not to. Appar ently, everything might be flipped over in the lab for the U.S., in which case everything would have been written backwards. Given that you are not the produc tion designer, did you find that any
F rev id eo ,
30 Mouat St, Fremantle, WA, 6160 Telephone: (09) 335 7525
of your decisions clashed with other departments? We did have a small problem with wardrobe over a scene in the maid’s bathroom. I wanted a high gloss green wall and we tried putting lining paper on the wall and painting it a high gloss, but it was a disaster. We also tried filling pine board, but that was another dis aster. 1 then found a wallpaper which had a heavy pattern on it, and a lot of white and green leaves. I painted it as green as I could get it; the effect was quite brilliant. With it I overcame my problem of not being able to give it the wall treatment I wanted. The reason I wanted green was that it looks great against flesh. You see, -in the bathroom is a lady (Alison Best) who is not entirely clothed. Anyway, the costume depart ment felt the girl should have a green negligee, which I felt was fighting my green wallpaper. Who won? Well, I think I did. They had already bought a green negligee, but they finally settled on a pink one. jy That w.as the only area of dispute, and everything else has gone rather nicely. ★
Australian Film and Television School
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OPEN PROGRAM The Open Program of the Australian Film and Television School conducts a program of lectures, seminars and workshops, providing in-service training for film and television professionals and training in film and video for communicators of all vocations.
CRESTA SOUND ADELAIDE Offers top film sound recording v facilities and personnel includ' ing transfer post sync mixing. Contact Rod Pascoe on (08) 798288. 8 WarregoCres., Linden Park.5065 S.A.
Forthcoming courses include:
January 1980— February 1980— March 1980— April 1980— May 1980— June 1980—
1 week black and white portapak workshop 1 week super 8 workshop 1 week director’s course 1 week colour video course 1 week advanced television course 1 week colour studio workshop 1 week 16mm production workshop Script and narration writing course 1 week animation workshop 1 week colour video workshop production management course 1 week advanced 16mm production w ork shop 1 week docum entary writing course
The Open Program also produces a wide range of resources — film, video and print — specifically designed for media education. For further information telephone the Open Program on (02) 887 1666 or write to Post Office Box 126, North Ryde, 2113.
Motion Picture Associates Pty. Ltd. 9 Abbott Street, Cam m eray, N.S.W . 2062. An independent film production house offering complete production facilities.
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John Flaus, Tom Ryan, Ken Mogg, Sam Rohdie, Rod Bishop, Jack Clancy, and many more, take FM and you to the movies on Radio 3RRR. Interview s (with everyone in film), reviews, and series such as “ A ustralian Film s” , “ Talking P ictures” , “ Film and P olitics” and “ Australian Experim ental Film M akers” are w hat yo u ’ve heard so far on Triple-R. Stay tuned to w hat The Age called the best education radio in the country, and h e a r. . . • John Flaus’ Filmbuff’s F o recast Thursdays at 7.45 pm. • N ew Release Review, w ith Ken Mogg. M ondays at 11.30 am. • and more series in the new year.
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• PLAN AND COORDINATE YOUR SHOOT . . . production meetings, hire and storage of equipment, acting workshops, etc. • HAVE RUSHES SYNCED AND READY TO VIEW EACH NIGHT OF THE SHOOT. .. double head Siemens projector • CUT THE FILM AND LAY TRACKS . . . editing suite including Steenbeck, etc. • PREVIEW TO AN AUDIENCE AT DOUBLE HEAD . . . theatrette holds up to 50 people. • ORGANIZE AND RECORD VOICE-OVERS, F/X, AND MUSIC . . . professional multi-track recording studio, composition, arrangement, musicians available
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TOP QUALITY IMMEDIATE SERVICE TO SATISFY 8 SIR JOHN YOUNG ORES., WOOLLOOMOOL0O 2011 Phone: (02) 358 3362 or A.H. (02) 32 9417
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I f yo u ’re planning a film or television production in V icto ria , then you should earm ark $3 o f your budget for a copy o f the
I t ’s got the who, when, where, what, why and of working within this
Published by the Victorian Film Corporation, it is the mgst detailed listing of services, facilities, personnel, production companies, state and federal law, distributors and exhibitors, media, unions, guilds, location advice, useful contacts, etc., yet compiled in this State.
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With Atlab, your overnight rushes donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look rushed. The reason is sim ple; before it goes out, every print is carefully inspected by professionals trained to be critical. Put that with the finest printing, processing and grading and you've got the best overnight rushes in the business.
GIVING QUALITY SERVICE TO THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY. / i v | 1
Atlob Film and Video Laboratory Service, Television Centre, Epping, N.S.W. Telephone: (02) 858 7500. Telex: AA20250. Cables: Telecentre, Sydney.
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Picked your best shots? Worried about them looking stale by the time your commercial is finished? Maybe you should finish it at Custom Video. When we transfer your film to tape we’ll retain all the crisp freshness and wholesome natural goodness of your original. Without losing any of the flavour.
At Custom Video, when your image becomes our image we make it hard to tell the difference. And we keep it that way. Because, the fresher your image looks, the better our image gets.
CUSTOM ▼IDEO AUSTRALIA TELEVISION CENTRE EPPING NSW AUSTRALIA TELEPHONE (02) 858 7545
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Where it’s hard to tell the difference . . .