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The New South Wales Film Corporation congratulates the makers of My Brilliant Career

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 ininauguraltrophyfortheAustralianfeaturefiim “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 We thankthe producers, Michael Pate andscreening 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 ’

~all Australians for backing Australian films

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NOTICE to all applicants to the Project Development BranchCommencing from the month of October the following “ CLOSING D ATES” are advised for SCRIPT D EVELO PM EN T AND PRO JECT D EVELO PM EN T (Project Development was previously known as Pre-production). Because of the NEW ST Y L E PAN EL ASSESSM ENT for script development it is now necessary to restrict applications to a BI-M O N TH LY 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 DEVELOPMENT4 January, 1980 (for consideration at the February Commission Meeting)7 March, 1980 (for consideration at the April Commission Meeting)9 May, 1980 (for consideration at the June Commission Meeting)

The below listed closing dates are advised for applications for PRODUCTION FUNDING (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 FUNDING22 February, 1980 (for consideration at the March Commission Meeting)2$ April, 1980 (for consideration at the May Commission Meeting)20 June, 1980 (for consideration at the July Commission Meeting)

Further information may be obtained from the following officers of the Commission.

Sydney

(02) 922 6855

Melbourne

Shirley Wyndham (Script Development) Geof Gardiner (Production Funding)

Anne Pidcock (General Enquiries) John Daniell (Director of Projects)

(03) 328 2809 Murray Brown (Script Development & Production Funding)

When making an application to the Project Branch please read the ‘Requirements Check List9 on the back of the application forms.

And now for a special announcement

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Articles and Interview sBrian Trenchard Smith: Interview

Richard BrennanDon 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 WalshJerzy Toeplitz: Interview

Peter Gerdes

598

604

608

612

618

622

630

The Don Lane Show Examined: 604 Features Brian Trenchard Smith

Interviewed: 598The Quarter 596Edinburgh International Film Festival 1979

Jan Dawson 616Adelaide International Film Festival 1979

Noel Purdon, Peter Page 626International Production Round-up

Terry Bourke 634Film Censorship Listings 635Production Survey 649Box-office Grosses 657

Production ReportHarlequin: Simon Wincer 638

Jane Scott 643Bernard Hides 646

Film ReviewsBrazilian Cinema

Surveyed: 608

AlienReviewed: 667

Life of BrianDennis Altman 659

Palm BeachNoel Purdon 660

Blood RelativesTom Ryan 660

Just Out of Reach, Morris Loves Jack, andConman Harry and The OthersBarbara Alysen 662

Rapunzel, Let Down Your HairMeaghan Morris 663

Escape from AlcatrazJack Clancy 665

AlienBrian McFarlane 667

Book ReviewsNo Bed of Roses, By Myself, and

Mommie DearestBrian McFarlane 669

Recent ReleasesMervyn R. Binns 671

Adelaide Film Festival Reviewed: 626

HarlequinProduction Report: 637

Managing editors: Peter Beilby, Scott Murray. Editorial Board: Peter Beiiby, Scott Murraiy. Contributing Editors: Antony I. Qinnane, Tom Ryan, Basil Gilbert, Ian Balllieu. 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)8201097 or (03)329 5983. Printing: Progress Press Pty Ltd, 2 Keys Rd, Moorabbln, 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.

‘ Recommenced price only.

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

AUSTRALIAN FILM AWARDS

- %

A national strike by television technicians disrupted the presentation of this year’s Australian Film Awards.

The Awards were to be telecast live from a specially-constructed set at the Hoyts Entertainment Centre in Sydney. The strike by technicians, however, forced the Nine Network 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.

Producer Margaret Fink accepts one of the seven Australian Film Awards for My Brilliant

Career.

Best Film of the Year: My Brilliant CareerBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Mel Gibson In TimBest Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Michele Fawdon in Cathy’s ChildBest Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Alwyn Kurts in TimBest Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Patricia Evison in TimBest Achievement in Directing: Gillian Armstrong for My Brilliant CareerBest Achievement in Cinematography: Don McAlpine for My Brilliant CareerBest Original Screenplay: Esben Storm for In Search of AnnaBest Screenplay Adapted from Other Material: Eleanor Wltcombe for My Brilliant Career, based on the novel by Miles FranklinBest Achievement in Film Editing: Tony Patterson and Clifford Hayes for Mad MaxBest Original Music Score: Brian May for Mad MaxBest Soundtrack: Gary Wilkins, Byron Kennedy, Roger Savage, Ned Dawson for Mad MaxBest Achievement in Art Direction: Luciana Arrighi for My Brilliant CareerBest Achievement in Costume Design: Anna Senior for My Brilliant CareerJury Awards Jury PrizeGeorge Miller and Byron Kennedy for Mad Max

Documentary CategoryBronze Award: Island Shunters (Tim Wool- mer)Honourable Mentions:I See I See (Mike Pearce)Margaret Barr (Ross R. Campbell)The Russians: People of the Cities (Arch Nicholson)Short Fiction Category Silver Award:Goodbye, Johnny Ray (Mike Harvey) Bronze Awards:Just Out of Reach (Linda Blagg)Morris Loves Jack (Sonia Hofmann)Experim ental Category Gold Award:Sydney Harbour Bridge (Paul Winkler)Silver Award:Bondi (Paul Winkler)Honourable Mention:Feyers (Dirk De Bruyn)Animation Category Honourable Mention:Letter to a Friend (Sonia Hofmann)Awards for Cinem atography Silver Award:Russell Boyd for Just Out of Reach Bronze Award:Dean Semler for The Russians: People of the CitiesRaymond Longford AwardProfessor Jerzy Toeplitz An Australian Film Institute Citation for a Significant Contribution to Australian Film- makingSpecial AwardAn Australian Film Institute award to Grant Page in recognition of his stunt achievements over the years, culminating in his work on Mad MaxOCIC /Australian AwardThe 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

FIRST FILMS FOR CORPS

The first films to be backed by the recently-formed Queensland Film Corporation and the Western Australian Film Council will soon be finished.

Harlequin, the first film the West Australian Film Council has invested in, was shot in

Perth in September. Produced by Antony I. 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 Corporation. Originally conceived as a tele-feature, Final Cut was developed by producer Mike Williams into a "glossy thriller about a showbusiness tycoon who is suspected of making ‘snuff’ 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 distributed by GUO.

The cast of Final Cut includes David Glen- dinning, Louis Brown, Jennifer Cluff, and Narelle Johnston. The crew are all Queenslanders.

(A production report on Harlequin appears on page 637 of this issue.)

QUESTIONS IN PARLIAMENT

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 Corporation, 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 arrangements 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 rev iew s in p ro fe s s io n a l f ilm magazines and as the distributors, Roadshow, have no definite plans to release it, will Mr Thornhill pick up the tab for his share of the loss In this extravagant exercise, 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 participating In any grants or assistance from the Film 'Corporation is entirely a misconceived 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 corporation 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 concerned with constructive positive matters, such as that raised earlier by the honourable 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 Opposition was anticipated.

We have taken out some details of similar occurrences in other film commissions 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 Commission, has received funds for a development 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.

596 — Cinema Papers, December-January

THE QUARTER

Liberal governm ent for some time. 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 available 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.

The new Chief Commonwealth Censor, Janet Strickland.

NEW CHIEF 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 Censor and a foundation member of the Australian 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 assess 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 censorship 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 appointment 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.

NEW ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES FOR AFC

Following widespread criticism from filmmakers, the Australian Film Commission has changed the procedures for assessing projects to receive development funds from its Projects Branch.

The Commission's assessments are now bi-monthly, and a special panel will meet applicants to discuss their projects.

According to Rea Francis, the AFC’s publicity officer, the panel comprises “ producers, 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.

AFI BOARD ELECTED

Following the take-over of the National Film Theatre of Australia by the Australian Film Institute, an election was held to appoint 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 committee-

member of the NFTA, and a committee member of the Melbourne Film Festival);

Barry Jones (a member of Federal Parliament who has been actively Involved in the development of the Australian film industry, including the establishment of the Australian Film and Television School and Victorian Film Corporation);

Ian Macrae (a film director);Scott Murray (a filmmaker, and an editor

of Cinema Papers)-, andDavid 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 previous chairman of the AFI, Barry Jones, was re-elected to that position.

NEW PERSONNEL

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).

Crawford 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.

The Victorian Film Corporation has recommended the appointment of writer and director, Ross Dimsey, to replace Jill Robb as Chief Executive Officer. Dimsey’s appointment 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.

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.

LIBRARY ACQUIRES FILM LITERATURE

The National Library of Australia has acquired the extensive film literature collection of New York film lecturer, author and historian Dr Daniel Leab.

The collection, built over 20 years, comprises 3100 books on aspects of the American 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:

"There could be dozens of collections of comparable importance in the U.S., but there are none to our knowledge in Australia” , Edmondson said. “Added to the material we have already, it will give the National L ibrary Austra lia ’s largest holdings of film literature and documentation.”The books — 1200 of which are by or

about screen personalities — include 30 autographed by the personalities concerned. 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: Metro- Goldwyn-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.

Peter Faiman.

FAIMAN QUITS

Peter Faiman, the force behind the Nine Network's successful The Don Lane Show has resigned to set up a film production company 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, documentary, 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.)

LITTLE BOY LITIGATION

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 injunction 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, Film- ways Australia.

Bourke is claiming $6310 in unpaid monies for his work as writer-director of Little Boy Lost between April and December last year.

The film has had extensive release in Victoria and the New England Ranges of NSW, but will not be seen in other cities until December.

HOYTS TO BE DELISTED

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 Association of Australia.

Mitchell claimed that two of the three distribution companies monopolizing the industry 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 filmmakers.

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.

FVAA ESTABLISHED

A new professional group, Film and Video Association of Australia, was recently established 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 sections 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 communication with television and videotape exponents is essential in order to keep pace with burgeoning technological developments, and who accept the need to concern themselves with the increasing demands upon individuals 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 Ged- des 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 ArchmanProducers (production house) — Rob

Copping, Andy WayProducers (independent) — Bruce Mc-

Naughton, Eric Lomas Production and continuity — Tony

Sprague, Robert KewleySound — Ned Dawson, Ian Jenkinson Lighting and electrics — so far unrepre

sented.

FEGA

The Melbourne branch of the Film Editors Guild of Australia has initiated a series of forums on aspects of the Australian film industry.

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, contact Tim Lewis (03) 699 6666.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

In the paragraph beginning “The lack of media . . . ” (bottom, middle column, p. 515), the sentence starting “The recommendations 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 pressure from filmmakers which resulted in a Unesco seminar in 1968 on film and television training, and the film committee of the Australian Council for the Arts which recom m ended an A u s tra lia n Film Development Corporation, an Experimental Film Fund and a Film and Television School.


Early Days

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 Broadmoor 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 difficulty and courage, “Yes, that does have a feeling for locatiqns.” So, my career was obviously launched.

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 turning 20.

Television

At Channel 10, I cut news and documentaries by day, and expressed an interest in doing the station’s promotions by night. I had always been interested in trailers, and when I went to the films, which during my teens was three times a week, I would always look at the “Coming

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. and Canada, where I barged into every television station I could find. One person I met worked for the National Screen Service, the largest trailer-making company in the world; they have studios in H ollyw ood, New Y ork and London. He suggested I look up their London office. I did, and was 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 television specials, thereby taking the jump into production I had always wanted. So, back I came.

I produced promotions which involved 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 really 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-


BrianTrenchard

Smith

Australia’s top action director, Brian Trenchard Smith, reflects on his career to this point, and the directions he might take

f in the future, in an amusing encounter * with producer Richard Brennan.

tralia — live, via satellite, in French, in color, and before Channel 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 adrenalinpumping situation I have experienced. 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 commando 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 displayed 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 international 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, dramatized documentary. 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 princely 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 pidem ic was interesting, insofar as it taught me a great deal about venereal disease, and I always 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.

The 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 man’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 cameraman 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


BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH


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 bout $550 ,000 . I t was originally costed at $450,000, but went $40,000 over when our

Inspector Bob Taylor (Roger Ward), of the Federal Narcotics Bureau, arrests drug carrier Win Chan (Hung Kane Po) at the base of Ayers Rock. TheMan 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 investors are not of the same nationality. 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 destruction in the course of propagating the cause of justice. 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 Fuhrer, 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

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 second- guess 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 together, 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

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 quit his jo b , sold everything and went back to Pakistan, from where he had come, to start his own distribution company. 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.

i Rebecca Gilling and Jimmy Wang Yu (the “ Kung Fuhrer” ) in The Man From Hong Kong.


I think I will do a film in Pakistan one day. It is quite an exciting 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 Kung 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 people as diverse as Hal and Jim McElroy, Michael Pate and Pat Lovell. This, on reflection, was good for the industry.

Deathcheaters

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 outside; that was Deathcheaters.

We made the pilot fox $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 Deathcheaters failed theatrically in Australia. 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, particularly at the Athenaeum in Melbourne. In its last week we took $12,000, an amazing figure under the circumstances. In all, we got $30,000 out of Australian theatrical. We had a pre-sale to Channel 9 for $50,000, and the money we actually got back from overseas sales was $40,000, so we picked up $120,000.

We are still chasing the difference, 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.

Keeping it Together

After Deathcheaters, I tried to float a project called The Siege of Sydney. Michael Cove wrote a good screenplay from a story I had written, but the film became uncommercial due to changing market trends. It was about a gang of CIA agents who were tossed out of their covert operations cover when the Carter administration decided to clean up the American image.

Now, what do people, who have been trained for 20 years in killing people, blowing things up, subverting democracies, and generally having a good fascist time, do? Can they collect the dole? I reasoned they would become criminals, because a great deal of their activity had been criminal.

I proposed the situation where a gang of former CIA agents pose as radical terrorists and attempt to extort $5 million in industrial diamonds from the state of New South Wales by seizing Pinchgut Island and planting an alleged nuclear device on it. They would deal with a Neville Wran-type figure, who would have been charismatically played by Jack1 Thompson. He would have won in the end, and so he should; I am a fan of Neville Wran.

All this I was going to do on the lavish budget of $450,000. I had an offer of $200,000 from CIC, but they then lost a bundle on a terrorist film called Black Sunday. Their opinion was that terrorists frightened people too much, so all of a sudden half of my investment package fell out.

So, nine months of work and expenditure, including an overseas trip, was wasted. “Such is life” , as Ned Kelly said before they hanged him. Such is life for the independent Australian film producer.

The Siege of Sydney situation

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 all possible, one should engage in market research to determine whether a project is viable.

Another example of the need for market research is the case of a state film corporation, which shall remain nameless, which sent me a script and asked me to write some action scenes for it. At that stage, it was a terrorist film, with the Israeli-Palestinian Liberation Front situation involved. The Palestinians were the heroes, and the Israelis the bad guys.

I wrote back asking them whether they realized that there were strong Jewish holdings in most of the television stations around the world, and that the stations might not feel inclined to buy a film in which the “wrong” people were the heroes. My point was apparently taken, and the script was subsequently changed.

After Siege fell through, I kept body and soul together by making trailers. With a theatrically “soft” film like Deathcheaters behind me, I was not on the top of anyone’s list of directors to hire. Happily, Film Australia decided that I was the person they needed to do a much- delayed project called Hospitals Don’t Burn Down. It details what happens in the first 20 minutes of a fire in a multi-storey hospital in the middle of the night.

It was intended as a fire safety film, and when they asked me to do it I said it should be done as a horror show. If you want to impress people to be careful about fire, the best way is to show the consequences in most unpleasant terms, and, in particular, bereavement. If somebody dies, a lot of people are rather sad about it, particularly the nearest and dearest, and if you want to get that through to people, you show the' misery that bereavement causes.



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 trying 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 mention 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 documentary award at the Cork Film Festival. It also picked up a couple of Australian awards, including best c inem atog raphy (Ross 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 representative) 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 Corporation wants to do a Panavision documentary about the next set of Blue Mountains bushfires. These fires are about the only disaster in the world you can actually predict. T hey shou ld b reak ou t a t 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.

Stunt 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 distributors who had bought Death- cheaters. They had told me to come to them with any bright and cheap ideas I had.

Together, we managed to finance a $450,000 film which was made in a non-union situation in Los Angeles. “Non-union” is a rather emotive term, but it is not as bad as it sounds. It just means that one is using people who are not in the number one union, or union members who are working out of their grade to get experience in some other department.

We shot the film in Hollywood and it has sold very well, though it

Scene from Hospitals Don’t Burn, which Trenchard-Smith directed for Film Australia.

is probably the worst film I have made. Such is life. All I can say to other filmmakers is never let yourself be pressured into making a deal, rather than a film, which is what happened to me. Again, it was a great learning experience. I jumped in the deep end and found I was not protected by the things that protect filmmakers in Australia.

People may bitch about the investors here and other problems, but there is a great deal of goodwill towards the film industry, and one is quite well protected. The political assassinations that befell me on The Man From Hong Kong were 10 times worse on Stunt Rock. The budget was nearly withdrawn several times due to fights within the investing company — nothing to do with me. In the international film scene, they think nothing of suddenly cutting off funds for no reason. What I should have done was be a man of greater courage and principle and said, “No, I will not do this. It’s either done my way or not at all.”

Anyway, the film got made, but it was a film that went from six- page treatment to stereo answer print in 4’/2 months. That is no way to make a feature and, when you see the film, you will see why.

It is an entertaining film, though, simply because my style is to keep things happening. As soon as something gets dull, tedious or unconvincing, I move on to something else, which in turn might

become dull, tedious, or unconvincing. But it moves like an express train, and in that respect it is value for money for the undertwenties. The over-twenties start to notice a slight lack of story, and a few other problems.

Such as the music . . .

Well, that is a good point since the music was an essential 50 per cent of the commercial package. I was in the shower at the time the concept came to me. God, I think I should have stayed unwashed that day! Something clicked in my commercial mind which said, “Famous Australian stuntman meets famous

• rock group. They interrelate; much stunt and much rock takes place.Kids will tear up the seats.” Great idea in principle, but turning it into practicality proved impossible with too little money and too much interference.

Three weeks before we were scheduled to shoot, a famous rock group was still not signed. I had Foreigner interested, but they

' wanted to finish their world tour, and my investors wanted the film completed by a certain date. Exit Foreigner. At that time, I was also told the script had to be re-written to incorporate a Dutch actress to strengthen the Dutch market. This, and having to find a-rock group within four days, was-difficult. *

I went out and found Sorcery. Now Sorcery is visually very



Deep down, I know I was trying to prove I was courageous; that I had balls. But there was also the intellectual 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-and- run car stuff is as good, if not better, than most you see on the screen.

Filming Action

Head stuntman, Grant Page, scrambles out of a burning car wreck. Stunt Rock.

exciting, but its music is frankly four year-old Led Zeppelin and doesn’t really provide what the young audience is looking for. In th a t respect, the film is a disappointment.

Time Warp

Happily, during shooting my agent rang me and asked me if I could direct a Walt Disney telefeature to be made in London. My Stunt Rock contract unfortunately overlapped that date, and I had to say, grinding my teeth, that I couldn’t do it. Disney asked me to see them anyway. They had gone to the trouble of seeing Hong Kong and Deathcheaters, and had decided I was a young talent worth exploring.

When I saw them they asked if I had any bright ideas, and I suggested this great science-fiction film I want to make called Time Warp. I gave them an eight-page outline, and they gave me a development contract. They had an option to cut me off at treatment stage, and then at screenplay stage. We have passed through those stages now, and they own the rights. I am contracted to direct the film and, if I don’t, they have to pay me a penalty fee.

The film is on the 1982 production schedule, with a budget of $20 million. But if The Black

Hole, their current science-fiction film, is not successful, though I believe it will be, they may be reluctant to initiate the same kind of expenditure for another science- fiction film, even though mine is not a deep space film.

Disney are relatively pleased with it at this stage, though they want to do certa in th ings with the characterization, probably to suit casting at the time.

Action

Many people regard your interest in action as a fixation. How do you respond to that charge?

It is an interesting point. At school, I was a 6ft and half inch devout coward. My sporting interests lay with fencing, which was considered to be the activity of fairies. A real macho guy was one who liked grabbing people round the balls on the rugger field, thereby proving his manhood. I think I suffered some slight physical inferiority complex as a result, and when I left school I had this affinity for physical action in films, if not in person.

I have always been interested in men of courage, and when I was at Channel 9 I made a one-hour special re-enacting the exploits of four Australian winners of the Victoria Cross in Vietnam. I

received some criticism for not having a left-wing point of view —i.e., for presenting these characters as heroes. But they were heroes: regardless of the moral turpitude of the war, the poor bastards had to do what they were told. Anyway, these men won their VCs for saving the lives of wounded people, not for killing hordes of the enemy.

I suppose stuntment have appealed to me because they put their lives on the line. Sure, they work out the variables, but there is still a risk. They are men of great courage, and they are paid proportionately little for the risks they take.

As a result of this fascination, I began to do stunts myself — not for use in film, but as publicity stunts. I have been set on, fire eight times, and knocked down by a car three times.

Roger Ward drove a car at me at 40km an hour in Perth, scooping me up on the bonnet and sending me rolling off to the side; that was for the opening of The Man From Hong Kong. I was also skittled in Soho Square by an obliging member of the film distribution office there, and that appeared all over m agazines in B rita in : “Director takes the plunge” — really imaginative copy.

. Anyway, three car knock-downs is enough. I went through the windshield of the one in Soho Square, and I stuck a photograph of it in my lavatory to remind me of my foolishness.

When you start an action sequence 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 when the audience has something that they can readily grasp: i.e., a chair flying from one side of the frame to the other. The impact then comes with the chair shattering in close-up.

This is one way of doing it, and there are many alternate ways. Every director does things differently, and I don’t always do things the same way.

Another important lesson is to dress your frame. In a battle scene, for instance, you must dress your background, foreground and middleground. For example, consider a mediaeval battle sequence. You might have in wide-shot the cavalry charging forward from the background, while men run from behind the camera into the foreground and proceed to meet the cavalry in the middleground. People in your background then start firing arrows, and a body is hit by an arrow, falling with a thud from above frame into immediate bottom frame close-up.

In this case, a way of initially engaging the audience’s attention is the activity in the background of the wide-shot. When they have had a couple of seconds to absorb that, and before they get tired and lose the sense of timing and momentum you have been building, people rush into the foreground and engage in battle in middleground. Then, just when that has used up the necessary

Concluded on P. 674


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ELECTRONICSIDE-SHOW

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 twice- weekly, 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 appeal 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 conceal, 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 reception.1 Cultural forms, such as the newspaper, novel, music hall, sports stadium, cinema, advertising 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 structure 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

The opening patter between Don Lane and Bert Newton.

from the New Hebrides and even an at-home interview with that famous Australian television family, the Sullivans. Later in the show they are given the chance to participate, albeit vicariously, in one of the most recognizable of all sideshow institutions: the wheel of fortune.

In keeping with the side-show tradition, the opening segment of The Don Lane Show performs a crucial function. Similar to the patter and exhibits in front of the side-show tent, the first minutes of the program articulate its style and pace, hold out promises o f ‘things to come’, and establish the co-presence and personae of Don and Bert. Within seconds, several aural and visual elements are mixed together to create a sense of action and anticipation.

The viewer enters the program in the midst of tremendous applause, while the studio band plays an up-beat number. The camera reveals the band leader conducting his musicians as the applause continues in time to the music and the program’s logo is flashed onto the screen. This is followed by a shot of the audience facing the

The frontmen: Don Lane and Bert Newton.

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 appears, 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 shapes the process by which these absences are Filled. One of his major contributions as front man is to keep reiterating future occurrences — itemizing, enthusing over and ordering the spectacles to be seen.

During the first segment, he previews and hierarchially arranges the evening’s exhibits — those that are special, such as an exclusive satellite interview with an overseas celebrity, and those that are routine, like the performances of singers or the wheel. Throughout the program, before each commercial break, Don again describes what the audience can expect if it stays tuned. This constant reference to future happenings works on the one hand to keep the viewer interested in the entire show — there will always be something more that will have appeal — and on the other hand to allow entry into the program at any point without having missed anything.

The next shot is taken so that the viewers see Don’s back as he faces the studio audience. His Figure in the foreground is carefully framed by the proverbial sea of smiling faces as 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 interactive 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 being 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 of the studio audience set up the necessary cues for the external audience to participate in a live


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 comments 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 performance cultivated and nurtured through his lengthy apprenticeship with Graham Kennedy.

If Bert monopolizes the show’s humor, leaving 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 appearance is one of shortness and roundness, stereotypically the ‘cuddly’ male as homebody (also the physical characteristics often associated 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 choreographed, 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 involvement, 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, ostensibly 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 formality and abstraction is projected through the use of elaborate sets or costumes which encapsulate the performer, drawing attention to design as much as to performance. So, for example, viewers will see Colleen Hewett enclosed in a carefully decorated nightclub scene, or John St Peeters framed at the centre of eccentrically- shaped neon lights which flash in time to the music.

Sometimes, the camera will accent the elements of design by shooting through or around the shapes and objects within the set: the performer 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 mundane 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 informality, guests are encouraged to leave aside the role demands of public life to talk openly, genuinely and anecdotally about private experiences 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 slippers; 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 intensive 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, interviews, autobiographies. Through its emphasis on informality and conversation, the program is able to re-present what is already part of a common stock of public knowledge as if it were a unique 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 separation 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 programming as advertising message is no longer applicable. This process is particularly evident in The Don Lane Show where the content is as much a vehicle for the endorsement and promor tion of commodities as the official commercials studded through the show. Almost without exception, each of the entertainment segments involves 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 performer’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 grotto pool who Hef identified as “two playmates — one bunny and a future cover girl”), Don casually 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 happened 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 appearance by Lady Sonia McMahon, which focused on her position as the Australian coordinator 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 appearances, 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 ana 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 Australian 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.

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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 distributed through 3000 35mm cinemas. Concurrently, some 80 local films produced between 1977 and 1978 were battling for distribution, the majority being mediocre “pornochanchadas” (popular films with quasi-pornographic overtones).

“All national films have encountered an invincible 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 internal market. In latter years, Brazilian legislation 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 subversion 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 conditions in the north-east. Publicizing these aspects to a foreign audience was not seen as being conducive to the promotion of national development.

Vianna, producer in the Cinema Novo movement 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 filmmakers. 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 movement may have been rediscovered, the filmmakers 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 making of the first truly committed Brazilian film, Rio 40 gratis (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 being brutally confronted by the reality of the people. 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 striking 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 I 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 increased pressure of censorship. Films such as Land in Trance indirectly depicted the enormous problems facing Brazil: political corruption, the development of Brazilian capitalism, the impotence 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 expression, 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 unanimous 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 expression.

In the aftermath of this period, Dos Santos produced Como era gostoso o meu Frances (How Tasty was my Little Frenchman), which, according 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 survivors 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 ritualist- ically 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 Aadrade, who had called for a Congresso de Antropofagismo to be held each


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 pertinent as he indirectly propagated cannibal consciousness as a solution to the cultural imperialism 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 cannibals 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 extreme 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 Umban- dist 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 aj way that the public’s relationship to popular 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 presumptuous, 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 monopoly 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 unimportance. 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

and comprehend the problems that exist within the society.

It is interesting to note that Dos Santos interprets 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 communicate 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, including best film and best direction, and has been the most successful answer to the integra- tionalist 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 ascension of the black through the ideology of whitening the race, which was first propagated in the treatise of Gilberto Freyer in 1933 called Casa grande. However, in an era of black emancipation — 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 identity, 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

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 common good. This is the same way in which cultural production examines social contradictions 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 1970 a national film production and distribution company was consolidated. The role of this company, Embra- filme, was to be a state-recognized agent fighting the domination of the internal market by foreign distribution companies by control over exhibition, and operating as a bank promoting local production.

As an official Organization in Brazil, Embra- filme has in common with many others the same source of funding: 60 per cent government investment, and 40 per cent from the private sector. Government money can come from four

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 Embrafilme each year, none will be directed by fresh- faced newcomers.

Embrafilme also allocated $400,000 of its annual budget for the dissemination of cinema culture, supporting a vast network of cinema clubs,J 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 Hollywood 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 allotted 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.”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 distribution lies through the cine-clubs and the university 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 Destruction), 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 alienation 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 pressures of the family, state or religion. The most important aspect the film examines is what occurred 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 information.

This is the only film with an active voice of dissent — the only continuing thread of the once living Cinema Novo. ★


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Will your role as president of Grundys differ from that of your predecessor, Reg Grundy?

No. When I joined Grundys two years ago as managing director, Reg was looking for someone to run his group of companies for him. My appointment as president has relieved him of any day-to-day responsibilities in Australia.

Reg is still chairman of the organization, but my appointment gives him the opportunity to spend a lot of time overseas and help develop Grundys in other parts of the world.

How does Grundys go about marketing its product overseas?

It depends on the territory; selling to Latin America or Southeast Asia is totally different to selling in Europe and Britain.

In most territories we appoint sub-distributors to handle our programs, but in others we do the distribution ourselves.

It is very hard to be definitive when you are talking about activities overseas, because it is a very big and competitive market, particularly in the U.S. From time to time your direction needs to change according to what the buyer at the other end wants.

The way things are developing, more of our Australian-produced material will be sold overseas. We may also be in a position — and it can be a very dangerous position for a company of our sort — where we mount our own productions, as distinct from just pre-selling them.

What is the usual arrangement for selling a program overseas, such as “ Prisoner” to KTLA in Los Angeles?

In North America, it is usual to sell a limited number of runs. In some cases this is one run, like KTLA, in others two. So far, we haven’t made a major sale to an American network. In that case, you would sell to one person who is buying on behalf of 160 or so stations. Now, if you don’t sell to their syndication, you have to sell to the in d iv id u a l s ta tio n s

In the past 19 years, the Grundy Organization has grown from a producer of television game shows to Australia’s largest packager of television programs for the domestic and international markets. With the production of three successful television dramas (“The Young Doctors” , “The Restless Years” and “Prisoner” ) it has overtaken the position previously held in this field by Crawford Productions. Thirteen episodes of “Prisoner” have been sold to KTLA (Los Angeles), representing the first success in the corporation’s major push into the U .S. market.

The Grundy Organization has recently diversified into a number of different areas, including the merchandizing of inters national films, such as “Star Wars” and “Grease” , the staging of conferences and selling travel. In November 1978, Grundys received $1.5 million from the Australian Film Commission to produce feature films. One result was the organization’s attempts to set up co-productions with Japanese and Indonesian companies. Although these ventures have yet to prove fruitful, Grundys is determined to pursue such arrangements as a means of breaking into the Asian film market.

In June 1979, the Grundy Organization also received $15,000 from the Victorian Government and $50,000 from the Federal Government for the research and development of children’s television programs.

Grundys make no secret that artistic values come second to commercial considerations; the organization’s ambitious scale of projects, and its rapid progress towards diversification, bear this out. However, the announcements of “Melba” and “Smithy” suggest Grundys is venturing into the field of “prestige” mini-series.

Another Grundys’ incentive is the move into broadcasting. The organization was recently involved in the purchase of WIN4 Wollongong, and is also applying for a Sydney FM licence.

Ian Holmes, 45, for two years managing director of the Grundy Organization, has recently replaced Reg Grundy as president. Holmes has been in television for 23 years, beginning with GTV-9 in Melbourne, where he served as technical director and in the production and programming areas, eventually becoming general manager. In 1970, he joined Channel 10, Sydney, as director of programming, and was then general manager until 1977, when he left to join Grundys.

Holmes’ connection with the organization began when, as general manager of Channel 10, he supported the acquisition of the Grundy production, “Blankety Blanks”, which other television stations had turned down. The program went on to become a hit. Holmes was also chairman of the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations (FACTS) from 1976 to 1977.

This interview with Holmes was conducted by Liz Jacka, lecturer in mass communications at the New South Wales Institute of Technology, and Ann Game, lecturer in the department of administrative, social and political studies at Kuring-gai College of 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 Australia 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 usually 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 to 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


IAN HOLMES

The original cast of Grundys’ major success, Number 96. Graham Kennedy in Blankety Blanks which Holmes bought for Channel 10, Sydney:

The Young Doctors, one of Grundys’ three current television dramas.

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 Australia 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?

I couldn’t answer that because we have so many different activities — we are not just producing te le v is io n . We h av e 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 television. But I don’t know how many work in that area. I think, though, that the administrative side would be less than 50 per cent.

There seems to be, at least with

“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 of their involvement with

Grundys?

Y es. F e lic ity G oscom be (publicity manager) occasionally organizes activities that have a promotional advantage to an outside organization — whether it be a retail store, restaurant or whatever — and which also have a promotional advantage to one of our shows. By displaying our stars to the public, we are primarily promoting a program. You are also giving the actors money, and that’s good, too.

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 ery o n e in te le v is io 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 powerful role with an enormous public reaction and she believed, whether rightly or wrongly, that it might be wise to do something else.

Who has the greatest artistic control in the case of a long-running series like “The Restless Years”?

The executive producer. On The Restless Years, it’s Don Battey. He has a team of people around him,

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 executive producer for some time.

There is also the lesser input of people like myself. If you are concerned about something, like I am, you obviously talk to the people involved.

Do you have any favorites among the Grundys shows?

Not really; I don’t have the time to become involved in any one area. F or me, th a t is the m ost

unsatisfying part of the job. As you know, I come from a technical background. I was a producer- director at GTV-9 for many years, and did In Melbourne Tonight, the BP Super Shows and other variety specials. Then I was made program 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

Gerard Maguire, Sheila Florence and Colleen Clifford in Prisoner, Grundys’ major breakthrough 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.

Two prisoners (Lesley Baker and Val Lehman) meet the Wim Umboh (Aries Films), Roger Miriams (Grundys) and governor’s niece (Sally Cahill) in Prisoner. John McQuaid (AFC) after the signing of an Australian-

Indonesian co-production deal for Valley of Dreams.

been so successful?

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 different to all the other drama around. It looked at people in gaol, and that is a situation the public doesn’t know much about. After all, 99 per cent of the public don’t know what a gaol is really like.

Films about prisons have been successful in the past, so we knew people would be intrigued. We also felt there would be even greater interest if it was about women in a prison. How do they live? Is it terrible? And so on.

As a concept it was attractive,

but it depended on how we portrayed it. So, we developed a group of characters which we thought was interesting and varied.

Why are women in prison more interesting than men in prison?

That’s a good question, but I don’t really know. Maybe there have been more portrayals of men in prison than of women, so women are a little more unique. It may also be tha t women in a captive situation, with the dangers that exist, are more intriguing. Also, men are probably more able to look after themselves physically than women.

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 consequently 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.

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 crusading, we would probably lose the essence of the program as an entertainment 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 ge where f o r m a t s and thoroughly-written descriptions of th e p r o g r a m , i n c l u d i n g 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 type of programs 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. 676Patricia Kennedy, Collette Mann and Carol Burns in Prisoner.


EDINBURGH INTERNATIONALFILM FÈSTIVÀL 1979

Edinburgh’s International Film Festival, 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 Festival (which cheerfully juxtaposes semiology, sexploitation and feminist tracts) should not be confused with “no business 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 Feeling: an independent Scottish feature film, end a triumph of stubborn ingenuity over impoverished circumstances. (Both of

which latter elements its maker and characters have in common.) Equipped with a low budget and a resilient cast from the Glasgow Youth Theatre, writer- producer-director Bill Forsyth used adolescent unemployment in the Glaswegian slums as the point of departure for a jauntily optimistic comedy-thriller which, dexterously combining tough social analysis with joyous entertainment, might profitably be recommended as an alternative (if not an antidote) to the tele-realistic school of ‘problem’ 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 documentary 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 adventures of his denim desperadoes to sound a jaunty fanfare to the power of human survival. He describes and demonstrates the existence of a society in which adolescent fantasy and resourcefulness are deprived of I eg iti m ate' channels; but-

Ken Loach’s Black Jack: examining the barbaric 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 developing a project of their own, leaving his audience to draw their own political conclusions.

Somewhat surprisingly, a similar — and no less morally oblique — paean to human resourcefulness emerges from the latest Loach and Garnett collaboration, Black Jack, which takes its title from the brawny French criminal who survives his own hanging in the film’s opening sequence, but thereafter focuses Its sprawling picaresque narrative principally on the enforced adventures of the solemn and diminutive Yorkshire 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 fanciful 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 attractions of a picturesque landscape, and even of some colorful circus costumes, without the support of ceaseless close- ups.

Loach’s affectionately-observed collection 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 Tempest by Derek (Jubilee) Jarman. Yet on reflection, Jarman’s poetic popularism, intensifying and refracting the oneiric properties of Shakespeare’s text, merely adds some Elizabethan muscle to the fundamental 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 Heath- cote W illiam ’s m elancho lica 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 authoritatively performs Stormy Weather—grows out of the dust and weary corruption that has preceded it. And the film’s progression 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 abortive human communications.

Its p ro tagonist, 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 purpose 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 personal 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 cameraman to Wim Wenders, who is its associate producer.

The Wenders connection is evident;


EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL

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 explosion 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 compound the emotional intensity of its narrative, just as it uses the lyrics to express the pent-up rage of its largely inarticulate 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 different, 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.

Directed by Franc Roddam, a graduate from television, Quadrophenia works because it combines a no-holds- barred analysis of the quality of working- class life in Britain with a tough celebration of the frustrated energy for which the class society can offer no useful outlet. Unlike Scum, it has no individually monstrous characters, though the collective behaviour of its pathetic and endearing individuals easily turns monstrous. It strikes a (musically compelling) note of urgent social warning.

The same note distinguishes Jonathan Kaplan’s Over the Edge from the rest of the American exploitation films on display 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 cultural wilderness that is an embryo suburb: a deve loper’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 portraiture 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 narcissistic 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

The Tempest: Derek Jarman’s daring interpretation of the Shakespearian text.

but if Petit at times runs perilously close to parody in his description of the regressive hero, he also goes further than the Wenders of Kings of the Road. Reversing the traditional roles of people and landscape, 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 technologically-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 exceptions 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 landscape, and to suggest the paths trodden by a mythical ornithologist, in developing his definitive treatise on bird migration.

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 tendencies 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

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 technological 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 influence 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 international 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 Philippine 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 picaresque 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 Hiller’s career, which spans more than 30 years, started in radio at the Canadian Broadcasting Commission, where he directed public affairs programs. With a master’s degree in psychology, Hiller was well qualified for the job.

The advent of television presented Hiller with the opportunity to pursue his interests in theatre and drama. After working in Canadian television for several years he took up a position with the NBC Network in the U .S., and started a successful career in American television. Among the many series for which he directed segments were “Playhouse 90” , “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” , “Gunsmoke” and “Naked City”.

Hiller’s first feature film was “The Careless Years” (1957), which was followed by “The Miracle of the White Stallion” (1963), “The Wheeler Dealers” (1963), “The Americanization of Emily” (1964) (which he now considers is one of his best films), “Penelope” (1966), “Tobruk” (1966) and “The Out-of- Towners” (1970).

In 1970, Hiller also directed “Love Story” , the first blockbuster film of the ’70s — and which is still one of the 20 topgrossing films of all time.

His later credits include “Plaza Suite” (1971), “The Hospital” (1972), “Man of La Mancha” (1972), “The Man in the Glass Booth” (1975), “Silver Streak” (1976) and “W. C. Fields and M e” (1976).

His latest films, a horror-thriller, “Nightwing” (1978), and a comedy, “The In-Laws” (1979), have recently been released in Australia, and add two more ‘types’ to the wide range of subjects tackled by Hiller.

In this interview, conducted in Los Angeles, Hiller talks to Cinema Papers correspondent David Teitelbaum about selecting scripts for his films, and his approach to directing.

How do you select the script for a film?

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 there are some that strike me as terrific, most of them don’t interest me.

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.

Do you read the full text of all the scripts presented to you?

Yes. Then, when I decide to go

618 — Cinema Papers, December-January Arthur Hiller (right) directs Peter Falk inThe In-Laws.

ARTHUR HILLER

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 ph ilosophical 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 cinematographer 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.

Actors

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 irec tion 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 production 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.


ARTHUR HILLER

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 le x ib i l i ty , b e c a u se w hen unexpected things occur, I find myself more able to adapt.

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 hadn’t seen it. We watched it together and I thought, “ Well Arthur, you have been away from it for a few years. How would you do it now?” But I wouldn’t have done it particularly differently.

At the time though, that film threw me into a depression for about eight months. When I started, I felt so secure. I had a play that was popular worldwide; I had Peter O’Toole, Sophia Loren and Jimmy Coco, who I thought were all terrific; and United Artists were backing it. When it flopped the only one I could blame was myself. I thought I’d really fallen short, and it depressed me.

But I finally realized that Man of La Mancha shouldn’t have been made into a film at all. It was really a stage play. The reality of film was too much, because it dealt with the inner thoughts of its principal character. For example, in one scene Quixote says: “This is not a scullery maid, it is a princess” . But when Sophia Loren is standing there on screen, 40 ft tall, it’s hard to believe. It put too much weight on the actor to bring out what was going on in Quixote’s head.

When you are in the tenth row of a darkened theatre it’s easier. But it doesn’t work on film.

Fads

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?

Yes. Sometimes you don’t see them com ing at all. I was committed to do Nightwing — which would come under the horror category — about two years ago. We delayed shooting for part of the year so we could film in spring. Then they didn’t want to release it at Christmas; they wanted a summer release, so everything went very slowly. Little did we know that suddenly, instead of coming out with something new and different, we were following Alien and Prophecy, which were made after us. If we had known we would have come out with it sooner.

How have the techniques for frightening an audience developed since the early horror classics?

The basic thing is still surprise. Surprise gives you the best shock, and the best terror. That’s always been the way. I recently saw the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the shocks were all there.

The basic theme is something you cannot understand, but you believe it. It still works on the same basis. You can use music to enhance those feelings, and sophisticated special effects, but the basic techniques are the same.

Love Story

Your biggest financial success to date has been “Love Story” . . .

To this day that film has given the g rea 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?

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 won’t like. You have to do so m eth in g you w ill en joy ; something you will feel satisfied with. Then you just pray that you are in contact with the audience.

What sort of feedback do you get about what the public is thinking and feeling at a particular point in time?

I don’t get a specific feedback; I am more influenced by my feelings about society. For instance, I think the reaction to Love Story was enhanced by the fact that we were going through a period where, if you disagreed with somebody, you hated that person. No one was ‘accepting’ anyone else.

I think the world was ready for a film about one person giving himself to another for love alone. It

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.

Why didn’t you do the sequel to “Love Story”, called “Oliver’s Story”?

W ell, I was a lread y in to Nightwing. I didn’t even see Oliver’s Story. I read the book and thought it would make a good film though.

It seemed like one of those sequels which was made because the original was such a success . . .

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.

Robert Altman said recently he thought filmmakers were becoming too preoccupied with the business of film . . .

It’s certainly one of the problems we face. But it’s very expensive to make a film, and the people who are investing in films, are, of course, looking for returns. So, naturally they lean towards projects they feel will make money; and so do certain filmmakers.

The problem is that studios become enamored with certain types of films, certain action films


ARTHUR HILLER

David Warner, Nick Mancuso and Kathryn Harrold in Nightwing.

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 tu rn 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 10- minute 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?

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 filmmakers 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 successful 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.

Directing

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.

Television

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; everybody 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. ★


Brian Walsh

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.” '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 technology 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 independence. 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 television 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 questions, and those who respond; those who define, and those who are defined; those who distribute, and those who consume.

1. Schon, Donald A. B eyo n d the S ta b le S ta te , 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. (In te rm e d ia , Vol. 6, No. 1, February 1978, p. 32.)Les Brown, who covers the broadcast media for the N e w

' Y o rk T im es , writes: “The ‘Big-Brother’ prophesised by George Orwell to arrive in 1984 appears to be on schedule.” (“Television vs Progress” , S a tu rd a y R e v ie w , 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 technology 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 philosophical 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 bom, 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 ixture of estab lishm en t and community-based expeditions often clouded issues instead of clarifying them; each had their own perceptions and priorities. Dynamic conservatism 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, experiments 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. T elevision a n d the P eo p le , Penguin, 1972.)

message, and the rhetoric of community communication; between the dichotomy of television 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 television 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 largest co-operatively-owned cable television system of its kind, and all its equipment is available for use by the community. The famous Video- graphe 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 Vancouver 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 producers, 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 on Manhattan Cables’ Channels C, J and L. Smaller systems operate as far south as Austin Com-

4. For recent information on developments in overseas examples see:ASIm — M ed ia A s ia , AMIC, Singapore. (Quarterly.) CANADA — Chaplin, Henry and Stirling, Alison. W ho C alls the Tune, U sing the M ed ia to P ro m o te S o c ia l C h a n g e in C a n a d a , Canadian Council of Social Development, Ottawa, 1977.Video G uide, Video Inn, Vancouver.U.S. — The C a b le /B ro a d b a n d C o m m u n ica tio n B o o k , 1977/1978. (Editor: Hollowell, M.L.), Communications Press, Washington.N F L C P N ew sle tte r , Box 832, Dubuque, Iowa, 52001. (Bi-monthly.)P u b l i c T e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s R e v i e w , NAEB, Washington. (Monthly.)V ideograph y, UBI, New York. (Monthly.) V id e o s c o p e , Gordon and Breach, New York. (Quarterly.)EUROPE — Council of Europe Reports (various), Strasburg.E d u c a tio n a l B r o a d c a s tin g In te r n a tio n a l, British Council, London.In term ed ia , IIC, London. (Bi-monthly.)Other — “Cable Around the World” , A c cess V ideo, Vol. 4, No. 2, April 1978, pp. 9-32.


COMMUNITY TELEVISION

munity Television in Texas, and as far west as Marin Community Video in California. The most notable experiment in community interactive 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, “ Broadband” 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.

Australia Opens a Third Front

Overseas evidence suggests there are difficulties 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 complement 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 broadcasting in transition during the 1960s and ’70s, Roberto Grandi pointed out:

“Although there was a convergence of opinions and forces for change in the broadcasting 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 opinion, for others it was a question of rationalizing 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 emergence 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 broadcasting systems were either monopolies (France, Italy) or two-tier systems (Britain, the U.S. and Canada). In fact, Australia was the first to formally introduce a ‘third force’ into broadcasting in the form of a fledgling public broadcasting 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 Participation, Council of Europe, 1973.

7. Grandi, Roberto. “Western European Broadcasting in Transition”, Journal o f Communication, Annenberg School Press, Pennsylvania, Vol. 28, N'o. 3, 1978, p. 49.

year, initially using the ABC’s resources and frequency space on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

The thrust and timing of these initiatives had a number of powerful effects beyond the immediate sphere of intent. Firstly, the bottleneck of conflicting ideas witnessed by Grandi in Europe, and initially mirrored in Australia, was Finally eased in Australia (although not completely resolved). Instead of the single or dual sectors of broadcasting being given conflicting priorities, there were new answers for new problems, and new priorities for new sectors. Secondly, legitimization of the need for greater citizen participation and control of media was extended from radio to television by the legislative amendments to the Broadcasting and Television Act. Thirdly, recognition of the appropriateness of government subsidy for new services was achieved without prejudice to such subsidy in the long term.

As a consequence, and with remarkably little fuss, Australia became the First in the world to fulfil the preconditions for a truly complementary and comprehensive community television broadcasting service. These preconditions were essentially a matter of the availability, and of effective application of suitable resources in response to needs.

1. Recognition of Needs

Evidence of the existing needs for broadcasting, beyond those satisfied by the commercial and national services, has had bi-partisan recognition since amendments to the Broadcasting and Television Act recognized the public sector, and also established the SBS. This is not yet the case in Britain, for example, where the present Conservative Government favors commercial operations of a new national service than a new authority, such as the Open Broadcasting Authority proposed by the former Labor government.8

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 of Broadcasting, Commissioned Paper 6753, HMSO, London, 1977.

2. Availability of Resources

(a) Passive: Australia, unlike the U.S., has sufficient reserves of spectrum space to accommodate new broadcasting stations in the UHF band. This is different from radio, where the new public stations had to be built from the ‘ground up’. Community television can draw on an effective nucleus of production facilities already dispersed throughout the community, by way of community video centres, educational institutions, independent production houses and independent filmmakers. However, despite wishful thinking about the performance and desirability of low-gauge video-production facilities — especially the ubiquitous ‘portapak’ — it is only now, with the refinements to the equipment designed for Electronic News Gathering (ENG) and Electronic Field Production (EFP), that there is a near-to-full range of equipment to fit the range of requirements of community television in Australia.

Proposals now include examples of low and metropolitan coverage transmissions. It has been suggested that in the latter case, for instance, economies of scale would follow from time-sharing arrangements between ethnic and community services operating on a common frequency. 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 Creative 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. Pioneering 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 conjunction with the Leyland brothers for their Ask the Leyland Brothers series.10

In general, however, independent filmmakers have not been well served by national or commercial television. The ABC has always preferred in-house projects and co-productions, and the commercial stations appropriately place profits- before minority audience needs.

The attitude of the filmmakers to a ‘third force’ in television will be interesting. Will they see it as anything more than a supplementary distribution system for works produced primarily for the cinema, something that allows popular exposure of elements of an essentially elite culture? Or, will they see it as a simple revenue earner or a new challenge?11

9. “ Community TV” , Access Videos MAVAM, Melbourne, Vol. 4r No. 3,1978, p. 39. -

10. Ibid, p.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 distributors in establishing relationships between the community as “source” and community as “ audience” will help shape part of the foundations of the new television services.

Middle Ground: Putting Community 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 movement 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 concrete of the Clyde Cameron Trade Union Training Centre, a sort of mini architectural masterpiece along the lines of an industrial opera house set among the Wodonga plough furrows. The locals call it the Red Square.

How appropriate, too, that the first time this organization tried its hand at coming to grips with television, it should do so in one of the two places in Australia seriously considered as sites for cable television. That plan, however, has now been regarded as too expensive, and is being held in abeyance until copper cables give way to fibre optics. Meanwhile, broadcasting will be in Australia for some time to come. Just as the FM radio debate opened the way for public radio stations and the PBAA five years ago, so the debate about the new UHF television frequencies should open the airwaves for public or community television stations.

In fact, the PBAA’s determination to come to grips with the possibilities and practice of a kind of television qualitatively different from anything now available puts it way out in front of just about every other national association of broadcasters throughout the world.

The backbone of the PBAA’s move into television comes from community video organizations, some of which have been around longer than the PBAA. Television delegates at Wodonga included Francis Giles from Frevideo in Western Australia; Russell Herman from Western Access, and Nick Power and James Steele from Southern Media, both in Sydney; and David Griffiths and Robert Randell with a large group from the Public Action for Community Television Campaign (PACT) in Melbourne.

PACT’S proposals at Wodonga were the result of six months of debate about the most appropriate shape for community television in Melbourne, and, more importantly from some, about which theories of community television could provide the foundations for a co-operative network of stations operating in all states.

According to a PACT background paper presented at the conference, there are eight basic options for community access, control and orientation of the airwaves; namely, to:

1. Make appropriate arrangements withcommercial television stations;

2. Make appropriate arrangements for

will watch films only in their homes.(See “ How Free Should Cable Be”, Village Voice, October 11, 1977, p. 40.)

broadcasting community programs on the ABC;

3. Establish a second ABC television network specifically designated as a community network;

4. Democratize the ABC by changing it from a national to a community station;

5. Make appropriate arrangements with the SBS;

6. Establish a metropolitan-wide community television station;

7. Establish a series of locally-based community television stations; and

8. Establish community television on a frequency sharing basis as in the Netherlands. PACT then proposed a metropolitan-wide

station for Melbourne, but stressed that this option was not necessarily the best choice in other areas. Its brief synopsis of the pros and cons of metropolitan community television stations was cautious. The advantages of this option were that:

(a) The cost of television necessitates a large- scale operation;

(b) Identifiable and unifiable communities are dispersed throughout the metropolitan community;

(c) It is desirable to rationalize community resources;

(d) Only a metropolitan-wide station could attract the necessary funding;

(e) Only a metropolitan-wide station could effectively complement the ABC and commercial networks; and

(f) An accountable and participatory station could provide the most congenial environment for public acceptance of independent programs.

The disadvantages of this option were:(a) The difficulty of relating to the commun

ity and local communities;(b) The inability to match the resources of the

ABC and commercial networks;(c) A metropolitan-wide station would be

seen as a threat by the ABC and commercial networks; and

(d) The station would never compete because of an isolation and restriction imposed by inferior resources.

Of all PACT’S proposed programs — nearly 20 series were outlined with a draft schedule — the time-slot for independent video directors,

filmmakers and photographers appears to be the most straightforward. Projected as a two-hour » slot on a Friday night and given the working title, 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., interviews, 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, including 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 perspective of women’s concerns and views; and Workshop, covering the unemployed.

There would also be arts programs, experimental formats, minority sports programs, programs 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 responsible 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 programs associated with problems, issues and challenges facing the aged.

The programs would be future-orientated rather than past-orientated. They would aim to appeal directly to the aged, but also more broadly to groups and individuals in close contact with the aged on a personal or professional basis: e.g., families, welfare organizations, 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 communicators; 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. Frevideo pioneered community-produced programming 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 television 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.


ADELAIDE INTERNATI QUAL FILM FESTIVAL I 9 7 9 ^ HNoel Purdon and Peter Page

The 20th Adelaide International Film Festival opened in a climate of postelection 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 reassessment, 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 Rhapsody and Allegro Barbar© confirms his vision of cinema as ritual, an open-air proletkult 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 f ilm ’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 Clogs, 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 nonprofessional 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 however a m ag is te ria l and sympathetic manner) the fragmentary consciousness of that period, needs more critical consideration.

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 Presidentetackles its imagery and its subject d iffe ren 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 Get obscur objet dwindles in Littin’s film into titillation with nuns and w hores. I t ’ s as if the p o lit ic a l determination were running in one direction, and the sexual perception resolutely in another.

Viva el Presidente 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 Klages, in particular, was one of the great delights of the Festival. The film is the first independently directed feature by von Trotta, who has been best known as an actress and c o -w r ite r /d ire c to r , principally in connection with the works of Volker Schlondorff.

The intriguing plot, written by the director and Luisa Francia, concerns Christa Klages, 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

Miklos Jancso’s Hungarian Rhapsody: conveying the sense of life as a collective dance.


ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL

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.

Maternale is a confident first film by Jancso’s Italian scriptwriter Giovanna Gagliardo. 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-styie 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 frank, fine face. The imm ediate suggestion is of a drag queen at the end of an act; and the comparison, if pondered, is a very subversive one.

Richard Brook’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, camerawork which dutifully complements them, and little else. G urdjieff handles serpents, discovers ancient manuscripts, receives mystic pieces of authoritarianism 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 cieverly-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 tus on the s treng 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 well-

Miguel Littin’s Viva el Présidente: containing strong political determination and consummate irony, which dwindles into titillation with nuns and whores.

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 the story of a woman who opts out of her role as middle-class housewife into a lesbian relationship. In so doing she loses custody of her children, and cannot ultimately follow her lover away from them to life on a co-operative farm in a foreign country.

The indignant chauvinism of the men, the oppressiveness of the family, the conservatism of courts and the difficulties of role-free, non-oppressive romance are significant elements in the work, and it is good to see them covered. Yet like The Debut, it suffers from a lightweight, deodorized feel which belies and subverts the intentions of its subject matter. Van Brakel must learn to be less lyrical and sentimental.

Jacob Bijl’s portrait of a family, Tiro, was more satisfying for its evident 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 antagonisms 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 conscious and an unconscious world 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 it io n m atch 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 specifics 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, atmospherically effective.

The Netherlands’ only female feature

concern and extraordinary non-didactlc lucidity. It is a prime example of the value, in political and aesthetic terms, of women making films about women, and a brilliant accomplishment for its director, and her collaborators and cast.

Wolfgang Petersen, whose film The Consequence was premiered at the Adelaide Festival last year, was represented this time by the better but less politically-significant Black and White Like Day and Night. Europe's leading male actor, Bruno Ganz, stars as a computer-programm er, Thomas Rosenmund, who submits to a lifelong fascination with the game of chess, long held in check after a breakdown which resulted from losing a match as a child prodigy. Single-minded determination gives him the world championship, but paranoid obsession is brought on by an



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 misguided generosity of friends, and despite the availability of legalized abortion in Yugoslavia, Maria has an Illegal abortion which leaves her in hospital, lucky to be alive and unable to bear children. All 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 sentimentally 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’ Bastierte, bastienne accidentally wound up in Indonesia, Michael Mitranl’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 appears 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 associates with whom she could talk on screen, let them loose unprepared or rehearsed in front of the camera, which held a relentless static television close- up, and then interspersed this with archival material of everyone but De Beauvoir.

With more purist discipline than sense, they have also Included an opening sequence In which De Beauvoir asks questions 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 programming 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 filmmakers, 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 consciousness 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

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 depressing.

Karen and David Crommie’s The Life and Death of Frieda Khalo, for all itscareful 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 extols 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 examinations 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 conclusive 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 searing indictment of the methods and motives of trans and multi-national corporations, culled largely from the unabashed 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, bombastic, 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 documentaries and the narrative features stands an uncommon hybrid called The Bushman, the first feature by David Schlckele, 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 approximation 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 combination 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.



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 assertion 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 Nijinsky’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, Op-art, Magritte, 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 combined 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, staircase, 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 auditions 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 realization 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 patronizing, insist on their reality. And some, particularly the blacks and the gays, transcend 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 oppression of the British peasantry. But its broody voice-over rhetoric, and its oblique, underexposed camerawork, including some clever inverted shots of oceanic pie-in-the-sky, were nonetheless sufficient to make sensitive souls feel they were being got at.

Edward Bennett’s The Life Story of Baal, is also an ambitious but uncompromising 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 costum ed fo r his physica 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 admitted 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 intelligent director who will necessarily resolve some of the questions he exposes 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

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 accessible 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 condescension, 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 filmmaker’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 imagery 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 performances.

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, consisted of films from China, Cuba, India, Mexico and the Philippines.

Filipino d irector Lino Brocka’s creditable and speedily constructed examination 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-versus- baddie film, which indulges a mystical heroism on the part of its slave protagonist, is no better than a common television western, despite its more correct 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 — dealing 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 commercial appeal from the romantic involvement 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 rea l-life horrors which the fi lm 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 practice 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. ★

Mark Rappaport’s The Scenic Route: a perfectly balanced combination of formalism andnaturalism.

Richard Schmidt’s Showboat 1988: a tongue-in-cheek remake of the paddleboat musical.



Pete

r M

cLea

n

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 interruptions, but I had no intention of writing a history.

After the war, I became involved 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 activities 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 published 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 principal factor was a combination of the film school needing a historian, and me being convinced that you cannot learn any kind of filmmaking 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 fascinating 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 Toeplitz, director of the A ustralian F ilm and T elevision School for seven years, retired in Novem ber, 1979. Born in 1909 in R ussia , h is life and career have been entirely devoted to film criticism , film history and film education.

Toeplitz was founder-member of “ Start” , a P o lish A ssociation of Friends for the A rtistic F ilm , w hich was established in 1930 and became the basis for critical (and successfu l) P o lish film m aking. The following statem ent, made by Toeplitz in 1933 (he was secretary and vice- president of the m ovem ent from 1930 to 1934), is typical of h is m ain concerns:

“ The first step towards an improvement is the creation of a film culture in Poland; a cultured spectator who doesn’t believe in publicity willy-nilly . . . a spectator who knows his films and who can differentiate between a good film and a glamourous blockbuster . . . and a filmmaker with culture who has to say something when he makes a film . . . ”Toeplitz was rector of the State Theatrical and Film

Academy in Lodz from 1948 to 1968. Following political pressure, he spent several years teaching throughout the world, establishing various film and m edia study courses, writing, adjudicating film s for festiva ls from C annes to M ar del P lata and, eventually, in 1973, taking up h is position at the AFT VS.

A s director of the AFT V S, Toeplitz had a sign ificant, influence on the first generation of students who graduated from the school. There can be little doubt that h is experience as a filth historian has shaped the running of the School. But little is known in A ustralia about Toeplitz, the film historian, a true scholar in the classica l tradition.

In 1955, h is first volum e, ‘H istoria sztuki film ow ej’, was published in Polish; by 1971, the fifth volum e had appeared. This ‘H istory of the C inem a’ is one of the best ever produced, comparable in size only to Georges SadouPs work. Toeplitz quotes more references and sources than any other French, German or B ritish film historian . Each major developm ent and every major film - producing country or region is m eticulously introduced by way of insigh ts into the political, social and economic structure present at the tim e before any of the film s are discussed and evaluated.

Toeplitz’ ‘H istory of the C inem a’ is clear in style and structure, and could w ell serve as an exam ple to m any recent ‘film h istorians’ who th ink that rehashing 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 of F ilm s’, ju st published, is such a product.)

U nfortunately, Toeplitz’ ‘H istory’ has so far only been translated into German w ith the third volum e to appear in a few m onths. W hat is know n in the E nglish-speak ing countries is m ain ly h is ‘Hollywood and A fter’, a fairly unim pressive account of the A m erican film scene: H olly wood, its life , decline and re-emergence.

T his interview by Dr Peter R. Gerdes, senior lecturer in M edia Studies at the U niversity of N ew South W ales, presents Jerzy Toeplitz the em inent film historian , rather than Jerzy Toeplitz the AFTVS 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 histories of the cinema because I don’t find anything interesting there. I prefer to look at specialized histories. At the moment l am correcting 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. I read a very interesting book written by Peter Geyle, a Dutch historian, which has many useful ideas. I think the methodology 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 I 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 submerged by material. I have just finished the chapter on the American cinema from 1945 to 1953, and I don’t know how much I 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 because 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


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. Fortunately, 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 indispensable. 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 personal impressions about past reality.

The historian is always conditioned 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, somebody 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,

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 education as a purpose, seeing all the dangers.

You can say that there are enlightened people in the capitalist system, and I suppose film production, based on cultural considerations 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 protest 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 production, 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 dogmatic 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 educational lesson. After all, if you want to hear a lesson, go to church

or school, but don’t go to the cinema.

How do you see the relationship between 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 existence 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 theoreticians’ concepts. You cannot speak about Eisenstein or Griffith with

out mentioning how they conceived 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 discussion in Australia about the quality of critical writing . . .

I try to keep up with contemporary Australian critics, and I regularly read Colin Bennett (The Age), Geraldine Pascal (The Australian) and the reviews in The Sydney Morning Herald and Cinema Papers.

Film criticism is extremely individual. But what you should ask of the critics is that they be concerned not only with what is shown and said on the screen, but how it is shown and said. This is often missing, 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 University 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 departments, 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

Jerzy Toeplitz addresses the audience after accepting the Raymond Longford Award at the 1979 Australian Film Awards.

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 attitude 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 intellectual standard”. Yet, very little of your special field has found its way to the AFT VS . . .

I think it is a question of time with the AFTVS. If we had, us 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 professional 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 filmmaking. 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 Í 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 relationship between film and television?

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 possibility 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

from one-time viewing to multipleviewing, perhaps the criteria of filmmaking will have to change as well.

In ‘Hollywood and After’, you call yourself a “Hollywood watcher”. Do you still regard Hollywood as the hub of the film industry?

No, but first let me explain that quote. I was asked to write a preface to the American edition of Hollywood and After, and, as you know, there is a certain mistrust about someone from Europe — particularly Eastern Europe — writing about the American cinema. People probably expected a political discourse about American cinema, but this I avoided.

In Eastern European countries, like Poland, one is also much more concerned with national cinemas, and Hollywood is less known. So I found myself a ‘‘Hollywood watcher” for the Polish, Czech and Russian readers. I find national cinemas much more interesting, but the American cinema by its quantity is very important.

Why has your ‘History of the Cinema’ not been translated into English?

I don’t have an agent, and in the capitalist world you need one. Allen and Unwin, who were the publishers of Hollywood and After, at one stage said they were interested, but now it seems they are not.

I would like to have it translated. I am not ashamed of my statements and I am not changing them for the German editions unless I consider something obsolete or anachronistic, or I cease to believe in it. That statement you

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, even directing it in a certain sense. Some of your early predictions 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 development. Based on your experience, where do you see film going in the future?

I am a film historian and not a prophet. By nature I am eclectic. I think all kinds of art, and genres in different arts, co-exist; only the accent changes. When radio was invented, everybody said this would be the end of concerts; when cinema was invented, it was said that the end of the theatre had come; and when television appeared, it was claimed that cinema would come to an end. Now that video is invented, people are predicting the end of television. I say “No, they will coexist.”

I make a distinction between community arts and home arts, and there is certainly a tendency today towards the home arts. It means having a television set, a radio, a tape-recorder and some reproductions of good paintings in your place. But does this mean that the traditional, community arts will perish? No, I don’t think so. They will always attract people. Not because of the gregarious instinct of people, but because these arts help with pre-selection and selection. Pre-selection, because when putting an exhibition of French Impressionists together, somebody pre-selects for you. Then you can select. But you can also select by deciding whether you want to see the Impressionists or Chinese art.

In the cinema, you will always have Ingmar Bergman and Moon- raker. It is difficult to say what will be the next trend. There will always be a cinema because cinema has constants which are coming back again, and they will always attract people: the elements of Melies and of Lumiere. These are the two basic trends, and they will remain.

We shall always have films which are very talky-talky, as well as poetic films based on the beauty of images.

Will film remain the most important art to us, and to you?

Yes, definitely so. ★


Compiled by Terry Bourke

United StatesB B H B n n H H B B IB B H H U a a n H H H B H H H a H n a

Independent and studio production in the U.S. has accelérated in recent months, and an average of five films a week are being completed.

The production of non-union low-budget films between $285,000 and $1.4 million has increased, and the major studios are spending between $2.9 million to $14.6 million on their latest films.

Foreign producers are using American locations with increasing regularity, avoiding costly and troubled European locations.

Bruno Corbuci is in Miami and Fort Lauderdale 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 African locations, and in American 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 early- January start of Popeye, starring Robin (Mork) Williams; 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 Embassy; 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 Grosbard, 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 Cassavetes is d irec 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, Thè Hunter, starring Steve McQueen; and Jack Hofsiss, After Midnight.

Tom Kotani is directing The Ivory Ape in Bermuda; Robert Moore is directing James

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 Glickenhaus 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 producer of film s for English-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.

Paul 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 Neighbour and Don Shebib’s Popgun.

Raymond Burr is to star in CeBe for writer- director Leonard Yakir in Vancouver; and

Japanese director Kenji Fikasaku will spend January and February in Toronto’s Klelnberg 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-lsraell 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.1 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 irec ted by George McGowan, and shooting in Toronto and Las Vegas.

Britain

The failure of British studios to win contracts for the shooting of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, 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 Mup- pets, 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, TheGolden 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;

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 for 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; Benji 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.

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 major breakthrough in the international market place. The film was financed with a major investment by the New Zealand Film Commission.

Shot on locations in Western Samoa, the North Island and London, by writer-director Paul Maunder, Sons for the Return Home is a contemporary 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 considerable 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 jgnd directed by Roger Donaldson from a script by Ian Mune and Keigh Aberdein.

Concluded on P. 679


FILM CENSORSHIP LISTINGSReprinted from

Australian Government GazettePublished by the Australian Government Publishing Service

AUGUST 14 - AUGUST 28 - OCTOBER 2

Howard Ross and Ligia Branice in Walerian Borowczyk’s Interno dl un convento (Behind Convent Walls/Within a Cloister). The film was registered "R" after cuts of 33 seconds.

JUNE 1979

FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONS

For General Exhibition (G)

Addio Per Sempre: R. 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. Cantor, 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/Film Del Centauro, France (3091.00 m)The Russians — People of the Country (16 mm): Film Australia, Australia (99.74 m)Sharks: F. Frelberger, U.S.A. (2537.81 m)Unter Denkmalschutz (16 mm): E. Fechner, W. Germany (1058.00 m)Voyage of the Hokulea (16 mm): Hawaii Geographic, Society, U.S.A. (1018.00 m)

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)

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./Mexlco (2833.00 m)El Saka Maat (16 mm): Misr Int. Film, Egypt (1137.50m)Home Sweet Home (16 mm): H. Kung, Hong Kong (1163.00 m)The Humanoid: G. Venturini, 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/Sackheim, 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)Mareid Alep Way (16 mm): Sabbah, Lebanon (965.36 m)Mera Naam Joker: R. Kapoor, India (6857.00 m)O Efialtls (The Nightmare): Not shown, Greece (2000.00 m)A Perfect Couple: R. Altman, U.S.A. (3039.00 m)The Prisoner of Zenda: W. Mlrisch, U.S.A. (2984.02 m) The Return of Lost Son (16 mm): Misr. Int. Film, Egypt (1341.00 m)The Shooting Party: Inter-Alllance Film, U.S.S.R. (2914.11 m)Unheimllche 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)Allen: 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 G am e (H ra 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. Rogosin, 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): Misr 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

twice at 1979 Sydney/Melbourne/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 Production 'X', Poland (4427.00 m)Die Ehe Der Maria Braun: M. Fengler, W. Germany (3155.00 m)Een Vrouw T ussen Hund en Wolf (Woman in a Twilight G a r d e n ) : N i m / D e La G u e v i l l e - G a u m o n t , Belgium/France (2962.00 m)Ernesto: Clesi Cinematografica, 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 ELIMINATIONSFor Restricted Exhibition (R)Within a Cloister: G. Vezzani, Italy (2577.30 m) Eliminations: 15.3 metres (33 secs)Reason: Indecency

FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATIONAssault — 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 REVIEWNil

JULY 1979

FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONSFor 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: Filmpolski, 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)

Ski a La Carte (16 mm): W. Miller, U.S.A. (1031.00 m)

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)

Billion Dollar Threat: J. Daniel, U.S.A. (2621.00 m' 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. Germany (1195.00 m)Rocky II: I. Winkler/R. Chartoff, U.S.A. (3262.00 m) Schwarz und Weiss Wie 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 m)The 3,000 Mile Chase: J. Swerling Jr, U.S.A. (2673.50m)

For Mature Audiences (M)

Amalgan (16 mm): W. Nekes, W. Germany (757.00 m) Die Glaeserne Zelle (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. Germany (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. Angeletti/A. De Mlchell, Italy (2314.00 m) My Wacky, Wacky World: R. Chow, Hong Kong (3039.00 m)


Blue Collar: D. Guest, U.S.A. (3124.00 m)Can I Do It Til I Need Glasses?: M. Cailie, 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 (3123.46m)The Hot House: Westfilm Prod., U.S.A. (1563.51 m) Infrasexum': C. Tobalina, U.S.A. (1924.00 m)Law Don: K. Tang/Wing-Scope Co., Hong Kong (2482.03 m)

P re p a re z Vos M o u c h o irs (G e t O u t Y o u 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).

FILMS REGISTERED WITH ELIMINATIONS


Censorship U.S.A.: A. Roberts, U.S.A. (2128.00 m) Eliminations: 55 metres (2 mins)Reason: IndecencyPrivate Nurse: La Persane Prods, U.K. (2139.54 m) Eliminations: 17.3 metres (38 secs)Reason: IndecencyShe 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

Godfather’s Fury: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong (2831.90 m) Reason: Excessive violence

FILMS BOARD OF REVIEW

The Dirty Mind of Young Sally (Reconstructed version)': 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.

1. Previously shown on May, 1979 List.

AUGUST 1979

FILMS REGISTERED WITHOUT ELIMINATIONSFor General Exhibition (G)The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: D. Selznick, U.S.A. (2576.00 m)The Alaska Wilderness Adventure: F. & E. Meader, U.S.A. (2398.37 m)Autumn Bells: Mosfilm 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: Vietinghof 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)M eeting s w ith R e m a rk ab le M en: 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/Taiwan (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 Szbicbrodka (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


J U e t l, o u r n e ¿ z M r tis ts a n a g e n te n t

congratulates its artists on their recent nominations and awards.

BRIONYBEHETSNomination Sammy /\ward — Best Film Actress for “ Long Weekend"

JULIA BLAKESammy Award — Best Supporting Film Actress for "Patrick" Nomination Sammy Award — Best Actress Single Television

Performance for "Cop Shop"

TERENCE DONOVANNomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for "Money Movers"

GERARD KENNEDYSammy Award — Best Actor in a Television Series "Against the W ind" Nomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for

"The Last of the Knucklemen"

ALWYN KURTSA.F.I. Award — Best Supporting Actor for "Tim"Sammy Award — Best Supporting Film Actor for "Tim"

ROD MULLINARNomination Sammy Award — Best Film Actor for "Patrick"

TERRY NORRISNomination Sammy Award — Best Actor in a Television Series "Cop Shop"

LMIKE PRESTONA.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 lightweight 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 3 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 year 1979.

MN

IAN

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Photography by G. Crane, Administrative Officer (Films), Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

EASTMAN Color Negative II Film 7247

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Hospitals don’t bum down.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 highspeed 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 orints. This film is characterised ay. a high degree of sharpness, fine grain and excellent color rendition.

LIGHTING CONTRAST: The ratio of key-light-plus-fill-light to fill light should be 2:1 or 3:1 and should seldom exceed 4:1, except when a special effect is desired.

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;:;; Nick Rast (David 0 e m m m g s ) , a w ell-to-do government senator, apd his w ifew ith

Two security^mjep* and a t<fp P #pm ysterious faith healer,GregOjry W olfe (Robert jB B B B B ^ ^ a sHWB^BK^Stheifi son

(Broderick Craw ford), Nick and Sandra become increasingly attached to W olfe, at ■first out of gratitude for saving their son’s life, and then, at least in Sandra’s case, ouit off love for him. Doc Wheeran, who is grooming Nick to be a rtew h ë a ÿ o f;g o^rà1 iien C attempts; to JllBënfr W elle p s a i f ^ a u ^ b ^ M ^ n ^ ih J I i ^ i ls MBh B W olfe retaliates w ith preternatural pow er in the dramatic^ climax. .

Scripted by Everett de Roche (whose CreiÉts i|||ii|ide end “Snapshot” ), M |a .rle 'qS i,^ K a n l l a ^ B i jedeifg^ ^ ^ ^ ^ B o u y -many elem ents have been c langed , several connections still exist, such as thejinking of names: Niçjt Rast for Nicholas II, Sandra for A le^aitid re^rego i^ for Grigory, etc.

“ Harlequin” is the eighth film produced by Antony I. Ginnane, and the second to be directed by Simon WiriCer* Starring Robert P b v ^ ; j ,^ i^ g | |Ë ^ |^ a n | I^ ^ ^ N :ein|^ings and Broderick Crawford, it'recently-com pleted film ing in |P e i^ fc W e s t€ tj^ ^ ® ^ ^ |^ ^ ®

Harlequin something you have touched on?

SIMON WINCERDIRECTOR

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 production 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 Productions where he directed episodes of “Matlock Police” , “Homicide” , “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 “Harlequin” , as well as the making of “Snapshot” and his work in television.

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 producer.

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 portrayal 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.

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 Cannes, 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 requirements that Tony and Bill had requested 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.

What elements did the overseas people want changed? Did they want it made less specifically Australian?

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.

Does each “story” inform the other?

More or less. It has drifted away

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?

No. On one level the film is an out and out thriller, and whether people know it ip an analogy of the Rasputin legend doesn’t matter. I think the analogy is what makes it interesting on a more intellectual level.

Rasputin was alleged to have had considerable sexual powers. Is this

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 people 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.

“Patrick” and “Snapshot” didn’t do very well in Australia. Does this suggest that thrillers are not in vogue in Australia?

I don’t know. I find it very hard to be analytical about a film’s appeal, 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.

Did you conceive the role of Wolfe for Robert Powell?

Preceding page: Bergier (Gus Mercurio) watches as Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell) and Alex Rast (Mark Spain) stare out to sea.638 — Cinema Papers, December-January

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 compelling 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 Crawford?

The original choice was Orson Welles, though God knows how we would have worked with him. I gather even Mike Nichols had his problems, so I would hate to think what might have happened. Anyway, Orson wanted $80,000 a week for two weeks, and of course we couldn’t afford it.

What we wanted was a tough, old, fat, cigar-smoking American, again with a strong screen presence. Broderick was Tony’s idea, and I must say he looks wonderful on screen. He is quite an old man now, but luckily he doesn’t have to be too mobile in the film.

How have you found working with such experienced actors?

Wonderful. I was nervous about it to begin with, because David, Robert and Broderick have done an enormous amount of film work. I thought 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.

Do you rehearse the leading actors?

Yes. However, we had no rehearsal 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 arguments 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

performance. There are all sorts of ways of getting there, and we don’t particularly want an audience while we were doing it. In fact, I don’t even let my director of photography or continuity lady stay. Now, and depending on the scene, this rehearsing can take anything from 10 minutes to half an hour.

The process usually begins with a talk to the actors in the morning in the make-up room. Once I get on the set we block the scene out. Naturally, things change in the blocking, and an actor can suggest a move that is better than the one you have envisaged. So one tends to just orchestrate things till one arrives at the best way of playing the scene.

I then call the key people back on the set and, during a final run-

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-prepared 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 getting to know it better, and a shot list can be a security blanket in case you have one of those terrible moments where you have a blank and

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 planned. For example, when we rehearsed the confrontation 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 helpful 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. Consequently, I try to find the key element 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-Januar/ — 639

PRODUCTION REPORT

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).

In a special effects sequence created by Conrad Rothman, Nick is engulfed in a ring of fire ‘set’ off by Gregory.

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 geography 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 filmmakers 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 effects. 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?

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 position. Anyway, we agreed not to do it that way.

There is one exception in Harlequin, however, and that is when we had to do a fairly complex sequence in a bathroom. But evert though every wall in the bathroom floated out, the camera lens was always w ithin the confines of the

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 disadvantages, such as the problem with focus . . .

Yes. If you want to play someone heavily in the foreground and someone in the background, you have to commit yourself to one or the other. Also, if I am going to pull focus, then I like to do it for emphasis, and nothing else. I don’t want the audience to be particularly aware that it is happening. In other words, it should be motivated by a head turn or a movement, or to punch up a particular moment.

There is one scene in the film where I had David sitting in the foreground, and Carmen and Robert coming in the background. I wanted to play the scene in one shot because I wanted a sense of separation between the husband, his wife, and her lover. But it turned out a bit too soft; you just don’t read their expressions in the background.

The size of the shot is okay, but it is the focus. It is one case where what I should have done was have David turn his head to look at them and pull the focus on that movement. This way it wouldn’t have been too obvious.

What you have to do with Panavision 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.

Are special effects also better suited to Panavision?

I don’t think it makes any significant difference, except when you have something happening foreground and background — that is where the problem occurs. As we are doing a lot of front projection stuff, Conrad Rothman (special effects) can re-focus when he is filming the front projection. Consequently, we can shoot the background or the plate sharp, and Conrad can soften it so that it doesn’t look false.

Why are you using front projection?

Conrad talked us into it because some of the effects couldn’t have been done any other way. Front projection is, of course, a way of life in the U.S.What are some of the special effects?

A bird flying into a plate-glass window, smashing it and then flying

off again. A bird flying down off a perch, landing on somebody’s head and getting sliced in two by a symbol. 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 doing 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


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 cannot . . .

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 better.

Snapshot

Tony wanted to take the film to Mifed, and he was committed to starting it then. Also, he was confident about Centrefold. It was only when Everett and I spoke so strongly 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 committed 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 remixed.

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.

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, however, 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 flexible 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

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 elements I 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 rework 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?


PRODUCTION REPORT

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 different. 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 sequence and not the other; it didn’t make sense. One result of this was that it made the audience go looking 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 Australian 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 Snapshot, 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?

You don’t stop to consider important things. In the case of Snapshot we just couldn’t be objective about the material we had. With a lot of tightening and reemphasizing, I think we could have improved the film about 20 per cent. But once those post-production wheels start turning, you can’t change things.

Is this post-production rush something you also have in television?

In television, you only shoot what’s going to be on the screen. Television scripts are much more tightly edited and are timed to fit a length of time.

Some people found the motivation of some of the characters in “Snapshot” confusing, particularly Madeline’s. Was this because you were rushed in the post-production, or are there weaknesses in the script?

Probably weaknesses in the script. We didn’t have a script editor — we couldn’t afford one — so I sat down with Everett and edited it with him.

However, I do think Madeline has motivation, and that was she wanted Angela (Sigrid Thornton), and would do anything to get her. If

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 potentially- guilty characters that in the end one doesn’t care who, or why, someone did it . . .

This, of course, was a very hard thing to balance, and again some of the cuts didn’t help. Originally, there were five guilty parties, and now there are three and a half. Consequently, it doesn’t take too much nous to work out where the Film is going.

Actually, the film, as scripted, had a different ending, which none of us were happy with, and that was only resolved a week before shooting. The Final Whippy Van sequence is new. In the original Angela just walked off into the night, and caught her plane to Fiji.

Why does Angela go off with Madeline? Is she finally attracted to her, or is it out of fear?

Where else does she go? That was the intention. It is„,pretty hard to say how anyone would react in that sort of situation. She is almost in a daze when she gets into the van, and doesn’t really know what she is doing. It is the easy way out because she is so vulnerable and easily manipulated by other people.

Sigrid was actually cast two days before shooting. We were originally planning to use an actress, but she turned us down; she didn’t think the script was good enough, which is pretty amazing for someone who had only done television soap operas. So we took a plunge and went for Siggy. In retrospect, we

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 applicable to directing features?

Solving problems. The thing about having grown up in television, particularly at Crawford Productions, is that you have to learn to do your job quickly and economically. Also, the sheer amount of output from the place just rubs off on you.

One of the things that annoys me about Australian features is the number of directors who make basic cinematic mistakes, like scenes that don’t cut. This is probably because they don’t have many directing hours up. If you look at any television director’s work, whether it is from overseas or here, you always Find that in the main scenes cut together smoothly, and there is a sense of flow. This is purely a result of mileage — churning out Film week after week after week.

Is there also negative rub-off, in that one might bring television devices and techniques to feature films?

Yes. There are great dangers, and I am Fighting them all the time. You have to be very careful not to become casual and fall back on old television tricks. I shoot film every day of my life — it’s all I ever do — and I have become used to the mechanical process. For someone who only makes one feature a year, however, the situation is totally different.

I was talking to David Hem- mings 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 outside 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 — instead 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 training, but that’s not to say I don’t agree with film schools. After all, three of the world’s most commer- cially-successful directors — Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford^Coppola and George Lucas — are products of a film school. ★


JANE SCOTTASSOCIATE PRODUCER

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 filmmakers as production secretary on Bruce Beresford’s “ The Adventures of Barry McKenzie” .

She came to Australia in the same year to work with Beresford on “The Wreck of the Batavia” , and soon afterwards 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 “My Brilliant Career” (1978).

She has produced two tele-features for the South Australian Film Corporation: Mike Thornhill’s “Harvest of Hate” , 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.

There is often confusion about what the various production roles on a feature film entail; in particular, the difference between an executive producer, associate producer, production supervisor, production coordinator 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 complete 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 producers, 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 experience and choice, but may maintain creative control. An associate producer is a production supervisor handling the money and overseeing all the production technicalities. There may or may not be a production manager, who organizes the day-to-day production matters, dealing more directly with equ ipm en t, crew and cast, transport, accommodation, etc.

On Harlequin, the producer, Tony Ginnane, is very experienced, and he carries quite a lot of weight. My involvement on this production, as an associate producer cum production manager, is to handle all the day-to-day administration for him. I am also responsible 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-production.

At what stage was the budget you were to work with set, and what role

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.

Is the budget higher because it is being shot in Western Australia?

Yes. We worked out that excluding contra deals it will be about

$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 maximum value on the screen, and so, first of all, I attempt to cut costs in areas like studio and equipment hire fees. The studio we are using is a converted warehouse, and it has worked out very well. In fact, it’s 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 accommodation. 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. Different 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 producers 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 frequently go over budget?

Probably because the allocations 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 decisions are made before the depart-


PRODUCTION REPORT

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.

Are there areas in a budget which are usually cut down more than others?

I think the art department does get a great deal lopped off, probably more than they should. But the art department suffers more than anybody because it covers such a wide range of things; not only the sets, but also wardrobe, make-up, special effects and animals. And when you cut down a budget, you take bits off here and there, and, in the case of the art department, all these cuts add up.

Was the budget for the art department on your last film, “My Brilliant Career”, accurate?

The art department’s budget on My Brilliant Career went way over, but was mostly contained within the total budget for the film. Other

Things had to be cut down, and the crew probably suffered more inconvenience than they normally would.

There has been concern over the past few years about the tendency for feature films to go over budget. Why is it so difficult to contain spending on a film?

There are several difficulties which are just being recognized by

the Australian Film Commission. One of them is the conflict of interest in having a producer cum director on a feature. I think this is a very dangerous thing to allow, because it really does take a great deal of strength to control a budget. You are up against it when you are out in the field somewhere, and the director says a scene would look better if you had 30 more extras, a helicopter shot, and an 800 mm lens. You have to know that if you call in one, or all of those things, you would push the budget over. Costs have to be continually judged against needs.

I suppose it’s just really knowing when to say “No” . And it is up to the AFC to know when to say “No” , too. They might put somebody on to a production every week to sign the cheques, but do they actually know? Do they really know when the production is likely to go over budget?

Does it come down to a question of production methodology and accounting procedure?

Yes, the facts are there before you on the daily production reports and financial statements.

But by the time you write a cheque it is already too late . . .

No, it’s not. But of course I would find it very difficult to read a weekly financial report and know that what is going to happen in the next week will push the budget over. Obviously it does need a greater understanding of the day- to-day events.

It seems then that one of the problems is the rate at which money is spent. There are so many people spending money on a feature film

But all expenditure should go through the one office. In this instance, everything goes through me before it goes to the accountant. Everything that is purchased is

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.

If you go over budget it must be a deliberate decision . . .

As much as one can say that, yes, I suppose it is.

What other elements are important in keeping track of spending?

A very good production accountant.

Should the production accountant be on location?

Absolutely; it’s something I insist on.

Do you think the budget for “Harlequin” is adequate?

No, not quite. The budget should have been more, for comfort.

What about other films you have worked on, for example, “My Brilliant Career”?

It should have been more, too.

What are the corollaries of making films like these on ‘low’ budgets? Do you think the films actually suffer?

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 restricted 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 producer 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 comfortably, the budget should have been more, and to make My Brilliant Career comfortably it should have been more.

But rather than increase the budget, aren’t there ways to reduce costs without affecting the production value? For example, by rewriting 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 imported 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.


PRODUCTION REPORT

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.

Why then don’t Australian producers 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 Beres- ford, 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 particularly large crew on Harlequin. But to do what we are trying to do in six weeks with the actors involved 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 Corporation follow the progress of “My Brilliant Career” closely?

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.

What is the AFC’s involvement in “Harlequin”?

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 considerable expertise in the area of budgeting and budget control? Do you find them a useful ally and collaborator in the job you do on a film like this?

No.

Are they in fact a hindrance rather than a help?

I think they act as a sort of Big Brother looking over your shoulder, 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 producers in this country. They are a hard-headed lot of people by nature, and I think it’s very difficult to bring them all together into

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 “Harlequin”?

Yes, that was tight.

Do you always walk into a given pre-production period?

Usually., I discuss how much time it needs, and indeed Harlequin needed, I thought, seven weeks. And it would have been possible had it remained in Victoria. 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

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 heartache for him.

But then you saved time by finding a cheap studio . . .

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 production suffers from a lack of good studio facilities?

Yes I do, but the old curly problem 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. ★


BERNARD HIDESART 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 Australia would realize how much production designers and art directors 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.

Why was it decided to build a set rather than use actual locations?

Nearly 80 per cent of Harlequin is interior, so a set seemed by Tar 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 much easier to light.

Were you brought in as a production designer or art director?

Art director. I am mainly concerned with the look of the set and the locations. As a production designer I would have had more control over the costumes and such. I did, in fact, do a little research into what the Harlequin should wear, but I gave that to Simon Wincer (director) once the costume designer came onto the film.

What brief did Wincer give you?

I was sent the script, which I thought was good. Then, when I was in Melbourne, Simon took me to a house and said, “We need a house that has that feel about it.” It had a non-Australian feeling: not

Bernard Hides has worked as a production designer/art director for 15 years, beginning at the ABC in 1965 on a one- hour drama entitled “The Swagman”. Since then he has worked on more than 30 productions, including the features ‘T he 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 “Harlequin” is his design and supervision of the principal set, a multiroom, 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.

colonial or Victorian, but vaguely American-European. Now while there are plenty of houses like that in Melbourne and Sydney, there are none in Perth.

The house we were looking for had to be like a fortress, with high walls, gates and a large landscaped garden. The only one we found in Perth that was close was Alan Bond’s house. We weren’t able to get inside at that stage — Bond was overseas — so I took photographs of the outside and tried to work out how everything related. I then gave my assistant draftslady some sketches, and, once she had taken a look at the house, we started to draw up a basic layout.

When I do a layout, I get hold of the script and draw a square, scribbling down notes as I read. I then relate the script to the square, drawing in rooms, and putting in doors and windows. Once I have

made it geographically correct, I add the architecture.

At the same time, of course, one has to keep in mind the location one is trying to match. Basically you match only the main architectural features — the windows, wall treatments, front doors, etc. You never have the whole set in wide- shot, but you must give the feeling that the house is there.

When I finally got into Bond’s house, I found that my geography, which worked for the script, was nothing like his, though there were some things which matched, like the internal doors. I have often wondered whether I would have been influenced if I had gone into his place before building the set.

To what degree did you match your set to Bond’s house?

The only thing I matched is

Bond’s front door, and that is accurate down to the locks, mouldings 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 dropping 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 different- colored 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.

How would you describe the feeling of the house?

From reading the script, I decided Nick Rast (David Hem- mings) 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.) Consequently, 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 attempted 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.

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 frustrated 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 accommodate 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 requirements about such things?

No. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of communication with Simon. Also, we were having problems at that stage getting a director 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 consultation 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 protractors 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 downstairs, 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. Photographs are slightly experimental on my part, although I have used them on several television sets. In the end we opted for large, painted backdrops. The cost was about the same.

Did you make any special allowances 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 wallpaper surfaces — not too many, and all within a tonal range. Also, instead of having a long run of wall, I 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 immediately 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. Everything 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 discomfort of working hard up against a wall.

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Bruce BeresfordBased on the play

b y ................................... David Williamson

FRIDAY THE 13THProd, company . ...............Mutiny PicturesDist. com pany......................................... GUOProducer . . . . ...... ...................John PellattD irector................................... Peter MaxwellScriptwriter................................................Peter YeldhamBased on the original

story b y .................................................. Peter Maxwell,Peter Yeldham

Exec, producers ..................Peter Yeldham,Peter Maxwell

Budget................................................. $541,000L en g th .......... .......................................90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmSynopsis: A c o m e d y -th rille r with a predominantly female cast. A group of attractive young women take to crime to provide financial support for a school for underprivileged children. A series of mix- ups causes the women to lose the loot, their dignity, but not their freedom.

MONKEYGRIPProd, co m p a n y............ Clare Beach FilmsProducer . . . . . . . . . . . ........ Patricia LovellD irector............................. . . . . .K e n CameronScriptwriter................................ Ken CameronBased on the novel by _____Helen GarnerGauge ....................................................35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorSynopsis: “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, UPProd, c o m p a n y ........................... Ross Wood

ProductionsProducer/Director.....................Henri SafranScriptwriters.......................Graham Gifford,

Henri Safran, Kit Denton

Based on the story b y ___Graham GiffordLength ................................................. 90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmSynopsis: An adventure/comedy based on a true story about an attempt to start an illegal airline in. the South Pacific, in a condominium ruled by the French and the British.

PACIFIC BANANAProd, company ....................Pacific BananaDist. company ...............................RoadshowProducer/Director...................John LamondScriptwriter............................ Alan Hopgood

Based on the original ideab y ........................................... John Lamond

Photography............................................. Garry WapshottSound recordist ............ John PhillipsEditor ............................................. Ray DaleyProd, designer.......................Herbert PinterExec, producer ..................William MarshallAssoc, produ cer...................................... John PruzanskiProd, supervisor..................Judy WhiteheadUnit m anager............................ John ChaseProd, accountant .....................Norman BeilContinuity ............................. Judy WhiteheadKey g rip ........ .............................. Ray ThomasBoom operator ........................ Ray PhillipsStudios....................................................... SAFCMixed at ................................................... SAFCLaboratories.................. Cinevex (Australia),

MGM (U.S.)Length ................................................. 90 mins.Gauge ....................................................35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorSynopsis: The bawdy adventures of two airline pilots and their friends as they cavort around the South Pacific.

For complete details of the following features see Issue 23:LeonskiSomeone Left The Cake Out In The Rain

PRODUCTION

THE EARTHLINGProd, company . . . . Earthling ProductionsProducer.....................................................Elliot SchickD irector......................................................Peter ColllnsonScriptwriter................................ Lanny CotierPhotography...........................Don McAlpineSound recordist ......................Don ConnollyE d ito r..................................... Mick BeaumanExec, producer ................Stephen SharmatProd, supervisor...................................... John WeileyProd, co-ordinator .......................Jenny DayProd, manager .................. Su ArmstrongUnit m anager.......................Greg RlcketsonLocation m anager.................................... John WarranTransport manager ................ Ralph ClarkAsst transport manager ........ Jack SkycerProd, secretary .................. Kathy FlanneryProd, accountant .................. Trisha GhentBookkeepers ........................... Cathy Barear,

Lea Collins1st asst d irec to r......................Mark Egerton2nd asst director .................Steve Andrews3rd asst director......................................Chris Williams2nd unit

asst director.................. David Le MaistreContinuity .................................... Jill FreemanProducer’s assistant............ Su ArmstrongCasting consultants ............ M & L CastingCamera operator .....................Dean SemlerFocus pullers .............. : . . ..........David Burr,

Peter Menzles JnrClapper/loader ...........Richard MerrymanCamera assistants ..................John Seale,

Frank HammondKey g rip ...............................Graeme MardellAsst g r ip s .....................Graheme Litchfield,

Rob RlcketsonCamera g r ip .......................Merv McLaughln2nd unit

camera assistants ......... Andre Fleuren,Benjamin Schick

G affer............................................................ Rob YoungElectrician..............................Colin WilliamsDirectors batman ............ Marshall CrosbyGene opera tor.................. David ParkinsonBoom operator ........................... Joe SplnelliArt director ...............................Bernard HidesCostume designer ............ Judith DorsmanMake-up ........................................Judy LovellHairdresser.........................r ____Judy LovellWardrobe .....................Robyn SchuurmansP ro p s ...........................................................John CarrollProps b u y e r.............................................. John CarrollStandby props............................................ Ken JamesSet decorator............................ Terry LarsenScenic artis ts ...........................Bill Malcolm,

Ned McCannCarpenter ...................................Ia n McGrathCampsite carpenters............ Errol Mason,

Stuart MasonAsst editor ................... Frans VandenburgDubbing editor .............................Bob CotterAsst dubbing ed ito r.................Phillip CotterG reenm an.................................................... Don MurphyAssts G reenm an....................David McCann,

Peter ForbesEdge num berer............................. Rick LisleCampsite co-ordinators . . . John Shipton,

Anthony ChartresAnimal co-ordinators..........Ray Wlnslade,

Warren Lloyd, Keith Harris,

Evanne HarrisStill photography....................................... Tom TownleyD river........................................... Doug SayerTutor........................................ Shane SullivanN u rses.........................................Alan Bailey,

Vivienne RichesBest boy .................................. Peter MoloneyRunners.................................................... .Peter Kearney,

Nick Reynolds Sue Clark

Art department runner . . . Peter GlencroffPublicity....................................... David WhiteSydney Liaison ..................Brianne KearneySydney officer runner . . . . Michael WeileyCatering.................. John FaithfullCatering assistants.................................Susie Faithfull,

Narell BrownAsst c h e f....................................... Ray FowlerLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLength ........................................... 100 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorCast: William Holden (Foley), Ricky Shroder (Shawn).Synopsis: A story of survival: an old, dying man finds a child lost in the bush and teaches him to survive.

GRENDEL GRENDEL GRENDELFor details see Issue 23

THE MAN AT THE EDGE OF THE FREEWAY

Prod, com pany........Palm Beach PicturesDist. com pany.....................Hoyts TheatresProducer.........................................David ElfickD irector................................................Ian BarryScriptwriter..........................................Ian BarryBased omthe original idea

b y ...................................................... Ian BarryPhotography...............................Russell BoydSound recordist .....................Lloyd CarrickE d ito r.........................................Tim WellburnAssoc, producers .................George Miller,

Ross MatthewsProd, manager ........................ Lynn GaileyUnit m anager...............Philip HearnshawProd, secretary .....................Mandy ForsterProd, accountant ...................... Penny CarlProd, assistants.....................Louise Ferrier,

Kathy Trubott, David Trethewey

1st asst director ................ Ross Matthews2nd asst director................ Chris Maudson2nd unit d irector................................. George MillerContinuity ................................... Sian HughesCasting consultants . . . Mitch ConsultancyCamera operator ....................Nixon BlnneyFocus p u lle r..............................................Peter RogersClapper/loader ................ Laurie MclnnesKey g rip ................................................ Ian ParkAsst g r ip ..................................................Stuart GreenSpecial fx

photography............ George GreenoughG affer............................ '. Y Brian BansgroveElectricians................................................. Paul Gantner,

Paul MoyesBoom operators ...............Andrew Duncan,

Chris GoldsmithArt d irector.......................................... Graham WalkerAsst art directors .................... Llssa Coote,

Sally CampbellCostume designer .......... Norma MoriceauMake-up .................. Lesley Lamont-FisherWard, assistant................ Camilla RountreeStandby props................ Tobias SheppardSpecial e ffects........................................Reece RobinsonSet construction ..............................Bill HoweAsst editor ..............................Vicki AmbroseNeg. m atching..........................................AtlabSound editor ............................Tim WellburnStunts co-ordinator .....................Max AspinStunts....................................................... David Bracks,

Bob HicksStill photography.........................Colin BeardUnit publicist .......................Hugh McGowan

& AssociatesCatering.........................................................Ray FowlerMixed at ....................................................AtlabLaboratory ................................................AtlabLab. liaison.............................Glenda BartlettB udget.................................................$450,000Length ................................................. 90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorCast: Stephen Bisley (Larry), Arna-Maria Winchester (Carmel), Ross Thompson (Heinrich), Ralph Cotterill (Gray), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Eagle)/ Richard Moir (Pig- gott), Lorna Lesley (Gloria), Patrick Ward (Oates), Laurie Moran (McSweeney), Bill McCluskey (Ralph).Synopsis: A horror thriller about events that follow a catastrophic accident at WALDO, an atomic waste repository in Central Australia. Larry, an ex-racing driver, and his wife, Carmel, meet Heinrich, a doomed physicist, and through him become Innocently enmeshed in a conspiracy which threatens their lives and the security of the nation.

MANGANINNIEProd, company ................Tasmanian Film

Corporation'Dist. com pany.........................................GUOProducer....................................Gllda BarachiD irector.......................................John HoneyScriptwriter.....................................Ken KelsoBased on the novel b y ........ Beth RobertsPhotography ............................... Gary HansenExec, producers ........................Gil Brearley,

Malcolm SmithProd, manager ................ Pamela van EckArt director.................................Neil AngwinLength ................................................. 90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock.........................Eastmancolor

THE PROMOTION OF MR SMITHProd, company ......................... Smiley FilmsProducer............................................... Richard BrennanD irector................................Stephen WallaceScriptwriter.................................................. Bob JewsonPhotography............................... Geoff BurtonSound recordist ....................... Gary WilkinsE d ito r............ .......................Henry DongarProd, designer.......................Lee WhitmoreProd, manager.......................Barbara GibbsProd, secretary ........................Barbara RingProd, accountant ................ Digby Duncan1st asst director .................. Mark Turnbull2nd asst director......................................Chris MaudsonContinuity ............................Caroline StantonCasting.....................................M & L CastingCamera operator .....................Geoff BurtonFocus p u lle r............................................. David ForemanClapper/loader ...............................Gill LeahyKey g rip ......................................................Brent CollinsG affer...................................Brian BansgroveElectricians..................................................Paul Hoyes,

Paul GantnerBoom operator ......................Mark WasutakArt d irector...................................................Kim HilderWardrobe ................................... Edie KurzerWard, assistant.............. Lesley McLennanProps b u y e r...........................Anni BrowningStandby props..........................................Clark MunroSpecial effects ..........................................Chris MurrayCarpenters .......................Peter Templeton,

Glen Finch, Lee Carey

Set construction .................. Herbert PinterAsst editor ...........................Cathy SheehanStill photography.................................... Mike GiddensTech, advisers......................................... Bob Jewson,

Tony GreenRunner...........................................Jenny MilesLaboratory ................................................AtlabBudget.................................................$485,000Length ..................................................90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorRelease, date ..................................May, 1980Cast: Bryan Brown (Ching), Max Phipps (Norton), Denis Miller (Redford), Peter Hehir (McIntosh), Ray Marshall (Chalmes), Sid Heyien (Old Bob), Tex Morton (Governor), Ted Robshaw (Partridge).Synopsis: A prison drama where the buildup of tension between ’crims’ and ‘screws’ leads to a large-scale confrontation.

SARAHProd, company ............ Yoram Gross

Film StudioProducer/director .................. Yoram GrossScriptwriter ...............................Yoram GrossBased on the story by ........Yoram GrossPhotography ............................. Jenny OchseEditor .................................................Rod HayAnimation designer .................Athol HenryAssoc, producer ................... Sandra GrossProd, manager .....................Yolanta PillichProd, secretary ......................... Meg RowedProd.

accountant . . . . Christina Burton-GibbsCasting ............................................. AnimationAnimation camera

operator ............................... Jenny OchseArt director ................................. Athoi HenryBackground layouts ................Athol Henry,

Amber VellaniAsst editors .........................Phillip Colville,

Prue ByramStill photography .....................Yoram GrossAnimation .................................. Athol Henry,

Cynthia Leech, Irena Slapczynski,

Ray NowlandOpticals ............ Yoram Gross Film StudioStudio .................Yoram Gross Film StudioLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmBudget ............................................... $583,053Length ...... ........................................ 80 mins.Gauge ................................................. 35 mmShooting stock ...................... EastmancolorRelease date .................. December, 1980Synopsis: The story of a young girl, Sarah, who escapes from her war-torn Polish village and takes refuge in the forests, where she joins the struggle against the enemy.

THE Z MENProd, company ..................John McCallum

ProductionsProducer.................................. Lee RobinsonDirector .....................................Tim Burstallt d lt o r .............................................John ScottSynopsis: A war drama.

POST-PRODUCTION

THE BATTLE OF BROKEN HILLFor details see Issue 23

BLOOD MONEYFor details see Issue 23

THE BLUE LAGOONProd, com pany............ Columbia PicturesDist. com pany............... Columbia Pictures

Producers...............................Randal Kleiser,Richard Franklin

D irector.................................... Randal KleiserScriptwriter................ Douglas Day StewartBased on the novel

b y ................ •.........H. De Vere StacpoolePhotography.....................Nestor AlmendrosAdditional photography.. .Vincent MontonSound recordist ............................Paul ClarkE d ito r....................................... Robert GordonCom poser.............................Basil PoledourisProd, supervisor......................................Barbi TaylorProd, manager ......................... Peter BogartUnit m anager...............................................Phil WorthProd, secretaries............ Rosalie Trencher,

Helen WattsProd, auditor ..........................Fred HardingProd, accountant ..........................Patti Scott1st asst director ....................... Peter Bogart2nd asst director........................... Mark PiperContinuity ............................ Marilyn GiardinoFocus pu llers ........................ :David Brostoff,

Jack EndacottClapper/loader .....................Peter CollisterKey g rip .........................................Ray BrownAsst grip ................................Paul ThompsonUnderwater photography........ Phil Taylor,

Valerie TaylorGaffer ................................................Hal TrusellElectrician...................................ian DewhurstArt d irector...................................................Jon DowdingAsst art directors ......................Clive Jones,

Allen BrownCostume designer . . . Jean-Pierre DorleacMake-up ....................................... Irene WallsWardrobe .........................Aphrodite JansenProps buyer . . . .Nicolaas Van RoosendaelSpecial effects...................................... Robbie KnottSet construction ........................John Taylor,

Gerry Powderly, Greg O’Connell

Asst editor .................................. Dolly FendelMusical director..............................Brian MayDolphin trainers.........................Kathy Troutt,

Bernadette FranklinS tills ...............................................Roger JansBest boy ................................... Tony HolthamRunner.....................................Warwick RossCatering..................................................... Frank ManlyLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLab. liaison.................................................... Bill GooleyB udget.....................................U.S. $4 millionGauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorRelease date ...............................April, 1980Cast: Brooke Shields (Emmeline), Chris Atkins (Richard), Leo McKern (Paddy), Glen Kohan, Elva Josephson, Alan Hopgood, Gus Mercurio.Synopsis: Set in the 1890s, the adventures of two eight year-old children marooned on a remote tropical island.

BREAKER MORANTProd, company ..................South Australian

Film CorporationDist. company ...............................RoadshowProducer....................................Matt CarrollD irector...............................Bruce BeresfordScriptwriters............................................ Bruce Beresford,

Jonathon Hardy, David Stevens

Based on the play by ........Kenneth RossPhotography...........................Don McAlpineSound recordist ...................... Gary WilkinsE d ito r...................................................... William AndersonProd, manager .................Pamela VanneckProd, secretary ...................... Barbara RingProd, accountant .............Harley Manners1st asst director . ................. Mark Egerton2nd asst directors................................... Chris Williams,

Ralph Storey3rd asst d irector.....................................Tolvo LemberContinuity ...................................Moya IcetonProducer’s assistant................ Moya IcetonCasting..................................... .Alison Barrett

(S.A. Casting)Camera operator .......................Peter Moss ’Focus p u lle r.................................David BurrClapper/loader .......................Simon SmithKey g rip .......................................................Ross EricksonAsst g r ip .....................................Rob MorganG affer............................................. Rob YoungLocation m anager.......................Jenny DayBoom operator .............................Jim CurrieArt d irector............................................... David CoppingCostume designer .................. Anna SeniorMake-up .......................................Judy LovellHairdresser....................... Catherine LameyWard, assistant.............. Ruth de la LandeProps b u y e r..............................................Chris WebsterStandby props.............. .-..........Clark MunroSpecial e ffects........................................Monty Fieguth,

Chris MurraySet dresser...................................Ken JamesCarpenters .......................Peter Templeton,

Glen Finch, Lee Carey

Set construction .................. Herbert PinterAsst editor ........................... Jeanlne ChialvoMusical arranger.........................................Phil CunneenMusic performed by .....................Tanunda

Brass BandSound editor .................. William AndersonEditing assistant ............Catherine MurphyMixer ................................................. Phil JuddStunts......................................... Heath Harris,

Tony SmartStill photography...................................... Mike Giddens,

Peter RichardsW rang ler..................................Heath HarrisBest boy ...................................Colin Williams


Runner.......................................................Jenny MilesPublicity.....................S.A. Film CorporationUnit publicists .......................David Sabine,

Jacqui SykesCatering...............................Movie MunchiesStudios.......................S.A. Film Corporation

StudioMixed at .................................................... AtlabLaboratory ................................................ AtlabLab. liaison.............................. Jim ParsonsLength ..................................................90 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorRelease date .........................February, 1980Cast: Edward Woodward (Harry ‘Breaker' Morant), Jack Thompson (Major J. F. Thomas), Bryan Brown (Lt Peter Hand- cock), John Waters (Lt Alfred Taylor), Charles Tingwell (Lt Col. Denny), Terry Donovan (Lt Simon Hunt), Alan Cassell (Lord Kitchener), Ray Meagher (Sgt Maj. Drummond), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Lt Witton), Rod Mullinar (Maj. Charles Bolton). Synopsis: Based on the famous Boer War incident, in which three Australian soldiers were court-martlalled by the British army as political scapegoats and later executed.

EXITSProd, company ................Stringybark FilmsProducers.............................Pat Laugheran,

Carolyn Howard, Paul Davies

D irectors...............................Pat Laugheran,Paul Davies

Scriptwriter................................. Paul DaviesPhotography.................................. Paul CavellSound recordist ........ Lynton MacfadzeanEditors................................... Pat Laugheran,

Carolyn Howard, Paul Davies

Composers...............................Peter Holden,Peter Botsman,

Lynton MacfadzeanProd, secretary ............................ Sally Webb1st asst director .................Kerry O'RourkeContinuity .............................Suzanne ProvlsArt d irector...................................Paul CavellStudios.........................Backyard WorkshopMixed at ...................................... Jan MurrayLaboratories.............................Cinevex, VFL.Length ................................................. 83 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorRelease date .................... December, 1979Cast: Robert Antoniades (The manager), Kim Bannikoff (The cabbie), Monica Ban- nikoff (The barmaid), Charlie Dale (The digger), Paul Davies (George), Mary Anne Grey (Rose), Carolyn Howard (Anna), Pat Laugheran (The paper seller), Suzanne Provis (The secretary), Kerry O’Rourke (The bomber).Synopsis: A freelance newspaper collector and crossword enthusiast stumble across the ultimate political clue to the sacking of Gough Whitlam, but are powerless to act.

FINAL CUTProd, company ............ Wllgar ProductionsDlst. com pany......................................... GUOProducer.....................................................Mike WilliamsD irector.....................................Ross DimseyScriptwriter...................... Jonathon DawsonOriginal Idea b y ..............Jonathon DawsonPhotography......................... Ron JohansortE d ito r..................................... Tony PattersonProd, designer....................................... James PennyAssoc, produ cer.......... . . Frank GardinerProd, manager ...................... Terrie VincentProd, secretary............................... Uyn MillerProd, accountant .......................Judy Frazer1st asst d ire c to r...... ...............Scott HicksContinuity ...................................... Julie BatesCasting consultants . . . Mitch ConsultancyFocus p u lle r.............................................Henry PierceClapper/Ioader ...........................Gary WadeKey g rip ..................... Jack LesterG affer.............................Graham RutherfordElectrician................. Lyle BinneyAsst electrician ........................Alan GlossopBoom operator ........................ Max BowringCostume ..........................Camilla RountreeMake-up ........................ Margaret LinghamW a rd ro b e .........................Helen WeatheredP ro p s ......................... ................Philip WarnerSpecial e ffects.........................................Frank LennonSet decorator......................................... James PenneyMixed at ................. AtlabLaboratory ................................................ AtlabLength ................................................T03 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock.......................... EastmancolorRelease date .................................. 1980Cast: David Clendinning (Dominic), Louis Brown (Chris), Jennifer Cluff (Sarah),Narelle Johnson (Yvette).Synopsis: A glossy thriller about a showbusiness tycoon with a shady background, and a young documentary filmmaker and his girlfriend who are making a film about him. They believe the tycoon has been making “snuff” films, and try to get a confession on film. He Invites them to his luxury penthouse for a weekend of partying and filming, and indulges in mind games until the party ends in disaster.

HARLEQUINProd, company . . . F. G. Film Productions

for Far Flight InvestmentsProducer........................... Antony I. GinnaneD irector...................................Simon WlncerScriptwriter.........................Everett de RocheAdditional dialogue ................ Jon George,

Neill HicksScript e d ito r.............................Russell HaggBased on an original

idea by ...........................Everett de RochePhotography................................................Don McAlpineSound recordist ....................... Gary WilkinsE d ito r............................................. Adrian CarrCom poser..................................................Brian MayExec, producer ...................William FaymanAssoc, p rodu cer...........................Jane ScottProd, co-ordinator .................. Jenny BartyProd, manager .............................Jane ScottDraftsperson.....................Virginia BienemanProd, accountant ........................ Lyn Barker1st asst director ................Michael McKeag2nd asst director........................Grant Harris3rd asst director....................................Jenny MilesContinuity ........................... Caroline StantonProducer’s assistant............Sylvia Van WykCasting consultants .............. Marvin Paige

and Associates (USA)Camera operator ........................Peter MossFocus p u lle r.................................................Jan KennyClapper/Ioader .................. Jeremy RobbinsKey g rip ...................................Ross EricksonAsst g r ip .................................Robin MorganG affer...........................................................Mick MorrisBoom operator .................. Mark WasuitakArt d irector.............................Bernard HidesMake-up ................................. Lois HohenfelsHairdresser............................................. Cheryl WilliamsWardrobe ...................................... Terry RyanWard, assistant.................... Vicki RowlandProps b u y er.............................................Owen PattersonStandby props......................................... Clark MunroSpecial effects.......... Conrad C. RothmannSpecial effects assistant___Chris MurraySet construction .................. Steve CourtleyDubbing editor ...........................Adrian CarrBest boy .....................................Reg GarsideRunner........................................................ Daro GunzbergUnit publicist .....................Lynette ThorburnMixed at ................................... United SoundLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLab. liaison....................................................Bill GooleyLength .................................................94 m ins.'Gauge ...................................................35 mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorRelease date .Domestic — February 1980

Foreign — Cannes 1980 Cast: Robert Powell (Gregory Wolfe), David Hemmings (Nick Rast), Carmen Duncan (Sandra Rast), Broderick Crawford (Doc Wheelan), Gus Mercurio (Mr Bergier). Synopsis: A 1980 version of the Rasputin legend.

following the success ofDot & the Kangaroo

the little convictSTARRING

ROLF HARRISina new production of

YORAM GROSS

THE LITTLE CONVICTProd, company ...................... Yoram Gross

Film StudioDist. company .............................RoadshowProducer/director .................. Yoram GrossScreenplay ...............................John PalmerBased on the original story

by ...........................................Yoram GrossSound recordists ........................ Phil Judd,

Laurie Napier, David McConnachie

Editor ................................................. Rod HayComposer .....................................Bob YoungAssoc, producer ................... Sandra GrossProd, managers ...................Yolanta Pilllch

(animation), Richard Meikle (live-action)

Prod, secretary ...................... Meg RowedProd.

accountant , . . . Christina Burton-GibbsCasting ....................................Richard MeikleCasting consultants .. Mitch ConsultancyLighting cameraman ........ Madd LightingCamera operators ............... Brian Probyn,

Chris Ashbrook, Frank Hammond (live-action)

Jenny Ochse, Bob Evans,

Graham Sharpe, Ted Northover (animation)

Camera assistants ................Paul Murphy,Mathew Thane,

Richard Michalak, Christy Smith,

Peter Menzies jun.Animation director .............. Paul McAdarr.Character design .................. Athol Henry,

Paul McAdamMake-up ..............................Josy Knowland,

Patricia CunliffeHairdresser ...........................Josy KnowlandWardrobe ............................Judith DorsmanProps ..................................... Jan CarruthersBackground layouts ................Athol Henry,

Amber VellaniAsst editor ................................ Prue Byram,

Phillip ColvilleNeg. matching .................. Margaret CardinSongs performed by ................ Rolf HarrisSound editor ...................................Rod HayStill photography .................. Yoram GrossAnimation ..................................Athol Henry,

John Hill, Cynthia Leech,

Wal Logue, Paul McAdam, Ray Nowland,

Vivien Ray, Irena Slapczynski,

Kay WattsOpticals ............Yoram Gross Film StudioTitle designer .........................Amber VellaniPublicity ........................Village RoadshowStudios ..............Yoram Gross Film StudioMixed at .................................................. AtlabLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmBudget ............................................... $423,467Length ...............................................80 mins.Gauge .................................................35 mmShooting stock ........................ EastmancolorRelase date .............. December 20, 1979To be first released ........ Village cinemas

throughout Australia Cast: Rolf Harris and animated characters. Synopsis: The story of 13 year-old Toby, the youngest convict to be deported to Australia from England, his friendship with Wah- roonga, an Aboriginal boy, and a pet koala, Yo-Yo.

SAMProd, company .........................Ukiyo FilmsDist. com pany.............................Ukiyo FilmsProducers .............................Hilton Bonner,

Zbigniew FriedrichDirector ............................... Don McLennanScriptwriters .......................Don McLennan,

Hilton BonnerPhotography .................. Zbigniew FriedrichSound recordist .................. Lloyd CarrickEditor .......... Zbigniew FriedrichAssoc, producer ........ ............Sonny NaiduProd, manager ...................... Rod McNicolProd, accountant .................. Sonny Naidu1st asst director .....................Rod McNicolContinuity ...................................Julie CutlerCamera operator ___Zbigniew FriedrichFocus puller .................................Phil CrossClapper/Ioader .................Virginia BrookeKey grip ...............................Rod McLennanGaffer ...........................................Gerry LockBoom operator .................Chris GoldsmithArt director ...................................Anne MoirMake-up ...................................Carol DevineHairdresser ...........................................RenartlWardrobe .........................Penelope HesterNeg. matching ...................Warrick DriscollStill photography ............ Maxine RosewallCatering .....................................Liza RosewallLaboratory .......... VFLLength ...........................................90 mins.Gauge .................................................16 mmShooting stock ........................ EastmancolorCast: Tracy Mann (Sam), Kim Rushworth (Tim), Kirsty Grant (Debbie), Penelope Stewart (Raelene), John Arnold (Wally), Hilton Bonner (Frank), Tony Barry (Barry), Bill Hunter (Brady), Max Cullen (Newman), Jack Allen (Father).

Synopsis: A young girl, with a background of urban poverty and juvenile crime, attempts 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 understanding and help, she soon realizes that she will be lucky to escape her past.

WRONSKYFor details see Issue 23

AWAITING RELEASE

ALISON’S BIRTHDAYFor details see Issue 23

THE JOURNALISTFor details see Issue 23

IN RELEASE

KOSTASFor details see Issue 23

THE LAST OF THE KNUCKLEMENFor details see Issue 23

MY BRILLIANT CAREERProd, company ........ Margaret Fink FilmsDist. company . . . . GUO Film DistributorsProducer .................................Margaret FinkDirector ..........................Gillian ArmstrongScriptwriter ....................Eleanor WitcombeBased on the novel by ___Miles FranklinPhotography ........................ Don McAlpineSound recordist .................. Don ConnollyEditor .....................................Nick BeaumanProd, designer .................. Luciana ArrighiAssoc, producer ........................ Jane ScottProd, supervisor ........................ Jane ScottLocation manager ................ Toivo LemberUnit manager ........................ Toivo LemberProd, secretary ............ Helen EveringhamProd, accountant .............. Treisha GhentBookkeeper ............................... Pam O'Neill1st asst director .................... Mark Egerton2nd asst director..................Mark Turnbull3rd asst d irector................ Steve AndrewsContinuity ...................................Moya IcetonCasting .......... M & L Casting ConsultantsChildren’s dialogue

coach ............................. Michael CaulfieldCamera operators .................. Louis Irving,

Peter Mos3Focus puller ..................................David BurrClapper/Ioader .......... Richard MarrymanKey grip ........................ Ross EricksonAsst grip ..........................Graham Litchfield'Gaffer .................................Brian Bansgrove3rd electrix ..................................Paul MoyesGenerator operator .......... Sam BienstockBoom operator ......................... Joe SpinelllArt director ................................. Neil AngwinCostume designer ..................Anna SeniorMake-up ...................... ............>. .Jill PorterHairdresser .........................Cheryl WilliamsWardrobe .....................................Terry RyanWard, assistant ................ Melody CooperStandby wardrobe ........ . Robyn HallProps buyer .............................David WhanAsst props buyer .............. Sally CampbellStandby props ..........................Clark MunroChoreography .......................... Keith Bain,

Michael O'ReillySet dresser ...........................Sue ArmstrongScenic artist .............................Bill MalcolmAnimal standby props .............Harry Zettel

' Construction manager ............... Kim HilderConstruction ...................... Ken Hazelwood,

Paul Martin, Danny Daems

Standby construction ............... Phil WorthAsst editor ...................Frans VandenburgNeg. matching ................ Margaret CardinMusical director ................ .. Nathan WaksPainter .................................... Ned McCannDubbing editor ................ ........ Greg BellAsst dubbing editor ............ .Helen BrownStill photography .................. David KynochAnimal/vehicle wrangler ........ John BairdSaddle horse wrangler . .Harold GreensillBest boy ...................................Paul GantnerHunner .....................................Cathy BarberUnit publicist .............................David WhiteCatering ................ John and Lisa FaithfullLaboratory ................ ....................ColorfilmLab. liaison .................................Bill Gooley,

Dick BagnellBudget .............................................$830,000Length ..............................................100 mins.

Gauge ................................................. 35 mmShooting stock ....................... EastmancolorRelease date ...................August 24, 1979First released .............................Melbourne,

Russell Complex;Sydney, Pitt Centre

Cast: Judy Davis (Sybylla Melvyn), 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 between the stirrings of passioh and her need for self-fulfilment.

THIRSTProd, company . . F. G. Film Productions Dist . company . . . GUO Film DistributorsProducer .........................Antony I. GinnaneDirector ..........................................Rod HardyScriptwriter .............................John PinkneyBased on an original idea

by .......................................... John PinkneyPhotography ........................Vincent MontonSound recordist .........................Paul ClarkEditor .............................................Philip ReidComposer .....................................Brian MayExec, producer ................. William FaymanAssoc, producer .....................Barbi TaylorProd, manager .........................Jenny BartyProd, secretary ...........................Ann PierceProd, accountant . . . . . . . Michael RosebyProd, assistant .......................Vicki Rowland1st asst director .......................Tom Burstall2nd asst director.....................John Hipwell3rd asst d irector.....................Stuart BeattyContinuity ..............................Joanna WeeksCamera operator ......................Louis IrvingFocus puller ...........................David BrostoffClapper/Ioader ............................. Ian JonesKey grip ........................................ Noel MudieAsst grips ...............................Terry Jacklin,

Geoff RichardsonAerial photography ...............Tony HolthamGaffer ....................................... Tony HolthamBoom operator .........................Phil SterlingArt director .............................Jon DowdingAsst art director ............................ Jill EdenMake-up ..................................Jose L. PerezMake-up assistant ......................Leo ReyesHairdresser ..................... Ursula WertheimWardrobe .......................Aphrodite JansenWard, assistant .......................... Gary SmithProps buyer ..................Georgina GreenhillStandby props ............ Georgina GreenhillSpecial effects ___Conrad C. Rothmann,

Chris MurraySet construction ...........................Ian Doig,

Geoff Richardson, Clive Jones

Asst editor ...............................Ken SallowsNeg. matching ................ Margaret CardinSound editor ....................... Terry Rodman,

Peter BurgessMixer .........................................Peter FentonStunts co-ordinator .................Grant PageStunts ......................................... Grant Page,

Phillip Brock, Dale Aspin

Still photography .......................Suzy WoodOpticals ....................Opticals and GraphicWrangler .........................Brian BeaverstockBest boy ............................... Colin Williams,

Ian DewhurstRunner ...................................Craig Emanuel,

Tony ShiffPublicity .............................Lynette ThorburnCatering .................................. .Keith Heygate

(Cecil B. de Meals on Wheels)Studios ........................ Cambridge Studios,

Universal WorkshopMusic studio .......... ........ . . .AAV AustraliaMixed at ............... ...........United SoundLaboratory .............. ColorfilmLab. liaison ......... ........... .Bill GooleyLength .................. . . . .9 8 mins;Gauge ............................... ...............35 mmShooting s to c k ...... .............EastmancolorRelease date ............ September 28, 1979First released .......... SydneyCast: Chantal Contouri (Kate Davis), David Hemmings (Dr Fraser), Henry Silva (Dr Gauss), Max Phipps (M r Hodge), Shirley Cameron (Mrs Barker), Rod Mullinar (Derek Whitelaw), Walter Pym (Dichter), Robert Thompson (Sean), Rosie Sturgess (Lori), Amanda Muggleton (Martha).Synopsis: The macabre story of an attempt by a secret society to brainwash a beautiful young career woman into believing that she is an heiress of their goulish traditions.

650 —- Cinema Papers, December-January

SHORTS

BOX FLATProducer/director ...................Kathy FentonScriptwriter . . ...........................Kathy FentonBased oh the original Idea

b y .......... ..... ............................Kathy FentonPhotography................................... Jan MurraySound recordist . .................Narja KasparE d ito r......................................... Kathy FentonC om poser.................................Allison Gross1st Asst d irec to r.....................Peter HopsonContinuity ......................... Lindsay ColborneCamera operator ........................Jan MurrayClapper/loader ...............Lindsay ColborneCamera assistant .................Peter NearhosG affe r..................................... Dave AberdeenBoom operator .......... Graham BlackmoreMixer ...........................................Kathy FentonAsst m ixer....................................... Jan MurrayMixed at .......................Murray Film SoundLaboratory .........................................ColorfilmB u dget.......................................................$3556Length ................................................. 12 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ..........................................ProductionCast: Simon Venning (Son), Kevin Dean, (Father), Edna Strudwick (Mother), Rod Coates (Police officer).Synopsis: A narrative based on the Boxflat mine disaster in Ipswich, England, in which 17 men were killed. The film is about a close relationship between a 14 year-old boy and his father, who was one of the men killed in the accident.

CIGARETTES AND MATCHESProd, company ...........................Jerry Elder,

Film ProductionsProducer/director..................... Jerry ElderScriptwriter. . . , ..........................Jerry ElderBased on the chapter “Cigarettes and Matches" from Colin Thiele’s book Sun on the StubblePhotography.........................David Foreman,

Geoff TannerSound recordists .......................Livia Rusic,

Jenny MilesE d ito r............................................ Jerry ElderComposers ................................... Paul Boate,

Graham Smith. Assoc, p rodu cer............. Robert Campbell

Prod, manager ...........................Rex MenzelProd, secre tary ...................................Gemma Booth1st asst director ...................Paul BlackwellContinuity .............................Marilyn MenzelCamera assistant ..................Carmen GalanKey grip ..................................Kieran KennedyAsst g r ip ....................................... Kym Elson2nd unit photography .. .Robert CampbellMake-up ............................... .. Lynette FisherHairdresser.................................Shelia ElderWardrobe .............................Mark McKennaAsst editor ..................................... Livia RusicMusic performed by ........ Glenn Henrich,

Bob ButlerMixer ............................................... Bob AllenR unner............................................. Alan LoveMixed at ......................Soundtrack AustraliaLaboratory .........................................ColorfilmLength ................................................. 19 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress .............................Awaiting releaseRelease date .....................December, 1979Cast: Timothy Edwards, Hetty Rolings, John Remynse,'Michael Moody, Rada Claridge, Louise Blackwell, Mary McKenna, Philip Laylor, Glenn Evans, David Dudman. Synopsis: Set'in the Australian bush in the late 1920s, the short feature is about a German migrant boy. He joins his Australian friends in the usual boyhood mischiefs, like, smoking, and as Guy Fawkes night draws near his adventurous spirit lands him in unexpected trouble.

CRAYPOT SONATAProd, company . . . Behemoth Production!

in association with the Swinburne Film Department

Producers.................................Robert Grant,Timothy McLaughlan

D ire c to r......................Timothy McLaughlanScriptwriter ..............Timothy McLaughlanPhotography............................ Natalie GreenSound recordist .............. ..Jacqui FineE d ito r.............................Richard LowensteinC om poser....................................... Kit Bovan1st asst director .......................... Rosie HaasContinuity ......................................Jenny HaasScript assistant...................Brian RobinsonCamera operator ................... Natalie GreenCamera assistants .............Lucy Maclaren,

Richard LowensteinAsst grip .............................Warren Coleman2nd unit photography Richard LowensteinBoom operator ...................... Don MarganSpecial e ffects..................... Michael BladenAsst editor ...........................Michael BladenMusical director . . . .Timothy McLaughlanMusic performed by ...................Kit BovanStill photography...................................Robert Grant

W ran g ler................................ Lucy MaclarenRunners.................................. Lucy Maclaren,

Ian Fowler, Tony MacDonald

Laboratory ...................... VFLBudget.......................................................$1200Length ................................................. 10 mins.Gauge .................... .............................. 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ..............................Post-productionRelease date .....................December, 1979Cast: Nick Bourke, Cathy Gaynor, Jim Gaynor, David Thompson.Synopsis: A children's program made for the International Year of the Child. It deals with violence and revenge.

DESIREProd, company .. R & R Film ProductionsProducer.......................................................Ron BrownD irector..................................................... Ruth BrownScriptwriter................................................. Ruth BrownBased on the original idea

b y ............................................................. Ruth BrownPhotography...................................John LordSound recordist .......................... Ron BrownE d ito r.............................................................Ron BrownCom poser...................................................... Bill FontanaG affer........................................................... Gary PlunketMusic performed by .................Bill FontanaSound editor .......................... Ron BrownMixer ...............................................Ron BrownStill photography............ Robert LoughmanO ptlcals..................................Kevin WilliamsTitle designer............................................ Mike HudsonMake-up ...............................Anne PosplchilHairdresser...........................Anne PospichilChoreography .................Bob ThorneycroftNeg. m atching....................Warwick DriscollMixed at ................................... Studio TracksLaboratory .................................................. VFLLab. liaison...............................Steve MitchellBudget.......................................................$6500Length ................................................... 9 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorProgress .............................. Awaiting releaseCast: Jackie Kerin (The Girl), Joe Bolza (The Pool Player), Phil Motherwell (The Salesman), Bob Thorneycroft (The Hero), Don Munroe (The Gin Drinker), Alison Richards (The Barmaid), Nancy Lang(Dancer), Sally Gardner (Dancer). Synopsis: A girl asks for a glass of water in a public bar, and during the events that follow she is not sure whether she is experiencing a horrible reality or a nightmare fantasy.

DIRTY BUSINESSProd, company ....................Swinburne Film

DepartmentProducer........................................................ Ian FowlerD irector.......................................Robert GrantScriptwriter.................................Robert GrantPhotography........................Ralph StrasserSound recordist .............. Richard ZatorskiE d ito r...........................................Robert GrantOriginal m u sic ...................Richard ZatorskiCamera assistant .............. Tony McDonaldGrips ................................................Geoff Hall,

Robin Plunkett, David Thomson

2nd unit photography..........Natalie GreenG affer...................................Tim McLaughlanBoom operator ......................Martin WilsonLaboratory .................................................. VFLB udget.......................................................$1500Length ................................................. 15 mins.Gauge .....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ...............................Post-productionRelease date .....................November, 1979Cast: Jan Marnell (Tony), Simon Beattie (The Kid), George Vidalis (Crash Helmet), Alethea MacGrath (The Woman), Peter Peshut (The Man), Anna Kannava (The Girl on roller skates), "Henrietta" the dog. Synopsis: Two desperate louts turn to crime for some easy money, but are foiled by a bathroom door.

DOWN UNDER DOWNUNDER!?!?Prod, company ............... Sydney University

Filmmakers SocietyProducer....................................................Peter CrlbbDirector . ? . ................................................ Gary O'DonnellScriptwriter.................................................Gary O'DonnellPhotography ..............................Robert BondySound recordists ...G rego ry MacFarlane,

Gregory BurgmannEditors......................................Robert Bondy,

Gary O’DonnellProd, manager ........................... Peter CribbContinuity .............................Katherine GouldMake-up .................................Mark Lamprell,

Bronwyn BassettAsst editor .........................Timothy SegullnCatering...............................Susan HarrimanLaboratory ............ ..........................ColorfilmLength ...................................................6 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock........................................... FujiProgress ......................................... In releaseFirst released . . . . . Union Theatre, Sydney Cast: Andrew Tighe (Jasper), Wiki Oman (Elizabeth), Kim Donaghue (Spinner), Alan Sissley (The professor), Gregory Howard (The clown), Slnan Leong (Aslan student),

Arthur Pease (Mr Caricature Oz), Tom Bassett (Meat pie vendor).Synopsis: A satirical glimpse at the way Australians, Americans, and Europeans look at themselves. 1

EVICTIONSProd, company .....................Berry St FilmsProducer................................. Lyn NicolsonD irector.......................... Richard LowensteinScriptwriter.................... Richard LowensteinBased on the original idea

by ................................. Wendy' Lowenstein,Noel Counihan,

Tom HillsPhotography................... Andrew De GrootSound recordist ................... ..Jacqui FineE d ito r.............................. Richard LowensteinCom poser.....................................................Tim McLaughlan,

John ElliotExec, producer .................... Murray BrownAssoc, p rodu cer.........................Ian Fowler,

Miranda Bain1st asst director ................ Michael BladenContinuity ................................................ JennaCamera assistant .................Beamish ElliotKey g rip ...................................Norval WatsonBoom operator ..................Tony McDonaldArt d irector.................................Miranda BainAsst art d ire c to r...................Norval WatsonCostume designer ............................Val PittsWardrobe ...............................Lucy McLarenP ro p s ........................................... Miranda BainSpecial effects ................Demar Demolition

CompanyNo. of s h o ts .................................. 200 to 250Stunts............................................. Mark RyanStill photography.................. Norval WatsonTitle designer............................... Peter HirstCatering............................... Abbey Nathanie,

Jo FletcherLaboratory .................................................. VFLLab. liaison.....................Peter Watson (Jnr)Budget.......................................................$4100Length ................................................. 25 mins.Gauge .....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease date .................... December, 1979Cast: David Scott (Dave), Marion Edward (Neighbor), Cathy Hurley (Cath), Adam Briscomb (Jake), Ron Pinnell (Ed), Tom Hills (Himself), Noel Counihan (Himself). Synopsis: Tom Hills and Noel Counihan reconstruct their experiences in the militant unemployed groups of the 1930s, relive the eviction of a young couple forcibly thrown out, and the action taken by the unemployed to make sure it doesn't happen again. Comparisons are drawn between the present social situation and those of The Great Depression in Australia.

FOREST AND DOVEProd, co m p a n y___Beauty and the Beast

ProductionsProducer........................... Debbie LambertonD irector...................................Raymond QuintScriptwriter.............................Raymond QuintBased on the original Idea

b y .........................................Raymond QuintPhotography...........................Raymond QuintSound recordist ......................... David WillisE d ito r............................................. Sue Coady1st asst director ..................... Colin BridsonContinuity ........................ Debbie LambertonCamera operator ................Raymond QuintCamera assistant ................... Colin BridsonNeg. m atching....................... The Neg RoomCatering...........................................Chris LeverLaboratory ...........................................CinevexB udget..................................................... $4300Length ................................. 25 mins.Gauge ................................................. .16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress .............................. Awaiting releaseCast: Lqsley Hardcastle (The Woman), Ernie Grey (First Shooter), David Glazebrook (Second Shooter), Dennis Gill (The Husband), Robert Quint (Man in truck), Colin Bridson (Man on editing room floor). Synopsis: A woman leaves her husband after an argument and goes to their country house. Two inept shooters arrive for the “hunt". The ensuing struggle and her eventual escape become the key to her self- understatiding.

GRANDMA ROSE, ELISE MAE AND LOTTE

Prod, com pany.......... Funded by thè AFCProducers.............................Kimble Rèndali,

Carole SklanD irectors...............................Kimble Rèndali,

Carole SklanPhotography.........................Kimbie Rendali,

Carole SklanEditors................................... Kimble Rendali,

Carole SklanStudio director.........................Steven JonesLighting cameramen .. .Wendy Freecloud,

Michael PurscheSpecial fx photography........ Steven JonesArt d irector........................... Lee WhitmoreMixed at ...................Paddington Town HallBudget......................................... ............$4700Length ..................................................42 mins.Gauge .............................%" color videotapeProgress .............. .......................In release

Synopsis: A positive statement on old age. Three migrant women, whose lives span the history of the 20th Century, reminisce about their philosophies and experiences.

I LIKE TO GO FAST DOWN THE SLIPPERY DIP

Prod, co m p a n y........ University of SydneyProducer................ Jim DaleD irector............................................... Jim DaleOriginal idea b y ......................... Morrie ShawPhotography.............................................. Colin HawkeSound recordist .......................Paul TurnerE d ito r................................................. Jim DaleMixed at .................................... Palm StudiosLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLength ................................................ 20 mins.Gauge ..................................................... 16 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorProgress ..........................................In releaseRelease date ...........................October, 1979Synopsis: 170 children play In a small schoolyard. They discuss their hopes and ambitions for a new landscaped garden being created for them behind their school. They invite the audience to share their real world and the fantasy games they play, and in doing so some of the discomforts of inner city life are revealed.

KEVIN IS FINEProd, company ...........................Acme Films

. Sponsor...................Noah’s Ark Toy LibraryD irector.....................................Gordon GlennScriptwriter.............................. Gordon GlennPhotography ..............................Jaems GrantSound recordist ...........................Ian WilsonContinuity .................. Michael BalderstpneLaboratory .................................................. VFLLength ..................................................24 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionCast: Nancy Black, Ross Williams. Synopsis: A woman living in Isolation on a farm in north-western Victoria believes her child may be partially deaf. Her husband does not agree, and tries to dissuade her from making her thoughts known in the district. Her dilemma is Intensified by the visit of someone from outside the district who could provide help and anonymity.

MAN OF THE EARTHProd, company .......................Palm Studios

Film ProductionsD irector.............................................Peter ButtScriptwriter.......................................Peter ButtScript Editor..............................................Peter WeirPhotography................................... Peter Butt,

Tom CowanSound recordist v. . . .Alasdalr MacfarlaneEditor .....................................Robert CoggerCom poser.............................Stephen Doran1st asst director .......................Jo HorsburgMixed at ...................................Palm StudiosBudget................................................. $17,682Length ................................................. 30 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmProgress .......................................ProductionRelease date ...........................January, 1980Synopsis: The tragic story of an oil town that died in 1951, and how it relates to today's. energy crisis.

MIKE’S BLOODD irector...............................David ShepherdScriptwriter.........................David ShepherdPhotography...............................................Nino MartinettlSound recordist .....................Lloyd CarrlckEditors......................................... Rodney Jay,

David ShepherdComposers.............................Lenny Barlow,

John GrantProducer’s assistant...................................Lyn CheongLighting cameraman .......... Nino MartinettlCamera operator ................. Jaems GrantClapper/loader .......................Tracy HaryeyCamera assistants .....................Allan Coop,

John SmithKey g rip ................................. Colin Coxhead,

Ben GrantBoom operator ........................Tim IsaacsonArt d irector...............................................Sarah CurtisP ro p s .........................................................Sarah CurtisMusic performed by ...........Leslie Bowker,

Chris KnowlesDubbing editor ....................... Frank LipsonMixer ......................................David HarrisonRunners.................................Colin Coxhegd,

Ben GrantCatering ...........................Jenny MacIntyreB udget..................................................... $7000L en g th .......... ...................................... 33 mins.Gauge ......................................... ..........16 mmShooting stock......................... EastmancolorProgress ......................................... In releaseCast: David Shepherd, Fran McRedie, Susan Heinz, Mikki Allen, John Laurie, Mitchell Faircloth, Rob Scott, Mick Duncan. Synopsis: A drama about a young man whose ’anima’ physically takes him over. One morning he awakens and finds himself transformed Into a woman. After stumbling through a series of thought-provoking encounters, he realizes what has happened and why.

NATURA MORTA.Producer/director.............. Ëttore SiracusaScriptwriter...........................Ettore SiracusaBased on the original Idea

b y .......................................Ettore SiracusaPhotography.........................Tim MorriessonSound recordist ............................. Ian BoneE d ito r..................................Ettore SiracusaComposer ........................... Pietro MascagniProd, assistant.................Antonio di Plerro1st asst director .....................Frank di Blas'iStill photography.....................Frank dl BlasiLaboratory ........................... ..V F LBudget.................................... $2500Length ............................................14 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorP rog ress........ .................................. In releaseSynopsis: A short film on immigration, of places and distances.

NEWSBOYProducers............................... Tony Mahood,

John PrescottDirector/scriptwrlter ...............John PrescottSound recordists ...............Peter Brighton,

Grant DavisE d ito r........................................John BrescottAsst director...........................Dianne FriendContinuity ...............................Dianne FriendCasting......................................Tony MahoodCamera operator .................. John PrescottCamera assistant .......................Paul LarkinLength .................................................15 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmProgress ...............................Post-productionSynopsis: The story of a boy who sells newspapers. One day he finds a raft on the Yarra and heads off in search of adventure.

NOW AND THENProd, company .....................Phantom FilmsProducer....................................Mark TurnbullD irector......................................Mark TurnbullScriptwriter................................Mark TurnbullPhotography.....................Brian BansgroveSound recordist ....................Kevin KearneyE d ito r....................................... Trevor HawkinsCom poser.................................. John BushelleProd, manager ........................... Lynn GalleyProd, assistants........................................Chris Maudson,

Phlllipa Brennan, Sonia Hoffman

Continuity ......................... Caroline StantonCasting.....................................M & L CastingCamera operator .................. Nixon BinneyCamera assistant .........................Jan KennyKey g rip .................................................... Stuart GreenBoat g r ip ......................................................Paul ReedG affer............................................. Paul MoyesBoom operator .....................Jack FriedmanArt d irector................................................Chris MaudsonAsst art director ................Brianne KearneyWardrobe ......................... Lesley McLennanAsst editor ................................... Liz StroudNeg. matching . Negative Cutting ServicesO pticals..................................... Acme OpticalsTitle designer.........................Lee WhitmoreCatering...................................Keith HeygateMixed at ................................... Film AustraliaLaboratory ............ .. Colour TranscriptionsB udget................................................. $37,500Length ..................................................48 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmProgress ...............................Post-productionCast: Ian Gilmour (Garry), Margo Lee (Mrs Georges), Tony Barry (Marina manager), Stephen Thomas (Steve), Lisa Peers (Sue), Brian Wenzel (Bert), Bill Vincent (Jones), Robert Morton (Bob), Alister Smart (Mr Georges).Synopsis: A young man loses his job. In trying to find work he encounters people who challenge his values and promote ambitions that are unattainable. He turns towards a conservative solution to a radical problem: his own expectations.

PLAY HOOKEY IN THE SNOWProd, company ........................ Di Net FilmsDist. company ...........................Di Net FilmsProducer/director ............ Diana NettlefoldScriptwriter ..........................Diana NettlefoldBased on the original idea

by , ...................................... Diana NettlefoldCamera operator ............ Diana NettiefoldLength ........................................... . ..2 7 mins.Gauge ........................................... . . . 1 6 mmShooting stock .......................EastmancolorProgress ....................................... ProductionRelease date ...................December, 1979Cast: Sam Nettlefold, Stuart Nettlefold, Marion Murri, Carl Lyon, John Thomas, Leigh Adams, Karla Endelmanis.Synopsis: The adventures of two children on a skiing holiday.

POINT OMEGAProd, company ....................Theatre VisualsGrant assistance.......................................AFCDlst. company ...................... Theatre VisualsProducers............................ Gabrielle Dalton,

George GlttoesDirectors.............................. Gabrielle Dalton,

George Gittoes


Scriptwriters.......................................Gabrlelle Dalton,George Gittoes

Based on the original Ideab y ........................................................George Gittoes,

Gabrielie DaltonPhotography........................George GittoesSound recordist .................Gabrielie DaltonEd itors .................................................... George Gittoes,

Gabrlelle DaltonProd, designers................................... George Gittoes,

Gabrlelle DaltonComposer ................ Martin Wesley-SmithProd, manager ...................Gabrlelle DaltonCamera operator ................ George GittoesSpecial fx photography . . . George GittoesArt directors..........................................George Gittoes,

Gabrielie DaltonCostume designer ............ George Gittoes,

Gabrielie DaltonSpecial effects..................................... George Gittoes,

Gabrielie DaltonChoreography ............ Ronaldo Cameron,

Michele MesslsNeg. m atching..........................................AtlabMusic performed

b y ........ ....................Martin Wesley-SmithSound editor ............ Martin Wesley-SmithMixer ...........................Martin Wesley-SmithStill photography..............................Gabrlelle DaltonO pticals...................................................... AtlabTitle designer.................................... Gabrielie DaltonStudios................................. Bundeena StudioBudget................................................... $14,000Length ................................................. 25 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock .......................... EastmancolorProgress ......................................... ProductionRelease date .............................March, 1980Cast: Ronaldo Cameron, Bernum Bernum, Michele Messis.Synopsis: A short film exploring, through a dramatic presentation of dance and special effects, the various interpretations and the series of time — from the Aboriginal concept of dreamtime to various modern explanations of time.

RA TAT TAD irector....................................... Andi ConnellScriptwriter................................. Andi ConnellOriginal Idea b y .........................Andi ConnellPhotography...............................................Andi Connell,

Paul CoxSound recordist ................... Sarah HopkinsEd itors............ ........................... Andi Connell,

Paul CoxCom posers................................................. Andi Connell,

Sarah HopkinsCasting......................................... Andi ConnellCamera operator ............................Paul CoxMake-up .....................................Andi ConnellP ro p s ........................................... Andi ConnellSpecial e ffects...........................Andi ConnellChoreography ...........................Andi ConnellNeg. m atching...........................Ricky MaineMusical director .......................Andi ConnellMusic performed by .......... Sarah HopkinsSound editor .................................... Paul CoxLaboratory ......................................... CinevexLength ....................................................8 mins.Shooting stock.......................................KodakProgress ........................................... In releaseRelease date ................ November 16, 1979First released........ Adelaide Film Festival,

September, 1979 Synopsis: An experimental film which presents everyday objects — In this case hands — in a context which they are not generally considered.

RECOGNITIOND irector....................................... Leigh TilsonC re w ....................................... John Anderson,

Lucy McMillan, Nicole Ma,

Simon Embury, Vicki Cheshire,

Michael Barbleri, Mark Hinton,

Grant Hilliard, Elizabeth Chapman

Laboratory ...........................................CinevexLength ................................................. 25 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionCast: Neil Melville, Dayle Alison, Alan Bowles, Bruno the Blunderdog, Paul Kelly and the Dots, Hilary Brown, Dennis Power. Synopsis: A film about two Inner suburban musicians, Neil Meville, a busker, and Paul Kelly, who has a rock ’n’ roll pub band.

SLACK VANGUARDProd, company .............................Black Star

IlluminationProducer/dlrector.................................. Oliver RobbScriptwriter.............................................. Oliver RobbPhotography.........................................Andrew Vial,

Oliver RobbSound recordist .................. Trevor ProuseE d ito r.........................................................Oliver RobbMixer ................................................Ian AdkinsBudget..................................................... $3051Length ................................................. 25 mins.Gauge ................ Super 8 to be distributed

on %” videoShooting stock...........................AgfachromeProgress .............................Awaiting releaseSynopsis: What does the future hold for Australia’s unemployed? An experimental examination of some options.

TOM ROBERTSProd, company .................... Media Centre,

Canberra CAED irector.......................................................... Ian HartScriptwriters.................................................. Ian Hart,

Alan ByrnePhotography.................... John HouldsworthSound recordist ..............................Jim WiseScript assistant.............. Helene JamiesonSpecial fx photography .John HouldsworthLength ..................................................20 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorProgress ....................................ProductionRelease date ..............................March, 1980Synopsis: Conservation of Tom Roberts’ painting “Opening of the First Federal Parliament”. Work Is being carried out by the School of Art Conservation at the Canberra CAE.

WAGERUP WEEKENDProd, company .................. I.F. ProductionsDist. company Sydney Filmmakers Co-op.Producer............................... Bryan McLellanD irector.....................................David NoakesScriptwriters .......................Bryan Mclellan,

David Noakes, Diane Shaw,

David RapseyPhotography............................ David NoakesSound recordists ............ Bryan Mclellan,

Diane ShawE d ito r...................................... Bryan MclellanProd, manager ...............................Al KempProd, secre tary .........................Rhonda JoyResearch................................ Howard Smith,

Bill HareProd, accountant .....................Eric SankeyProd, assistant...........................Diane ShawLength ................................................. 35 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock.............................EktachromeProgress .......................................ProductionRelease date ................................May, 1980Synopsis: The film covers the historical events that lead to the confrontation between the public, environmentalists, the Government, and Alcoa of Australia over the expansion of bauxite mining in the Darling Ranges and the building of a new alumina refinery at Wagerup in Western Australia.

WATTAMOLLACommissioned b y ................National Parks

and Wildlife ServicesProd, company .................. Theatre VisualsAdministrated by .. NSW Film CorporationDist. com pany___NSW Film CorporationProducer...............................Gabrlelle DaltonDirector ....................... George GittoesScriptwriters......................................... George Gittoes,

Gabrlelle DaltonBased on original idea

b y ....................................................... George Gittoes,Gabrielie Dalton

Photography......................................... George GittoesEditors................................................... George Gittoes,

Gabrlelle DaltonComposers..................Martin Wesley-Smith

and WATTExec, producer .................... Richard DavisProd, manager .................. Gabrielie DaltonCamera operator ................ George GittoesSpecial fx photography . . . George GittoesSpecial e ffects..................................... George GittoesChoreography ............ ’. Ronaldo Cameron,

Michele MesslsAsst editor .......................... Gabrielie DaltonNeg. m atching..........................................AtlabMusic performed by Martin Wesley-Smith

and WATTSound editor ............ Martin Wesley-SmithMixer ............................Martin Wesley-SmithStill photography............... Gabrlelle Dalton,

George GittoesO pticals......................................................AtlabB udget...................................................... $5000Length .................................................12 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock ..........................EastmancolorProgress .............. In releaseRelease date ........................ October, 1979Cast: Michele Messls, Ronaldo Cameron. Synopsis: A film on the Royal National Park, which expresses the aesthetic qualities and inspirations of the natural environment.

WHITE WAVESProd, com pany............ Sumpter Brothers’

ProductionDist. com pany.......... David Sumpter FilmsProducer/director.....................Rod SumpterBased on the original Idea

b y .........................................David SumpterPhotography............................Rod SumpterE d ito r........................................ Lefkos GrecoProd, designer............Peter Watson-WoodExec, producer ......................Ralph RodgerAssoc, producers .................... Val Warren,

David SumpterProd, supervisor....................Lefkos GrecoCamera operators .............. Rod Sumpter,

David SumpterFocus p u ller.................... Rod SumpterArt d irector..................Peter Watson-WoodAsst art director ...................David SumpterAsst editor ................................Rod SumpterMusic performed by . .Vangelis and YanisSound editor ...........................Lefkos GrecoO pticals................ Sound Film LaboratoriesTitle opticals___Studio Film LaboratoriesTech, adv iser...... ....................Lefkos GrecoPublicity ..’............................ David SumpterLaboratory ........ Studio Film LaboratoriesBudget.................................................$15,000Length .................................................20 mins.Gauge ___16 mm for blow up to 35 mmShooting stock........................EastmancolorProgress .............................Awaiting releaseRelease date ..................November, 1979Cast: Buttons, Mark Ladell, The New Wave of Hawaiian and Australian artistes.

WINDSURFERProd, company ........Rod Sumpter FilmsDist. com pany..........David Sumpter FilmsProducer/director..................Rod SumpterBased on the original idea

b y .......................................... Rod SumpterPhotography............................ Rod Sumpter

E d ito r.........................................Lefkos GrecoExec, producer .....................Ralph RodgersMixed at .............Studio Film Laboratories

(London)Laboratory ........ Studio Film Laboratories

(London)B udget................................................. $10,000Length ................................................. 20 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmProgress ..............................Post-productionRelease date .....................December, 1979Synopsis: A film about wind-surfing and surfboards with sails. Filmed in the U.S.

For details of the following films see Issue23:A Boy on the Wing A Face of Greekness Challenging Years I Ching on a Double Bed Just out ot Reach

(Portrait of a Diarist)LifeclassThe Last Goodbye Luck of the Draw Thunderballs Voxpop

ANIMATION

THE BUNCH OF FLOWERSProd, company ........ Harvetti ProductionsProducer/director .................. Tracy HarveyScriptwriters .................. Mitchell Faircloth,

Gary Adams, Tracy Harvey

Based on the original ideaby .................................Mitchell Faircloth,

Tracy HarveyPhotography ..........................Nino MartlnettiSound recordist ..................David WilliamsEditor .........................................Tracy HarveyProd, designer ........................ Tracy HarveyComposer .................................Tracy HarveyArt director ...............................Tracy HarveyNeg. matching ...................................CinevexMusical director .................... Tracy HarveyMusic performed by .......... Tracy HarveySound editors ....................... Tim Isaacson,

Tracy HarveyMixer .....................................Bob GardenerNarrator ...................................... Gary AdamsAnimation ................................Tracy Harvey,

Mitchell FairclothTitle designer ...........................Tracy HarveyMixed at .................Crawford ProductionsLaboratory .........................................CinevexBudget .....................................................$1150Length ................................................. 7 mins.Gauge .................................................16 mmShooting stock ........................ EastmancolorProgress .............................Awaiting releaseSynopsis: A children’s story using animated puppets. Diane, a young girl, works as a cleaner at the circus. She runs foul of the ringmaster and gets Into all kinds of strife.

GRENDEL GRENDEL GRENDEL

For details see Issue 23

THE LITTLE CONVICTSee details in Features (under Post-production) this issue.

SARAHSee details in Features (under Production) this issue.

QUICK FOLLOW THAT STARProd, company .................Kim Humphreys

AnimationProducer/director .............Kim HumphreysScriptwriter .............................. Ned McCannBased on original Idea

by ............................................Ned McCannPhotography .......................Kim HumphreysSound recordist .....................Fly By NightEditor ..........................................Bruce EzardComposers .......................... Val Udawanko,

Kim HumphreysMusic performed

by .........................Kim Humphreys BandSound editor ...........................Bruce EzardMixer ............................................John MarshAnimation ..........................Kim HumphreysOpticals ...................................Acme OpticalsTitle designer ............................................ XTOStudios ...................................Raymond Lea,

Film GraphicsMixed at .................Klngcroft ProductionsLaboratory ..............Color TranscriptionsLab. liaison ................................Cal GardinerBudget ..................................................$10,000Length ................................................18 mins.Gauge ..................................................16 mmShooting stock ............................EktachromeProgress ...........................Awaiting releaseSynopsis: An animated rock 'n' roll fantasy.

DOCUM ENTARIES

FEATURES

ASIA — THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?

Prod, company . .Andromeda ProductionsD irector...................................... Ewart WadeScriptwriters..............................Alan Carroll,

Ewart WadeSound recordist .....................John PhillipsE d ito r............................................... Ray DaleyCamera operator .......... Lee Wong ChangCamera assistant .................David WalpoleNeg. m atching...............Victorian Negative

Cutting ServicesMixer ....................................... David HarrisonMaps ............................................ModelmationPost-production facilities . . . Cutting PointLength ............ .....................................60 mins.Progress ..............................Awaiting releaseSynopsis: 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 RUNProd, company ___Henry Roberts FilmsProducer/director ....................Harry HodgeScriptwriter ...........................Drew KampionPhotography .............................Harry Hodge,

Phil Sheppard, Scott Dittrich

Editors ..................................... Scott Dittrich,Phil Sheppard

Exec, producers .....................Peter Wilson,Chris Brown

Production co-ordinator .. Shirley WilsonBusiness director ....................Grant Young1st water unit .........................Hoole/McCoy2nd water unit ..........................Greg Huglln,

John Ware, Chris Gardener

Continuity .............................Drew KampionResearch ......................... Tony Murrell

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Music performed by .......................Wings,Van Morrison,

J. J. Cale, Firefall,

Al Stewart, The Tim Gaze Band

Mixer ......................................... John LeslieMixed at ...................................Dubbs & Co.Laboratory .................Color TranscriptionsBudget ..............................................$198,000Length ......................... ...................... 90 mins.Gauge ........ 16 mm (for 35 mm blow up)Shooting stock ......................EastmancolorProgress ........................... Awaiting releaseRelease date ........................ January, 1980Cast: Paul Neilsen, W ayne “ R abbit” Bartholom ew , Bruce Raym ond, Brian Cregan, Peter Drouyn, Michael Tomson, Jeff Hakman, W ayne 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 Raymond and Brian Cregan.

BEG, STEAL OR BORROWProd, company . .Andromeda ProductionsProducer.................................................. Trevor LucasD irecto r...................................................... Chris LofvenPhotography.................................Dan BurstallSound recordist ....................... John RowleyE d ito r...........................................................Guye HendersonProd, assistant...........................Helen LofvenAdditional photography........ Chris Lofven,

Malcolm RichardsCamera assistants .....................Phil Gross,

David WalpoleKey g rip .........................................Paul HolfordConcert lighting.........................................John McKissockG affers........................................................... Ted Nordsvan,

Lindsay FooteMake-up ....................................Carol DevineP ro p s ...................................................Georgina GreenhillSet construction ...................Joel WitherdenMusical p ro d u cer..................................Trevor LucasMusic engineer ..........................Ross CockleProgress ............................... Post-productionCast: Maurie Fields.Synopsis: The story of the Stockley See Mason Band from concept to concert.

ENID LORIMERProd, company ................. Australia CouncilProducer/d irector................ Peter CampbellInterviewer ........................... Joanna ParsonsPhotography..................................David PerrySound recordist ................... Fabio CavadlniE d ito r............................................. Doug CraigMake-up ................................... Gay GallacherNeg. matching ................Negative ThinkingMusic performed by ........ Bernadette and

Michael HarveyEditing assistant .....................Shelley CraigMixer ......................................Brett RobinsonMixed at ................................. Sound on FilmLaboratory ............................................ KinelabLength ..................................................61 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock.......................... EktachromeProgress ............................... Post-productionSynopsis: One of a series of film profiles tobe made by the Australia Council on distinguished Australians in the arts.

THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTEDProd, company ...................... Phonic (Films)Dist. company . . .Richard Price TelevisionProducer.................................... John OakleyD irecto r.......................................John OakleyScriptwriter................................ Bill BemisterBased on the original Idea

b y .............................................Bill BemisterPhotography.................................Phil MurraySound recordist .............................Phil JuddE d ito r..........................................Ron WilliamsExec, producer .......................Bob SandersAssoc, p ro d u cer......................Bill BemisterProd, secretary.........................Clem WilsonProducer’s assistant............. Lesley BlayneyLighting cameraman .................Phil MurrayCamera operator .......................Phil MurrayNeg. m atching............................ Pam TooseMusic performed by .......................... LibrarySound editor ............................. Ron William«Mixer ...........................................Mike MaxwellNarrator...........................................................Bill BemisterStill photography......................John OakleyO pticals .......................................Larry WynerPublicity.............Seven Television NetworkStudios..................................... Phonic (Films)Mixed at ................................. Sound on FilmLaboratory ...............Colour TranscriptionsLab. lia ison.................................................... Cal GardinerB u dget................................... $75,000Length ............................................... 75 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock.......................... EastmancolorProgress ............................. Awaiting releaseRelease date ...................November, 1979First released..................... 'Seven Television

NetworkSynopsis: A documentary on the search for Nazi war criminals which includes secret footage of two of the most wanted war criminals still living, and interviews with members of the Israeli intelligence services, Jewish Nazi hunters, members of executed war criminals’ families and war crime victims.

MICKProd, company . . Geoff Beak ProductionsProducer....................................................Geoff BeakScriptwriter................................................Geoff BeakBudget................................................. $200,000Length ..................................................90 mins.Progress ............................... Pre-productionRelease date ............................................. 1980Synopsis: A documentary drama on a would-be battler who finds the ground continually cut from under his feet.

THE WOMEN AND WORK FILMProd, company . .............. Flashback FilmsProducers.......... .........Megan McMurchy,

Margot Oliver, Jeni Thornley

D irectors.........................Megan McMurchy,Margot Oliver, Jeni Thornley

Budget................................................... $17,597Length ................................................. 90 mins.Progress ................................. Pre-productionSynopsis: A compilation documentary which recounts the labor history of Australian working women, juxtaposed with images of women in Australian films.

SERIES

DISCOVERY 4Prod, company .................Perth Institute of

Film and TelevisionProducers.............................Owen Paterson,

Glenda HamblyLength ........................................... 9 x 6 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mrpProgress ....................................... ProductionSynopsis: Discovery 4 attempts to produce short films for a young audience, using nonprofessional or fairly inexperienced filmmakers on the crew. The structure under which the series is mounted, is intended to give the crew professionally-oriented film experience. The theme of the series is “Lifestyles of Teenagers”.

WORKING UPProd, company ...........................Trout FilmsDist. com pany.............................Trout FilmsProducers................................. Chris Warner,

Maureen McCarthyD irector..................................... Chris WarnerScriptwriter...............................Chris Warner,

Maureen McCarthyBased on original idea

b y ............................................Chris Warner,Maureen McCarthy

Photography.......................Jaems GrantSound recordist . . . . Annemarie ChandlerE d ito r......................................... Chris Warner,

Maureen McCarthyProd, secretary ............................Fiona ColinContinuity .......................Maureen McCarthyCamera assistant .................... Gail HaglundStill photography.....................Ruth MadisonCatering..................................................... Fiona ColinLaboratory .........................................ColorfilmLab. liaison................................Bill GooleyLength ..........................................2 x 25 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease date .......................October, 1979Synopsis: A documentary about ninewomen who work in non-traditional occupations: a computer systems analyst; a printing compositor; a livestock drover; a process worker/shop steward; an apprentice motor mechanic; a flying instructor; an actor/singer; a union organizer; and a surgeon.

SHORTS

AUSSIES ALLProd, company ....................AVEC Film UnitDist. company ......................AV,EC Film UnitProducer/director...................Barbara BoydScriptwriter............................. Barbara BoydPhotography.........................Mike BrayshawSound recordist .................. David HughesE d ito r..........................................Barbara BoydExec, p ro d u cer...............Ross R. CampbellProd, manager .........................Sacha WoodLength ..................................................25 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmProgress ....................................... ProductionSynopsis: A depiction of the Interactions, complexities, ambiguities, advantages and ironies inherent in Australia as a multicultural society.

AUTISM, WHO CARES?Prod, company ................ Horizontal FilmsDist. com pany................. Victorian Autistic

Children’s AssociationProducer/director......................................Ivan GaalScriptwriter..................................................Ivan GaalPhotography................................ Leigh TilsonSound recordist ................... Ron BrownE d ito r............................................................ Ron BrownCom poser...........................Franciscus HenriExec, producer .............. Jennifer F. CollerProd, manager ..............................Kevin DuffCamera operator .................... Leigh TilsonNeg. m atching............................................VFLSound editor ................................ Ron BrownTitle designer............ Louise MerryweatherPublicity ...........................Jennifer F. CollerLaboratory .................................................. yFLB udget...................................................... $5000Length ................................................. 20 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ......................................... In releaseRelease date ............ September 30, 1979First released.................. State Film Centre

MelbourneSynopsis: A survey of the activities of the Victorian Autistic Children’s Association.

BIG HProd, company ...........................Quest FilmsDist. company .................... Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer/director................................ David PerryScriptwriters...............................David Perry,

Howard SpicerBased on the production

b y .........................................Howard SpicerPhotography...........................Fabio CavadiniSound recordist .............. t . . . Mark ThornE d ito r..........................................................Doug CraigSponsor...............................Australia CouncilExec, produ cer.................................Australia CouncilAssoc, p rodu cer................ Peter Campbell1st asst director ..........Christine AtaminakCamera operator ................ Fabio CavadiniAsst editor ...............................Shelley CraigNeg. m atching................Negative ThinkingNarrator...................................Howard SpicerStill photography.................. Cliff ManningO pticals.....................................................Acme OpticalsMixed at ................................ Sound On FilmLaboratory ......................................... -.KinelabLength .................................................26 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ............................... Post-productionCast: Howard Spicer, Lee Moore, Dancers from the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Company, and pupils from Melrose, Weston Creek and Woden Special High Schools.Synopsis: Howard Spicer is known to school children all over Australia as Big H, the Operatic Bikie. Dressed in leather, he rides his motor-cycle into classrooms and introduces young people to opera. Using Spicer's work as an example, the film illustrates the concept of innovative arts education projects.

EAT THE RICHProd, company . . . Black Star IlluminationPhotography.............................................. Mike BajkoE d ito r...........................................................Mike BajkoSound recordist ........................ Oliver RobbLighting cameramen ........Rod Freedman,

Mike lubetskiGraphics .......................................Oliver RobbLength ................................................. 10 mins.Gauge ................................ Super 8 mm (for

transfer to video) Synopsis: When Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser turned up at a Liberal Party fundraising dinner at Sydney’s Wentworth Hotel, an eager crowd of 400 was waiting to greet him.

THE ELEVEN POWERSProd, company .............. Larry Gartenstein

Productions in association with Cinetel Productions

Dist. company ................ Larry GartensteinProductions in association with

Cinetel ProductionsProducer.................................Frank HelmansD irector...................................Frank HeimansScriptwriter.........................Bryce CourtenayPhotography....................................... Geoffrey BurtonSound recordists .................Kevin Kearney,

Fabio CavadiniEditor .......................................Frank HeimansExec, producer .............. Larry GartensteinCamera operators .......... Geoffrey Burton,

David Perry, Michael Dillon

Camera assistant ...................Jeremy RabieAsst editor ................................Louise MeekMixer .........................................Peter FentonNarrator....................................................Orson WellesStill photography................ Douglass BaglinB udget.................................................$75,000Length .................................................50 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorProgress .......................................... In releaseRelease date .................. September, 1979Synopsis: A record of the magical ‘11 powers’ festival and ceremonies held In Bali during February and April 1979.

FOR A CHILD CALLED MICHAEL(previously Birth)

Prod, company ................ Illumination FilmsProducers................................................. Brayn Gracey,

Helen BogdenD irector...............................................Paul CoxScriptwriter.........................................Paul CoxPhotography..................... Vittorio BerniniE d ito r............................................. John ScottLength ................................................. 33 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionCast: Wendy Hughes, Chris Haywood. Synopsis: A dramatized documentary on childbirth, made for the Royal Women’s Hospital.

GETTING THE MESSAGEProd, com pany....................AVEC Film UnitDist. com pany.........................................Audio Visual

Education CentreProducer/director......................................Ivan GaalScriptwriters................................................ Ivan Gaal,

Barbara BoydPhotography..............................................Leigh TilsonSound recordist .....................David HughesE d ito r............................................................ Ivan GaalExec, producer .................................Jim TateProd, manager .................... Barbara BoydContinuity .............................. Laurie HastingsLighting cameraman ................Leigh TilsonG affer............................................................ Rob McCubbinMake-up ..................................Lois HohenfelsSound editor ...........................David HughesMixer ......................................... David HughesMixed at .......................................................VFLLaboratory .................................................. VFLLength ..................................................25 mins.Gauge .....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ..............................Post-productionRelease date .....................December, 1979Cast: Ian Gilmore, Barbara Boyd, Jean Holkner, Sue Dunstan, Lance Balchin, Sacha Wood.Synopsis: Tony recalls the frustrations and failures of his past caused by illiteracy. The documentary shows how he is taught to overcome this failure, and how he begins to read and write through language experience.

I AM FIJIANProd, company ...................... Juniper FilmsProducers/directors.......... David Tristram,

Jamie WilsonScriptwriters........................David Tristram,

Jamie WilsonCamera operator .....................Keith ChattoEditing facilities..................Film Production

ServicesLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLength ................................................. 26 mins.Gauge .....................................................16 mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorProgress ..............................Post-productionSynopsis: A documentary illustrating Fiji’s multi-cultural society.

ITS HARDER THAN YOU THINK and

GIVING UP IS BREAKING MY HEART

Prod, com pany___Redheart Pictures forthe NSW Film Corporation

Dist. com pany___NSW Film CorporationProducer.................................. Daniela TorshD irector.................................Susan LambertScriptwriter...........................Susan LambertSound recordist .............................Pat FiskeE d ito r.............................Rhonda MacgregorCom poser...................................................Tony BurkysExec, producer .....................Richard DavisProd, manager ....................... Daniela TorshProd, accountant ................ Janice DuncanLighting camera ...........................Jan KennyCamera assistant ........Shalagh McCarthySet construction ............................Carol RuffMusical director ....................... Tony BurkysMusic performed by ............ Tony Burkys,

Carol RuffSound editor .............. Rhonda MacgregorStill photography................Sandy EdwardsGraphics .......................................... Carol RuffRunner.................................. Carol KostanlchB udget................................................... $25,000Length .............................20 mins., 15 mins.Gauge ..................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................. Pre-productionRelease date ................ February 18, 1980First released___Pan Pacific Conference

on drugs and alcohol Cast: Carol Ruff, Emu.Synopsis: Two films which show the difficulty women experience giving up drugs during pregnancy. The emphasis is on tobacco and alcohol — the most commonly used drugs — which are known to Increase the likelihood of developmental and birth problem s. The film s include positive suggestions for women and health workers on how to reduce drug usage during pregnancy, and where to go for help.

RACCOLTO D’INVERNO (WINTER’S HARVEST)

Producers.............................................. Angelo Gigliotti,Brian McKenzie

D irecto r...................................................... Brian McKenzieSound recordist .......................Mark TarpeyCamera operator ............ Wolfgang Kress,

‘ Brian McKenzieG affer........................................Gregory HarrisLaboratory ......................................... CinevexL en g th ........ ......................................35 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock................ ' . . EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease date .....................December, 1979Synopsis: A documentary account of a community of Italian families who have made an interesting com bination of Southern Italian provincial custom and Western consumer culture.

STAIRWAY TO THE MOONProd, company ..........................Circle Circle

ProductionsProducers.............................................Graham Varney,

Phil SnowD irector.................................................Graham VarneySound recordist .............................Phil SnowE d ito r..................................................... Graham VarneyLighting cameraman .......... Roger Dowling2nd unit underwater

photography........................................ Roger DowlingMixed at ......................................................AAVLength ..................................................48 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock................. : . . . EastmancolorProgress ..........................................ProductionSynopsis: A documentary on the pearling industry, past and present, operating out of Broome, Western Australia.

THANK YOUProd, co m p a n y ........ Samarai Productions

for the Freemasons Benevolent Institution of New South Wales

Producer/director...................Terry BourkeScriptwriter...............................Terry BotirkeDir. of photography...............Ray HenmanSound supervisor.............................Phil JuddExec, producer ..............................Allan GreyProd, liaison................................................ Ron Kirwood,

Doug Wade-FerrellLocation lia ison...............................John Barr,

Jack Goldsmith, Keith Buckton, Tom Marshall

Prod, assistant........................................ Jamie MiramsCamera assistants ................ Roger Boyle,

Mike HarleyG affer........................................... Ken MackayFilm editor ...............................Ron WilliamsEditing assistants ...................... Lee Smith,

Cathy SheehanStill photography.......................David MillerGraphics ..................................Rupert SparkePost-production supervisor . . . .A la n LakeLaboratory .........................................ColorfilmLength ..................................................26 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease date ...................... December, 1979First released........................................SydneyCast: Chard Hayward (Early Mason), Bob Lundgren (House Master), Barry Donnelly (Stonemason), Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler (Singers), Dorothy Upton (Annuitant), and M em bers of the Tamworth Historical Society.Synopsis: A documentary depicting 100 years of the Freemasons Benevolent Institution’s work in New South Wales, focusing on their community work.

For details of the following films see Issue23:Animals of AustraliaBorn to LeadBuild and Destroy. . . But Not By ChanceThe Country EditorImprinting in DucklingsIt’s a Nice Feeling to be the WinnerMy Survival as an AboriginalRobin Campbell — Old Feller NowA Secret PlaceSome of our Airmen are no longer Missing Star-spangled Illusions We Built Some Great Ships The Wetlands Problem Why Wilderness


TELEVISION

DOCUMENTARIES

For details see pp. 652, 653.

PILOTS

SECRET VALLEYProd, company . Reg Grundy Productions

in association with the Nine Network and the Australian Film Commission

Producer...................................Roger MiramsD irectors.............................. Terry Bourke,

Howard RubleScriptwriter ...............................Terry BourkeBased on an original idea

b y ........................................... Roger MiramsPhotography................................................ Ray HenmanSound recordist ............................. Phil JuddEditors .......................................Ron Williams,

Alan LakeProd, manager ...................... Michael Lake,Budget............................... $150,000Length ................................................120 mins.Gauge ...................................................... 16mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ..................................Pre-productionSynopsis: A group of country children decide to help save an old man from being evicted from his gold-fossicking property, and turn a ghost town into a weekend holiday camp for city children.

THE COAST TOWN KIDSProd, company . .Andromeda ProductionsD irector................................... Peter MaxwellScriptwriter........ .. Roger Vaughan CarrSound recordist .......................John PhillipsE d ito r.............................................. Ray DaleyExec, producer .........................Ewart WadeProd, manager .........................Sue Hornby1st asst director .......................Tom BurstallLighting cameraman ................ Ernie ClarkCamera assistant .......................Rod MurrayKey g rip ...............................Paul AmmitsbollAsst g r ip ................................. Peter KershawG affer........................................................ Brian AdamsBoom operator .......................... Phil SterlingR unner....................................... Duncan WadeStandby props.....................Paddy ReardonPost-production facilities . . . Cutting PointProgress ................................Post-productionCast: John Wood (Tom Wilde), Frank Gallacher (Len Wolding), Alan Hopgood (Mick James), Peter Felmingham (Fred Farnell), Robert Korosy (Peter Martin), Missy Martin (Sally Wilde), Justin Stanford (Skinny).Synopsis: A pilot for a children’s series based in the coastal resort town of Lome, Victoria.

SERIES

BY HOOK OR BY CROOKProd, company .......................Di Net FilmsDirector ............................... Diana Nettlefold

Based on the original ideaby .......................... Diana Nettlefold

Photography .......................Diana NettlefoldSound recordist ..................Spectangle,

John EnlerEditor ....................................Diana NettlefoldComposers .....................................Don Kay,

John EnlerLaboratories .................. De Luxe General,

VFLLength ..................................... 13 x 27 mins.Gauge .......... ...................................... 16 mmShooting stock ........................ EastmancolorProgress .................................In productionCast: Sam Nettlefold, Stuart Nettlefold, Edith Tirhming, Ethel Trethewey, Vita Endelmanis, Marion Mutti, 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 children of different ages.

LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEYProd, company .......................................ABCExec, producer ............. Oscar WhitbreadDirector ............ , ..................Douglas SharpScriptwriter .....................Everett de RocheProd, manager ......................Frank Brown1st asst director ....................Glenda Byrne2nd asst director............ ........Peter MurphyProducer’s assistant . . Joanne McLennanLength ...................................... 3 x 50 mins.Progress .......................................ProductionCast: Frank Gallacher (Jan), Beverley Blankenship (Anna), Jane Norris (Nikki), Sarah Norris (Tassy), Tim Robertson (The Reverend C h arles ), Ju lie B lake (Dr Fletcher).Synopsis: A drama series about the effect of inexplicable sightings on a small seaside town. Children in the town witness visions that are unseen by adults, and their parents react in different ways to what becomes a disturbing puzzle.

PRISONERProd, company ........................ The Grundy

OrganizationDist. company .......................0-10 NetworkProducer .....................................Ian BradleyDirectors ..................................... Leon Thau,

Marcus Cole, Leigh Spence,

Phil EastScriptwriters ...........................Sheila Sibley,

Michael Brindley, Denise Morgan,

Ray Kolle, John Upton,

Margaret McClusky, Dave Worthington,

Ian BradleyBased on the original idea

by .............................................Reg WatsonSound recordists .....................Gary Hayes

Rob Saunders, David Keates

Editors .....................................Keith Elliott,David Jaeger

Prod, designer ...........................Ian CostelloComposer ................................. Alan CaswellExec, producer ................ Godfrey PhilippProd, co-ordinator ........... Fay RousseauxProd, manager .....................Valerie UnwinProd, assistant .............................Maura Fay1st asst director ..................... Bruce DunlopCasting .................................. Suzette JauhariCamera operators ...................Peter Hind,

Ken Mulholland, Noel Penn (studio),

Joe Battaglia, Steve Man (location)

Boom operator ..............Paul CovingtonMake-up .................. Vivienne Rushbrook,

Adrienne LeeHairdresser ................Gilbert of BroadwayWardrobe ........................ Jennifer Carmen,

Jan Petersen

Props .....................................Stephen WalshSet construction .............. Peter BarbedosMusical director .............. William MotzlngMusic performed

by .....................Australian Screen MusicSound editor ..........................Greg GurneyStill photography ...........................Ray HandPublicity .........................Felicity GoscombeCatering ...........................Anne DechaineuxStudios ........................................... Channel 0Length ...................................... 2 x 50 mins.Progress ......................................... In releaseRelease date .......................February, 1979First released ........ National 0-10 NetworkCast: Val Lehman (Bea), Patsy King (Erica), Peita 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.

TIMELESS LANDProd, company .......................................ABCDist. company .........................................ABCProducer .......................................Ray AlehinDirectors ...................................Rob Stewart,

Michael CarsonScriptwriter ...........................Peter YeldhamBased o n .......................The Timeless Land,

Storm o l Time, and No Barrier

Dir. of photography ............ Peter HendrySound recordist ..............Syd ButterworthEditors ...............................Richard Francis,

Bruce Thumpston, Nell Thumpston

Prod, designer .....................George LiddleComposer ...........................Bruce SmeatonProd, co-ordinator ............ Jenny CoustonProd, manager .......................Dennis Kiely,

Michael BaynhamUnit manager ..............................Val WindonProd, secretary .................... Debbie Davies1st asst directors ....................... Ray Brown,

Peter Wilson2nd asst directors...................................David Tunnell,

Tim HigginsContinuity .................... .. Carolyn GouldCasting ..................................... Jennifer AllenCamera operator ............ Graeme GaltonFocus puller ............................Roger LanserClapper/ioader .....................Russell BaconKey grip ........................... Andy GlavinAsst grip ...................................Alan Trevena2nd unit photography___John ShinerockGaffer .....................................Jack KendrickElectrician ...............................Martin PerrottBoom operator ...........................Nick WoodEpisode designer .........Neave CatchpoolMake-up ........................................ Val Smith,

Norman Blanchard, Christine Ehlert

Wardrobe .............................Elsie Rushton,Barry Lumby

Ward, assistant ........................ Edna SurguiProps .............................................. Don Page,

Igor Lazareth, Laurie Dorn

Props buyers .................Paddy McDonald,Adrian Cannon

Special effects .....................Jack ArmltageSet decorator .................. Ken MugglestonSet dresser .........................Bob HutchersonCarpenter ..................................Austin NolanSet construction ......................Laurie Dorn,

Stan WoolverldgeAsst editors .................. .... Peter Townend,

Adrienne OverallNeg. matching ...................Rosemary DoddMusic performed

by . . . Melbourne Symphony OrchestraSound editors .......................Helene Harris,

Lindsay FrazerEditing assistants _______Tony Kavanagh,

Mark DarcyMixer ..........................................Peter BarberAsst mixer .............................. Phil TipeneStill photography ...................Martin Webby

Wrangler .................................Graham WarePublicity ...............................Virginia SargentCatering .................. Alexandra ReceptionsStudios ...................ABC Television Drama,

Frenchs ForestMixed at ...............................Forest StudiosLaboratory .......................................ColorfilmLab. liaison ...................................Bill GooleyLength .......................................8 x 60 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ........................................ProductionCast: Michael Craig, David Gulpilil, Peter Collingwood, Angela Punch, Brian Hinsel- wood, Brian Moll, Brian Blaln, 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 RAMSAYProd, company . . . Crawford ProductionsDist. company .......... The Seven NetworkProducer .................................George MillerScript editor .......................Graeme FarmerLighting cameraman ___Ross BerrymanSound recordist .................. Paul MaloneyEditor .............................................Philip ReidExec, producer ...............Hector CrawfordAssoc, producer ..................... Kevin PowellProd, manager .........................Irene KorolUnit manager .............................Ralph Price1st asst directors .............. Ross Hamilton,

Stewart WrightContinuity .......................................Jo WeeksCasting .....................................Helen RollandClapper/ioader ...........................Chris CainCamera assistant ........Peter van SantenKey grip ...................................Ian BenallackGaffer ....................................... Stewart SorbyElectrician ...................................Laurie FishBoom operator .............. Andrew RamageArt director ..................................Harry ZettelAsst art director ........................ Julie SkateMake-up ................................Kirsten VeyseyWardrobe ....................................Phil Eagles,

Gail MayesProps ............................................John StabbSet decorator ..........................Brian HolmesSet construction .. Crawford ProductionsAsst editor ................................ Ken SallowsTech, adv iser......................Christine PowellBest boy ...........................David ParkinsonRunner ...........................................Peter DickStudios .....................Crawford ProductionsMixed at ................ Crawford ProductionsLaboratory .............................................. AtlabLength .....................................13 x 46 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmShooting stock ........................ EastmancolorProgress ......................................... In releaseRelease date ..................September, 1979Cast: John Hargreaves (Peter Ramsay), Serge Lazareff (Ray Turner), Louise Howitt (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

AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT BRANCHProjects 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 Investment 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.

LoansPaul 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 DevelopmentPhillip Adams (Vic.), script development forThe Jewish Ticket — $7300.Craw ford P roductions (V ic .), scrip tdevelopment and pre-production for AllThe Rivers Run — -$94,080Ginny Lowndes (NSW), script developmentfor The Idealist — $3000Michael Moses, additional to April approvalfor Sky — $505.

Pre-productionC raw ford P roductions (V ic .), scrip t development and pre-production for All The Rivers Run — $94,080

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT BRANCHProjects approved at the AFC meeting in September 1979.

Script DevelopmentRonald Allan (NSW), for a first draft script ofThe Johnny Fairy Story — $3000Rod Bishop (Vic.), test scenes and scriptdevelopment for Slow Burn — $3527M ary C a lla g h a n (N S W ), fo r s c r jp td e v e lo p m e n t of G re e tin g s F ro mWollongong — $1000Richard Cole (NSW), for a treatment of TheForest People — $1200Robert Eagle and Alexander Gutman, for afirst draft script of Death Intervenes —$1500Paul Harman and Michael Brindley (NSW), for a first draft script of Double Exposures — $2000Michael 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

VITTORIOBERNINI

Director of Photography

30 years of world wide experience Feature - Documentary - Commercials

Phone Melbourne Agent (03) 598 5104

« 1 AikCLIFFORD HAYES -

FILM EDITORFeatures (Mad Max). TV Series (Young Ramsey -

The Sullivans - Cash & Co.)

PHONE (03) 592 3695Mail to 50 Warleigh Grove,

North Brighton,Victoria 3186


draft script of The Ballad of Jack and the Soldier.— $2400.^ g ■* 'Pam Lofts, Bill Sykes and Mike Edols (NSW), for script development of Animation of a Dreamtime — $2361 John Lord (Vic.), for a second draft script of an untitled drama — $2000 Michael Pattinson (Vie.);- for a first draft script of A King of Shred* and Patches — $2000Stephen Ramsay (NSW), for a treatment of The Strange Case of Morris Singleman — $300Oliver Robb (NSW), for a first draft script of No Dice — $3000Mark Ruse (Vic.), fo ra second draft script of Melaney Apples — $3160 Albie Thoms (NSW)j for a storyline of The Big Smoke — $300John T rig g , C h ris Batson and W ill McConough (Vic.), for a pilot script of This Seems Very Strange — $2496

ProductionWilliam Anderson (Vic.), Cross Sections Part Two — $8238Peter Butt (NSW), Men of the Earth — $13,382Julie Cunningham 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 — $1496Gillian Leahy (NSW ). Strip-Mining — $32,769Michael Nicholson (Vic.), The Presence of an Australian — $4297 Chris Noonan (NSW), Stepping Out — $ 10,000Roger 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 — $1500Brendon Stretch (NSW), Travelogue — $4347Peter Surguy (SA), Bridge — $2904 Gary Willis (Vic.), Is This What You Call Love? — $2225

Post-productionTim Burns (NSW), for a re-cut of Against the Brain — $4418John Davis , G ary S te e r and Roger Whittaker (NSW), Search for the World’s Deepest Cave — $4521 Digby Duncan and Wendy Freecloud (NSW), One In Seven — $5293 Chris Fitchett (Vic.), Blood Money — $8207 Antoinette Starklew icz (NSW ), Pussy Pumps Up — $3644

Women’s Film FundJane Oehr (NSW) and W .ES.T. Film/Video(Vic.), Just An Ordinary Life — $4590

FILM AUSTRALIA

ARCHITECTURE — A PERFORMING ART

Prod, co m p a n y..............Michael RobertsonProductions

Dlst. co m p a n y .......................Film AustraliaProducer.................................Peter JohnsonDirector ............................Michael RobertsonScriptwriter...................... Michael RobertsonPhotography.............................David GribbieE d ito r............................................... Alan LakeCamera assistant ...................John WarranLength .............................................. 26 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock........... ...........EastmancolorP rog ress................................Post-productionRelease date ......... November/

December, 1979 Synopsis; A documentary on the famous Australian architect John Andrews.

BEYOND HELL’S GATEProd, company _____Satonyx ProductionsDist. company ..........................Film AustraliaProducer................................. Peter JohnsonD irecto r................................... David RobertsScriptwriter. . . .... ...............David RobertsPhotography................. .................Paul TateSound recordist ...................Kevin KearneyE d ito r............................................Bob CoggerCamera assistant .....................Tony GalleyLength ...............................................26 mins.Gauge ............................. - ....................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease 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.

THE CAPITALProd, company .........................CameracraftDist. com pany...... ..................Film AustraliaProducer.................................Peter JohnsonD irector.........................................Greg Parry-Scriptwriter.......................... Michael FalloonPhotography.......................Jim Gilbert ACSLength ................................................. 20 mins.Gauge ................................................... 35 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress...........................................ProductionRelease date .........................January, 1980Synopsis: A documentary on the National Capital and the lifestyle of the people of Canberra.

CHASE THAT DREAMProd, company .......................Film Australia

for the Department ofHousing and Construction

Dist. com pany.........................Film AustraliaProducer................................... Tom ManefieldD irector.....................................Ken CameronScriptwriter................................Ken CameronPhotography ............................. Dean SemlerSound recordist .....................Howard SpryE d ito r.........................................Mark WatersCamera assistant ................Peter ViskovichGauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ......................................... In releaseRelease date .....................September, 1979S y n o p sis : A se rie s of d ra m a tiz e d d o cum entaries , based on real life experiences, which illustrate some of the difficulties faced by young families in today's housing market.

ENLISTMENTProd, company ....................... Film AustraliaDist. company ......................... Film AustraliaProducer....................................................Peter JohnsonD irector....................................... David StivenScriptwriter.............. ...............David StivenLength .................................................15 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress................................. Pre-productionRelease date .............................March, 1980Synopsis: A documentary aimed at the enlistment of young men into the Aus- tralianarmy.

THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENTARYSYSTEM

Prod, company ....................... Film AustraliaDist. com pany............................................Film AustraliaProducer....................................................Peter JohnsonD irector......................................................Brian McDuffieScriptwriter.................................Clare DunnePhotography...............................Kerry BrownSound recordist ......................Don ConnollyE d ito r......................................... Louis AnivittiCamera assistant .....................James WardNarrator..................... ...............Clare DunneLength ................................................ 30 mins.Gauge .....................................................16«mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ................................Post-productionRelease date .....................December, 1979Synopsis; A documentary on the Australian Federal Parliamentary system for educational outlets.

HORSESProd, com pany...........................Bob Talbot

« and AssociatesDist. com pany............................................Film AustraliaProducer....................................................Peter JohnsonD irector.........................................Bob TalbotScriptwriter...................................Bob TalbotPhotography.............................................. Keith WagstaffSound recordist .................. Ian JenklnsonE d ito r.............................................Mike ReadLength ..........................................20 mins.Gauge ................................................ ,1 6 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ............................... Post-productionRelease date ................................ November/

December, 1979 Synopsis: A documentary aimed at people who are about to own their first pony, and the role played by Pony Clubs.

NAVY AVIATIONProd, company ....................... Film AustraliaDist. com pany............................................Film AustraliaProducer........ ......................Peter JohnsonD irector..................................................... David BarrowScriptwriter............................ ..David BarrdwPhotography.............................................. John Hosking,

Ross KingSound recordist ...................... Max HensserCamera assistant .......................Tony GalleyLength ..................................................10 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorProgress......................................... ProductionRelease date .........................February, 1980Synopsis: A documentary aimed at the recruitment of young men for the Naval Air Arm.

OUR MULTI-CULTURAL SOCIETYProd, com pany......................................... Nick Torrens

Productions for Film AustraliaDist. com pany............................................Film AustraliaProducer.....................................................Joan SharpD irector........................................................Nick TorrensScriptwriter................................................. Nick TorrensPhotography....................................... Brendan WardSound recordist ...................Warwick Finlay

E d ito r.........................................Nick TorrensLen g th ........................................6 x 11 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock.........................EastmancolorProgress ......................................... In releaseRelease date ...................September, 1979Synopsis: A series of information films on Australia's ethnic societies.

ROAD SAFETY AND TOWN PLANNING

Prod, company .......................Film AustraliaDist. company .........................Film AustraliaProducer.................................. Peter JohnsonD irector.................................... Greg ReadingScriptwriter.............................Greg ReadingLength ................................................. 25 mins.Gauge ....................................................16 mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorProgress ................................. Pre-productionRelease date .................................Early 1980Synopsis: A short film on the need for liaison between those involved in the planning of community areas with officers of road safety councils.

SEAWATCHProd, com pany___Kingcroft ProductionsDist. company ........................ Film AustraliaProducer................................Peter JohnsonD irectors ................................Terry Ohlsson,

Bill StaceyScriptwriter............................................... Geoff PikeSound recordist .......................John MarshE d ito r............................................Bill StaceyNarrator....................................................... Paul RickettsLength ................................................. 20 mins.Progress ............................... Post-productionRelease date .......................November, 1979Synopsis: A documentary on the Australian navy.

SOVIET STYLEProd, com pany..........................................Film AustraliaDist. com pany............................................Film AustraliaProducer................................Tom ManefieldD irector..................................Arch NicholsonScriptwriter...............................Roger MiliissPhotography.............................Dean SemlerSound recordist .................... Howard SpryE d ito r.........................................Martyn DownNarrator.............................Margaret ThrosbyLength ..........................................5 x 27 mins.Gauge ............................................. . . 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorRelease date .....................September, 1979Synopsis: Five educational films produced from original material shot In the Soviet Union in 1977. Part 1, music; Part 2,working; Part 3, farming; Part 4, Schools;Part 5, Politics.

THE THINGS WE WANT TO KEEPProd, com pany.......................Film AustraliaDist. company .......................Australian Film

CommissionProducer..............................................Malcolm OttonD irector.....................................................Oliver HowesScriptwriter.............................................. Oliver HowesPhotography.........................................Andrew FraserSound recordist ........................George HartE d ito r........................................Lynne WilliamsCom poser................................................Simon WalkerNarrator..................................................... Geoff AshbyLength ................................................. 21 mins.Gauge ...................................................16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ............................... Post-productionRelease date ...................... November, 1979Synopsis: Produced for the Australian Heritage Commission, this short film illustrates the richness and variety of Australia's National Estate ranging from Aboriginal rock paintings, to Murray River paddle-steamers. It aims to encourage more responsible attitudes towards the things we want to keep, and proposes practical ways In which Australians can help to protect their heritage.

WAR WITHOUT WEAPONSProd, company ............................Curtis Levy

ProductionsDist. com pany...........................Film AustraliaProducer.................................. Peter; JohnsonDirector/scriptwriter.......................... Curtis LevyPhotography............................................. Geoff Burton,

Malcolm Richards, Dean Semler

Sound recordists ....................John Rowley,Geoff White,

Garry WilkinsE d ito r...........................................David StivenLength .................................................26 mins.Gauge ................................................... 16 mmShooting stock..........................EastmancolorProgress ............................... Post-productionRelease date ................................ November/

December, 1979 Synopsis: A film on a VFL football team, featuring the North Melbourne Football Club.

Concluded on P. 676

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Strand Electric have a full range of lighting and control equipment suitable for small displays, schools and non-professional theatre performance requirements up to the largest television and professional theatre and film requirements.

Included in our range of equipment are:.Memory lighting Control Systems 2 to 10 kW DimmersA full ronge of Hank Strand Electric Theatre Spotlights A (oil range of Quartzcoior Him and Television Luminaires Pani HMI Projectors and Follow Spots Arriflex HMI Fresnel Spotlights light fentastics disco Sghtmg effects

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A N D MUCH M ORE

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 50 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 arry Greenwood — L eatherw orker; and L arsen and Lewers (jewellers). • and Peter Weir’s film on Peter Rushforth (potter) soon to be released.

KFor further details please write to: Joint Film Committee, Crafts Council of Australia,

27 King Street, Sydney NSW 2000.

P R O F E S S I O N A L SUPER 8 S T U D I O S DO E X I S T !

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• a n im a tio n • studio and• t it lin g equipm ent hire.• s c i- f i m odels •16 mm underwater• m a tte s foota g e to Order• film s p littin g • sound tra n sfe rs• split 16 fu i 1 c o a t • s o u n d f x & m usic

A L L F O O T A G E FI L M E D O N 72 5 2

f o r m ore In fo rm a tio n ph on e;

T h o m a s va n A n d e l (062) 58 4851- , ; bus Er a h

B a r r y S t r e e t s (049) 57 40 54

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.

High Rolling Kostas Final Cut Felicity

Blue Fire LadyLast of the KnucklemenAsia Partners, Mystery PartnersEliza FraserThrough the Rip

HexagonKostasShottonAndromeda

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....75-83 High Street Prahran 3181.

common address at. ..

B&C Film ProductionsManaging Director, Trevor Pope. Prod. Manager, Maggie Dunn. Film Directors - David Bilcock, Mai Bryning & Rob Copping. Studio, facilities, equipment. Telephone 51 9806.

F ^lOPPRO DUCTIO NS PTY LTD

Full 16mm/35mm Production and Post production services. Ted MCQueen-Mason. Telephone 51 6909.

GCP Melbourne.Specialised Stills service, Cibachrome Color printing and B&W services. Manager- Gerard Groeneveld, Tele. 529 1297

PENTANGLECommercial Production and Post Production services.Peter L. Lamb. Telephone 51 9806.

{ & %Ray Strong Productions

Special Effects, Graphics, Animation, Titles,Mechanical Rigs, Stop Motion High Speed photography, 16mm/35mm Oxberry Animation Stand, Ray Strong 51 8052.

And at 30 Inkerman Street, StKilda 3182.

B&C Movie RentalsUpdated and quiet 35mm BL Arriflex with 10-1 Zoom Blimp, 1000' Mags, Zeiss Super Speed lenses Arriflex He’s,Elemack dolly, Colortran dolly, 16 mm Arriflex B.L.’s with Zeiss Super Speed lenses, 16mm NPR& ACL’s, Miller tripods, Lighting & Grip equipment,Manager-David Walpole. Telephone -534 4883.

Cinem

a Papers, Decem

ber-January

BOX-OFFICE CROSSESTITLE

Distributor

PERIOD8.7.79 to 20.10.79

PERIOD26.5.79 to 7.7.79

SYD.2 MLB. PTH ADL. BRI.Total

$ Rank SYD. MLB. PTH ADL. BRI.Total

$

1 N.Rank

Tim GUO(4*>

54,790(11/3*)

117,491(3*)

21,738(2*)

12,407 206,426 1 -

My Brilliant Career GUO(9*)

176,672 176,672 2

Mad Max RS(15*)N/A

(4/1/2/5)N/A

(2/6)N/A

(9*)N/A

(5*)N/A N/A 3

(7*)N/A

h

(2*)N/A N/A 1

Cathy’s Child RS(1/4)

20,091(6/1)

30,579 50,670 4

In Search of Anna GUO(4)

20,628(5)

23,442 44,070 5(1*)

8,838(2*)

6,855 15,693 5

The Last of the Knucklemen RS

(3)23,972

(4)11,281 35,253 6

The Odd Angry Shot RS

(2)5,553

(5)22,346 27,899 7

(5)26,535

(3/4*)35,264

(4/2)42,632 104,431 2

Felicity RS(3)

16,705(2)

N/AN/A 8

Dimboola GUO(2/1)

7,755 7,755 9(2)

6,869(3)

23,710 30,579 3

Dawn! HTS(1)

N/A N/A 10(1)

N/A(1*)N/A N/A 9

Australian Total N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 53,890 74,620 * 7,234 ☆ N/A 45,649 ☆ 181,393*Foreign Total0 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 1,750,020 N/A

Grand Total 4,105,579 3,650,249 2,052,996 1,276,540 1,052,875 12,138,239 1,803,910 1,671,211 1,004,100 539,705 463,801 5,482,727* Figures exclude N/A figures. t* Box-office grosses of individual films have been, supplied to C in e m a P a p e rs by the Australian Film Commission. ) Australian theatrical distributor only. RS - Roadshow; GUO — Greater Union Organization Film Distributors; HTS - Hoyts Theatres; FOX o This figure represents the total box-office gross of all foreign films shown during the period in the area specified. — 20th Century Fox; UA — United Artists; CIC — Cinema International Corporation; FW — Filmways Australasian Distributors; 7K — 7 Keys* Continuing into next period 1 Film Distributors; COL — Columbia Pictures; REG - Regent Film Distributors; CCG — Cinema Centre Group; AFC — Australian Film

been released in more than one cinema during the period. a 7 K 7

BO

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RO

SSES

'M C T O O o Â

is proud to

TOM RICHARDSDawn! (Harry Gallagher), Matlock Police.

CANDY RAYMONDDon’s Party, The Sullivans.

BRIAN MOLLAlvin Purple, The Young Doctors (Dr Snape).

DIANA McLEANBen Hall, This Week in Britain, The Young Doctors.

LYNDA STONERThe Young Doctors, Cop Shop.

KAREN PETERSENGodspell, The Young Doctors, Petersen.

BRIAN EVISThe Odd Angry Shot.

ROSWOODCurrently starring in The Young Doctors (Kate Rhodes).

MICHAEL CATONThe Sullivans.

i

■e

I**

#

IMBY PILTBerlin to the Black Stump (lead), 269 Playhouse.

S u ite 1/245 P acific H ighw ay , N orth S ydn ey N S W 2060. Telephone: (02) 92 0363

APOLOGYIn 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.

SHARMILL FILMS announces with much pride the acquisition of Ermanno Olmi’s highly acclaimed Italian masterpiece

THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS(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 Sarris, VILLAGE VOICE.

Watch for details of forthcoming theatrical release.Sharmill Films27 Stonnington Place TOORAK 3142 AUSTRALIApnone: (U3) 20 5329. cable: Sharfilms Director: Natalie Millar

Distributors of Quality Movies . . . PADRE PADRONE,

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CLASSICS, etc.

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The Life of Brian An ex-leper (Michael Palin) and Brian (Graham Chapman) in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

Dennis AltmanThere 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 juxtaposition 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 attacked 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

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 expensive 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 bad- tempered 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 enormous stress on physical disability in British humor is not yet another product of its public schools.)

The Monty Python team — the film having been written essentially by its actors, though not its actresses — has an acute ear for the more pretentious rhetoric of would- be revolutionaries, but in directing their barbs at them one feels they are ducking the much less acceptable target of Christianity itself.

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 moments, 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 ribbing. But there is no Last Supper, no betrayal by Judas, and the Mary Magdalene character 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 individuals,” 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,


PALM BEACH BLOOD RELATIVES

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 practice 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 grammar. Briefly, the problem is this: to construct 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 acceptable 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 attempt 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 commenting 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 montage 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 i f 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

Australian film, that isn’t just symbolic — it’s naturalism!

As the DJ’s and the beautiful people babble 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, dropouts 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 anend 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 company. One fine tracking shot, for example, backed by a dropped-in quote from K a n g a ro o , 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 apocalypse 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 smart- arsed hipdom in Igor Auzins’ High Rolling. With detached humor he hits the special quality of Australian hedonism — its contradictions: at once male-bonded and anti-gay;

in search of women and misogynist; adolescent 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 attractive 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 simultaneity of experience. For a while I disliked the placing of the party sequence in the middle 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 Australian visual narrative. Without recourse to the winning lushness of the 1890s, where eyes already delighted by Charles Conder, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton will supply a thousand associations to extend the

frame, Thoms has drawn us back to contemporary 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 dressing, 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 loathsome RSL club. But, at the same time, despite these touches and the use of interviews, 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, artists, and dope dealers.

Thoms was one of the first critics in Australia to call attention to the autonomous power of the surf film. Out of that generation 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.

Albie Thoms’ Palm Beach: a discourse on a culture created and defined by the mythology of surfing.

Blood RelativesTom Ryan

“ W h a t a m u s e s m e is to c r e a te an im b a la n ce in a u n iverse th a t tr ie s h a rd to s ta b il iz e itse lf ."

Claude Chabrol'.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 habrol’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

1. Dan Yakir, “The Magical Mystery World of Claude Chabrol: An Interview” , F ilm Q u a r te r ly , 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” .2 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 con v in c in g arg u m en 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 quasisister — 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 r d J u n g le ) 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 middle- class 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.

Sutherland’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 commonplace 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 1 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

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).

Aude Landry as Patricia, in Claude Chabrol’s Blood Relatives.


BLOOD RELATIVES JUST OUT OF REACH, MORRIS LOVES JACK, AND CONMAN HARRY

The film ends with a fade to black from Carella’s anguished response to Patricia’s hysteria. At that moment, her scream could be his, for he, and the audience, have been brought to the brink of a terrible knowledge. And at that moment, Chabrol’s film turns us out — to our comfortable readings of Freud, or to the safety of critical reviews concerned with stability rather than turmoil, with a comfortable ‘truth’ rather than one which disturbs.

Blood Relatives: Directed by Claude Chabrol. Producers: Denis H eroux, Eugene Lepicier. Executive producer: Julian M elzack. Screenplay: Claude Chabrol, Sydney Banks. Director of photography: Jean Rabier. Editor: Yves Langlois. M usic: H ow ard B lake. A rt d ire c to r: A nn Pritchard. Sound engineer: Patrick Rousseau. Cast: Donald Sutherland, Aude Landry, Lisa Langlois, Laurent M allet, Micheline Lanctot, S tephane A udran , D onald Pleasence, David Hemmings. Production companies: Classic Film Industries, Cinevideo of M ontreal, Filmel of Paris. Distributor; Michael Klinger (London). 35mm. 95 mins. Canada. 197.8,

Just Out Of Reach,Morris Loves Jack, Conman Harry and The Others.Barbara Alysen

Only a handful of Australia’s cinemas pay any significant attention to locally-produced 16mm films, and even fewer specialize in exhibiting productions not tied to major cinema chains.

The Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative’s Filmmakers’ Cinema, however, is one of Australia’s alternative film venues, which has, over the years, pursued an ambitious exhibition program, offering independent filmmakers an outlet for short films which may never be shown otherwise.

Three such films, recently gathered together for a season of screenings at the Filmmakers’ Cinema, are Linda Blagg’s Just Out of Reach, Sonia Hofmann’s Morris

Lorna Lesley in Linda Blagg’s Just Out of Reach.

Loves Jack, and Steven Wallace’s Conman Harry and The Others.

Early next year this program will be exhibited by another independent venue, the Australian Film Institute’s Longford Cinema in Melbourne, which, like the Filmmakers’ Cinema, is committed to the exhibition of locally-produced short films.

Just Out of Reach is Linda Blagg’s seventh film. Her earlier work includes the shorts Birthplace, Just Me and My Little Girlie, and two documentaries in Film Australia’s Our Multi-cultural Society series.

Loosely based on Blagg’s own experiences, Just Out of Reach deals with a young woman’s attempted suicide after the breakdown of her marriage. It begins and ends with Cath (Lorna Lesley) being admitted to hospital after slashing her wrists, and in between examines her family life, early relationships and marriage, in an attempt to show the forces that create a depressive personality.

Cath is the elder daughter of British migrant parents. Her father works on mining sites and is often away from home, leaving family discipline to his wife.

Badly out of tune with the mores of their daughter’s generation, Cath’s parents use threats, violence, and the withdrawal of affection to cajole her into conformity. She in turn looks outside the family for the love and approval they fail to provide. But the people she turns to — her boyfriend, a teacher who later becomes her husband, and her sister — are unable to help.

For a woman incapable of dealing with her problems alone, suicide seems the only answer.

The motivation for Cath’s often infuriating behaviour is dealt with by having her speak her thoughts in a voice-over. This technique invites comparison with other discourses on suicide and family breakdown, particularly John Hopkins’ television plays Talking to a Stranger, and Stevie.

But where these are articulate, and

profound, Cath’s teenage monologues on the meaning of life border on the banal. The naivety of Cath’s thoughts, however, is exactly what makes them real.

Like Just Me and My Little Girlie, which deals with father-daughter incest, Just Out of Reach is a brave choice of subject. One of the most compelling notions our society has thrown up is the idea that psychological well-being is a matter of personal choice. It is no accident that this theory goes hand in hand with the notion that wealth and material success accrue from individual initiative and hard work. Both are part of an ideology which denies that luck and inherited background play a role in an individual’s life.

A film like Just Out of Reach could easily have become an extended commercial for Lifeline, but Blagg avoids this by concentrating on motivations and outside pressures, rather than a solution to the problem. Blagg says the film is about loneliness and alienation rather than suicide. Describing it as a “kitchen sink drama”, she says that in it she wanted to explain self-destructive behaviour through family background.

Audience reaction and commercial viability were not important considerations in the production of Just Out of Reach, and it is not expected to recover its costs. Despite this, the critical reaction to the film has been good, and it has attracted full houses during its Sydney screenings. It shared the Bronze Award in the short fiction category at the 1979 Australian Film Awards with Sonia Hofmann’s Morris Loves Jack.

Morris Loves Jack features Kris Mc- Quade (who starred in Steven Wallace’s Love Letters from Teralba Road) as policewoman Jacqueline (Jack) Hogan, in a story of misplaced affections and sexual ambiguity.

Jack lives in Kings Cross with Morris, an aspiring young actor who makes up in gall and optimism what he clearly lacks in talent. In return for his romantic attention, Jack supports them both until she finds him necking with another bloke during a late-night raid on a noisy disco.

Hovering between the pathetic and the absurd, Morris Loves Jack is full of ironic wit, some of it inspired, some borrowed. For example, in a scene where Morris auditions for a part in A Streetcar Named Desire, he gives much the same sort of performance as Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) when she auditions for Saint Joan in Klute. Still, odd moments of deja vu aside, Morris Loves Jack attests to the considerable talent of everyone involved in its production.

Sonia Hofmann’s earlier work includes the animated short Letter to a Friend, which won the Rouben Mamoulian Award at the 1975 Sydney Film Festival. Like Letter to a Friend, Morris Loves Jack has also met with considerable critical success. To date it has won the Fiction Section Award in the 1979 Greater Union Awards, a Bronze Award in the short fiction category at the 1979 Australian Film Awards, and a nomination in the short film section of the 1979 British Film Awards.

Before making Conman Harry and The Others Steve Wallace directed several short films, including Love Letters from Teralba Road (the winner of three prizes at the 1977 Australian Film Awards) and the extraordinary, but little-seen, Brittle Weather Journey.

In Brittle Weather Journey, and again in Love Letters from Teralba Road, Wallace plays with the kind of dialogue used by the inarticulate. In Conman Harry and The Others, he takes this one step .further, and does away with dialogue.

The film follows an assortment of ostensibly random characters through their activities during the early hours of a weekday morning. By concentration on places, faces, and gestures, the film emphasises each person’s loneliness as they make their way to

662 —• Cinema Papers, December-January

JUST OUT OF REACH, MORRIS LOVES JACK, AND CONMAN HARRY RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR

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 disappointed by Conman Harry. While the film is essentially an experiment in style, it is likely to be viewed and judged as narrative, although as a narrative it lacks the pace to sustain audience interest and involvement.--------------------------------- 3f---------Just Out of Reach: Directed by Linda Blagg. Producer: Ross M atthew s. D irector of photography: Russell Boyd. Editor: Ted Otton. Music: William Motzing. 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. Director 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 McManus. Sound recordist: Lawrie Fitzgerald. Cast: Bryan Brown, Sally Edwards, Clive Marshall, Harry Neilson, Sidy Roll. 16mm. 32 mins. Australia. 1979.

Rapunzel, Let Down Your HairMeaghan Morris

Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair issomething 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,

JEsther 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 Occupation, 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 documentary 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

women who made it, may contain a suggestion which ought to be qualified.

I f 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 Australia.

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 pussyfooting 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, appropriately, 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 m other-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 myth- representation in art and in children’s books.

The prince’s version of the fairytale is a cheap thriller. The modern prince is a hard- boiled ‘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 a lly , R ap u n ze l 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.


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RAPUNZEL, LET DOWN YOUR HAIR ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

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.

Rapunzei suggests that a great dfeal 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, Rapunzei 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 authoritarian 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 limitations 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 counterimage 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.

I 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.

Rapunzei 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. Rapunzei actively uses processes of change and transformation; although in this case, at least, the possibility

1. Filmnews, April 1979, p. 7; and correspondencein following issues.

of doing so seems a question of more money rather than superior imagination.

Rapunzei, 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 o d a y . Production Company: British Film Institute. Distributor: Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative. 16mm. 80 mins. London. 1978.

Escape 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 close- up 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 troublesome 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 allmale 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 scriptw riter 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 rehabilitation. “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

Clint Eastwood and Larry Hankin in Don Siegel’s Escape from Alcatraz.

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 dom inated , and its documentary tone negated, by Eastwood as Morris, and by touches of what can only be described as melodrama. (The worst instance 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 superhero 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/tran- quillity .

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.

Escape from Alcatraz: 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 Stuthman. Production company: Paramount Pictures Corporation. Distributor: Cinema International Corporation. 35mm. Ill mins. U.S. 1979.


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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 authenticity. 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 inside a wrecked spaceship. The rest of the film shows the attempts of the Nostromo crew to deal with this remarkably ubiquitous menace, as, one by one, they come to their grisly ends.

The reference to Conrad leads one irresistibly 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 *

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 subverted 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 scaring 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 shortterm 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 overwhelmed by its own technical ingenuity as if its makers were having the time of their lives and hoped this would be enough for ours.^

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 everything.

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 anonymous. 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 apparent in its spasmodic references to the “Company” in the background. The “Company” , 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 psychological 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. Executive 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 company: Brandywine-Ronald Shusett. Distributor: 20th Century-Fox. 35mm. 124 mins. U.S. 1979.

The crew of the Nostromo search for the organism in Alien.

Alien


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No Bed of RosesHutchinson, Australia 1978 Joan Fontaine

By MyselfJonathan Cape, U.K. 1979 Lauren Bacall

Mommie DearestGranada, U.K. 1979 Christina Crawford

Brian McFarlane

The reading public’s continuing fascination 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 emptying 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 irreconcilable 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 tough- minded mixture of honesty and necessary egoism; Mary Astor’s/1 Life on Film (1972) took an intelligent and (inevitably?) disenchanted view of her 40-year career; and David Niven brought a saving wit and goodnature to the two volumes of his more-than- usually 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 scandal-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 achievement 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 undermined 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 misguided devotion. It is in some ways a shocking 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 comments 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.’’1

Or this, on Ophuls, who directed the same lady’s best film. Letter from an Unknown Woman:

“With Max Ophuls . . . I communicated intuitively. After a lake, Max would come over to me and start to speak in German, which I 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. p. 115

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 sensitivity. 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 sensitivity 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 persona 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 channelled 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 written to ensure readability, is a dispiriting experience, not merely for its lack of discrimination, but for its overall tone of blaming and whingeing. None of her husbands 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 letters 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 self- regarding and ungenerous a woman.

Whatever the faults of Lauren Bacall’s By Myself they are not those of egoism and ungenerosity. 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 command most interest and, in answer to the second 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' direction) 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 initial 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 impression she made in those four early films with Bogart.

The book not merely records but also constitutes 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


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to stagger through the 377 pages of her atrociously-written history without losing respect for the lady herself.

Fontaine’s book is much more competently written but by the end one scarcely cares. Bacall’s style is too often bedevilled by cliche (“1 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 syntax, the woman herself emerges with credit. She is decently reticent about her love affaires: 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 account 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 particularly discriminating. She dismisses Written on the Wind as a “soap opera” and appears 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 glossed over so that Christina can get on with the absorbing business of recording every infraction of liberty, every bizarre cruelty.

I do not doubt that it was difficult to be Joan Crawford’s child, but if the book is intended 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 Crawford makes virtually no attempt to understand 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 persona 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 dismissed 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 ip print every repellent bean about her mother — and on why we wish to read about it.

Recent Releases

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 InterestD e e rs ta lk e r!Ron'HaydockScarecrow (James Bennett) $15 (HC)Holmes and Watson on screen.F lesh a n d F a n ta sy Penny StallingsMacDonald and Jane (Novalit) $12.95The truth behind the ‘Great American DreamMachine’.F red A s ta ir e Benny GreenHamlyn (Gdlden Press) $19.99 (HC)A biography, with details of his stage and film career. Illustrated.T h e G re a t S c ie n c e F ic tio n P ic tu 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.T h e G re a t 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.FI o ily w o o d on H o l ly w o o d J. 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 industry.P o p e y e : T h e F irs t F if ty Y e a rs But! Sagendorf Workman $11.20S h e r lo c k H o lm e s on th e S creenRobert W. Pohle Jnr and Douglas C. HartBarnes/Tantivy (Remal) $32.85 (HC)

Biographies, Memoirs and Experiences in Filmmaking and FilmographiesT h e F ilm s o f S h ir le y T e m p leRobert WindelerCitadel (Davis) $22.50 (HC)All of Shirley Temple’s films documented with casts, credits and synopses, with nearly 400 photographsT h e F ilm s o f W arren B e a t ty 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. Extensively illustrated.G la d y s C o o p e r: A B io g ra p h y Sheridan MorleyHeinemann (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.A H u n d re d D iffe re n t L ivesRaymond MasseyRobson (Hutchinson) $21.95 (HC)Raymond Massey’s story of his distinguished acting on stage and screen, and that of his contemporaries.L ife w ith G o o g ie John McCallumHeinemann (W. Heinemann Aust.) $17.50 (HC) A candid insight into the workings of the world of stage and screen.M a rv in : T h e S to r y o f L e e M a rv in Donald ZeeN.E.L. (Australian Publishing Co.) $15.95 (HC) An absorbing illustrated biography.M o n tg o m e r y C lif tPatricia BosworthBantam (Gordon and Gotch) $2.75The biography of the actor who Marilyn Monroesaid was “the only person I know who is in worseshape than I am.”N e d ’s G irf Bryan Forbes.Elm Tree Books (Thomas Nelson) $17.95 The life of Edith Evans.O u r G an g: T h e L ife a n d T im e s o f th e L i t t l e R a s c a lsLeonard Maltin and R. W. Bann Crown $7.45

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 th e R e a l Ian C a r m ic h a e l . . .Ian CarmichaelMacmillan (Macmillan Aust.) $14.95An engaging autobiography on the man behind theactor.

DirectorsT h e F ilm s o f F r itz L a n g Frederick W. Ott Citadel (Davis) $26.95 (HC)A retrospective look at his life and career. More than 500 photographs illustrate the text.T h e F ilm s o f L e n i R ie fe n s ta h l David B. HintonScarecrow (James Bennett) $8.40 (HC)A comprehensive reference-book on the work of the famous German director.T h e M o v ie B ra tsMichael Pye and Lynda MylesFaber (Oxford University Press) $16.70 (HC)The story of six of Hollywood’s most celebrated new wave directors.

CriticalF ilm in S w e d e n (S ta r s a n d P la y e rs )Peter CowieBarnes/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.F ilm T h e o ry a n d C r itic ism Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen (editors)' Oxford (Oxford University Press) $14.95 A new edition of the popular collection on film aesthetics and criticism.T o th e D is ta n t O b se rv e r Noel Burch Scolar $15.75Form and meaning in the Japanese cinema. The author’s dialectical analysis produces some new insights into the elements of film structure.

History of the Film Industry and Accounts of FilmmakingC in e m a a n d H is to r y Anthony Aldgate Scolar $18.95British 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.

ScriptsT h e B lu e D a h lia Raymond Chandler Popular Library $3.25The full-length film script, with stills and posters.

Filmmaking, Acting Technique and MarketingA C h a n g e o f T a c k ( M a k in g th e S h a d o w L in e )Boleslaw SulikBritish Film Institute $5.45Charts the cultural tensions which were added to the more usual problems of the filmmaking process.G e tt in g S ta r te d in F ilm m a k in g Lillian Schiff Sterling $7.50The author uses her teaching experience with young filmmakers to confront the specific problems which face the beginner.M u s ic f o r th e F ilm s Leonard Sabaneev Arno $19.95A handbook for composers and conductors of sound films.

Film NovelsT h e B re a k e r Kit DentonArkon (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95C a lig u laGore VidalFutura (Tudor) $2.95T h e C h a m pRichard WoodleyFontana (William Collins) $2.95T h e C h in a S y n d r o m e Burton WohlBantam (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95J a m e s B o n d a n d M o o n r a k e r Christopher WoodTriad/Panther (Gordon and Gotch) $2.95T h e M o n e y M o v e r s Devon MinchinMarlin (Review Enterprises) $2.95 An Australian crime thriller.M y B r illia n t C a re e r Miles FranklinAngus and Robertson (Angus and Robertson) $2.95T h irs tJohn PinkneyCircus (Hutchinson) $2.95 ★


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SAM“ A young girl from the back streets o f 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.”S am ................... ................... Tracy Mann Director ................... . . . . Don McLennanT im ................... ............. Kim Rushworth Producers ................. ....... Hilton Bonner,Wally ............... ................... John Arnold Zbigniew FriedrichDebbie............... ................... Kirsty Grant Production company . ........... Ukiyo FilmsRaelene............ ............Penelope Stewart Screenplay ............... .. . . Don McLennan,Brady ............... ..................... Bill Hunter Hilton BonnerNewman............ ..................... Max Cullen Director ofFrank ............... ................. Hilton Bonner photography ........ . .Zbigniew FriedrichFather ............... ....................... Jack Allen Editor ..................... . .Zbigniew Friedrich

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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

Continued from P. 603

screen time to make the point, and the frame has not gone dead, some ac tiv ity in the background 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 attention 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.

Actors

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 recognize 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 actor’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 communicate 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, “Lojok, 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.

Working Overseas

I am allowed to work in Britain, Australia and the U.S. It is my am-


bition to organize productions with investment from these three major English-speaking markets. If any of the projects involve Australian investment, I believe the film will have to be made in Australia. The investment pot in this country is so limited by comparison with other countries that one can’t afford to give any of it away to productions that aren’t made here.

Do you still see an opening for strictly indigenous films being made in Australia?

Yes. It is very important that we continue to make films like Sunday Too Far Away, Storm Boy, In Search of Anna and Mouth to Mouth. It is often the indigenous quality that makes these films attractive to foreign audiences. If In Search of Anna had been rigged to be a sort of Australian Straight Time, let’s say, with strong concessions to the American market, it would not be the extraordinary, hypnotic film that it is.

Take also The Last Wave: it might have Richard Chamberlain in it to make it more attractive to the American audience, and indeed that has happened and they are going to see it, but they are seeing it in theatres that normally play Italian, French and German films. It has the advantage of being in English, yet with the foreignness they want.

At the same time, we must put together international packages, just like EMI did with The Deer- hunter. EMI decided, in Britain, to make a film about the Vietnam war and they backed an American filmmaker (Michael Cimino) to do it. Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express were also British-packaged films, with money from various sources. They were two films calculated to appeal to the international audience, and I don’t see why we in Australia can’t be doing the same. The Canadians are way ahead of us in making American or international' films at Canadian prices. I think we should be making A ustralian in te rnational features at Australian prices.

Above or below the line?

Well, if you want Donald Sutherland I understand the price is $750,000. So obviously while we can make an indigenous film very nicely for $750,000, if you want someone of Sutherland’s stature, you have to add another $750,000 to the budget. However, that film would probably cost an American company a minimum of $4 million.

We are beginning to develop the expertise in all departments of filmmaking to make a film that stands up alongside a Hollywood production. The Last Wave ran for 18 weeks in Los Angeles. Simultaneously, Picnic at Hanging Rock was playing a couple of miles away.

Against the Wind opened on television and rated very well. Prisoner also started, but I won’t comment on that.

But “Prisoner” rated very well . . .

Rating-wise, it did well. I just wish that our soap operas didn’t have to be pitched at such a low common denominator of public taste and intelligence. The gay action groups stood outside the television station in Los Angeles the day after Prisoner started waving placards at all who came by.

The program rated , but 1 consider it to be largely an insult to the intelligence — though there is a lot of American television you can say that about, too. Nonetheless, one must give the producers credit for selling it in the U.S.

Trailers

I have done two product reels for the AFC, promoting something like 30 Australian features, and have made quite a lot of local trailers.2

I like trailers because they are a discipline, and there is no better way of keeping one’s brain operating than looking at someone else’s film and assessing what the filmmaker’s intentions were. You then have to assess what parts of the film realize those intentions, and, finally, what are the best ways of presenting those intentions in the commercial market place.

Sometimes you have to make a highbrow film appear less highbrow, so that an audience comes to see it. And when they come, if the film is any good, they will appreciate it. Whereas, if you had informed them by way of the trailer that the film was as highbrow as it is, they mightn’t have come.

There have been occasions when Australian filmmakers have felt I was cheapening their films by going for the most exploitable elements, or by suggesting there were certain ideas in the film that weren’t there. By and large, though, most Australian producers have been happy with my work.

Occasionally, there has also been a concern that I have given too much away in a trailer, but I dispute this. I am very careful about what I give away, and I obviously don’t give away major plot points, like who is the murderer.

In the trailer for My Brilliant Career, I used the scene where Sybylla (Judy Davis) and Harry (Sam Neill) have their little tiff, and she slaps him across the face with a riding crop. Now Gillian Armstrong, who I think is a very fine filmmaker, apparently felt that I shouldn’t have shown that scene because it was a dramatic high spot. I contend that I should have, because it was a confrontation 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 be\pg 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 public . I can und ers tan 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 I 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.

Filmography

Features1974 The Love Epidemic1975 The Man From Hong Kong1976 Deathcheaters 1978 Stunt RockDocumentaries1977 Hospitals Don’t Burn Television1972 Marty Feldman in Australia 1972 The Big Screen Scene1972 For Valor1973 The Stuntmen —,1973 The World of Kung Fu-1974 Kung Fu Killers 1976 Danger Freaks

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IAN HOLMES

Production SurveyContinued from P. 655

VICTORIAN FILM CORPORATION

CHANGESProd, company .................FilmpartnershlpProducer ............................. Mike BrayshawDirector ................................... Karin AltmanPhotography ....................... Mike BrayshawSound recordist ................... Ian JenklnsonEditor ..............................................Peter BrayMusic performed by .............. Sweet JaneExec, producer ................... Kent ChadwickResearch ..................................Barbara BoydProd, manager ..................... Barbara BoydLength ................................................24 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmProgress .............................Awaiting releaseSynopsis: 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 PorterExec, producer .................. Kent ChadwickLength ............................................... 18 mins.Gauge ................................................. 35 mmProgress ...............................Pre-productionSynopsis: The native fishing resources of Victoria’s rivers and the need to conserve them. Produced for the Department of Conservation, Fisheries and Wildlife Division.

GIPPSLAND LAKESProd, company .......................................ABCDirector ................................ Dionne GilmoreScriptwriter ...........................Ronald StrahanPhotography .............................Keith Taylor,

Peter Parks, Densey Clyne,

Jim FrazierSound recordist .................. John BoswellEditor ....................................Jeremy HogarthComposer .............................. Greg SneddenLength ........................................ 4 x 30 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmProgress .............................Awaiting releaseRelease date .......................February, 1980Synopsis: A series of documentaries on the Gippsland Lakes region of Victoria. Produced for the Department of Conservation for television release in conjunction with the ABC.

GOONAWARRA PROJECTProducer .........................David Bilcock sen.Photography .................. David Bilcock sen.Exec, producer .................. Kent ChadwickLength .............................................. 25 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmProgress ....................................... ProductionSynopsis: A documentary on the building of a m ajor housing developm ent, progressively filmed over two years. Produced for the Housing Commission.

ON THE OUTSIDEProd, company ............ Phil de Montignie

and AssociatesDirector .............................Phil de MontignieScriptwriter ............................Russell PorterPhotography .........................David HaskinsSound recordist ........................ Ian WilsonEditor ...................................David PulbrookExec, producer .................. Kent ChadwickTechnical adviser ................ Doris LiffmanLength ..............................................24 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmProgress ........ ....................Post-productionRelease date .................. November, 1979Synopsis: 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 problems faced by offenders and the support systems offered. Produced for the Department of Community Welfare Services.

SHRINEProd, company ................ Cambridge Film

ProductionsProducer ...................................... John DixonDirector ........................................ John DixonScriptwriter .................................. John DixonEditor ................................................. Jill RiceExec, producer .................. Kent ChadwickLength ................................................25 mins.Gauge .................................................16 mmProgress ..............................Post-productionSynopsis: A documentary about the history and contemporary significance of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. Produced for the Department of the Premier and the Department of Crown Lands.

SMOKEScriptwriters ................Solomon Shulman,

Russell PorterExec, producer .............. Kent ChadwickLength ................................................15 mins.Gauge .................................................16 mmProgress ................................Pre-productionSynopsis: The Immediate short-term effects of smoking as a deterrent to early addiction. The documentary is aimed at the teenage consumer. Produced for the Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation.

THROUGH THE RIPProd, company ........ F. Stop ProductionsProducer .......... Edward McQueen-Mason

Director ...............................Terry McMahonScriptwriter ..........................Terry McMahonPhotography .......................... Peter BilcockSound recordist ....................John PhillipsEditor ................ Edward McQueen-MasonComposer ............................ Bruce SmeatonExec, producer ................... Kent ChadwickProducer's assistant .............Christine SullLength ...............................................21 mins.Gauge .................................................16 mmProgress .........................................In releaseRelease date .........................October, 1979Synopsis: 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. Produced for the Marine Board.

WINNINGScriptwriter ................................... Nina SymeExec, producer .................. Kent ChadwickLength ................................................17 mins.Gauge ................................................. 16 mmProgress . . I .................................ProductionRelease date .................. December, 1979Synopsis: A profile of two young intellectually-handicapped people — their day-today 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.

TASMANIAN FILM CORPORATION

THE AUTOMATED MARINERDist. company .................. Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer ................................ Damien ParerDirector ...................................Roger LuptonSound recordist .......... John SchlefelbeinComposer .............................. Richard MillsCamera assistant ........ John JaslukowiczMusical director .......... Pinchas SteinbergMusic performed byTasmanian Symphony

OrchestraSound editor ................ Mike WoolveridgeMixer .....................................Peter McKinleyEditing assistant ............ ...... Posie JacobsNarrator ...................................Frank BanselLength ...............................................17 mins.Progress .........................................In releaseSynopsis: A review of the exploitation and future potential of Tasmania’s marine resources. Produced for the Tasmanian Fisheries' Development Authority.

BASS STRAIT HIGHWAYDist. company .................. Tasmanian Film

Corporation

Producer ........................... Anne WhiteheadDirector .................................Don AndersonScriptwriter ...........................Don AndersonPhotography ......................Russell GallowaySound recordist .......... John SchlefelbeinProd, assistant ......................Gary ClementsCamera assistant ........ John JasiukowiczLength ............................................... 15 mins.Progress ............................. Post-productionSynopsis: A look at Tasmania’s ports and shipping facilities. Produced for the Transport Commission.

DICK SMITH, EXPLORERDist. company ................... Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer/director ..................Bob ConnollyScriptwriters ...........................Bob Connolly,

Robin AndersonPhotography .............................. Tony WilsonSound recordist .........................Tim LloydProd, manager .................Robin AndersonComposer ...................................Bob YoungLength ............................................ 50 mins.Progress .............................Post-productionCast: 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 COLONYDist. company ...................Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer ..................................Damien ParerDirector ...................................... Barry PierceSound recordist ................ Peter McKinleyEditor ...............................Mike WoolveridgeUnit manager .....................Daphne CrooksCamera operator ...........Russell GallowayAssistant cameraman . John JasiukowiczAsst editor .............................Debbie ReganLength ...............................................10 mins.Progress ......................................... In releaseSynopsis: 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 WILDERNESSDist. company ................... Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer ...........................Anne WhiteheadScriptwriter ............................... Tom HaydonLength ............................................. .25 mins.Progress .............................. Pre-productionSynopsis: A documentary aimed at creating greater awareness of, and support for, the retention of Tasmania’s natural waterways ^nd surrounding wilderness areas. Produced for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

MINING AND CONSTRUCTIONDist. company ...................Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer ................................ Damien ParerDirector ...............................Damian Brown

Scriptwriter ......................... Damian BrownLength ............................................... 15 mins.Prog ress ...............................Pre-prod uctionSynopsis: The standard of living which we enjoy today is dependent on the use of mineral resources. This short film examines the conflict between the demand for minerals and the desire to preserve the environment. Produced for the Mines Department.

SLIPPERY SLIDEDist. company ................... Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer .................................Damien ParerDirector .............................Donald CrombieScriptwriter .......................Donald CrombieSound recordist ...........John SchiefelbeinEditor ......................................... Kerry ReganCamera operator ...............Chris MorganLength ................................................60 mins.Progress ...............................Pre-productionSynopsis: A documentary examining the lives of a boy and his sister who have gone through the ‘welfare’ system as neglected children.

A SPORTING CHANCEDist. company ...................Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer ...........................Anne WhiteheadDirector .................................... Jack ZalkalnsScriptwriter ...................Christine SchofieldPhotography ............................Gert KlrchnerSound recordist . . . . . . John SchiefelbeinUnit manager ...................... Daphne CrooksAssistant cameraman ___Gary ClementsLength ............................................... 25 mins.Progress .......................................ProductionSynopsis: 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 Education Department.

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGEDist. company ...................Tasmanian Film

CorporationProducer/director .......... Anne WhiteheadScriptwriter .......................Anne WhiteheadLength ............................................... 25 mins.Progress ................................Pre-productionSynopsis: A dramatized documentary examining the case history of a schizophrenic patient in a mental institution. Produced for the Mental Health Commission.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION

Details next Issue.

The Grundy OrganizationContinued 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 international film and would require a lot of finance from overseas.The AFC’s investment is very large. What does it mean in terms of fostering the Australian film industry?

That’s a big subject. Firstly, without the AFC and similar state bodies, there would be no, or very little , film production. It is necessary to gain those sorts of funds to be able to produce films.Are these films tele-features and will they be made in Australia?

No, they are not tele-features in the Australian sense. Five of them are low-budget films of either

$300,000 or $350,000 each. They are intended initially for the Australian cinema market, but in different parts of the world they could well become tele-features.

The problem of making viable films in Australia demands that we develop marketing overseas. One of the reasons A u stra lia ’s film industry has not been particularly viable is that our marketing outside Australia has not been very sophisticated. It has not developed to the same level of expertise that other world filmmakers have.

Grundys has worked towards making films under co-production arrangements with Asian film and television companies. One project, “Valley of Dreams”, is a coproduction with an Indonesian company. How is that project progressing?

We are quite a long way along the track, but our Indonesian partner recently dropped out. He became ill and wasn’t able to continue on the schedule we had. The film is being delayed until we get our financial act together. It has to be a co-production, because the

storyline has elements of Asian- Australian relationships.

As for other Asian projects, we have a couple that are very close to reaching co-production deals. As yet, though, no project has been finalized, and this has confounded us a bit.

We have also had a number of talks with Japanese producers, and there is one project that is moving quite nicely. We have just reopened talks on that.

Is the basis of Grundys’ interest in co-productions a desire to break into the Asian market?

Yes. Asia is a very big market, and that attracts us. A large number of people go to the cinema there, and pay big money for the pleasure. Clearly, the Asian film companies are doing very well at mining this market. We aim to do likewise.

What percentage of Australians would be involved on a co-production like “Valley of Dreams”?

Valley of Dreams was projected basically as an A ustralian-

produced film, using Australian crews and cast with the exception of two main characters. The majority of the film was to be shot in Austra 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 wou l d c o n s i d e r such an arrangement, however, if it was the only way of deve l op i ng 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. ★

676 — Cinema Papers, December-Januafy

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COM M UNITY TELEVISION

Comm unity Television

Continued from P. 625

economic activity, and its consequences in Kal- goorlie and Coolgardie. Both sought to incorporate audience participation and feedback during 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 establishment in Fremantle of the type of television station 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 technology, cheapness, established precedents — all of which make for a useful experiment in the right circumstances.

Just how different the face of community television 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 Paddington Town Hall Centre Ltd, it now stands as a fitting 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 sessions at Wodonga, the outline of PBAA’s profile of television had become clearer. Community television would complement commercial 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 impetus 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.13This first draft policy, presented by the CTV

sub-committee, argued that the three critical elements in community television were direct access, direct control and community orientation. Accountability to viewers would be achieved through feedback mechanisms, including feedback on specific programs during and after broadcasts, and regular feedback on programming policy through public meetings and the appointment of a programming ombudsman. Also, there should be no separate category licences for community television stations, and “all revenues of community television should be used solely for promoting the objectives of community television.”

The PBAA said that “funding conditions and

13. First Draft o f a Policy on Community Television,PBAA CTV suF-committee, Wodonga, December 1978.


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-subsidizations;

(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 encourage stations to undertake appropriate research and evaluation.

The PBAA will also “request the Commonwealth 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 inquiry into community television that would help determine the most desirable form of implementing 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.

Foreground: “When you go to bed with the government you get rather more than a good

night’s sleep. . . ”

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 hearings, leaving Queen’s Counsels and chroma-key- blue-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 community.

An Ethnic Television Review Panel had been established under the chairmanship of the eminent and inimical criminal lawyer, Mr Frank

14. (in) Studio discussion program on ethnic television. Broadcast ABV-2, Sunday, July 22, 1979.

Galbally, who on June 24 informed ABC television 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, videomakers and filmmakers, employers and unemployed 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 looking 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 hardly 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 expensive 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 hidden agenda, about why a station, HSV-7, had failed to appeal against a provisional ‘C’ Classification 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 television. Focusing on the dangers broadcasters faced if they became too dependent on government 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’sAheme, “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 Telecommunications Minister Tony Staley to justify public broadcasting groups using divide-and-rule tactics with funding agencies. In Melbourne, Cassidy gave the argument new life, particularly in relation to the magnitude of finance needed for community television compared to radio.

Concluded on P. 680

15. ABV-2. 7 p.m. News, June 24, 1979.16. Proceedings: “Television — The New Direction”, MeF

bourne, July 14, 1979.

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTION ROUND-UP

International Production Round-upContinued from P. 634

Other films originally scheduled for production this year, but now delayed until 1980, include Michael Black's Pictures; Roger Donaldson’s Smash Palace; and a film of the bestselling novel, Gunner Inglorious.

The New Zealand Film C om m ission 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 Zealand 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 doubletaxation 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 f irs t S panish-Sw edish co production. It is being shot mainly in the Spanish village of Ronda, as well as Madrid, and pos t-p ro du c tio n w ill be done In Stockholm.

The few French productions underway include 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 shboting 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 telefeature called Kranz Mystery, an adaptation from Jean Cocteau’s The Two-Headed Eagle.

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PRODUCTION REPORT COMMUNITY TELEVISION

Censorship ListingsContinued from P. 635The School-waitz: Gorkly’s Mosfilm 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 Amityville Horror: Saland/Geisinger, U.S.A. (3290.78 m)Concorde Affair: L. Martino/M. Loy, Italy (2593.58 m) Dracula: W. Mirisch, U.K. (3011.90 m)Hot Stuff: M. Engelberg, U.S.A. (2509.92 m)II Regno Di Napoli (The Kingdom of Naples): D. Geis- sler, W. Germany/ltaly (3716.16 m)In the Beach House (16 mm): Berardi/Picioll, 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. Briggs/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. Hewitson, 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.


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 (2379.41m)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 Version’): 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)

The Iron Monkey: L. W. Feng, Hong Kong (2513.09 m) It’s Not My Body ‘Lady Delia’: 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 Blue”: 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. Barthonia, 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)

1. Previously shown on March, 1979 List.2. Previously shown on July, 1974 List.

SPECIAL CONDITIONS: For showing not more than twice at 1979 Canberra Film Festival and then exported.

Attention, Les Enfants Regardant: 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-Munich, W. Germany (2875.00 m)

David: Vietinghoff Film, W, Germany (3425.00 m) Flam ing Hearts (Flam m ende Herzen): W.Bockmayer/R. Buhrmann, W. Germany (2630.00 m) Good-for-nothing (Taugenichts): ABS/Solaris-Film, W. Germany (2500.00 m)Trilogy of Meeting Again (Trilogie Des Wiedersehens)(16 mm): Eine Regina-Zlegler-Filmproduktlon, W. Germany (1408.00 m)

FILMS REGISTERED WITH ELIMINATIONSFor Restricted Exhibition (R)

Sextet: Gemini Films Inc., U.S.A. (1701.17 m) Eliminations: 50.4 metres (1 min. 50 secs.)Reason: Indecency

FILMS REFUSED REGISTRATIONThe Hottest Show in Town1: P. & E. Kronhausen, Denmark (2277.50 m)Reason: IndecencyRaquel’s Motel: Fantasia Films, U.S.A. (1608.70 m) Reason: IndecencyRefinements 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), - fa

Community TelevisionContinued 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 television. 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 conference. 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

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 conference 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

would, however, be more than somewhat of a tragedy if television itself became little more than a bigger bag of chips. ★

For more information about community television contact the nearest video centre:New South Wales: Southern Mledia Co-operative,

11-13 Mattill-law Ave, Bardwell Park, NSW, 2207 Telephone: (02) 599 2522 Western Access,269 Bigge St,Liverpool, NSW, 2170 Telephone: (02) 601 4489

Victoria: PACT,13 Victoria St,Fitzroy, Vic., 3065 Telephone: (03) 419 5111

South Australia: Woodville CMA,3 Norman St,Woodville, SA, 5011 Telephone: (08) 268 1451

Western Australia: Frevideo,30 Mouat St,Fremantle, WA, 6160 Telephone: (09) 335 7525

Bernard HidesContinued from P. 647in 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 — CineTna Papers, December-January

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 vertically 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.

When you shot exteriors at Bond’s house, did you make any changes?

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.

Are there any other sets or locations?

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.

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 nationality?

Yes. That’s why, when the house was selected, we had to find one that wasn’t Australian, colonial or Georgian.

What about exteriors, like roadways and driving on the right-hand side of the road?

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. Apparently, 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-

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 disaster. I 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 department 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.

That was the onljT area of dispute, and everything else has

tion designer, did you find that any gone rather nicely. W

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Forthcoming courses include:January 1980— 1 week black and white portapak workshop

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1 week colour video course 1 week advanced television course

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Script and narration writing course May 1980— 1 week animation workshop

1 week colour video workshop production management course

June 1980— 1 week advanced 16mm production workshop1 week documentary writing course

The Open Program also produces a wide range of resources — film, video and print — specifically designed for media education.For further inforjnation telephone the Open Program on (02) 887 1666 or write to Post Office Box 126, North Ryde, 2113.

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Interviews (with everyone in film), reviews, and series such as “Australian Films” , “Talking Pictures”, “ Film and Politics” and “Australian Experimental Film Makers” are what you’ve heard so far on Triple-R.

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As producers of Features, Documentaries, Commercials, Industrial and Short films, we offer a comprehensive film production service which includes all facets of post-production as well as film crews for both 16mm and 35mm.

Why not give us a call on (03) 592 0108 anytime and let us talk film with you.

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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 EACHNIGHT OF THE SHOOT. . .double head Siemens projectorCUT 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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Where it’s hard to tell the difference . . .CVA/2/AK&A

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