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To G eth in C reagh the ideal dubbing environm ent has no walls.Gethin, I believe you

started as a sound recordist in New Zealand. How did you get into the business?

Right from a young kid I wanted to be in radio, not in film at all. As a kid it was all white coated technicians that I saw at the radio stations. From secondary school I went straight on to a traineeship with the NZBG. I gravitated to an audio studio first of all, then on to outside location recording local news and current affairs. Actually, when they first put me into TV I was quite upset.I thought Id never get to sound.

You came to Australia in 1969. Is that right?

Yes, I didn’t think the horizon was big enough in New Zealand and I thought everything was bigger and better in Australia.It took me another year to get into the Industry. They wouldn’t accept me at first. Finally I got a

-job as a sound engineer for 2CH. It was the days of “the snob mob radio’’ as they used to call it, with Phill Haider man. Next came the ABC and I was into proper dubbing suites. A good friend, Norm McDonald, obviously saw something in the way I worked so he put me on the desk on dear old “Weekend Magazine” It was there I first cut my teeth on mixing.

Your primary interest at that stage, was it in the field or in mixing?

It was still in the field. I was transferred to Hobart in the field but also mixing a little bit.

Then I decided to go to London and I went freelance for the ABC, sound recording all over Europe. When I got back to Sydney a year later I needed a job. They said, “well the only one’s mixing. How about you mix for us for a year and well see?” And so I did. I worked with Allen Allen, who’s the grandfather of mixers around town. I shared the number 2 dubbing suite at Gore Hill with him. After a year I said, “well, when am I going sound recording?” They said, “Gan you

do another year for us?” And so I did that. After a while I realised that I liked it where I was and I didn’t want to go out into the field.

When did you first start work on features?

It was three or four years later. The ABC had put in a new dubbing theatre, the old Artransa Park. When Allen retired he presented me with the keys to the place and I worked there for a year until I got a call from Peter Fenton at United Sound. Once again I’d run out of horizons so I left the ABC to work at United on feature movies, which is where I had wanted to head for some time.

Do you recall the first feature you did?

For my first two features I didn’t know what country I was in. The first one was called ‘Marebe! It was from New Guinea and it was in Pidgin English. The next one was ‘Manganinnie’ which had some English but was mostly Aborigine. Since that time I suppose I’ve done twenty five or twenty six features.

Which of those are especially memorable to you?

Oh, I think Heatwave’ working with Phil Noyce. We had a great time doing that and I loved the movie. I think its fantastic and he’s particularly good fun to work with. He’s the sort of person who can draw it all out of you. You’re sitting there sweating away, giving your all and he’s asking for more. You do it for him willingly but it’s exhausting work.

Is there any sound track you’re particularly pleased with?

The ones I’m really pleased with are the recent ones. 'Goodbye Paradise’ is an excellent track. ‘The Pirate Movie’ was another good track. ‘Dead Easy’ is another one, and ‘Captain Invincible’ is another good one. They’re all good fun.

How long have you been with Colorfilm?

Like the dubbing theatre I’m only new to Colorfilm. It was originally going to be a screening theatre, however, it was decided to go into sound. We’ve only really been operating since just after Christmas.

What are you working on at the moment?

Our next Australian feature is ‘Winds of Jar rah,’ directed by Mark Egerton which will be in stereo. There will be a Malayasian feature before that which will be the first one in stereo out of South-East Asia.

How do you define your role as a mixer?

I’ve always thought the actual technique of mixing is only half the job. I’ve watched other mixers at work and it always seems to be how you’re handling the director and the editors. You’ve got to get concensus in that room. You can’t come out with a grey decision and you’re the one they’re all looking to. You’ve got to produce the goods because very often they don’t know exactly what they want and you’ve got to invent it.

The dubbing theatre here at Colorfilm, what’s it like?

It’s fantastic. It’s one of the only properly installed dubbing theatres that I’ve ever seen. The equipment is first class and it’s put in the right way too. We can run more tracks than anybody else. We can lock in with time code interlock and are full hi-tech. We’ve got a Studer A800 24 track which is the Rolls Royce of multi track tape recorders which can lock into the system. We have one of the best dubbing suites around.

In your opinion, what is the ideal set-up and the ideal conditions to produce the best possible quality?

Plenty of feed back to the crew and your director and to your technical people. Lots of talking. No walls put up. A good technical backup is essential.

At one time the mixer knew how everything worked right down to the last transistor. He doesn’t anymore. You have to be too specialised so you’re always talking to your maintenance department to keep quality control up. And of course, talking to your director for artistic direction.

What about physically?Good ergonomics. Well

placed equipment so you can get to it otherwise you get fatigued. A good monitoring system otherwise you’re deluding yourself Also you can get aural fatigue if you’re working with equipment which is below par; you’re working blind, like the camerman not looking through the eyepiece, just guessing. And good coffee.

How close do Colorfilm come to providing you with those ideal conditions?

Well they’re pretty well there now.

Finally Gethin, Why Colorfilm?

I was waiting for that. I was going to say because Hollywood didn’t ring. Well, I’m most impressed with the technical back-up. If I ask for something to be done, a modification; like I did the other week when I was working on a feature, I wanted a Monitor Matrix system, and I had one within 24 hours. Which is pretty impressive. The technical back-up here is amazing. The company wants to get into the sound side. That’s been made clear to me. And if they get into something they usually make sure they’re the leaders in it. Their unofficial projections into the future are good. It’s an expanding company with good back-up and you get a fair deal. There’s no nonsense with them.

Colorfilm35 Missenden Road, Camperdown, Sydney, Australia Telephone (02) 5161066 Telex AA24545

Leo Burnett 4.4533 L

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Phar LapProducer John Sexton Director Simon WincerExecutive in Charge of Production Richard Davis Director of Photography Russell Boyd

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DustyReviewed: 157

3-DSupplement: 134

Articles and InterviewsSydney Pollack: Interview

Tom Ryan, Scott MurrayThe Dismissal

John O’HaraDenny Lawrence: Interview

Christine CremenMoving Out: Casting and Scripting

Marcus BreenBest (of) Friends

Geoff MayerGraeme Clifford: Interview

Debi Enker

FeaturesThe Quarter and Letters Picture Preview: Careful He Might Hear You Manila International Film Festival

Debi Enker, Tom Ryan Film Censorship Listings Box-office Grosses Production Survey Picture Preview: Molly Picture Preview: Undercover

Film ReviewsDusty

Arnold ZableUne semaine de vacances

Tom Ryan Gandhi

Arnold Zable Fighting Back

Jim SchembriAn Officer and a Gentleman

Brian McFarlane First Contact

Barbara Alysen Monsignor

Peter Malone

3-D SupplementStereoscopic Film Foundations of the Stereoscopic

Cinema: Review Mike Browning: Interview Volk Mol: Interview Alex Stitt: Interview

Fred Harden

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106

112

116

123

126

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157

158

159

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140141142 144

Best (of) Friends Analyzed: 123

The Dismissal Reviewed: 106

Graeme Clifford Interviewed: 126

Managing Editor: Scott Murray. Publishers: Peter Beilby, Scott Murray. Contributing Editors: Tom Ryan, Ian Baitlieu, Brian McFarlane, Fred Harden. Sub-editor: Helen Greenwood. Research: Jenny Trustrum. Proof-reading: Arthur Salton. Design and Layout: Ernie Althoff. Business Consultant: Robert Le Tet. Office Administration: Patricia Amad. Secretary: Anne Sinclair. Office Assistant: Jacquelyn Barter.

Advertising: Peggy Nicholls (03) 830 1097 or (03) 329 5983. Printing: Waverley Offset Publishing Group, Geddes St, Mulgrave, 3170. Telephone: (03) 560 5111. Typesetting: B-P 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. U.S.: T. B. Clarke Overseas Pty Ltd.

* Recommended 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, No. 43, May-June 1983.

Front cover: Alex Stitt’s Abra Cadabra (see p. 144).

CINEMA PAPERS May-June — 95

AFC Policy Statement

The Australian Film Commission’s chief executive, Joseph Skrzynski, has announced the formation of an AFC Policy Secretariat. Skrzynski said,

“ the Policy Secretariat will have three main functions:• to assist the Commission review,

plan and define its policy:• to identify and research areas of

concern for the industry, and initiate, collect and develop an industry data base;

• to identify particular problems with a view to formulating solutions for implementation by appropriate bodies.

“ We see the Policy Secretariat as an essential development for the AFC, augmenting our policy and research capability, and look forward to continued consultation with the industry in matters of mutual concern.“ Policy approval for AFC initiatives remains with its commissioners, while the Policy Secretariat is responsible for policy identification and research.”The Policy Secretariat is headed by

policy director, Michael Frankel (until recently the AFC’s senior legal officer), who has been involved with legal, financial and policy issues relating to film and company legislation. He will be assisted by information and public relations officer, Sue Murray: executive assistant, David Court; assistant to the Secretariat, Joy Holden; and various research consultants.

Unit Trusts

Dear Sir,I noted with interest (confusion) the two

articles in Cinema Papers, No. 42, March 1983, relating to legal matters in the film industry namely: “ Financing Australian Films: The State of the Art” (p. 22), and “ Prospectuses: A Possible Solution” (p. 46).

The latter article states:“ Therefore, the solution appears to be membership of a unit trust in which the members will obtain no interest in the trust property, or income from trust activity . . . ”However on page 38 of the volume of

papers labelled “ Financing Australian Films” (released by the Australian Film Commission) it is stated:

96 — May-June CINEMA PAPERS

Censorship Changes

Various important modifications have been made to the handling of the censorship of films entered in approved Australian film festivals. On April 17, the federal Attorney-General, Senator Gareth Evans, issued this statement:

“ Regulations will be gazetted tomorrow to provide that films may be screened at recognized film festivals and similar events without the need to be approved by the Film Censorship Board.“ The decision to take this action has resulted from my assessment of the high standing and reputation of the major Australian film festivals over many years.“ I believe, as do the Governments of Victoria and New South Wales, that the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals, in particular, have now earned the right to be treated as responsible, selfregulating organizations, and that they can be relied upon to apply appropriate standards without Government censorship interference.“ The amendments to the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations will establish a procedure for organizations to apply to the Attorney-General for approval as ‘approved organizations' and to screen films at ‘approved events’.“ In determining whether to approve an organization or an event, the Attorney- General is obliged to take account of a number of matters, including:• the organization’s purposes;

• whether the proposed event is in keeping with those purposes;

• the cultural or artistic quality of the activities in question; and

• the general standing and reputation of the organization in question.

“ I believe that both the Sydney and Melbourne film festivals, which are ongoing organizations planning their next annual ‘events’ in June, will be accepted as clearly eligible for exemption under these provisions. “ Applications from other organizations and in respect of other events will be considered on their merits as the occasion arises.“ The regulations make it clear that the new system will only operate in relation to a bona fide film festival. Holders of permission will be obliged to comply with a series of specific conditions, including:• admission limited to subscribers;• subscribers to be 18 years and over;• a limit of two screenings of any film

at any one festival; and• all films admitted under these condi

tions to be exported at the conclusion of the festival.

“ The regulations are drafted in such a way as to enable the Government to monitor closely the standards maintained by the festivals to which censorship exemption is granted. The status of ‘approved organization’ or ‘approved event’ can be revoked at any time. It is anticipated that in practice fresh applications will need to be made by the major film festivals each year in respect of each annual ‘event’ .“ The regulations also provide for an

“ If a trust were to be used as an investment vehicle in a film venture the investors would acquire units in the trust again, in proportion to their investments. A trust is an entity separate from the investors for taxation purposes and it would be the relevant investor and first owner of the copyright in the film. The benefit of the New Tax Concessions would be received by the beneficiaries only by way of additional distributions of the net assets of the trust. A trust cannot distribute a loss and, under the New Tax Concessions, film losses may only be realised against film income. Accordingly, an investor/beneficiary may be unable to take advantage of a film loss should it occur. It may often be expected that a film may make a loss in the first year of income thus the investor/beneficiary is further disadvantaged by this structure.” Moreover on page 23 of the Cinema

Papers March issue William Marshall is quoted as follows:

“ . . . trusts whether unit or family discretionary (. . . be very careful about using any form of trust; 10BA does not allow for them.)” .The legal and taxation aspects of film

financing have, for the past couple of years, been nothing short of a “ minefield” from which producers are only just starting to successfully emerge. You may well have in these two articles unintentionally extended said “ minefield” yet again.

I believe that an article in your next issue which both rationalized and reconciled these two apparently conflicting views should be of great benefit to all members of the industry.

Yours sincerely, John Kearney

Acting Director Film Victoria

appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal against any decision by the Attorney-General to either refuse or revoke approval.”On the same day, Senator David Hamer

issued a press release:“ Senator David Hamer, Liberal Senator for Victoria and chairman of the Australian Film Institute, said in Melbourne today that he welcomed the new regulations from the federal Attorney-General for films to be screened at recognized film festivals and special screenings of the Australian Film Institute without the need for approval by the Film Censorship Board.“ Senator Hamer said that he had been concerned for many years about the censorship of AFI special screenings and film festival films and the harm done to government-supported film organizations (such as the AFI) in the past when certain films had to be withdrawn because of interference by the Film Censorship Board.“ Senator Hamer said that it was proper that the Film Censorship Board should continue to classify films to protect young people from unsuitable films and to act as a guide to parents so that they know beforehand whether a film is suitable for certain age groups.“ But in the case of AFI screenings and film festivals, membership is open to all people interested in the art of the film, who are over the age of 18 and therefore eligible to view ‘R’-rated films. In the past, the Chief Censor, Janet Strickland, justified banning certain films to the AFI and film festivals because she claimed that these organizations should not be able to show films that other

Brendan Archer (“ Prospectuses”) replies: The extracts referred to in John Kear

ney’s letter are not in conflict. Both Bill Marshall’s statement and the extract from “ Financing Australian Films” refer to the situation where an investment is made using a trust as the permanent investment vehicle. In my article, under the heading “ Stage 3” , I stated:

"the trustee would then vest the assets of the unit trust in the members . . . in proportion to their respective investments in order to ensure that the members secure the 150 per cent tax deduction.”

By vesting the assets, the trustee would drop out of the picture and the investment would be transferred to the individual members. This would ensure that the undesirable consequences referred to in the extracts quoted — i.e., the loss of the deductions by the investors (beneficiaries) — would not occur.

The Quarter Letters

sectors of the adult population were not able to view on the ground that it was pandering to elitism. Since no one over the age of 18 was barred from membership to the AFI and the film festivals, this was a very curious justification, said Senator Hamer.“ Senator Hamer concluded that he had been working for many years to have the regulations changed and had asked questions in Parliament, e.g., 25 August, 1981, and had made many representations on this matter to the former Attorney-General.”The former Attorney-General in ques

tion is Senator Peter Durack, now the shadow Attorney-General. Durack issued his press statement the next day:

“ The Attorney-General’s decision to create a special new system of censorship for film festivals is both unnecessary and elitist. Once again we have seen an over-reaction from Senator Evans.“ As far as censorship is concerned, the plain fact of the matter is that the existing system has been working quite satisfactorily. The facts speak for themselves. Out of about 2500 films shown at festivals around Australia, the Chief Censor has sought to view only five. Of these, only one was banned and that decision was overturned by the Films Board of Review.“ Senator Evans now proposes to approve organizations and then let them do what they like. We thus have two censorship systems and two different standards: one for people to attend approved film festivals and one for the rest of the community. This is a thoroughly elitist and unjustifiable situation.“ I am concerned about the standards which are to apply to the approved organizations and the extent of monitoring of their activities which will prove possible. In New York, they have an annual festival of erotic films. Does Senator Evans intend approving an application for such a festival in Australia?“ The present system of censorship has worked well and has moved more or less in line with community standards.

I believe it would be in the industry’s interests to investigate the possibility of providing that the members of a unit trust specifically formed for the purposes of film investment should be entitled to the Division 10BA deductions as if they were members of a partnership. A unit trust structure would appear to be an ideal structure for film investment purposes. I understand Phillip Adams advocated the use of unit trusts at a meeting of the various state film commissions in 1981.

“Snowy” Box-office

Dear Sir,I was amused by Jack Clancy’s “The

Man From Snowy River: Parents and Orphans” in Cinema Papers (No. 42, March 1983, p. 50). First, it smacked of that ripe fruit produced by Parker Tyler and bottled for posterity by Gpre Vidal in Myra Breckinridge. Even more diverting, Clancy chose to overflow out of a curious ignorance.

Pondering the “ contradiction” between the success of the film at the Australian box-office and the “ critical hammering” it received from Australian critics, Clancy mused: “ If one adds to the Australian success an interesting corollary, that (as far as I am aware) the film has enjoyed

The statistics show that the Chief Film Censor has recognized the special requirements of festival audiences while maintaining a discreet watching brief. Retention of the present system is much more preferable to the carte blanche proposed by Senator Evans.”

AFTS and the Industry

The following is an extract from the address given to the 1983 graduates of the Australian Film and Television School, on April 15, by the Minister for Home Affairs and the Environment, Barry Cohen:

“ It is almost 14 years since I became a member of the Federal parliament. In 1969, when I was first elected, there was no Film and Television School. There was no Australian film industry and what passed for an indigenous Australian television industry was at best mediocre and at worst an embarrassment. It was so bad, in fact, that when the first Australian films were made in the early 1970s I was so deeply prejudiced against Australian television programs that I refused to go to the cinema to see them; I was convinced they would be the same appalling standard as the rubbish that was dished up on television.“ Today a new Australian film is an event eagerly awaited by Australian audiences and increasingly by international audiences . . .“ As a constant traveller abroad, in recent years particularly to the U.S., I have consistently been appalled at the universal ignorance of our country. The image, if we had one, was of a bunch of tennis players and lifesavers leading a flock of sheep over Sydney Harbour Bridge with koalas perched on their shoulders and kangaroos hopping behind. Not any longer. Today, often as not, the opening conversation with an American or a Brit will be about how much they have enjoyed the latest Australian film they have seen. This may not be true of everyone but it is certainly^, common amongst the more educated

and those who seek something different and exciting in cinema.“ In more recent times there is evidence that Australia is now starting to crack the mass market with such films as Man From Snowy River, The Year of Living Dangerously, Newsfront and My Brilliant Career. There are well known films and graduates from this School have been associated with their making. Gillian Armstrong is a name that comes immediately to mind. Armstrong’s second feature, Starstruck, has been extremely well received in the U.S., getting rave notices from the Los Angeles critics. It has been on the Variety Top 50 chart now for over two months. James Ricketson contributed to Women of the Sun, the first Aboriginal television series. Christopher Noonan, with Captives of Care, Phillip Noyce, Graham Shirley: these are just a few names of outstanding graduates. “ Many more graduates have worked their apprenticeship in the television studios. It is significant to note that it takes about five years for a graduate to emerge to the forefront in Australia. This compares most favorably with the 10 or even 15 years of hard slogging that has to be done by the graduates of the European schools of film and television . . .“ Various governments have sought to find a system that both meets the needs of the industry and yet does not draw too heavily on taxpayers’ money. No system is perfect and the balancing act is a difficult one. Just how much should the taxpayer be expected to pay to help support the industry? It’s a ‘Meaning of Life’ type question to which there are many answers. However, one thing is certain: in spite of the ups and downs of the industry, there is no doubt at all that this is the industry of the future . . .“ I am proud of the work of the School and I am committed to its programs. Now that the Economic Summit has met and Cabinet must begin the unenviable task of ordering far too large a number of priorities for our August budget, I will be pressing to get a fair share of funds for my portfolio.“ The construction of your new building

nothing like that success in other countries, the puzzle becomes qreater” (p. 50).

Yet in Perth, Western Australia, The Sunday Times (March 27, 1983, p. 44) printed the following news-item under a New York, Saturday date-line: “The Man From Snowy River which had previously taken $14 million, has chalked up another $18.24 million in 472 U.S. cinemas in the past 23 weeks.”

Wait, old Clancy, old auteurist (a Clancy word) until the facts are in. But do, please do, give us lots more Tyler-ese.

Yours sincerely, Max Jones

Editor’s note: Jack Clancy is presently overseas; he may wish to comment on his return.

A Letter o f Complaint

Editor’s note: The following letter is, in part, a response to Christine Cremen’s comment in the previous Cinema Papers that, “ One review of A Woman Like Eve in a local student newspaper enthused that she ‘was a sucker for a dyke romance’ . . .”

Dear Sir,I am writing in complaint to one of the in

accuracies contained in Christine Cremen’s somewhat delayed report in Cinema Papers (No. 42, March 1983, p. 30) on last October’s Women’s Film Festival in Sydney.

I refer to Cremen’s discussion of Nouchka van Brakel’s A Woman Like Eve in which she refers to review of the film which appeared in the October 1982 issue of Newswit (New South Wales Institute of Technology student newspaper).

Cremen argues that women who see the film will “ feel obliged to react favourably to it because so few films depict a lesbian relationship that is not automatically doomed” . This is a valid prediction but why did Cremen go to such lengths of misinterpreting and misquoting a review of the film to support her argument?

Cremen was hard-pressed to find source material for her article and had to resort to using a film review in “ a local student newspaper” . By stressing the parochial source it is implied that the review is naively celebratory of the “ worthy” subject matter. Cremen described the reviewer as “ enthused” and then paraphrases a line of the review completely out of context.

The Newswit review of A Woman Like Eve is far from naively enthusiastic. It is critical of the melodrama, cliches and “ over-accessibility” and identifies its few constructive aspects.

on the grounds of Macquarie University is one project which I sincerely hope will get the green light. Not only will it provide jobs in its construction, but will enable the School to move from its present cramped quarters to continue its work of producing excellent practitioners of the twin arts of film and television.“ I cannot make any promises, but rest assured that I shall be doing my best to secure the funds needed for your School to continue with its worthwhile work . . .”

Australian Film CommissionProject Development BranchProjects approved by the Australian Film Commission, February 1, 1983 to April 18, 1983

Script/Project Development Investments35mm FeaturesSilver City — Limelight Productions; prospectus and legal costs — $21,488 Below the Line — Mark Stiles; 3rd draft funding — $5800Goodbye Adelaide — Petersham Pictures; 1st draft funding — $10,000 Alone Together — Stormbringer Film Productions; 2nd draft funding — $9500 The Grasshoppers — Jane Oehr; 2nd draft funding — $11,504 Love on a Tourist Visa — Jan Sharp, Verite Film Productions; travel costs to Indonesia — $2396The Umbrella Woman — Margaret Kelly Productions; towards preparation of production budget — $500 Nightshade — Samson Productions; 1st draft funding — $13,000 Compulsion — Terry Jennings, Scott Hicks; 1st draft funding — $7250 Earth Versus the Globos — Ben Cannon, View Films; 2nd draft funding — $22,500

Concluded on p.168

The review has obviously made an impression on Cremen, for her critical appraisal echoes the Newswit review in a way which she refuses to acknowledge.

It adds insult to injury by misleading Cinema Papers readers to think that a particular critique of a film in another magazine is amateurish and gullible, and then the author of the attack writes what is essentially the same review.

Newswit is glad to be of help with research of areas of film study which are ignored by the mainstream media. Just so long as we are correctly quoted and credited.

Yours sincerely, Greg Kenny

Film Reviews Editor Newswit

Christine Cremen replies:

Really Newswit, be fair: either I am (in your opinion) a lackey of the “ mainstream media” who has been harshly critical of your reviewer’s remarks, or a sneaky plagiarist who has stolen her superior insights. You can’t have it both ways. Nevertheless, where she and I do agree is in our interest in the subject matter of the film. However, even though I too am “ a sucker for a dyke romance” , I am unwilling to praise everyone who appears on the screen with only the most tokenistic of damns.


Interviewed by Tom Ryan and Scott Murray

The film s o f Sydney Pollack concern individuals going through a process o f learning, about themselves and their “roots” . Often they are helped in this process by their sexual

partners.Pollack’s Bobby Deerfield is one example. Bobby (Al

Pacino) is a racing car champion who is afraid o f life, too scared o f stepping outside his self-constructed shell fo r fear o f exposing himself emotionally. But through his relationship with Lillian (Marthe Keller), he is taught, as Lillian writes to him, “Life is made sweeter by taking a risk. ”

By the end o f the film , Bobby has opened himself out emotionally, letting the more sensitive side o f his personality emerge. He has also realized that one cannot cut oneself o f f from one’s roots, and that one is strengthened by understanding the part fam ily plays in life. A moving example is when Bobby gives as his address (to some fellow American tourists) that o f his little-visited fam ily home.

In many ways, B obby’s sense o f growth and increased sense o f personal freedom conveys Pollack’s belief in the importance o f individual struggle. In Absence o f Malice, Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) fights the injustice o f a false newspaper item and takes on the newspaper itself. He does not allow himself to be daunted by the corporate’s oppressive and impersonal might, and his victory is that o f the individual over the institution.

So, even if Pollack’s film s often end in the parting o f lovers (through choice or death), there is always a strong sense o f each individual’s having grown through the process. Pollack is a fiercely optimistic film m aker who sees nothing to be lost in taking a risk. A s Bobby says o f his brother, “H e’s kind o f a goddam f o o l . . . ’cept he tries. ”

S.M.

Left: director Sydney Pollack and actor Dustin Hoffman (dressed as Dorothy) during the filming o f Tootsie.


Sydney Pollack

You have done a lot of work in television and in many of your films there seems to be a critical attitude towards it. Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford) in “The Way We Were’’ is shown to have copped out at the end when he has become a writer for television, while “Tootsie’’ is clearly a parody of certain kinds of television. How much is this a product of your own experiences?

It is partially that, and partially an attack on the travesty I think television has become in the U.S. At one time there was real promise for television; now I don’t think there is. Apart from the public broadcasting system, where private stations and cable do some interesting programming, series television is pap.

At the time I was working in television it represented the ultimate compromise. You had to have commercial breaks, or the network had a different philo

sophy from the star, or you couldn’t hire someone because he was too far to the left of the paper product that was sponsoring the show. You were always frustrated by something.

But even then good things were possible. On Ben Casey, I did almost every other show in the first two years and some of them were quite good. Given they were one- hour shows done in five days, there is some pretty damn interesting stuff visually, and some nice performances and writing. But television has become silly now, and can’t help but be a little satirical in my attitude to it on film.

Is it also connected to a broader view of the problems produced by institutions? You attacked the media in “Absence of Malice” and in “The Electric Horseman” . There is the CIA in “Three Days of the Condor” and the ambiguity about ‘The New York Times’. It is as if in your films institutions are

Hubbell (Robert Redford), after having sold out to television, meets Katie (Barbra Streisand) again at the end o f Pollack’s The Way We Were.

The soap opera in Tootsie: “I can 7 help but be a little satirical in my attitude to [television] on film. ”

constantly threatening that notion of the individual which is clearly so important to you . . .

Institu tions do constantly threaten and frustrate the individual. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy and you can’t get around it. That disturbs me.

I am part of this institutionalization now in the film business. There isn’t any film business. There’s Coca-Cola. There’s Gulf and Western. There’s the Trans America Corporation. The only one really left is Marvin Davis who owns Twentieth Century-Fox, for which he personally paid them $700 million in cash. He’s an oil man, but at least he is one man. If I wanted to, I could go and face Marvin Davis and have the satisfaction of yelling at him, but you can’t argue with an institution.

It is like trying to argue with an airline. There isn’t anybody who can do you any good because they are all working for somebody else. Nobody takes any personal responsibility. “ But you don’t understand. I have my tickets.” “ Well, I’m sorry sir. Your tickets have been sold to somebody else.” “ But who do I see about that?” That is a line I have often used in my pictures. It started in This Property is Condemned, and was in Three Days of the Condor, Bobby Deerfield and Absence of Malice.

When there isn’t anybody to see, you are in trouble, and there isn’t anybody to see with institutions because institutions aren’t anybody. Yet global economics and politics fertilize institutions.

One might look for personal relationships to provide a refuge from those institutions. Yet in almost all your films you separate your lovers at the end, as if they have to go off alone and face the world again. The exception is “Tootsie” . . .

Yes, Tootsie is the most optimistic film so far, but even there I

couldn’t quite bring them together as it was originally written, with therp embracing and walking off together.

Basically, I don’t think there are any solutions. There is only the examination of alternatives. There is no end to a journey; there is always another journey starting. But I do believe the alternative is personal relationships: they are the only refuge.

Personal relationships also have a dark side at their root because ultimately, and I hate to admit this, everyone is alone. The toughest things in the world you have to do alone: being born, dying, the gut-level choices you have to make in life, even in your career, even politically, to betray a friend or decide what is a moral move. There isn’t any real refuge for your aloneness.

I don’t mean to be as pessimistic as I sound, and I am very pro-relationships. I have been married for 25 years. I don’t believe it is an ideal solution, but it is the closest thing we have. I don’t know any other way to do it except, to try. “ But if it doesn’t work, Sydney, why do you do it?” “ Because there isn’t anything else.” Finally, that is a good enough reason.

“Bobby Deerfield” is, arguably, your most complex treatment of the dangers and rewards of relationships . . .

I’m glad you think that. The core of it was the irony of a man who faces death every day but knows nothing about life. He is taught about how to live by a dying woman who had this compulsion to give some meaning to her death.

The metaphor for me was in the story Lillian (Marthe Keller) told about her father dying on the beach, and this hand sticking out underneath. They roll him over and find this child, and Lillian says, “ It was so strange because it was as if my father had died and in his dying had laid the child, like an

Bobby (Al Pacino) and Lillian (Marthe Keller) in Pollack’s Bobby Deerfield: personal relationships as refuge.


Sydney Pollack

Bobby, Lillian and Carlos del Montanaro, the salami-eating, balloon guy who “is precisely the opposite to Deerfield . . . He takes risks. ’’ Bobby Deerfield.

Lydia (Annie Duperey) and Bobby: “Personal relationships also have a dark side . . . But [they are] the closest [solution] we have. I don’t know any other way to do it except to try. ” Bobby Deerfield.

egg.” And, of course, that is what she is doing: giving birth to Deerfield (A1 Pacino).

There is a wonderful sparking between Deerfield and Lillian particularly in their first meeting over dinner at the clinic . . .

Yeah, it is an extraordinary scene. I love it. I love the fact that they have their backs to each other, and she has to turn around each time she talks. And I love that whole thing with the magician and how Deerfield tries to find out how he does the con tricks. Deerfield can’t stand mysteries. He can’t stand anything that can’t be explained or understood. He has to know where every pebble is. That is why he picked a job that justifies so much carefulness. That is why the film opens with him walking the racing track; he previews every step he is going to take. That is why he always repeats a question before answering, to give himself as much time as possible. “ Where am I going? . . . I’m going over there.” “ How am I? . . . I’m fine.”

You must have been disappointed by the general failure of “Bobby Deerfield” to win an audience . . .

It didn’t work anywhere; yet it is a favorite of mine.

I know you shouldn’t defend films that fail, but I am stubborn about it. Everybody seems to have thought I was trying to make a tear-jerker, but that’s not what I was trying to do at all.

It was important to me that people at least recognized the ways in which the theme of Bobby Deerfield, one that I’m terribly interested in, and which has been in all the pictures, although to a lesser degree than in Deerfield, is about roots. By that I mean people wandering away from where they belong, culturally, emotionally or physically. Bobby was a guy who cut himself off and, for whatever reasons, tried to deny who and what he really was. He assumed a constructed identity, which a lot of people do.

There are very few people who don’t diverge from their roots. At some time they encounter a teacher, a piece of literature or something that makes them believe that they have been doing it all wrong, and that they have to change. They move to San Francisco or New York or London. They start a whole new life. But it is like cutting a tree off and then re-planting it: it is never as strong as when the original roots are kept. Most people find themselves returning to home base.

Coming to terms with one’s past, finding answers there, emerges as a major theme in most of your films. In “Absence of Malice” , Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) tries to do things independently of his father’s methods, but has to resort to them in the end. In “The Electric Horseman” , Sonny Steele (Robert Redford) has betrayed his past and has to take a course back to it . . .

Exactly. It is in all those films — and very much so in The Yakuza — but for some reason it seemed to work more palatably for audiences in those films than in Deerfield. For me, Deerfield was the more perfect expression of those themes, but people either found it boring to watch a film about a boring man, or were not prepared for Pacino in that kind of role after Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico; they expected more fireworks.

In fact, you originally had Paul Newman cast as Bobby Deerfield, which would have made it a very different film . . .

I don’t think it would have been as true a film, but commercially it probably would have been more successful.

Newman was the first to try and get me to do it, because it was written for him by Alvin Sargent. We had a meeting down at Newman’s beach house, and he really wanted to do it badly. But I had just made The Yakuza, which was a failure, so I chickened out and did Three Days of the Condor. But

as soon as Condor was successful, I dug Alvin’s screenplay out of my drawer and re-read it. I became totally fascinated.

You seem to have developed a very productive relationship with Sargent . . .

Alvin and I have worked together on many films. He and David Rayfield, whom I first met when I was working in television, are the two guys with whom I work all the time — sometimes credited, sometimes not. They worked together on The Way We Were, totally uncredited. It was the first time I had been able to work with two writers at once, in the same room. The same thing happened on The Electric Horseman.

Alvin is a man who thinks of himself as missing life, a cloistered man who is afraid to take a chance. He is about 54 years old, very youngish looking and very attractive. But he was locked for 27 years in a marriage. His wife was terrific, and he has great affection for her, but it was the wrong marriage for him. He knew it. He hid upstairs in a room and typed all day long.

Actually, he has just re-married and his life is opening up beautifully. H e’s done Julia and Ordinary People, and won three Academy Awards. He is just blossoming.

Alvin writes very much out of his gut, but is disciplined enough as a craftsman to put it in a theatrical form. He writes fables about himself, but not narcissistic, autobiographical stuff. He also has a bizarre imagination. Only he could have written that crazy character, Carlos del Montanaro, the balloon guy eating the salami in Bobby Deerfield. Who is this guy who is racing balloons? I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense in the world, except he is precisely the opposite to Deerfield. He is not where he belongs. He takes risks. He speaks to strangers, flies in the sky. He does all kinds of crazy things.

And in The Electric Horseman he came up with Gus (Will Hare),

that crazy guy who lived out by a trailer park. He is the salami character in another guise.

You know, it was an interesting experience making Bobby Deerfield, because I was away from home, from my own roots. We shot it all in Europe, in strange, unreal places like Leichebad in Switzerland. Hospitals like that really exist, with elixirs, health spas and everything.

Then we followed their journey, down the mountain to Belaggio and Lake Como. We stayed at the Villa Serbaloni, a strange place out of some Baroque past. And here is this stylish American who is not connected to anything, and who is defined by whatever woman he is with.

The woman in the beginning, of course, was his mother, who insulated him totally from the world. And then there is Lydia, played by Annie Duperey, who was wonderful. I love it when he comes back down the mountain and Lydia is waiting for him: “ I will make you an omelette.” “ I don’t want an omelette.” “ I will make you an omelette and I don’t give a damn if you want an omelette.”

I loved another line so much I used it again in Electric Horseman: “ Bobby, what will you do tomorrow?” , which became “ What are you going to do tomorrow Sonny?” It’s the same question because that is finally the question. “ What has all this meant? What will I learn from all this?” And, of course, the characters in neither case can really give a definitive answer. Something has been learned, but nobody can say precisely what it is.

So all your films are positive inasmuch as the characters manage to grow because of their experiences?

They do grow. They grow by leaving home base and then returning different from when they started. T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets has a line which is the most significant line for me — it’s on my wall: “ The purpose of all our wanderings is to arrive at the


Sydney Pollack

point where we started and know it for the first time.” That is exactly what happens to people in life.

Many of your characters have difficulty making decisions alone, and in part this reflects the loss of a parental guidance or presence: Bobby Deerfield, Megan in “Absence of Malice” , Hubbell and Katie in “The Way We Were” , Julie in “Tootsie” . . .

I think so. I have never thought of it quite like that, but you strike a note. You remind me of my past. I had almost no parental guidance and probably spent an awful lot of my childhood involved in things with an ambiguous nature, like trying to figure out why there are so many contradictory things. Why could it not be more simple?

My mother died when I was very young. My father was a certain kind of a teacher, but more in terms of physical survival than in moral or philosophical terms. He was a very physical guy and it was more about taking care of yourself, of being an athlete. I could never speak to my father about anything philosophical.

One of the things I enjoy most in my life is sitting down and having long talks with my three kids — my two daughters particularly. They are very open with me, about everything — philosophical questions, moral questions, whatever. My oldest daughter is a freshman in college now, and on the way to Europe recently I stopped in Denver just to take her to dinner and bullshit. It is something I missed when I was a kid.

The thing I am trying to teach her, if I can teach her anything, is that you don’t need to have answers to feel secure, because most of the time the people with the answers are in as much trouble as anybody else. As Yeats said, “ The best do lack conviction, the worst are full of passion and intensity.”

I am very suspicious of ‘knowing’. It is almost impossible to know anything. Yet all the time I run in to ‘experts’ and, forgive me, film critics who ‘know’. But who the hell knows? How do you know so fast that this is right and this is wrong, or this is good and this is bad? It is hard to know anything and it gets harder as you get older and learn more. You face more and more moral ambiguities all the time. It would be wonderful if it were easy, like the way John Houseman talks about the war he was in. He misses “ the certainty, the clarity” .

I am a Jew who took a great deal of pride in 1963 with the Israeli situation. Now I am in a very compromised moral position, given what is going on. It is very hard to know what is right. It would be w onderful to just have an allegiance to an idea and say that under no circumstances are we wrong.


-T v ■ %

Katie takes a stand on war in The Way We Were; the rest o f the students make a joke o f it, rationalizing their inaction.

That is a small example, but it happens in life all the time. It happens in pictures.

The problem with that, however, is that constant reflection prohibits action . . .

That is exactly right. That is the dilemma in The Way We Were — you’re so busy seeing every side that you take no side. What you are finally doing is rationalizing inaction. I get furious with myself for rationalizing inaction. It’s like a see-saw, and that is reflected in the pictures, too. That’s why there is never reconciliation, because each of the people usually represents one point of view. And if I mine to the fullest the existential long view that Hubbell Gardiner takes in The Way We Were, and then mine to the fullest the committed point of view that Katie

Morosky (Barbra Streisand) takes, ultimately I can’t ever keep them together. The differences are too great. They’re irreconcilable.

Given that quote from John Houseman, “Absence of Malice” seems like a yearning for that kind of moral certainty because Michael marches in like a cowboy out of the West and rides off into the sunset at the end . . .

Yes. He’s the guy who isn’t morally ambiguous. He’s not paralyzed by weighing arguments. “ Hey, this isn’t fair” , he says. He doesn’t care whether it is an institution or not. He says the one great line: “ Did you ever try to talk to a newspaper?” I mean, he can’t talk to a newspaper, but he tries. It is naivety, but naivety is the only way you can do it.

I did the best work in my life

Megan (Sally Field), the reporter, and Michael (Paul Newman), the victim: “Hey, this isn’t fair. ” Pollack’s Absence o f Malice.

when I didn’t know what I couldn’t do. It is learning the limits that starts to cripple you. That is why filmmaking is a burn-out business, oddly. There are not a lot of old directors. And you have careers like Elia Kazan’s and Billy Wilder’s, and you wonder what happened. Why is it great, great, great and then stops? It stops because you begin to define yourself too much. You begin to ‘know’ or think you know. You can’t keep that sense of not knowing what you can’t do.

In your work there seems to be a constant concern with the feminine side of the male personality, and vice versa. It is clearly there in “Bobby Deerfield” , something Bobby has to learn about himself. Was it this aspect that interested you in “Tootsie” ?

It was the only thing that interested me in Tootsie: the idea of a man growing and becoming a better man for having been a woman. I wasn’t interested in doing a drag comedy. I wasn’t interested in Dustin Hoffman putting on a dress.

I think I have always been interested in this aspect without knowing it. It didn’t crystallize until Tootsie, when I realized that the similarities between men and women may ultimately be more important than the differences. Friendship between men and women is tough, but it may ultimately be the answer to reconciling all these revolutions and liberation movements.

We look around and some guy says, as though it is an incredible accomplishment, “ She’s my best friend.” And that’s not usually what happens. Usually a guy has a guy as his best friend, and a girl has a girl, and in the meantime the guy has a lover, a wife or whatever. That is a sad commentary on heterosexual relationships.

In the films I have done, particularly the early ones, the wise one was the woman. She was strong and taught the man, starting with The Slender Thread, then The Way We Were, Bobby Deerfield and The Electric Horseman.

There is a wiser, feminine part in men that culture has repressed. But “ feminine” is really a misnomer. If I asked any man to name the five most appealing qualities in a woman, not naming anything physical, he would probably say things like patience, sensitivity, understanding, an ability to nurture and kindness. Now there is no reason they should be feminine qualities, no reason they shouldn’t be in every man. They’re humane or human qualities.

Something very positive would happen if men listened more to that side of themselves and didn’t feel compelled to illustrate over and over the macho side. There is something very good about ambition, about personal strength,

about stamina and the ability to handle stress, and all the things that we think of as strong qualities. But it is always better if it is tempered with some sensitivity.

I have played around with that theme a lot. I remember Lillian saying in Bobby Deerfield that she had big hands like her father. It’s not wrong to have the qualities of a woman — nice hands, delicate hands — she’s saying to Deerfield. And in Julia there is the relationship between these two women, which was not a homosexual relationship but a closeness. It was a relationship possible between two people.

Some of this sounds as pretentious as hell, and I don’t mean it to, but global politics are too complicated for me. I can’t deal with it. But I know as sure as I am sitting here that the only way to deal with it is between two people, not between countries. Everything starts between two people, and it can be a man and a man, a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman. It doesn’t matter. If things are right there, then you can’t have wars.

You know, people say, “ Why don’t you make political movies?” I do make political films. “Why don’t you make moral, philosophical movies?” Well, I do make very personal films, but in the form of big entertainment. That is the way to reach the maximum number of people — a lot more people than if I make a little tract picture with an essay in it, saying “ Don’t drop nuclear bombs. It’s not good for you.” Everybody knows it’s not good for you.

No, I can’t do it that way, but I can make somebody cry genuinely or laugh or be sad or root for better treatment of a person. Even in its own odd way in Tootsie, you see the truth when Ron (Dabney Coleman) says to Dorothy (Dustin Hoffman) the same line that Michael (Hoffman) said to Jeff (Bill Murray) about, “ Listen, I never told her that.” You see the lying so clearly and you know it’s true. The audience laughs because they know it is the same damn thing that most guys say.

Now, you don’t think you are learning something there, but in an odd way, because you are not being lectured at, because you are not being moralized to, you recognize for a split second the truth of it all. It moves some furniture around in your head a little bit; a little crack opens. And that is all that is necessary for starters.

We have debated various readings of that sequence when Michael delivers Julie’s (Jessica Lange) ‘line’ to her on the balcony. It seems to me that Michael wants to be uncovered, because she is likely to recognize the line . . .

All I meant at that point was that fantasies are okay when you are in control of them but nobody

Three couples from Tootsie: Dorothy and Les (Charles Durning), top; Sandy (Teri Garr) and Michael (Dustin Hoffman) at the television studio, above; Julie (Jessica Lange) and Dorothy in a publicity still o f the kiss, from which the film “holds back”, below.

Sydney Pollack

wants all their fantasies acted out. Women often have rape fantasies, but that doesn’t mean they literally want to be raped. So, I was just dealing with the truth of that.

But, psychologically, I think you are accurate. Unconsciously, Michael wants to be found out right from the beginning. It is a lot more work to tell a lie than it is to tell the truth.

There is another question about the male-female aspect, and it has to do with why you hold back from showing Julie and Dorothy kiss . . .

They never kissed because Julie wouldn’t permit it. Let’s go back to the beginning. Jessica was directed to flirt with Dorothy as if she were a man. If you watch closely, particularly in the scene where Julie invites her to the country, Jessica is playing it like she’s flirting with a man. The reason for this is that otherwise I would have no love story. There is only one scene where they are a man and a woman, other than at the party, and that’s when the whole film is over, and you are trying to wrap everything up. So somewhere they have to be in love with each other, even if the girl doesn’t know she’s in love with him.

So, I figure psychologically I can get away with a little twisting of the ball by saying that something in Julie senses the man in Dorothy. She giggles, bats her eyes and flirts, to the point where some of the people who saw the dailies said: “ Hey man, you’d better be careful!”

Even in the scene where Dorothy almost kisses Julie, she waits till the last minute before pulling away, because, as she says, “ Obviously I had the same impulse too.”

“Jessica [as Julie] is playing it like she’s flirting with a man . . . otherwise I would have no love story. ” Tootsie.

Now, I don’t want her to literally be a lesbian because this is not what the picture is about. I don’t want her not to be a lesbian, because that is not what the picture is about either. All I want her to do is be sensitive and vulnerable, and she is sweet at that moment. She doesn’t shout at Dorothy and say, “ How dare you!” or “ Get out of here.” She very sensitively says, “ No, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault” , the way you would if a m isunderstand ing like th a t happened. But still something in her is drawn to him.

So, I think unconsciously the audience gets a sense of what it would be like if they were together, rather than if she reacted only towards Dorothy as a woman. I had to create some sort of sexual tension between them, even though it is bizarre in the sense that, in a way, it is coming through the dress.

Apparently, “Absence of Malice” was originally written for two male leads and you wanted one role changed to a woman. Given the kinds of relationships you have mentioned in “Julia” and pursued in “Tootsie” , why did you see a heterosexual relationship as necessary here?

I don’t seem to be able to do a picture without a love story in it; it is the pencil with which I can write. In Absence of Malice, it was never two men. However, we did think of switching the roles, the man being the reporter and the woman the victim. The reason we couldn’t do that was that you wouldn’t believe a woman being suspected of Mafia dealings. So I didn’t have much choice, finally, except to make the victim the male so that the misinterpretation of his connections would be believable. His

father was Mafia, therefore he’s Mafia; his father was crooked, therefore he’s crooked.

How do you feel about the representation of Megan Carter (Sally Field) in the film?

Megan is not meant to be a great journalist. Megan is an average journalist, and I think she is a fairly accurate representation, at least in the U.S. She follows symptoms instead of facts, sometimes. I know that a good journalist wouldn’t make a lot of the mistakes she does, but we have Pulitzer Prize journalists who have made these mistakes.

I was very careful before I did that picture: I sent people to the Columbia Journalism School to research every instance of journalistic malpractice I could find. I assured myself that there were precedents at least a hundred times over for every mistake made in that picture. And I documented it all. Plus, I had an excellent Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Detroit Free Press as a writer [Kurt Luedtke].

As well as the question of whether or not she accurately represents journalists, there is the question of her function as a woman. When Michael beats her up after Teresa’s suicide, it is as if one has been manipulated into being hostile to her rather than to the institution

Fair enough. But my only point is that finally the institution, and this is the irony of it, is the people. I don’t want to stop the free press and I don’t want to censure journalists, but I want to say, “ Hey, you guys, you have to do it better. I ’m sorry, but if you have that kind of responsibility, you

have to-do it better.” The answer is to be a little more careful about whom you give the by-line to in a newspaper, because that’s a big forum.

It is the same as whom you let make the picture. If I made pictures which were out and out propaganda, I think I would be doing a very immoral thing. It’s not a fair arena to give me $21 million, then spend $15 million more marketing this product and let me say anything I want, if I ’m not a moral man. I had to watch like hell on Three Days of the Condor to let Higgins (Cliff Robertson) and Joubert (Max von Sydow) have their day in court. Otherwise, it’s not fair. Higgins has to say, “ You can take this moral position because you’re eating, you’re not hungry and you’re not freezing cold. But when you’re freezing and your car won’t start and there’s no food in your stomach, what are you going to want then? ’ ’ I have to leave you on that note because that’s another wrinkle.

Now, I very much want to say certain moral, positive things in pictures, but I can’t put my hand on the scale and overbalance it. That’s cheating.

In “ Tootsie” , George Fields (Sydney Pollack) tells Michael why he hasn’t the part in a new play: “Terry Bishop is in soap opera. Everybody knows his name.” One could look at the casting of your films and say that you cast according to that criterion. You have used Sidney Poitier, Redford five times, Burt Lancaster twice, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Jane Fonda twice, Sally Field, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, A1 Pacino — all big names. To what extent do you have your eye on the box-office?

Megan and Michael in Absence o f Malice: ‘7 don’t seem to be able to do a picture without a love story in it; it is the pencil with which I can write. ”


Sydney Pollack

The use o f big name actors: Robert Red- ford as Sonny in Pollack’s The Electric Horseman.

This is a tricky point because it is very misunderstood. People believe that there are box-office guarantees with stars. That’s a bit of a myth because there are only one or two stars who are guarantees: Clint Eastwood maybe as a man, and Streisand or Goldie Hawn as a female. Redford is not a guarantee of anything. Redford made The Great Waldo Pepper, The Great Gatsby, Brubaker — a lot of pictures that haven’t earned their money. So has Newman. He had made nothing but flops between 1970 and when I used him in Absence of Malice. But those people bring a history onto the screen with them, an unconscious series of associations from which you can’t disconnect them, and which can work very favorably for you.

Take the Megan character in Malice. I had to be very careful whom I cast as the lady. I wanted to be as ambiguous as I could, so I needed a sympathetic lady to do these unsympathetic things. I certainly didn’t want Faye Dunaway because it would have been a nightmare.

Sally Field is a sympathetic lady the minute she shows her face on screen because of Norma Rae and because of the fact that she’s had to fight against the system to become recognized as a good actress.

Newman also has a past. You can believe him taking on that newspaper. There is something old-fashioned about him; he comes out of old-fashioned films. It would have been wrong for, say, Richard Gere.

The Way We Were would have been quite different if I’d had Ryan O’Neal instead of Redford. As originally written, the film was

a vehicle for the woman. My work was to try to level that argument out, and one of the ways was to cast someone who could pull his weight on screen with Streisand. And when Redford walks on screen, you automatically know you are dealing with an intelligent man. That is not necessarily true with Ryan O’Neal. He is a good actor, don’t get me wrong, but the immediate association is not intelligence.

With Julie in Tootsie, a kind of sexual shorthand lets you know right away that she is the leading lady instead of Sandy (Teri Garr). I was very worried because you could be confused: Sandy’s is the better written part. That is the closer relationship. Would people think that the love story is Michael and Sandy? Well, I had to cast it so they would know the minute the two met that the love story belongs to Michael and Julie.

So, casting is very critical. It is not done so much for money, although you have probably a lot better chance of financing if you cast Streisand and Redford instead of unknowns. But mitigated against that is you have today a $30 million film with the two stars as opposed to a $10 million one with unknowns. So you have to ask: will I get $40 million back with the two of them to pay for the extra $20 million? It’s a trade-off.

In your previous ‘Cinema Papers’1 interview, you talked about visual style in terms of catching the performance. We would like to shift the focus away from that. To what extent do you consciously tie visual patterns to thematic concerns?

You always try to. Visual style always works best when it comes out of some organic idea. Each scene has an idea if you want to push it to the wall. You ask, what is this scene really about? Eventually, that will lead you to behaviour, and to a visual style. You always try to label a scene emotionally: “This is the scene where Michael gets the worst news of his life.” You don’t try to explain the story as, “This is a scene where Michael comes and talks to his agent and finds out nobody will give him a part.” That won’t give you anything. But “ This is the scene where Michael gets the final blow of bad news to an already bad life. He’s had his 40th birthday. He’s not gotten laid. He’s tried three girls. He’s lost the Tolstoy play. Now he’s told the worst news of his life.” Now, that’s already starting to tell you how to play that scene.

Take the scene where Dorothy/ Michael and Julie are in bed and he touches her. It is shot in one long, slow push-in, and one long, slow pull-back. It is one of the very few lyrical love scenes you have with

1. Cinema Papers, No. 8, March-April, 1976, p. 320.

them, and it would be wrong to cut back and forth. What is happening is a growing awareness of how touched Michael is by her story. In a sense, Julie is undressing in front of him, and so, even though it is her talking, the camera loses her and slowly pushes it on Michael, because he is the one that it is happening to.

Conventionally, you would say, “ I have to do a close-up of her while she’s telling this whole story about the wallpaper” , but that’s not what the scene is about. It is about Michael falling in love with her because she is more intimate with him than she would be if they made love. That lands on him, and in order to see it land you have to concentrate on him.

Then, once you are there, you can’t leave it until he forces you. He takes his hand out of the covers. What is he going to do? It keeps pushing you back with the camera. He is going to touch her hair. And so it leads you to a visual style.

What do you have planned next?

Alvin is doing a project for me based on the life of Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Heilman. We did the script of Julia together, and then I had a schedule problem. I

had committed myself to Deerfield because I didn’t think Alvin would finish Julia as fast as he did. Jane [Fonda] was ready to shoot right then, and Twentieth Century-Fox didn’t want to lose her, so they asked me if I’d let Julia go. I got paid off and I did Deerfield, while [Fred] Zinnemann took over Julia.

That is how Alvin and I became friends with Lillian Heilman. And over the years we have talked together about doing their life. We were finally able to convince her to sell the rights; that meant having to buy the rights to all her books: Pentimento, Scoundrel Time and An Unfinished Woman.

Alvin has been working for just about a year now on that story, and we should have it in the next couple of weeks.

It will be interesting to compare with “The Way We Were” , because one can see possible connections between the two . . .

Well, our ideal is the same cast: Streisand playing Heilman and Redford playing Hammett. That’s what it was designed for. Maybe it’s solvable; I don’t know. Sometimes pictures about real people are very tough to do. You have more freedom when they’re all imaginary. ★

Jane Fonda and Jason Robards jun. as Lillian Heilman and Dashiell Hammett in Fred Zinnemann’s Julia, scripted by Alvin Sargent and Sydney Pollack.


John O’Hara

The Dismissal is a confirmation ritual, a lengthy television re-enactment of the public record which celebrates the most controversial constitutional moment in Australian history.

The six-hour, three-part series opens by calling attention to its own status as a fiction, a film about political events. The opening credits unroll against a black background to the accompaniment of piano music and the voiceover asserts the central reflective mood of the production: the attempt to order, political events and understand them in the context of their time. The production also immediately establishes a level of abstraction for recollecting these events: “ Looking back there are so many things. So many threads that wove the fabric of our lives.” The opening shots, in black and white, are of Vietnam, Nixon, the Middle East and civil disobedience. The images of street violence dissolve to the Statue of Liberty, and to a satellite shot of the earth in color, with Australia picked out in red.

This introduction establishes the tone, mood and subject material of the film, and deliberately draws the viewers’ attention to its own contrivance. The voice-over then makes the transition to Australia’s own political fortunes during this period of the early 1970s: “ But I want to tell you about our country and some things which happened then and nearly tore it apart.” The image dissolves to “ It’s Time” (the 1972 Labor Party campaign theme), shots in black and white of Gough Whitlam (Leader of

the Opposition) and the election of 1972, intercut with color shots of crowds singing: history and its chorus.

The introduction takes one through a brief sequence of events until the second Labor electoral victory in May 1974. Thén, on a note of impending confusion, and looming political and economic problems for the country, the cast of the production is introduced visually: pictures of the politicians together with images of the actors who play them. The contrast between newsfilm and its fictional reconstruction is made deliberately within the context of the film’s own narrative style, which includes elements of the silent film and television soap opera.

This style develops as the 1983 fictional representation increasingly takes over the recall of past events drawn from newsfilm. The past becomes the present as the film moves into longer sequences about Jim Cairns (Minister for Overseas Trade), Rex Connor (Minister for Minerals and Energy) and the opposition Liberal party. Deliberate notations indicate the context and progression of events: dates and place titles locate Canberra, parliament house, ministers’ offices; the slow unravelling of the loans affair.

The Dismissal is a restrained, terse and tactful historical reproduction. The program refuses to go beyond the historical record — at least the public record — in what it will depict. Relations between Rex Connor (Bill Hunter)

and Tirith Khemlani (Harry Weis), or between Jim Cairns (John Hargreaves) and Junie Morosi (Neela Day), do not become speculative or sentimental. The opening image of Khemlani is one of a seedy, dubious, small-time operator, as ingratiating as a branch bank- teller who sees the chance for an unexpected promotion. The program dramatizes the character effectively while refusing to depict him in the more conventional cliches drawn from television, police or spy series.

A great deal of the critical attention given the series has concentrated on its supposed historical accuracy. How well or badly does Max Phipps play Gough Whitlam, how convincing is John Stanton as Malcolm Fraser, how insinuating is John Meillon as Sir John Kerr? The central historical dynamic in the events of 1975 is taken for granted , and critical attention focuses on the program’s supposed fidelity to the public record. Jim McClelland, former Minister for Labor in the Whitlam Government, wrote: “As a participant in the events with which it deals, I can attest that it makes a pretty good stab at the truth.” (Green Guide, The Age, March 17, 1983.)

But perhaps the central critical problem in this series is to accept the'drama in the terms it establishes, and not to take it simply as a historical re-enactment in which the characters, plot and conclusion are already known. This is neither costume-drama nor simply spectacle. The Dismissal sets up its own images,


The Dismissal

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Max Phipps as Gough Whitlam: creating “a fictional world which depends its own dramatic terms”. The Dismissal.

on the patterns o f meanings it establishes in John Stanton as Malcolm Fraser: ‘‘coldness, aloofness and persistence”. The Dismissal.

metaphors and explanations, and establishes, too, its own tone and point of view within which events can be considered, and general reflections about politics and democracy sustained.

Perhaps at the outset one should dismiss the question of whether the series represented politics in a way that contemporary viewers, who lived through these events, could find their depiction credible. It has been said, for example, that Fraser’s coldness, aloofness and persistence were well-represented, but that Whitlam was reduced to a strutting figure of pretension without dignity. But in terms of our approach to television criticism, the question is neither about the skill with which certain figures have been impersonated, nor about the ways in which the public record of the times has been reconstructed. This approach implies a constant comparison between images drawn from ‘real life’ ahd the representation of precisely these events and characters on the screen.

What in fact happens with television drama, and quite self-consciously with this one, is that it constructs a fictional world which depends for its strength and conviction not on how well it can steer a middle course between partisan political views, nor on the accuracy of its characterizations, but on the patterns of meanings it establishes in its own dramatic terms. These patterns involve the ways in which the program makes politics into drama, and the

historical explanation it proposes for the events that unfold.

The opening shots of the parliament establish the program’s interest in the mechanics and forms of power, rather than in its dynamic. These are followed by lists of characters and actors in the production; the lengthy introduction to the series is brought to an end with a freeze-frame of Khemlani arriving in Australia on November 11, 1974. A voice-over tells that “ exactly one year later the Labor Government will be dismissed from office.’’ The form suggests Greek drama — reflection and implication — rather than television realism with its suspense and intrigue.

The Dismissal is only briefly and sketchily set in context of world affairs, just enough to identify Australia on the map; the program is mainly interested in the accuracy of its own chronology. The Australian history of the time, as recollected and imaged on the screen, is a public record of events and issues drawn from the media agenda. Constant recourse to newspapers, to credits about dates and places and to photographs of figures, such as Don Dunstan or Mick Young, reinforce the impression that the film’s reconstruction is indistinguishable from the real events of the time.

Nonetheless, certain dramatic images and themes are developed: the parliamentary rowdyism, with the Speaker shouting for order (the decision-makers become the dramatic chorus); the focus on the mechanics of power

broking in the absence of any concentration on the underlying dynamic; the recourse to conventional notions of the naive idealism of Labor ministers and the cynical lust for power of their Liberal counterparts; and the theme that the destruction of political conventions endangers democracy. There is also a sense of the contrast established between government and people, stressing popular support for the Labor Government’s right to serve out its term of office.

An early interview sequence shows Whitlam responding to a question about NSW Premier Tom Lewis’ decision to replace a member of parliament with another member drawn from a different political party. “ A fundamental convention of Australian democracy has been demolished’’, warns Whitlam, “ and democracy itself is in danger.’’ The style of the program is to concentrate on this deliberate statement of political and constitutional facts, while the images reinforce an appearance of austerity, almost claustrophobic in their emphasis on the trappings of power, the cars, offices, conferences and the parliament.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this series is the evenness of tone, the way in which it disperses anger, opposition and controversy in a lengthy development almost without melodrama. There is no contrived build-up to the dismissal: the suggestions of intrigue are carefully damped and, at the program’s conclusion, the images translate from the actors in their


The Dismissal

John Hargreaves as Jim Cairns: what is done cannot be undone. The Dismissal.

General, usually depicted with a glass in his hand, and finally represented as a kind of reluctant clown, self-im portant, edgy, responsive to any small indications that he too could play a part at the centre of the stage.

One is also told, in the end, that “ those who forget history are bound to relive it” ; this epitaph stands, perhaps, as a statement of intention about the program. But what is in question is precisely what is forgotten: that is, as The Dismissal sees it, the unscrupulous behaviour of the Liberal Party in opposition, behaviour directed against the government, the people and the conventions that safeguard Australian democracy. But the meaning of this behaviour, the roots and explanations of this constitutional clash, is not examined because the program does not attempt to reframe but to represent a set of events. This representation is clear in the conclusion when the drama collapses into film of Whitlam on the steps of parliament house, intercut with shots simulating the awaiting crowd.

Watching The Dismissal is to re-experience a slow, even, sombre representation of familiar events within a familiar frame. It is careful, respectful of the public record and unwilling to venture beyond it. This is its weakness and its strength, its concession to public affairs television and its deliberate attenuation as drama. It is an excellent representation of speeches, supplemented with sharp pen portraits but obscured in its larger view by its rhetoric: the voice-over, for instance, intones “ So silently the crisis nears its flood, sweeping Kerr on relentlessly into history.” But is Kerr the agent or the victim of this history? What is the relation of character to event? One can admire the

fictional world to newsfilm of the original events, as if to confer a degree of authenticity on the production and, curiously, at the same time to distance the viewers from any illusion that the program has presented the truth of the matter.

The evenness of tone comes about partly because of the restricted visual presentation of the political context and partly because of the voice-over which proceeds in a sombre and melancholy, not to say funereal, register, as though the sequences have been stuck together in a thin layer of slowly-setting concrete. The voice-over persistently strives for the significant, the poetic, the universal statement (“ And so it’s done. This thing that can never be undone.” Or, “ And so it goes. The tide of events bears us ceaselessly into the future.” ).

The narrative reconstruction steers uneasily at times between a recognition that historical events have specific and traceable causes and development, and a kind of resignation to the inevitability of the past. This occurs in part because of the way in which the program structures its images: parliament as a set of competing larrikins; Sir John Kerr set in the lyrical grounds of Yarralumla, with their suggestion of English countryside: the local political system and the vice-regal inheritance imaged in a conventional and relatively static fashion.

So what historical dynamic is suggested? The images of politics are narrow, the notions of conflict literal; the program veers between trying to dramatize a constitutional conflict in terms of an opposition between the Liberal Party and the popular will, imaged in support for the Labor Government, and a personal tragedy centred on the figure of the Governor-

Bill Hunter as Rex Connor: borne forward on the tide o f events. The Dismissal.

program’s refusal to entertain crass or polemical theories, while feeling that it may have limited appeal for viewers who did not live through the events.

In summary then, in terms of its fidelity to the surface of events, The Dismissal is convincing in the detail and accent of some of its characterizations. Some appear to be drawn directly from life, and others, such as Lady Kerr (Robyn Nevin), are etched from Shakespeare. However, these are not the terms in which the program needs to be assessed, and it deliberately calls attention to its own status as fiction. The program must be taken in its own terms, despite the pressure to accept it simply as a re-run of what everyone already knows. The Dismissal attempts to gloss over its authenticity by including references to incontestable traces of real life through newspapers, photos, television images and credits. And the relationship between its own fiction and the original events changes throughout the program series: i.e., the production does not establish an invariable relationship between its attempt to reproduce events and explain them by reframing them. For example, its explanation of the powerbroking in the Liberal Party does not go beyond the the corridors and cubby-holes images of popular fiction.

The overall objective of imaging a historical dynamic finally tends to collapse into the assertion that tides of history take people with them, but this surfing analogy is never a very convincing explanation. The final respect for the public record commits The Dismissal to a ritual function, with a sacramental status and a kind of deliberate transparency, of a similar though different order as the Anzac ceremony: Lest We Forget. ★

Whitlam in parliament, playground fo r competing larrikins. The Dismissal.


Set in Sydney in the 1930s, Careful, He Might Hear You is the poignant but nightmare story o f a boy caught in a bitter custody battle between two sisters. The boy is called PS, and he is seven years old.

Based on the novel by Sumner Locke Elliot, the film contrasts Lila, the anxious but tough suburban housewife, with her sister Vanessa, who is worldly, rich and beautiful, and who covets PS to

fill the emptiness o f her past.

Careful, He Might Hear You is directed by Carl Schultz, from a screenplay by Michael Jenkins, for producer Jill Robb. Director of photography is John Seale, production designer John Stoddard and costume designer Bruce Finlay son.

Right: Aunt Lila (Robyn Nevin) and PS (Nicholas Gledhill). Below: PS is surrounded by a team o f well-meaning aunts and Uncle George (Peter Whitford), his salvation.

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Above left and right: PS, the centre o f a custody battle. Below: Lila, tough suburban housewife”.

‘the anxious but

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WmmAbove left: Aunt Vanessa (Wendy Hughes), PS and Lila. Above right: PS and Vanessa. Below left: PS plays cricket with some old chums. Below right: Vanessa.

Christine Cremen interviews the co-scriptwriter of

You are best known at the moment for your co-authorship of “Goodbye Paradise” , but in fact you have worked more frequently as a director . . .

I began as an actor, graduated from NIDA, and worked in radio and television. I then began directing in theatre, and writing for theatre and television. I found that it was directing that I liked doing most.

Then I decided, having always loved film, that film was the future, for this country and for me, so I got some money together and made a few short films. I applied to the Australian Film and Television School, which I saw as a good way to obtain all the necessary technical background I lacked. I was accepted, and, at the time of my biggest success in the theatre, I went back to school.

How long ago was this?

I was in the second intake. We graduated in 1979 into a film industry that was already on a downward turn, until the tax boom of 1981-82.

Is that why you went into directing ‘soap operas’ for television . . .

Yes. I soon decided that rather than sit around trying to get one script off the ground, which I had done, I would be much better off working for commercial television and producing an enormous amount. That way I could gain experience in coverage, working with large crews and being a hired hand.

What do you think of soap operas? Do you think you are ‘debasing your talents’ by working on them?

“ Soap opera” is an awful term; it is something that has come to us, in fact, from American radio, and it is slightly inaccurate. Soap operas are mostly melodramas, and melodrama is a completely

Denny Lawrence, with two images from Goodbye Paradise, which Lawrence cowrote with Bob Ellis.

legitimate form of drama. And it is one that obviously appeals to a lot of people.

Guilty pleasures?

- Yes, guilty pleasures. Academics are very keen to analyze them and to find that there is no reason to be guilty about liking them. However, the unfortunate thing in this country is that they are produced far too rapidly, on quite unrealistic schedules. This results in storylines, which after all are pretty trite in any melodrama, always being exposed as trite. The plotline is invariably rather thin and, if it happens to be built on relationships, then there isn’t anything much to distract. If there are car chases, or karate fights or something, there is a lot of action and people don’t really worry about the plot.

Are you saying that there can be quality soaps?

There have been and will be, but only if it is realized that you can produce two hours of television a week without killing everybody off.

Do you think “The Restless Years” , which you directed, or indeed “Sons and Daughters” are quality products?

No, by definition, they are not. In fact, by admission of the people making television, there is a distinction between soaps and so- called “ quality television” .

Do you mean adaptations of Australian novels, such as “Lucinda Brayford” ?

Yes. A Town Like Alice, Last Outlaw, Water Under the Bridge and Against the Wind are examples of “ quality television” . What people really should be saying is “ quantity television” , I suppose. Against the Wind is a quality melodrama, but it is melodrama. It is just that they have a lot more time to do it. It is basically a good yarn. It worked a lot better than, say, Sara Dane, which somehow just didn’t seem to click.

“Goodbye Paradise”

Short Films

What films did you make before “Goodbye Paradise” ?

I made a number of short films before I went to the AFTS, and, of course, I made several while I was there. That was a great experience: all directors should have an opportunity to learn from mistakes. I would just as soon not have the films seen though, and generally they aren’t, distribution for short films being what it is.

Television is also a place where you can experiment because, although it is seen by millions of people, it has an ephemeral quality. It disappears quickly and people don’t have to look at your mistakes over and over. Better still, you don’t have to look at them.

An idea that is still current is that short films are what you avoid by arriving late at a cinema . . .

Well, I am talking about Australian fiction shorts which, unfortunately, are not getting that kind of distribution by the major exhibitors. A few films from the AFTS have been released with features, but not always with films that did well. The shorts themselves were very good.

The short film is a fascinating and difficult form and it should be given more support. I am quite interested in it, just as I am in the short story as a literary form.

One of your films was a finalist in the Greater Union Awards . . .

Yes, The Outing, which is far from being the best I have done. But it had a certain amount of style

Filming Lawrence’s short film The Outing, a finalist in the Greater Union Awards.


Denny Lawrence

and, because it was a period piece that was fairly well produced, it had lots of nice costumes, locations and vintage cars. These tended to please those of the general public who saw it. It was also a good story and people like it for that reason. But it was immensely unpopular with the Sydney Film Festival audience, who don’t like decadent living displayed in film.

Do they prefer to go to the Film Festival and be filled with bourgeois guilt?

Well, I didn’t say that . . . But there is probably an amount of truth in that, yes.

It was interesting that one of the Greater Union judges was from Hoyts, and he said that the only film he had seen in the finals that he would show at Hoyts was The Outing. Most people took that as a tremendous insult. I didn’t. It is very easy to classify a film that happens to look good or tell a simple story or be populist in some way as being necessarily bad.

But don’t you think this reaction against period films is somewhat refreshing?

Yes, we have for various reasons delved into our past a little too much. One reason is that it is easier to get away with things in period; you can tell a weak story more easily because the surroundings are much more pleasant to look at.

Another reason, which is quite legitimate, is that people have a need to find their roots to help explain where they are now. Australia is probably overdue for the kind of nationalistic fervor that hit the Americans 150 years after the pilgrims reached Plymouth Rock.

But what about this rabid nationalism? You were one of the people who agitated for preservation of the Amalgamated collection when it was. threatened by destruction not so long ago. I remember you saying in the ‘National Times’ that people were interested in Australian culture, but that they thought anything from any other country, especially from Hollywood, was not worthy of being saved . . .

Absolutely. Of course, I support totally the move to find and preserve old Australian film because our cinema heritage is very important. But it is hardly as rich, or, as I said in the National Times, as influential on the young Australian filmmaker, as the Hollywood product. Therefore, the seminal influence is undeniable. The fact that the paintings of some obscure Flemish old master are being destroyed ought to be of concern to an Australian painter today.

As the people who saw some of those films at the time realized, they were important films then —


Anne Haddy and Rowena Wallace in the ‘soap opera’, Sons and Daughters, on which Lawrence has worked as director.

important because they influenced other filmmakers. It is rather like being able to hang onto the plays of, say, Peele or some of the obscure Europeans from whom Shakespeare pinched his plots. It is very interesting to read them and occasionally you unearth quite a good one. It is just that people put things into slots, just the way that they always show Shane and High Noon rather than other Westerns in school classes. They are the ones that are talked about in the textbooks. A lot more, and better films, tend to be ignored.

Goodbye Paradise

I understand that the original concept of “Goodbye Paradise” was yours . . .

Mike Stacey (Ray Barrett) is threatened by Chubb). Carl Schultz’s Goodbye Paradise.

Yes. Being a genre buff and a fan of Raymond Chandler, I came up with a plot a fair while ago now which involved an ex-cop on the Gold Coast getting into a Chandler-esque situation. It is definitely a kind of decadent Southern Californian territory up there, and it seemed an ideal setting. Unfortunately, the plot I had involved a quasi-religious commune headed by a guy who turned out to be a charlatan, and a lot of them got killed off. So when the Jonestown thing came along, I thought it would be in poor taste, or at least be seen as a rip-off, so I put it away.

Then some years later, while talking to Bob Ellis, this idea came up and it appealed to Bob. He was negotiating with the New South Wales Film Corporation to

one o f his old police associates, Curly (Paul

produce a package of scripts, so we submitted the idea to them. They liked it a lot and, presto, we had a bit of money to go up to the Gold Coast to try and write a script around my thin premise.

Is this the first time you have written a script with someone else?

No, I have been a frequent collaborator, as has Bob. I have always seen myself primarily as a director, and consequently have tended to collaborate, either in the theatre with actors, when I was writing, or in film scripting with other writers.

How did you and Ellis get on? Do you see yourselves as Beaumont and Fletcher?

I think Bob might have thought we were Johnson and Boswell. I won’t say it was easy, because no collaboration is. But film is a collaborative medium and this is something people don’t always understand. Very few people who make films understand the scriptwriting process.

Some people have been critical of the conclusion of “Goodbye Paradise” . . .

The criticisms have been valid. In some ways we wrote two films in one. I was writing more of a genre piece and Bob was trying to incorporate some of his personal politics. Also, towards the end of the writing of the film, the relationship was becoming a little strained and I think the end of the script suffered as a result. And because the script we gave Carl [Schultz, director] had certain flaws, especially the end, it also allowed him, I think, free rein to push his tongue more firmly into his cheek.

The in-joke of the climactic sequence at the army base is something a lot of people enjoy, but many others find it slightly superfluous. I must say I think that stylistically it pushes the film over the brink. It also is the only occasion in which Stacey is not present at all events, and I think somehow that is a mistake. He has a sort of omniscient presence, in that his voice-over narration is still there at Tod’s death, but he is not physically present to witness it. This is the sort of opinion that people have expressed.

The voice-over in “ Goodbye Paradise” is rather anachronistic for a film of today . . .

Well, of course, it is the detective genre and it seemed to me most necessary to conform to that genre. An ‘updating’ of genre, in the way it is done in The Long Goodbye for instance, which is more of a satire anyway, is somehow false, is somehow a betrayal of that genre. A film like Farewell

Denny Lawrence

My Lovely comes to terms with the genre much better. And that, of course, contains voice-over narration, although it is admittedly set in period.

I note that there are a number of films around with this narration device; it was interesting to see that two of the films at the 1982 Australian Film Awards contained it and they were both fairly well liked. People seem to like aural complexity in film.

Ray Barrett is a very Chandler- esque character. He has that lived- in, Robert Mitchum-type face . . .

He certainly has. Of course, we wrote the film for Ray. When we did the research jaunt to the Gold Coast, Bob and I met up with Ray and spent a week there getting to know him. So we really did put a lot of Ray in that script. It is probably one of the few times this has happened in Australia and I think we were rewarded for that by a great performance. I know that Ray loves the character and is very keen to play Stacey again.

Was Robyn Nevin also an original choice?

No. We had a suggested casting page in our script and some of those suggestions we felt were very important. In some cases we were not necessarily right. Robyn wasn’t somebody we had thought of, but her performance is a great strength of the film. In fact, another thing that people are unhappy with about the film is the death of the character played by Robyn Nevin. She does such a good job and makes the character so appealing that it really hurts when she is killed off. A slightly more insular, brittle performer might not have caused that kind of consternation.

I guess that is how we first conceived the role. But what Robyn does is really good and it was probably a mistake not to re-write the part.

What about the role of the ‘Harry Lime’ character (Guy Doleman)?

That is another interesting one. We hadn’t thought of Guy Dole- man. Because Harry is an Englishman, we thought of somebody like Anthony Quayle.

As with the casting of Kirk Douglas?

No, that wasn’t our intention. We hadn’t thought of his role as one that should be played by somebody famous to put bums on to seats. It was simply a question of the kind of actor that we saw in the part.

Guy’s performance is really one of the highlights of the film. It is a character well worth watching for, too, and one we would certainly resurrect, since fortunately we didn’t kill him off.

Are you and Ellis going to write the sequel?

Yes. In fact, Bob and I have recently been to South Australia which is the setting for the sequel of Goodbye Paradise. We are tending to call it “ Goodbye

- Adelaide” .The script takes place at the

Adelaide Festival of Arts and involves various visiting Russians and Americans in the kind of plot that you would expect from the first one. We have spent a couple of weeks just going around South Australia looking at various interesting locations. Things emerge from that kind of research trip which are invaluable to writing, and suggest that maybe such trips should be done a bit more. For

Director Carl Schultz and actress Robyn Nevin (as Kate), preparing the scene that ruled out Kate's appearance in the sequel.

instance, when we were researching Goodbye Paradise, I went to the hinterland of the Gold Coast and discovered not only that it was adjacent to Canungra, the army installation and the retirement spot of a number of doctors and Queensland politicos, but it was also the largest rhubarb growing area in the country, which I thought very amusing and well worth mentioning in the film.I know a lot of people enjoy the rhubarb. It becomes a symbol for something much more important that what it is.

People say a lot about the bright young directors and stars in the re- emergent Australian film industry. What observations do you have to make about the input of the writers of these films?

I think it has been a popular misconception that Australia doesn’t have enough good writers. I am pleased that a lot of people are realizing now that perhaps what we lack most is good creative producers — inevitable, of course, in an industry that has been going for a relatively short time.

There are a lot of good writers around, though they are not all necessarily working in film or even in drama. They may be writing advertising, journalism or fiction. Writers like John Clarke, who cowrote Lonely Hearts, and Peter Carey are moving into film. That is a very important trend to cultivate.

Again there are misconceptions about the filmmaking process even by people in it. The filmmaking doesn’t start the day the cameras begin to turn over. That process begins with the idea and the writing of it, which may sound like a truism, but it is a fact people overlook. You are actually making a picture when you are writing it. It is very important that the creative input of the writer is recognized in the cinema.

I don’t think for that matter that the input of the actor has been appreciated enough either, and it has tended to be the case that directors have come from technical areas and production in our industry, and not from the ranks of actors and writers. The best directors, if you look at world cinema, have been actors or writers, or both.

As well as writing and directing, you also teach at the AFTS. What is your province there?

I have been screen studies lecturer at the school.

What does this entail?

The area of screen studies is one that is under review at the moment and a new emphasis has been placed upon it in the course. The history is that, to begin with, the director of the AFTS, Professor Toeplitz, was the teacher of film

Lawrence with his Australian Film Award for Best Screenplay, which he won with cowriter Bob Ellis.

history. When he left he asked me to take over that area. I felt it was important to incorporate a certain amount of the examination of contemporary cinema, particularly the Australian cinema, and also television, because that is an area where graduates from the AFTS will find work. So I set about trying to widen the scope of that program.

I think the next few years will see a much more exciting time for the students. The teaching of direction is being approached in a more complete way, with emphasis on performance and content. That whole general studies area is something the AFTS is getting into much more than it has in the past. Although it has always recognized its importance, it has been very hard to get people to teach it. So the AFTS has been accused of being a technical institution. Indeed, it has produced very good crafts people, but it has yet to produce a lot of good ideas people. I think we’ll see this happening. The stimulus will be provided for that process to take place.

I believe the importance of studying what has gone before in the other arts and in film is absolutely essential. Students at the AFTS have come to me with ideas that they think are highly original and, of course, somebody has done it before. The students haven’t seen the work of D. W. Griffith or Eric von Stroheim or Buster Keaton or whoever it may be, let alone more recent and probably more infrequently seen filmmakers. Somebody once said, “ Nothing is original except what has been forgotten” , and I think that an enormous amount has been forgotten about what has been done in film. It is very important that we learn that before we can go forward. ★


Marcus Breen

Two primary aspects of filmmaking, scripting and casting, are rarely, if ever, considered or challenged. But they never disappear from the filmmaking process, a process that is hidden from view. The illusion is intentional, as the tricks of light and sound which our culture presents as film rarely take one behind the illusion and into the process. The exceptions to this dichotomy include the work of Jean-Luc Godard — e.g., Vent d’est and his recent film Passion — and Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night.

Australian film, generally, is preoccupied with the illusion rather than the process. For example, Moving Out combines narrative with realistic images to produce superb illusion. But no clues are given to the audience about the unusual process involved in making this film. For this, one has to go to the 24-year-old director, Michael Pattinson, whose idiosyncratic approach to scriptwriting and casting challenged conventions within Australian filmmaking.

Pattinson scripted Moving Out in order to investigate the particular reality of the stories of Jan Sardi. A second-generation Italian, Sardi wrote about his experiences as a teacher at an inner-city school in Melbourne. When Sardi was a student at that same school, 99 per cent of the children were Anglo-Saxon; today, the school is 99 per cent Italian. Says Pattinson:

“The stories Jan Sardi had to tell were very funny. They were the sorts of stories we have all experienced as kids which, when you look back and see things in your childhood, were not terribly devastating or alarming. The interest was to focus the story around those things we all experienced as teenagers. At the time, those things were life and death issues: today, they are of little consequence. But a story from a kid’s point of view, highlighting those issues, was interesting dramatic material.”But while Pattinson found the stories

“ humorous and poignant” , he had no “ inherent passion for the subject matter” . The desire to investigate the issue of multi- culturalism subsequently developed, but “ only through my involvement with the project” :

“ You are dealing with characters in a conflict situation, in a dual identity crisis and so on. On one hand, you have kids going to school and being Australians, and, on the other, these kids come home from school and have to be what their parents do not want to lose sight of. That is where they come from and what their heritage is.”With a series of stories based on the every

day conflicts of Italian adolescents, and with financial assistance from the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission, Pattinson and Sardi worked towards

integrating the story scenes into a complete scenario, to finding a “ thread through the whole thing” :

“ What we had to do was try and isolate a premise or theme. Well, that wasn’t hard. It is a story about change, about ‘moving out’, insofar as Gino’s family is moving from one suburb to another. Also, Gino is maturing and passing through adolescence. And it is about people coming from one country to live in another.“ Isolating that premise, we could then go through the material we had gathered in a very long draft, which probably was running to approximately 250 pages, and look at the material relating to that premise.”The conflict, change and struggle for

personal and cultural identity that permeates the characters in Moving Out is supported by a sub-theme of class issues. People who migrate from one country to another often do so because the “ other” , as opposed to “mother” , country offers something better — improved socio-economic conditions and a concomitant upward mobility. And so, in Moving Out, Gino’s parents decide to move from Fitzroy to Doncaster.

The concept of change is the most notable aspect of Moving Out because it allows an examination of some of the factors that operate in a society like Australia. Pattinson has


Moving Out

worked this theme gently, avoiding the temptation to judge Gino’s family for its decision, while allowing the theme to become something of a cancer for the audience conscience:

“ Gino’s father wants to get his kids out of what he regards as an ethnic belt into the Australian heartland. He believes, for better or for worse — I won’t make any comment on that — that his children will receive a better education in Doncaster than they will receive in Fitzroy . . . But I don’t think that’s real class consciousness on behalf of the boy’s father, however misguided you or I may think that to be. Basically, the father has all the best intentions.”Gino is finally permitted to resolve the

conflict of deciding whether he is Australian or Italian. The question in his mind, says Pattin- son, is “ Well, what am I?” And the decision is made, in part, for him by the arrival from Italy of friends of the family, who reinforce his waning Italian identity. Gino reaches a final conclusion, yet it seems to be a dilemma that remains long after the credits have rolled past.

Certainly, no simple solutions are offered. It would be ridiculous to attempt to arrive at solutions because what Moving Out offers is realist drama, tempered by sceptical optimism for the future.

Moving Out is not only interesting for its idiosyncratic style, but also for its unusual casting approach.

First, there was the problem of finding young people with acting ability: agencies had little to offer, especially when the second problem, ability to speak Italian, was considered. Third, Italian and migrant children — the children whom Pattinson was trying to find — are themselves caught up in cross-cultural conflicts. And, furthermore, adolescence, the fundamental common denominator of the younger characters, was already a complicating element in their lives. It is criteria such as these that separate the gentle incisiveness of Moving Out from the raw uncertainty of youth seen in, say, Hard Knocks.

The casting techniques confirmed these points to Pattinson when, after researching the film and auditioning hundreds of boys for the lead male roles, it became clear that Gino’s concerns in the film are “ representative of an enormous number of boys I met” .

Gino (Vince Colosimo), Sandy (Sally Cooper) and Helen (Desiree Smith). Michael Pattinson’s Moving Out.

By casting “ off the streets” , Pattinson was able to identify the realist characteristics of his potential performers while devizing a screenplay that would complement those characteristics:

“ I think that the way we decided to make the film, and it has been very successful, is to find kids whose personalities mirror and fuse very readily with the characters they are playing in the script; the only challenge for them, in order to perform, is to be themselves.“ My task as a director is to create an environment in which they are relaxed enough to be themselves. And there is only one way to do it: search for kids who really do mirror the characteristics of the players in the film. We certainly didn’t find that amongst the ranks of the average kid who may have been to elocution schools and all the best drama schools in the world.”This oppositional approach to formal

training and method acting inevitably invites criticism from the film and acting establishment. But if Australian film is to mature, the hegemony of the star system mentality has to be challenged. Furthermore, Pattinson believes that the cast in Moving Out learnt very quickly that “ acting is being themselves” . Realist drama can only function adequately when people are encouraged to act as they really are.

Selecting the main characters was a lengthy process for Pattinson and associate producer Julie Monton. It was organized in several stages and based on the premise that Pattinson and Monton would have to look beyond the ability of children to deliver scripted lines into their personality. Taking this “ risk” meant that the outcome would depend on a workshop program which lasted almost 12 months.

The problem was to find the raw material. Pattinson and Monton began by visiting inner- city Melbourne schools. Having contacted Drama and English teachers at the schools, photographic sessions were organized and “ hoards” of shots were produced. Combined with this were sessions during lunch hours when the children were asked to tell jokes. With 10 minutes to learn a joke — something, insisted Pattinson, with a bit of a story to it, where you begin at the beginning — the line-ups began:

“There’s a lot you can tell about a kid from telling a joke: some kids would just stand up there and recite the joke as it has been told to them, while others would stand up there and you could see they had performing ability, because they would really try and sell you the joke.”One practical reason for using this method

was the illiteracy of many of the children.The second stage in the casting process was to

match potential characters with physical attributes. Then, with six or seven children being considered for each role, weekend workshops were organized under the direction of Peter Sardi (the writer’s brother). Scripted lines were not considered essential at this stage; rather, the children were taught to “ focus and channel” their performances into something akin to the role they would play. This allowed the full range of the expressive abilities of the children to be examined:

“ We could start to discover what there was about this kid that is similar to the character. Through the workshops we narrowed it down to a much smaller group of people for each part, and, ultimately, went through the formal process of starting to see how they would go with some of the script lines. Then, formal film screen tests were done to see how they would come up on camera.”At least one long-term advantage resulted

from this workshop process: the improvization

and spontaneity that developed among the actors was readily incorporated into the film. And, after the lengthy workshop sessions with the final cast, their natural reservations about facing the camera were reduced.

Not only does this process involve a reappraisal of the traditional pressure upon actors to learn lines and characterizations in a short time, but it also suggests that patience and perseverance pay off:

“ Much of the ability and rapport of the teenage group who formed the principal cast is the result of a very firm acquaintance they had built up with each other by the time they arrived on the set on the first day. I expect also, without being presumptuous, they had some sort of confidence in me, because I had got to know them very well.”This process, particularly when it is success

ful, will always involve some exploration. In fact, the more filmmakers explore new possibilities for breaking free of anachronistic film mores, the more will Australia’s film culture improve. For film critics, viewers and makers, this is axiomatic. But the system of filmmaking, as established in this country, is too often a hare in rapid pursuit of easy glory. An example comes from Pattinson, whose work on Moving Out has been recognized by scriptwriters and investors as worthy of supporting:

“ Some people have seen the film and liked it. I’ve been offered different things to direct that have involved teenagers. [These people say] ‘Michael made Moving Out, got a few teenagers in it, that was a good film; here’s a script with teenagers in, can you have it ready by next week please?’ But, it just doesn’t work that way.”Any lessons Pattinson has learnt from

Moving Out will become evident as he continues to pursue a filmmaking career. At present he is working on pre-production for a new film, Street Heroes, again with Jan Sardi. One can only hope that he manages to avoid the temptation to enter the ring with the quick sale and production release merchants of the establishment.

As long as healthy films come from young and creative Australians, Australian film culture can move freely into more incisive criticism of this society. Moreover, as long as the process is always challenged and refined, the illusion itself will reap its own rewards. ★

Sandy and Helen: making the most o f the limited resources o f inner-city life. Moving Out.


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I Manila International Film Festival 1983Debi Enker and Tom Ryan

Charting a brief history of the kinds of problems facing the development of Philippine cinema, Bienvenido Lum- bero1 notes the constraining effects of U.S. colonial rule:

“ As early as 1914, Hollywood had the Philippine market all to itself, its products monopolizing the best outlets in Manila.”

This kind of control produced an all too familiar chain reaction. A control of the market effectively means a control of audience tastes and, though this can be less readily verified, it would appear that only those local films which pursued the generic models born in Hollywood were likely to find viable outlets in The Philippines.

For Lino Brocka2, the best known of the new Philippine filmmakers, the roots of the problem do not lie with the audiences, to whom others contemptuously refer as the “ bakya” (i.e., moronic) cinema-goers, but in what Lumbero identifies as “ the dynamics of cultural oppression” :

“ What can one expect of an audience that has been fed nothing but secret-agent, karate fantasy, and slapstick movies since time immemorial? A child raised on rock ’n’ roll would find classical music strange, discordant, unpleasant; an audience raised in an atmosphere of motion picture commercialism and escapism would regard a good film totally alien.”The problematic separation of com

merce and art aside, the current state of Philippine cinema can be productively understood in this historical context. Its future need not be fully determined by a past so recognized: the identification of the problem, together with an awareness of other developing national cinemas, become important factors in the initiation of the “ protracted struggle” necessary for the creation of an indigenous film culture. For Brocka, an important voice in The Philippines, it is not simply a matter of dismissing the cinematic tradition that has ruled in his country and providing his own substitute, but of creating an ongoing dialogue with his audience through his films:

“ The only way one can. elevate local cinema from its present ‘bakya’ status to an artistically acceptable level is to introduce gradual changes until one succeeds in creating one’s desired audience.”In this context, one can readily

appreciate the dismay of Philippine filmmakers at the terms in which the Manila International' Film Festival seems to have been defined. On the

1. Rafael Ma. Guerrero, ed., Readings in Philippine Cinema, 1983, pp. 67-79.

2. Ibid, pp. 259-62.

Opposite: Kitty (Liddy Clark), Slugger (Paul Chubb) and Cyril (Gerard Maguire) during a shoot-out. Don Crombie’s Kitty and the Bagman.

one hand, there is the rhetoric, delivered with unintended irony by Madame Imelda Marcos, “ the first lady” of The Philippines:

“ Art liberates Man. We, thus, celebrate his liberation. This Festival is a celebration. We shall have more celebrations — of magic, wit, and wisdom, the delight of the senses and the refinement of sensibility, without which survival and Time itself would be but a passing shadow on a plain of desolation.”

And there is the endorsement given to the Festival by the various luminaries who arrive to deliver their press conferences, to sing the praises of the Marcos regime and its “visionary judgment” 3, and to attend a banquet or two, at which, if they’re so favored, they may be presented with a Golden Eagle award “ for services to the Festival” , before returning home, usually across the Pacific. As the gathered press were informed on the opening day, “ This Festival isn’t about films at all; it’s about social activity.” The self- congratulatory facade of the Festival thus becomes a lavish side-show pitched at gathering international attention and prestige for the reigning regime.

On the other hand, there is the organization and programming of the Festival itself. A convenient doublethink provides the terms of reference for this, identifying the Festival simultaneously as a “ living museum” and a “ commercial market-place” , thus bringing it into line with the “ major” European festivals. Clearly, it is the latter characteristic which dominates the schizophrenic personality of the event, and, in terms of the day-to-day activity, the market side of the Festival is, in the words of a visiting distributor, “ where it all happens” .

Perhaps as a response to French boycotts and the general unrest that accompanied the 1982 Festival, 1983 saw the introduction of a showcase of some Philippine cinema and of some hitherto unseen Asian cinema (though one of the two Burmese films, U Tu Kha’s Chit A Hymya (Parity Of Love) appeared minus the first reel4). Most of the attention, however, was focused on those films deemed appropriate for an international market; the aforementioned films, and others which may have created a “ discordant” note, generally were relegated to secondary venues, or worse.

Given the need for the Festival to support itself, after the last minute withdrawal of government funding

3. Jack Valenti, President of the Motion Picture Export Association of America. His subsequent disappearance from the Festival seemed to coincide with the announcement that he had moved his Asian offices from Manila to Singapore.

4. A similar fate befell Wim Wenders’ Der Stand Der Dinge (The State of Things), from which the penultimate reel mysteriously vanished.

under pressure from the World Bank, it was argued that the programming needed to be pitched at capturing paying audiences. This, as well as the announcement that all proceeds from this “ Festival for a Cause” were to be committed to “ the mentally, physically and socially handicapped” , created a sense that any criticism of the rationale for or the organization of the

Press Statement February 3, 1983

In The Hollywood Reporter of January 18, 1983, copies of which have been distributed to the press at the Manila International Film Festival, it is reported that the Festival has been “ reorganized, so that Lino Brocka is now part of the Festival administration (for young Filipino cinema) as is Mike de Leon (for scenarists)” .

We would like to clarify our position with regard to the Festival.

We would like to make it clear that we are not “ part of the Festival administration” . We have co-operated with the Festival administration in areas beneficial to the production, preservation and promotion of serious Filipino films: Lino, by being a member (not chairman, as has been reported elsewhere) of the evaluation committee which chose the projects to be produced by the Experimental Cinema of The Philippines; Mike, by heading the technical committee in charge of subtitling Filipino films.

Otherwise, we regret to say that we have serious reservations about the Festival.

At the outset we would like to state that we are not against the holding of an international filmiest per se. Any attempt to disseminate quality films, especially from Asia and The Philippines, can only be commendable. Likewise, given the severe constraints on freedom of expression in the country, any effort to counter censorship and expand artistic freedom is worthy of praise.

However, we believe that these redeeming factors are not enough to offset the negative aspects of the Festival.

We believe that in a Third World C ountry w ith scant econom ic resources, the ostentation and extravagance accompanying the Festival are completely unnecessary. We have been to smaller international filmfests in

Festival could only be a product of petulance. What is camouflaged by all of this, however, are broader questions to do with festivals in general, the realities of Philippine life, the development of a Philippine film culture and a sense of national identity, and the possibilities for a productive movement for change.

other countries, and we have seen that it is possible to focus attention on quality films on a more modest budget, without lavish displays.

We also deplore the fact that the Festival has misled the public by claiming that the movies being shown in commercial Metro Manila theatres are basically the same Festival films being shown at the Festival site. This is simply not true. With two or three exceptions, the movies showing downtown are not Festival films or quality films, but cheap sex-exploitation pictures with little or no artistic merit.

We feel that under the guise of fostering artistic freedom and raising funds for the disabled, the Festival is encouraging the kind of cynical commercialism which is rampant in the movie industry but which a filmfest is supposed to combat. The deleterious effect of such a policy is even now apparent. Producers are drawing up plans to make, not serious films tackling serious themes, but more sex- exploitation quickies.

We fear that by succumbing to crass commercialism in this regard, the Festival has created a situation which makes a moralistic backlash inevitable — and which would ultimately justify the imposition of more restrictions on freedom of expression in the cinema. No better proof of this can be cited than the press reports that the board of censors, far from being liberalized, has been given broader and more repressive powers.

We hope that the profits now being raked in by the Festival will not blind the organizers to the fact that the primary aim of a film festival is to showcase quality films. All other aims, however worthy though they may be, are secondary.

Lino Brocka Mike de Leon

T.R.

The fo llow in g statem ent by Lino Brocka and screenwriter M ike de Leon provides its own perspective on the fu nction o f film festiva ls and on the place o f the 1983 M anila International Film Festival in the life o f The Philippines.


Manila Festival

The Festival was divided into four basic sections — Competition, Exhibition, Market and Symposia — and, ironically, the most disappointing aspect of the Festival was also the most revealing. Despite the gushing praise and glowing assurances that reverberated through the opening ceremony, the films entered in the allegedly prestigious Competition were generally uninspired. Although the 21 countries vying for the Golden Eagle Award seek representation at the Festival, most clearly reserve their major films for the accolades of the more celebrated arenas.

The Manila Festival may be in its second official year of existence, but any concessions that one was tempted to make because of the tribulations of infancy were soon overwhelmed by the sheer scale and pretension of the operation. The organizers’ aspirations of 1982 had become claims of achievement by 1983 and the prevalent official attitude was that the Festival had metamorphosed, not simply into the mouthpiece and focus of Asian cinema, but into an international festival of the standing of Cannes, Berlin or Venice. These premature claims were belied by both the standard of the Competition entries and the organization of films for public exhibition, which was at best haphazard. However, the comparably efficient co-ordination of the Market leads to the conclusion that the Festival is primarily concerned with merchandising. While this recognition is not intrinsically a criticism, it becomes an overpowering consideration, in view of the Festival’s assertions of cultural stimulation and global achievement.

It is easy to be sceptical of any trophy that claims to be “ an attestation to the Festival’s soaring reputation for quality not only in physical terms but also in artistic excellence as well’’. It is just as easy to tire of the much-vaunted, entirely-inappropriate description of the Competition as a summary of “ the state-of-the-art’’. However, it becomes totally unacceptable when the official entries of New- Zealand, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the U.S. are submitted as representative of the best these countries have to offer.

The only positive observation one can make about the New Zealand entry, Wild Horses, is that visually and thematically it resembles a Western.

However, its clumsy attempts to grapple with familiar themes are mired in banal dialogue, tedious stereotypes and an unimaginative use of the spectacular landscape of the Tongariro National Park.

When Don Mitchell (Keith Aber- dein) loses his job as a result of the closure of the local lumber mill, he decides to realize his dream of a life as a horse-catcher. The dogged pursuit of his ambition not only alienates his family and friends, but also draws him into a fateful conflict with a deerhunting company. His energies are then inexplicably transferred to an obsession with the salvation of a silver stallion (presumably the film’s belated leap onto the lucrative The Man From Snowy River bandwagon). Though he manages to ensure the stallion’s survival, the film concludes with Mitchell abandoning his beloved high country in recognition of his powerlessness to halt the onslaught of industrialization.

The film half-heartedly attempts to convey a range of conflicts through its characterization of Mitchell as an idealistic anachronism. He is depicted initially as the pioneering cowboy pitted against a corrupt, profit- oriented company, in a desperate attempt to preserve his lifestyle. As the situation deteriorates, he is coerced into a showdown with the company’s hired heavy, Tyson (Bruno Lawrence), and though he wins that battle he is ultimately forced to surrender his dream, and joins his family in the city.

With the exception of Lawrence’s wry performance as Tyson, the film has an inexorable predictability, punctuated in the most objectionable terms by its use of violence. The truly horrific horse shooting scenes simply exploit the emotions of an audience that repeatedly has been made aware of the cruel and mercenary intentions of its perpetrators. The epilogue’s attempt to contort the film into a statement about the need to protect the horses seems ludicrous when contrasted with its willingness to exploit its subject whenever there is the possibility of a gut-wrenching scene.

The postscript tacked onto the end of Jean-Claude Missiaen’s Tir groupe (Shot Pattern) is equally difficult to swallow, for it assumes that a justification for the film’s simplistic and irksome prejudices may be found in its source material, the legal archives. Tir groupe poses another fam iliar

scenario: a man’s quest to avenge the murder of his woman and, like Wild Horses, locates its troubled hero within a context of American cinema.

When Antoine (Gerard Lanvin) becomes obsessed with personally avenging the death of his girlfriend Carinne (Véronique Jannot), the film neatly avoids any relevant consideration of his role as a vigilante by juxtaposing him with Angry Young Man, James Dean, and Cowboy, Burt Lancaster. Rather than provide any incisive examination of a society in which the institutions of law enforcement may be rendered ineffective, the film promotes the philosophy that a man has a right — indeed, a moral obligation — to rebel against the law in order to compensate his losses.

While tacitly approving Antoine’s transgressions, the film directs its outrage about the crimes plaguing French society squarely at the punk phenomenon. Middle-class life is depicted, through flashbacks of Antoine and Carinne’s romance, as a loving and nurturing existence. The venal thugs who destroy this ideal relationship are visually situated within a broad category of punks, generalized to incorporate any distasteful vermin who listen to abrasive music, dress in black or walk in the streets at night. The movement is seen to exist exclusively to destroy expensive cars, terrorize honest citizens and exacerbate the load of an over-taxed police force.

What Tir groupe finally poses is a disturbing and reactionary attitude to a manifestation which it can only locate simplistically. This criticism is not intended to exonerate the film’s villains, but simply to identify one of its numerous and invidious blurs on the origins of criminal behaviour. For while it lends validity to Antoine’s reprisal and shares the police inspector’s (Michel Constantin) lament that “ organized crime is ancient history’’, it assumes that modern criminals may be readily identified by their choice of clothing.

Kiez (Hell’s Kitchen), directed by Walter Bockmayer and Rolf Buhr- mann, is an equally unappealing examination of the mechanics of crime. The film weaves a labored path through the seedy underworld of Hamburg, tracing the misadventures of Knut (Wolf-Dietrich Sprenger), a hapless sailor who tries in vain to become master of his destiny by graduating from pimp to petty thief

and small-time gangster. His relationships with a motley assortment of miserable characters are depicted as transient and unfulfilling. The film’s conclusion with his murder is neither surprising nor particularly distressing. Despite attempts to provide a perspective on a conceivably fascinating subculture, Kiez lapses into a tedious succession of phlegmatic encounters, punctuated too rarely by Thomas Mauch’s evocative night shots of the Hamburg docks.

Completing a disagreeable trio of films concerned with crime was Robert Benton’s Still of the Night, a pretentious pastiche of the works of Alfred H itchcock, m asquerading as a homage. While it manages to duplicate scenes. from a host of Hitchcock’s films, it is totally devoid of the wit, irony or inventiveness that distinguished them. Only the recreation of the classic auction room scene from North by Northwest sustains any level of tension without resorting to the cliched techniques of building suspense that blemish the remainder of the film. Meryl Streep and Roy Scheider deliver uncharacteristically constrained performances in roles better suited to the talents of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. It is simply impossible to accept that Sam Rice (Scheider) could become so obsessed with Brooke Reynolds (Streep) that he could risk his life to vindicate her. Although Streep conveys an enigmatic edginess, she falls far short of the tantalizing femme fatale ostensibly luring him into her web of deception and murder.

Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Moral provided one of the Competition’s more surprising and laudable entries, with its compassionate depiction of four schoolgirls graduating into womanhood within the pressures and constraints of Filipino society. While its conventional narrative carefully avoids any overt challenge of existing institutions, the perceptive and often humorous account of life in Manila provided an engaging exception to an otherwise mediocre assortment of films.

Enduring bonds of loyalty and support are delineated between the spirited, middle-class girls, despite their diverse expectations of life. However, the consistently admirable element of the film is its enlightened and sensitive depiction of homosexuality. While most of the male characters are transient, the homosexual

Derek M orton’s Wild Horses, the New Zealand entry at Manila.

#¡811

Walter Bockmayer and R olf Buhrmann’s Hell's Kitchen, “an examination o f the mechanics o f crime”.

unappealing


Manila Festival

couple provides the film’s only enduring and nurturing relationship. Equally surprising is the sympathetic characterization of the members of the rebel forces, whose integrity and commitment to the improvement of the political and economic inequities in The Philippines pose a direct, if subtle, challenge to the existing regime.

Moral is scarcely a glaring attack on the Marcos government, yet it raises several issues that are actively suppressed in other areas of the arts and media. Its exposition of Philippine society is a trait it shares with the Festival’s opening film, Ishmael Bernal’s Himala, also written by Ricardo Lee. While Himala’s depiction of the popular ascent and eventual assassination of a faith healer in the provinces is a radically different perspective on the country, the films are similar in their presentation of characters in transition. The dramatization of their attempts to relate constructively to their problematic society illuminates currents of popular thought and identifies a variety of diverse social and political issues. Lee’s vision of The Philippines encompasses components as disparate as the national obsession with celebrities, the role of religion, and a representation of Manila as a mecca symbolically comparable to Chekhov’s Moscow. Despite their unnecessarily long and occasionally rambling screenplays, both films provide thoughtful insights into their country.

While the scarcity of stimulating Competition entries proved disappointing, the vast Exhibition category supplied a range of films, including Graeme Clifford’s powerful and disturbing Frances, Bob Brooks’ Tattoo, Richard Attenborough’s epic Gandhi and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Querelle.

One of its gratifying highlights was The Escape Artist, the impressive directorial debut of cameraman Caleb Deschanel, whose credits include The Black Stallion and Being There. The film traces the exploits of Danny Masters (Griffin O’Neal), a lonely and highly resilient child determined to recreate the magical expertise of his dead father, “ the greatest escape artist since Houdini’’. Thankfully the film avoids making Danny another precocious brat of American cinema by balancing his confident resourcefulness with a vulnerability, thus making him more of a counterpart to E.T.’s

Brooke (Meryl Streep) in Robert Benton’s “pretentious pastiche o f . . . Hitchcock”, Still o f the Night.

Elliot, no doubt a result of their common scriptw riter, Melissa Mathison.

Like E.T., The Escape Artist evokes a child’s-eye view of the U.S. and presents a boy in search of recognition in an idiosyncratic adult world. Danny aspires not simply to prove himself by succeeding at his father’s vocation, but also to embody its primary function, which he described as the fulfilment of people’s wishes. While a lovable alien’s appearance on Earth answered Elliot’s fantasies, Danny employs his dreams to serve a comparable function, elevating himself to the focus of the town’s attention by astounding them with his creation of magic.

Aside from its similarities to E.T., The Escape Artist employs George De Lerve’s evocative score and Dean Tavoularis’ lush production design to create a glowing tribute to a bygone age, a sad reference to both Danny’s anachronistic skills and the time when vaudeville’s performers were granted the acclaim that their talents warranted. The Escape Artist is not only distinguished by its visual style and stylish recreation of an era, but is also enlivened by an excellent supporting cast, including Joan Hackett as Danny’s wonderfully-talented fairy godmother, Raoul Julia as the town menace, Teri Garr as his dotty girlfriend and Desiderio Arnaz sen. as his father, the corrupt mayor.

Deschanel’s The Escape Artist is a consummately assured and imaginatively realized debut which orchestrates a joyous synthesis of elegant atmosphere and a group of eccentric and invigorating characters to convey both the spirit of the past and the deficiencies of the present.

Deschanel’s obvious reverence for a vanishing lifestyle was also apparent in his black and white short, Trains, screened at a symposium on cinematography. The short commemorates an era of unhurried elegance, rendered obsolete by the emergence of aviation, and its loving sketch of long-distance train travel seems to quietly mourn the passing of an epoch.

Unfortunately, by comparison, the opulent decor of Don Crombie’s Kitty and the Bagman only produces a romantic impression of Sydney in the Roaring Twenties; the shenanigans of its cops and robbers fail to materialize into anything more substantial. The film’s documentation of the rise of Kitty O’Rourke (Liddy Clark) from naive war-bride to notorious crime queen has a certain charm, resulting from its blatant, tongue-in-cheek caricatures: the imposing Big Lil (Val Lehman), the good-natured bar-girl, Doris de Salle (Collette Mann), and the stony-faced Bagman (John Stanton). However, it is essentially an elaborately-costumed romp through over- exploited terrain and, when the setups, double-crosses and gangland reprisals have run their obligatory course, an older and wiser Kitty heaves herself out of the mire to join her Bagman and live happily ever after.

The singularly distinctive asset of the film is its conscious refusal to take itself too seriously, an attitude underlined by the constant staging of seminal scenes in public arenas. Whether it is a brawl on a nightclub dance-floor, a courtroom with a rowdy gallery or the film’s resolution on a crowded street, the central characters tangle before appreciative audiences, constantly drawing attention to the fact that their reputations are based on convincing performances. At this basic

Above: Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Moral, “a direct, i f subtle, challenge to the existing regime”. Below: Giorgio (Luciano Pavarotti), an Italian tenor: Franklin J. Schaffner’s Yes Giorgio, one o f the films in the vast Exhibition section.


Manila Festival

Wim Wenders’ The State o f Things, shown at Manila minus this shot o f Fritz (Alexander Auder) and Roger Corman, and the rest o f the penultimate reel.

Danton (Gerard Depardieu) in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton: is a gauge by which any society can'be judged. ”

“the existence o f free speech . .

level of caricature, the film operates as a qualified success.

The execution of an irresistible performance is also a major concern for Sabine (Beatrice Romand), the protagonist of Eric Rohmer’s Le beau mariage (The Fine Marriage), when she impulsively decides to spurn her married lover by securing an ideal husband. She is encouraged by her friend, Clarisse (Arielle Dombasle), who not only adds emotional fuel to the quest, but supplies a suitable mate, in the form of her cousin, Edmond (Andre Dussollier). Undaunted by Edmond’s apparent indifference, Sabine obstinately pursues her pragmatic goal, only to discover that she has selected a man as determined to adhere to his master plan of life as she is, an obstacle that finally forces her temporary abandonment of her blueprint for a fulfilling existence.

Le beau mariage again demonstrates Rohmer’s ability to create an engaging combination of characters who radiate an appealing vitality despite their often infuriating idiosyncracies. Sabine and Clarisse present the polarities of womanhood: dark and fair, married and single, impulsive and consistent, united in their propensity to indulge in desirable fantasy. The fact that the “ beau mariage” of the title never eventuates is hardly surprising considering the opening proverb, “ Can any of us refrain from building castles in Spain?” But what endures, beyond the film’s suggestion of the circular nature of life, is the predisposition of the individual to fabricate windmills to conquer.

The tone and structure of Le beau mariage reveal similarities to Rohmer’s previous film, La femme de l’aviateur: both are constructed around a circle motif that returns the central character to the film’s point of inception, after the enactment and resolution of a whimsical journey; both revolve around lengthy discussions between characters rather than action; and both elevate their graceful urban environments beyond the function of backdrop, weaving them into the fabric of the film as inextricably as its characters.

The domination of conversation is a subtle indicator, not only of Sabine’s mercurial temperament, but of the dis

junctive nature of human communications. Telephones serve as either untimely intrusions or the focus of ill- fated expectations. It is only through the exchange of intimate conversation that characters reveal their emotions and inconsistencies. Rohmer accomplishes a formidable task; he manages to identify the stupidities of his characters and yet avoids making them vacuous, allowing the film to celebrate an aspect of human behaviour and simultaneously comment on its foibles.

Larry Peerce’s Love Child also conveys a disarming celebration of human spirit, and effectively overcomes the numerous pitfalls generally associated with prison films. It documents the incarceration of Terry Jean Moore (Amy Madigan) and her subsequent battle to overcome the reservations of the legal authorities in Florida and give birth to her child in the Broward Correctional Institution. Madigan’s excellent performance combines gritty bravado with fragility, resulting in a complex and involving character.

The absence of simplistic judgments, in favor of sensitive and intelligent analysis, is a virtue evident throughout the film, which also establishes the volatility of the environment without resorting to sensationalism. Rather than rely on superficial categorization that arbitrarily places the blame for an inadequate prison system in the lap of heartless bureaucracies or reprehensible wardens and inmates, Love Child straddles a fine line and opts for skilful characterization. The prison hierarchy, including the mandatory butch lesbian (MacKenzie Phillips) and the child’s father, a prison guard (Beau Bridges), are depicted with a humanity that makes a gratifying conclusion all the more rewarding.

Andrzej Wajda’s Danton is a masterful depiction of the arrest and trial of Danton (Gerard Depardieu) and his associates by the Public Safety Committee during the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. Predictably, the French-Polish co-production aroused speculation of Wajda’s intention to document the calamitous events of 1794 in order to symbolize the current political crisis in Poland. The film clearly delineates the opposing factions, characterizing Danton as the

popular hero, forced into a clandestine return to Paris in order to challenge the dominance of the Public Safety Committee, controlled by a supremely haughty and humorless Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak).

Despite evidence of flamboyant excesses, Danton is portrayed as the quintessential Frenchman, passionate in his love of gourmet cuisine and fine wine, and cherishing an affinity with the people. Depardieu’s imposing physique is employed to its best advantage as the bear-like Danton, a formidable contrast to Robespierre’s slight frame and wizened face, a reflection of his parsimonious lifestyle. A single, incisive shot of Robespierre, straining on tiptoe at the podium to address the convention, conveys the unmistakable impression of a man who lacks the stature to fulfil the requirements of a statesman. This perspective is later consolidated, when Danton’s struggle to avoid the guillotine is juxtaposed with Robespierre’s visit to an art school, where he has commissioned a massive sculpture of himself, presumably an attempt to immortalize his features and his place in history.

The film clearly shares Danton’s final denunciation of his rival, implying that the annals of history will record Robespierre only in its more accursed chapters. While the contrast of popular visionary and feared politician may be an apt reference to Lech Walesa and General Jaruzelski, the response of the Philippine audience suggested that the film’s analysis of the ramifications of authoritarianism was universal in its application.

Equally evocative is Wajda’s visual style, a constant reminder of the dreams of 1789 perverted to nightmarish proportions by December 1793. The film is totally devoid of color and the grimy, lifeless greys evoke pessimism and depression. Shot entirely in studios, the big, male cast and theatrical use of soliloquies enable the film to assume the dimensions of an Elizabethan tragedy. Confrontations between characters occur in claustrophobic rooms, shot mainly in close-up, emphasizing the irreconcilable rifts that have occurred since the landmark of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. When, at the conclusion of the film, a frightened child recites by rote

passages of its contents, it is apparent that they have become meaningless words. The struggle for power by petty or misguided men has undermined the very principles that they were allegedly battling to preserve.

While the film may be historical in its basis, its indictment of the abuse of power by any government is unmistakable. The reigning Public Safety Committee is depicted as a motley clique of scared and corrupt men, manipulated by a clever strategist who recognizes that they will ignore any sanctions in order to quell a threat to their authority. The Convention deputies are similarly reduced to the role of compliant puppets, easily swayed by an emotive orator. It is within this forum that Danton and Robespierre rely on their convincing performances in a duel for power, for it is the success or failure of their speeches that seals their fates. Finally, Robespierre can only triumph by silencing his adversary.

Parallel to its penetrating depiction of a decimated city, reinforced by images of a pallid, miserable population enduring appalling economic hardship and genuine fear of their government, is the specific link of social decay with the suppression of free speech. Robespierre’s initial reaction to Danton is not to execute him but to silence his mouthpiece, the only remnant of the free press left in Paris. This shifts their battleground to the floor of the Convention and, eventually, the courtroom, where Danton hopes to dominate the proceedings and arouse support with his impassioned oration.

There is a brief flicker of optimism as his tactics (not dissimilar to those of Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) in Mr Smith Goes to Washington), in adamantly refusing to relinquish the arena, begin to sway the audience. Robespierre’s subsequent action, refusing to allow Danton to continue conducting his own defence, is the sign that he is doomed for the guillotine, If, as one of Danton’s compatriots states, “ Man only has the rights he can defend” , the film affirms that the most basic of these rights, the existence of free speech, is a gauge by which any society may be judged. ★

D.E.


My initial intention in comparing the recent American film Best Friends with the 1981 Australian romantic comedy The Best of Friends was to highlight the differences between two films which explore a similar theme, and then to point to the unique qualities of the Australian film. However, I soon realized that the two films were not only superficially similar but that the differences between them had little to do with any intrinsic national qualities.

For some reason, we often get nervous when an Australian film attempts to work within a well-established generic framework and neglects either to rework aspects of the Australian heritage (mateship or other elements of the ubiquitous “ bush myth” ), as in Gallipoli, or to localize the setting, as in Monkey Grip. The Man From Snowy River, on the other hand, unfortunately failed to camouflage its basic melodramatic approach to characterization and narrative sequence, which polarized into a simple tale of a young hero, Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson), having to overcome his orphaned highland origins. Also, the melodramatic device of twin brothers, Spur and Harrison (Kirk Douglas), separated by a distant feud and the “ mystery” surrounding Jessica’s (Sigrid Thornton) real father, combined with the predictable climactic sequence in which Jim brings in the herd and claims Jessica and the community’s acceptance as a reward, was sufficient to alert the critics that this is not Banjo Paterson but some alien narrative structure which can easily be dismissed with the tag, “ Wallaby Western” . The pain this provoked in Geoff Burrowes and George Miller is apparent in their Cinema Papers interview1: they apparently were aware of the popular conventions which appeal to a large audience but unaware that our critical establishment does not wish to inviolate the local industry by employing such conventions.

Similarly, John Duigan had the audacity to desert urban Australia and the “ delicacy of Mouth to Mouth (and) and the complexity of Winter of Our Dreams”2 and the critics could

1. Cinema Papers, No. 38, June 1982, p. 212.2. Debi Enker, “Far East’’, Cinema Papers, No. 39,

August 1982, p. 363.

congratulate themselves on dismissing Far East as Casablanca revisited. Hence the failure of the film resulted from the decision to employ,

“ a narrative structure popularized by Hollywood films of the 1940s, definitively in Casablanca. The resulting combination produces a style so dependent on narrative drama that it constrains and dilutes the skills that have distinguished Duigan.” 3 Well, what is this pernicious narrative struc

ture we are talking about? Could it be the redoubtable “ classical realist text” , also known as the “ mainstream narrative” or the “ Hollywood classical text” ? It must be, as we have all seen it on late-night television films. However, the fact of the matter is that this narrative system is not unique to the pre-1960s American cinema but has its roots in the development of the Gothic novel, and in 18th and 19th Century

3. Ibid.

Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) and Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) pose fo r a wedding photograph in Norman Jewison’s Best Friends.

French and British stage drama.4 It is part of the long evolution of that dramatic mode known as melodrama and, whether one likes it or not, it formed the basis of the narrative development of the Australian film, as well as the British, American and other national cinemas.

The problem is that the term “ melodrama” conjures a series of negative images in the minds of many people, instead of being a neutral term that describes a particular dramatic structure.5 Essentially, melodrama presents characters who are free of the internal dividedness which marks a tragic structure; the melodramatic protagonist is faced with an external problem (such as villains, natural disasters, race or class prejudice, etc.) which polarizes the world into victors, victims and villains. This dramatic mode provides the basis of most Australian films, from Mouth to Mouth and The Killing of Angel Street to Gallipoli and Breaker Morant.

John Tulloch has even demonstrated the melodramatic basis of the pre-World War 2 Australian cinema by using the methodology employed by Claude Bremond in his analysis of fairy tales. Tulloch concludes that Jungle Woman, The Breaking of the Drought, Romance of Runnibede and other films demonstrate that, while there was a dominant structural concern with the bush/city dichotomy, it was expressed in a melodramatic framework emphasizing the “ remarkable trans-historical and cross-cultural survival qualities of basic narrative forms” .6

An aversion to or ignorance of the common ground shared by the Australian feature film and other popular cultural forms, from the past and from overseas, results in the surprise and indignation expressed at Pauline Kael’s description of the experience of watching a “ well- crafted” Australian film as the same as “ reading an old-fashioned novel” .7 Similarly,

4. See T. Elsaesser, “ Tales of Sound and Fury” , Monogram, No. 4, p. 2; also, J. Fell, Film and The Narrative Tradition, University of Oklahoma Press, 1974, Ch. 2.

5. See R. Heilman, Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience, University of Washington Press, 1968.

6. J. Tulloch, Australian Cinema Industry: Narrative and Meaning, George Allen and Unwin, p. 202.

7. Cinema Papers, No. 40, October 1982, p. 421.


Best (of) Friends

Richard and Paula in the shower: “Reynolds . . and Hawn . . . are probably the closest one is going to get to [Cary] Grant and the comediennes who dominated the genre in the ’30s. ” Best Friends.

although working from a different basis, Sam Rohdie describes the Australian cinema as conservative, dull and conformist because

“ at best Australian films demonstrate a skill and expertise in handling what are only rather familiar positions: established modes of narrative construction, established specifically cinematic codes, established social/commercial genres.” 8 While Rohdie longs for a local filmmaker

who will break through this dull conformity, such as a Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Marie Straub or Miklos Jancso, and Pauline Kael waits for another Fred Schepisi, I would argue that such approaches tend to demean the achievements of the Australian cinema and fail to differentiate sufficiently among the many Australian films produced in this established narrative tradition. “ Skill” , “ expertise” , “ established modes of narrative construction” , “ established specifically cinematic codes” and “ established social/commercial genres” become pejorative terms, and a muddled suspense thriller such as Crossplot, for example, is equated with a superb film like Roadgames, which demonstrates a playful awareness of the conventions and techniques of the narrative strategies that generate suspense without alienating audience involvement in the film.

The Best of Friends belongs to another genre- narrative strategy which goes back to the early 1930s at least, and a cycle of films popularized by the narrative framework established in It Happened One Night. Flowever, it should be recognized that this genre is only one mode of a dominant narrative system which encompasses the whole of the mainstream narrative film; it is marked by a common process of transformation whereby the initial order is disrupted and the elements are dispersed, resulting in the pressure to establish a new equilibrium and the consequent closure of the narrative process. There is within this system a generic specificity whereby each genre deals with this process in a different way.

It Happened One Night became known as a “ screwball comedy” and for the next seven or eight years many films were included under this rather vague umbrella term. However, only a

8. Cinema Papers, No. 39, August 1982, p. 377.

few films were consistent with the truly manic behaviour of protagonists who found the existing social conventions too restrictive for their natural development. For example, crazy films such as Bringing Up Baby propel helpless males, such as paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant), into a world populated by Freudian psychologists, effeminate big game hunters, drunken Irish gardeners, leopards and voracious society girls, such as Susan (Katharine Hepburn), who strip him of his trousers and dress him in a negligee while he searches for his missing intercostal clavicle, his “bone” .

Bringing Up Baby was, commercially, the least successful film in the cycle, and most other screwball films were less frenetic, characterized by the struggle of both characters to bring their values and lifestyles into line with each other. Several other recurring narrative situations differentiated this particular species of the mainstream narrative film from other types of comedy, although the parameters were never very clear. It Happened One Night itself belonged to a tradition developed in the early sound period (e.g., Trouble in Paradise, Design For Living and Reunion in Vienna).

Perhaps the most decisive element in the development of the screwball cycle was the resurgence of the censors in 1933 and ’34. The films produced after this time were, as Andrew Sarris has aptly described, sex comedies without sex.9 The tension and frustration in these films often derived from the repressive moral codes which acted as barriers to the fulfilment of desire, and the sexual frustration often leads to some oddball behaviour: Lucy’s (Irene Dunne) attempts to attract husband Jerry (Cary Grant) into her bed before their divorce becomes final in The Awful Truth is testimony to this aspect of the genre.

Other recurring generic elements included the sardonic treatment of family and in-laws; the fear that the restrictions of marriage may inhibit the protagonist’s normal freedom; and the implied criticism of those social institutions which promulgate conformist tendencies in society. But aside from, or more correctly

9. See A. Sarris, “ The Sex Comedy Without Sex” , American Film, March 1978, p. 15.

associated with, the screwball behaviour generated by sexual frustration, the most significant aspect of the genre was the degree of sex role reversal promoted by these films.

If, as has often been stated, the cinema has played a significant role in the construction and provision of images and definitions of masculinity and femininity, then the screwball comedy has played a part in redressing the concentration of films which deal only with the contradictions that haunt the hero in his choice between personal freedom and social commitment. In the screwball comedy, this crisis is often transferred to the heroine, and her role as the “ civilizing force” of mother and domesticator is no longer assumed automatically; children are rarely, if ever, an integral part of these films. The ultimate appeal is the battle between two people who are fairly evenly- positioned to carry on an equal fight.

It is within this context that The Best of Friends and Best Friends can be examined from the point of view of changes from the pre- World War 2 cycle, and the differences between the Australian and the American film. The most apparent, and crucial, difference is that the source of the sexual frustration can no longer be traced to the repressive social context: in Best Friends Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) is living with Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) at the start of the film, while in The Best of Friends Melanie (Angela Punch McGregor) is soon climbing on top of her old friend Tom (Graeme Blundell) after earlier declaring, “ I like sex, I need sex.”

Sexual frustration now has to be invented by a peculiar situation: in the American film, Paula takes Richard back to Buffalo for a honeymoon with her parents yet prohibits him from sleeping with her and hence violating the room in which she grew up; also, Paula reasons, if her husband sleeps with her then her parents will think they are having sex. On the other hand, in the Australian film the intimacy of living together and the prospect of marriage is the cause of the hostility and frustration, and a pregnant Melanie is determined not to let marriage ruin her 20-year friendship with Tom. The males in both films, unlike the women, are eager for marriage.

Changed social attitudes, particularly with regard to sex outside marriage, have removed much of the basis of the genre and, consequently, some of the traditional possibilities for humor. For example, in a church sequence

Tom (Graeme Blundell) and a girlfriend, Grace (Deborah Gray), before his marriage to Melanie. Michael Robertson’s The Best o f Friends.


Best (of) Friends

The wedding o f Melanie and Tom in The Best o f Friends: “And They Lived Happily Ever A fter?” 10. Ibid.

Tom interrupts Melanie (Angela Punch McGregor) as she is about to go to bed (hesitantly) with an old boyfriend, Bruce (Mark Lee). The Best o f Friends.

when Melanie explains to Tom that she doesn’t want to marry him, the film attempts to generate humor by intercutting between their remarks and the people in the church: when Melanie tells Tom that, “ It’s not your fault I got pregnant . . . I pushed you into it” , there is a reaction-shot of three nuns who look up at them. Or, after telling him that she plans to keep the baby, a relieved Tom exclaims, “ Thank God for that. Does it mean we can make love now?” , and there is a shot of a man who stops praying and looks back at them. In the social climate of the 1930s such explicit dialogue would not have been permitted and filmmakers would have been forced to be a little more inventive; nevertheless, the reaction- shot was an important technique in highlighting the conservative concern at the ‘liberated’ behaviour of the protagonists. By the time of The Best of Friends, the attitudes conveyed in

the church and the reaction-shot technique had lost much of its impact.

The other major problem related to the different social context concerns the resolution of the two recent films. While the early screwball films may have stretched audience credibility with a resolution that assumed the couple’s crazy behaviour and ongoing battles would be magically solved by marriage at the end of the film and, given the changed attitudes to marriage since that period, this suspicion on the part of the audience may well have turned to outright disbelief, both modern films tacitly acknowledge this.

In the case of Best Friends, the self-conscious ending to the film occurs after a traumatic night when the hostile couple are locked together in a film studio office. After they have appeared to achieve an uneasy reconciliation, they walk out into a patently artificial studio sunset which is

revealed to be a studio prop. In The Best of Friends, Tom manages to get a reluctant Melanie into church but she faints during the wedding ceremony. This would appear to be Tom’s last chance to get her to the altar, but, in a largely unmotivated change of mind, Melanie agrees to marry Tom when he appears to lose the wedding ring. An end title highlights the artificiality of the requisite “ happy ending” convention: “ And They Lived Happily Ever After?” The narrative progression from mutual antagonism to closing embrace appears less satisfying than ever, particularly since the modern variations are devoid of the class conflict, or even the rural-urban opposition, which gave the conclusions of the 1930s films a dimension lacking in these two recent films.

The changed social context has also reduced the impact of the role reversal: Cary Grant in a negligee is a lot funnier than Graeme Blundell vacuuming the house in an apron. Consequently, the genre has been forced to move to a more extreme position to raise an audience’s eyebrows about the behaviour of the people in the film. To signify the screwball world of the family and in-laws, Best Friends shows Paula’s father disappearing into the bathroom to read his pornography, and his attack-cum-seduction of the cleaning lady evokes not so much humor as pathos; this is a long way from the supposedly eccentric behaviour of the Vander- hof household in You Can’t Take It With You (1938), in which Martin’s (Lionel Barrymore) harmonica playing was intended to signal his individuality.

The differences between The Best of Friends and Best Friends is qualitative rather than structural. The success of this type of film often depends on the ability of the performers and comments on this aspect must be rather subjective. For example, I would argue that Cary Grant was nearly indispensable to the genre as was a small group of 1930s comediennes: Carole Lombard, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell and Myrna Loy.10 Angela Punch McGregor, on the other hand, does not appear entirely comfortable in her role and, although Graeme Blundell fits into the genre, his Alvin Purple persona of nearly a decade ago still haunts the film. However, in Best Friends the self-reflexive qualities of Burt Reynolds (particularly when telling a story to his disinterested dog) and Goldie Hawn (who tells Burt that she often kills her parents off in her mind so that she won’t be sorry when they die: “ That’s how much I love them” ) are probably the closest one is going to get to Grant and the comediennes who dominated the genre in the ’30s.

Films of this type also rely heavily on the quality of the dialogue, and David Macdonald’s script for The Best of Friends contains several funny, insightful lines: for example, Melanie’s mother (Ruth Cracknell) telling her daughter that she has settled for second best, “ a Catholic accountant” , or Tom’s remark that he “ knows nine couples that are getting divorced. Well five; the rest are Catholic.” The humorous treatment of religion in the film (Catholic versus Protestant) is one of the few differences between the two films. Both films, however, work within the conventions of a long-established genre and represent an attempt to explore the idea that marriage and its attendant responsibilities, such as dirty bathrooms and crazy in-laws, can destroy an otherwise strong relationship. Certainly the Australian film does not deserve neglect because of its choice of narrative strategy. But then I could be wrong for I enjoyed The Man From Snowy River. ★


H Ä¡Sil

Interviewed by Debi Enker

Sydney-born G raem e C lifford has w orked with an im pressive m edley o f the cinem a's m ost innovative and exciting directors. H is credits as an editor include N icolas R oeg's D o n 't L o o k N ow and The M an Who Fell to Earth, Bob R afelson's The Postm an A lw ays Rings Twice, Sam Peckinpah 's C onvoy, Jim Sharman's The R ocky H orror Picture Show and R obert A ltm an 's Images. For A ltm an, he was also casting director on The Long G oodbye, casting and assistant director on M cC abe and M rs Miller, and assistant director and assistant ed itor on That C old D ay in the Park.

C lifford's directorial debut with Frances m arks the emergence o f a new elem ent in his range o f talents. While critical reaction to the film has been fa r fro m favorable, it m ust be conceded that this uncom prom ising portraya l o f the life o f Frances Farm er is a pow erfu l indictm ent o f H o lly w ood in particu lar and A m erican institutions in general. Irrespective o f any reservations one m ay harbor, Frances is a tribute to C lifford's assurance as a director and his steadfast refusal to com prom ise a vision.

What was it about Frances Farmer’s life that interested you?

Just about everything. She believed the same kinds of things I believe, she treated her work in the same way, she had the same feelings about authority, religion, Hollywood, Broadway, politics and life in general. I felt very much akin to her and was appalled by what had happened.

There are three major things I wanted to convey with the film. First was the outrage and anger at what had happened: it was an anger that never subsided and kept pushing me on until I got the film made. No one wanted to make it, no one wanted to finance it because it was seen as non-commercial, depressing. Second was the struggle that most people make to try to become individuals, which is really all Frances is trying to do in a world that is becoming increasingly repressive and depersonalized. Third was that arb itrary distinction between madness and sanity. It has always been my opinion that some of the people in positions of authority, who supposedly are able to make

these judgments, are possibly less sane than the people they are condemning. I am not talking about the clinically insane, but about people whose behaviour is somehow “ different” , who all seem to be covered by the amazing word “ schizophrenia” . When they can’t figure out what is wrong with someone, they call them schizophrenic.

Does the fact that Frances existed make the film impossible to dismiss, forcing people to confront its intensity?

I couldn’t make this sort of film, I couldn’t say the things I am trying to say in this picture, with a fictitious story, because people wouldn’t believe it. We all ought to worry about what happened to Frances and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. I know that my film is not going to make a damn bit of difference, but sooner or later somebody is going to have to confront the problem of mental health and look at the appalling state of the institutions we have today. There are people in them who shouldn’t be there: patients

who have committed themselves because they felt they needed help, voluntary patients who are not released when they ask to be released, patients who have become unreasonable because of the drugs they have been given since they were admitted. To me it is shocking, and even more so is the fact that people don’t seem to want to know about it.

Why do you refuse to allow a sense of release at the end? The obvious comparison is with a film like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” , where the Indian’s escape allows a qualified optimism . . .

It would have been phoney to have tagged on some kind of happy ending. The fact is that the institutional period of Frances’ life did destroy her. But the inspiring thing is the fact that she never gave in; I think that out of that sense of loss and sadness can come a kind of release. If it causes people to be a little more compassionate then it will have made some difference.

You have called the film ‘a triumph of the human spirit’ . . .

Yes, to me it is. It is wonderfully triumphant.

But the image of her at the end, with her face like a skeleton, makes her so lifeless. It seemed that a human being had been totally annihilated . . .

Well, I suppose you are right. What I mean by a “ triumph of the spirit” is that, although they wrecked her life, they didn’t break her spirit. The fact that she stayed alive was a triumph; any normal person would have been dead after seven years in that place.

A recent edition of ‘Screen International’ says that after you decided to make “Frances” you returned to the U.S. to find three television networks wanting to make the story, three plays about to start production and several independent filmmakers interested in Frances Farmer’s life. Why did all those people respond to it at the same time?

I think it is because Frances Farmer had gone largely unnoticed prior to that. She appeared in one chapter of Kenneth Anger’s book, Hollywood Babylon, and a few people knew about her life, but not many people had bothered to research it. When they did, they discovered a fascinating story. Coppola was interested, Noel Marshall was going to do a picture of it and there were three Broadway plays in the works. But the first company to announce the project was Brooksfilm, the people I made the picture for, and they had announced it independently.

I was introduced to the producer, Jonathan Sanger, and we both recognized that we wanted to make the same kind of film. We both respected the woman, and we both wanted to treat it with as much integrity as possible, even though the story itself was totally outrageous and shocking. So I persuaded Jonathan to hire me as the director. I knew that working with him would be a good experience because he had just produced The Elephant Man, which I love; Eric [Bergren] and Chris [De Vore] were doing the screenplay, and, as I had loved their screenplay for The Elephant Man, I thought the set-up couldn’t be better.

Do you see similarities between “Frances” and “The Elephant Man” ?

I have never thought about that connection, but there is an obvious similarity between the emotional content of both films. They are about people who were extraordinary, and both are rather sad. They both deal with greatly troubled lives that came under a great deal of pressure from society at large. And neither of them had a happy ending.

The film credits a third scriptwriter, Nicholas Kazan. What role did he play?

Chris and Eric finally burnt out, after six drafts. I needed something I wasn’t getting from them, so I brought Nick in. He wrote the final shooting draft of the screenplay, and also contributed the


Graeme Clifford

Frances Farmer (Jessica Lange) and Clifford Odets (Jeffrey DeMunn). Graeme Clifford’s Frances.

hitchhiker scene and the last scene of the film.

At what stage did you cast Jessica Lange?

I cast her before I was even hired by Jonathan Sanger. I knew that if I was going to make this film, she would play the part. I knew that no matter how compelling the story was, I wouldn’t have a picture without Jessica’s performance. She felt as strongly about Frances as I did.

What about Sam Shepard?

I have always loved Sam, ever since I saw Days of Heaven. I think he is a wonderfully enigmatic actor, and I wanted somebody like that for the role of Harry York. Based on a man named Stuart Jacobson, his is a difficult role, inasmuch as he only crops up in the film from time to time in her life. There may be several years between one scene and the next, and you never know what he has been doing in the interim. I thought that he and Jessica would get along w onderfully well together and make a good pair on screen. I felt you needed to feel an immediate attraction between them so you didn’t need to spend time building up that relationship.

Why is Harry York the film’s narrator?

That was never meant to be part of the film and I wish it wasn’t. I allowed myself to be convinced to take scenes out of the picture in order to make it shorter. Most of the missing scenes were at the beginning. They set up a relationship between Frances and her mother much better than it is at the moment. There was a good scene between the mother and the father which delineated their positions more clearly. You saw Frances

meeting her husband instead of his suddenly being sprung on you in Seattle, as he is now. I was persuaded to take those out; it was a big mistake and I will never let it happen again. I had to use the narration to cover for the loss of those scenes. Hopefully, when the film is shown on cable television in the U.S., those scenes will be reinstated and the film will be 15 minutes longer. At least somebody somewhere will see it in the form in which I want it to be shown.

Frances’ marriage seems to be symptomatic of a larger problem because, generally, when she acts or reacts she is being self-destructive rather than productive . . .

I think that is true, and that it is true of many people. I have to stop myself from being self-destructive; I find it very easy, almost easier than anything else in the world. It is a result of frustration with the stupidity that you see around you, and you just react irrationally. Sam Peckinpah, for instance, one of the most brilliant directors in the U.S., is a terribly self-destructive man. So are a lot of great painters and musicians. It seems to go hand in hand with the creative process. You have to push yourself to the limit, look over the edge to see what is there, then go even further than that. So you push people, and you push situations to make people react. You drop something into a conversation, which is totally outrageous, just to get a rise out of them. Once that self-destructive mechanism is triggered, it is difficult to keep in check. Frances couldn’t keep it in check and went that little bit further than most of us are prepared to go. That is what made her very interesting to me.

You mentioned Peckinpah and you have worked with other similarly innovative directors: Robert

Altman, Nicolas Roeg and Bob Rafelson. How do you think they have influenced your work as a director?

I could give you simplistic answers to that question, but dammit, you know, it is more complicated than that. You learn all sorts of things from different people; one of the reasons I worked with those people was because they are all individuals, and all are self-destructive; they push their art to the limit. It is exciting to me, and I like to work with exciting people. They make films that I want to watch, films that make me sit up and listen, and make me feel something. I don’t feel as if I am wasting time. When I see a film, I want to find out something I didn’t know before.

How did you research the film?

We hired an independent researcher and then I spoke to as many people as I could: Stuart Jacobson; actors who worked with her; Edith Head, who did a lot of her costumes; Elia Kazan, who directed her; and her first husband, Leif Erikson. Even the dialogue from the doctor who performs the lobotomy is word for word, taken from first person accounts of his demonstrations. A lot of Odets’ dialogue was adapted from interviews he gave about his views on acting and writing.

This dialogue was my most valuable asset because it formed a personality in my head. Because her story is so fantastic, I had to concentrate much of my attention on emphasizing the fact that the film is based on a true story.

Did you use any information from her autobiography?

Please don’t waste your money buying it. Will There Really Be A Morning? is a phoney autobiography, actually written by Jean Ratcliffe, and to a large extent inaccurate and sensationalized. The fact that it was attributed to Frances Farmer would make her turn in her grave. It is the ultimate insult. Ratcliffe wrote it after Frances had died, having lived with her during the last years of her life, and then, in an inspired piece of humility, dedicated the book to herself. I find it totally despicable that even after her death Frances is being exploited.

Brooksfilm bought the real autobiography which was unfinished because she died before it was completed. She was writing that with a lady named Lois Kibby, who would never permit its publication because she didn’t feel it was complete. We bought the rights to it on the understanding that it would not be published.

The thing about Frances Farmer’s life is that all of the facts will never be known. There is room for different interpretations of what happened to Frances and why.

The film depicts Hollywood as being completely hostile to Frances. Yet Howard Hawks calls her the greatest actress with whom he ever worked . . .

Frances claimed that Hawks was one of the few admirable directors — he and Alfred Green. She mentioned both with fond memories.

The impression given in the film is that she doesn’t regard “Come and Get It” very highly . . .

That is because it wasn’t finished by Hawks; he was fired half way through the shooting, by Sam

Frances, at age 42, on This Is Your Life, with Ralph Edwards (Donald Craig). Frances.


Graeme Clifford

Goldwyn, because he insisted on making a film that was faithful to the book. Goldwyn then hired William Wyler who followed the dictates of the studio and stuck a happy ending on it. Believe it or not, there were discussions during the making of Frances about tagging on a happy ending, which totally appalled me. You are bound to have the subject come up in Hollywood because they always want to make people happy. They don’t want to make anyone unhappy — perish the thought! There must be room in our filmmaking community for films that don’t necessarily have happy endings because many lives don’t. If everybody just made films with happy endings, then we would have just one kind of film. I don’t think Sophie’s Choice has a particularly happy ending. Frances is obviously one of that group.

The depiction of Hollywood, in fact of most of the institutions in the film, is very damning. Given that there were people in Hollywood like Hawks who had some respect for Frances as an actress, why is it that you don’t get the sense of a single person being able to appreciate anything about her other than “good tits” ?

I had to deal with Hollywood briefly, and, though there were people in Hollywood who did appreciate her, they were few and far between. It is unfortunate and I know that it is probably not presenting a balanced view of Hollywood, but you have to go with the general feeling, which was that they were trying to force her to do things she didn’t want to do. The scripts were terrible, they didn’t care whether the wardrobe was accurate or not: in short, they

attributed no intelligence to the audience. Film was still a relatively new medium and sound was particularly fresh. They could get away with anything. Frances attributed more intelligence to the audience than the studios did, and she couldn’t justify giving them garbage.

Most of the characters who represent institutions in the film demonstrate really reprehensible attitudes . . .

Don’t you find that in life? Anywhere you get a large bureaucracy, you get a slew of people who are just doing what they are told, mostly without questioning. I guess they are happy just to have a job. I wish we could go back to the days when people meant something.

In the U.S., they have this disgusting phrase that they use at the end of every sentence: “ Have a nice day.” I find it totally appalling. The phrase is meaningless. I have asked people in hotels and restaurants why they say, “ Have a nice day” , and they tell me the management likes them to say that. I go away thinking, “ My God, this person is being drained of any hum an thought or emotion.”

Organized religion does the same thing. I asked the same questions at the same period in my life that Frances Farmer did. I left my church because I felt it had no relevance whatsoever to my life and was trying to teach me to become another white sheep in an already all-white flock. As soon as you asked difficult questions of the ministers, they managed to evade the answers. That is all Frances was trying to point out in her essay at the beginning of the film.

The way in which the film is cut seems deliberately jarring, particularly in sequences that cut from one city to another. For example, the cut from the love scene on the beach in Seattle to the Hollywood nightclub, or the cut from Odets’ apartment in New York to Frances on set in Hollywood, convey a sense of two completely different environments confronting each other. Did you intend that sense of dislocation?

Yes. There is no point in my elaborating on that, because you have just said it!

The impression of paths crossing seems central to the film. So many of its conversations take place in streets that it has the feeling of a long and harrowing journey . . .

I set some of those scenes in streets for that reason. I wanted to get the feeling of paths crossing but without any real connection, not just between Harry and Frances but also between her and the others. He developed one way and she developed in another way. Their lives came together at various points, but they were never meant to be together.

The music seems to be used to reflect her state of mind, particularly the Mozart. Was that your intention?

Yes. If you listen closely, there is also a theme for Harry. It is not very noticeable, but the flute is meant to be Harry and the har

monica is meant to be Frances. I am sorry that the music hasn’t been recognized for what it is, because it is a brilliant piece of composing on John Barry’s part. I am a little upset that more critics haven’t mentioned him, Laszlo Kovacs, the cinematographer, Dick Sylbert’s production design, or John Wright, my editor. I am very happy that Jessica and Kim Stanley have been recognized, but other people who contributed a huge amount to this film have gone totally unnoticed. As good as Jessica’s performance is, it is only one part of the film.

Why didn’t you cut it yourself?

As an editor, I have always appreciated giving the director another point of view. Therefore, as a director, I would never deprive myself of that opportunity. I think an editor is the most valuable associate a director has, and I would be a fool not to give myself that same association.

You have paid a great deal of attention to props, particularly mirrors and photographs . . .

Yes, I think you can embellish the story by placing certain things in certain positions in the background. The bust of Beethoven was in Clifford Odets’ apartment because he was once quoted as saying he thought he was Beethoven reincarnated. He used to say that the world lost a great composer when he decided to be a

Concluded on p. 169Frances and Harry (Sam Shepard). Frances.


Wfe doni m uck around.

□

November 1982

Films Registered Without EliminationsFor General Exhibition (G)The Atomic Cafe (16mm): The Archives Project, U.S., 910.51 m, Sharmill Films and Everard Films Bai]u bawara: Prakash Pictures, India, 4300 m, SKD Film Dist.The Black Hen: Alexander Dovhzenko Studio, Soviet Union, 1974.96 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet UnionThe Eighth Wonder of the World: Mosfilm, SovietUnion, 2329 m, Soviet EmbassyJust This Type of Music: Sverdlovsk Film Studios,Soviet Union, 2419 m, Soviet EmbassyLa Bible (16mm): ARC Films, France, 990 m, FrenchEmbassyThe Lovers’ Exile: M. Gross, Canada, 995 m, Ronin FilmsOn the Undiscovered Paths: Gorky Central Studios, Soviet Union, 1929: Soviet Embassy The Portrait of an Artist’s Wife: Mosfilm, Soviet Union, 2413 m, Soviet EmbassyResources: Mosfilm, Soviet Union, 2444 m, Soviet EmbassyThe Sowl: Mosfilm, Soviet Union, 2551 m, Soviet EmbassyThe Steeling of the Century: Gorky Central Studios, Soviet Union, 1863 m, Soviet Embassy

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)Alexander Junior: Defa Gorky Central Studios, Soviet Union, 2727 m, Soviet Embassy, V (i- l-j) , O fa d u lt th e m e ) Crystal Gazing (16mm): British Film Institute, Britain, 987 m, Australian Film Institute, L (i-m -j)The Dusk of Wold-Pigeon: H.S. Films, Hong Kong,2276.69 m, Golden Reel Films, 0 (e m o t io n a l s tre s s )The Escape Artist: Claybourne/Houghton, U.S., 2550.99 m, Hoyts Dist., V (i-l-j)Goloc (A Voice): Not shown, Poland, 2441.27 m, Quality Films, 0 (a d u t t c o n c e p ts )The Gossips (videotape): National Film Board of Canada, Canada, 58 mins, National Film Board of Canada, 0 ( a d u l t c o n c e p ts )Happy Days in the Army (16mm): Ming Chi, Taiwan, 1064.09 m, E. Seeto, 0 ( a d u t t th e m e )I Can’t Say Farewell: Gorky Central Studios, Soviet Union, 2486 m, Soviet Embassy, S fl- l- j) , V (i-l-j), 0 ( a d u l t th e m e )It Takes Two: Cinema City Films, Hong Kong,2660.70 m, Grand Film Corp., V fi-m -j), L ( i-m -g ) Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (videotape): L. Rudolph, U.S., 122 mins, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, O fa d u lt th e m e )The Kung-Fu Emperor: Kou Fei, Hong Kong, 2825.29 m, Golden Reel Films, V ff-l-j)Remember or Forget: Riga Studios, Soviet Union, 2437 m, Soviet Embassy, S fi- l- j) , O fa d u lt th e m e ) Saturday the 14th: J. Gorman, U.S., 2063 m, Hoyts Dist., V fi- l-g ), O fh o rro r)The Sixth: Gorky Central Studios, Soviet Union, 2306 m, Soviet Embassy, V ff- l-j)Trail of the Pink Panther: B. Edwards/T. Adams, Britain, 2649 m, United Int’l Pictures, L fi- l-g ) , O fn u d ity ) The Vacancy: Mosfilm, Soviet Union, 2002.39 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet Union, O fa d u l t th e m e ) War Games in North China: Not shown, China, 2057.28 m, Eupo Films, O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )You’ve No Idea: Not shown, Soviet Union, 2518 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet Union, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )

For Mature Audiences (M)Absolution (videotape): Enterprise Pictures, Britain, 92 mins, Filmways A’sian Dist., V fi-m -j), L fi-m -g )Cutting It Short: Barrandov Film Studios, Czechoslovakia, 2593 m, European Film Dist., L fi-m - j) , O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Diva: I. Silberman, France, 3127.02 m, AZ Associated Film Dist., V fi-m -j)First Blood (a): B. Feitshans, U.S./Canada, 2550 m, Roadshow Film Dist.Fury in Shaolin Temple: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2570 m, Golden Reel Films, V (f-m -g )Gang Master: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 2468.70 m, Joe Siu Int’ l Film Co., V fi-m -g )Hammett: Zoetrope, U.S., 2660.71 m, Hoyts Dist., V fi-m -j), L fl-m - j)Heiratskandldaten (16mm): M. Durniok, W. Germany, 976 m, German Embassy, S (i-m -j) , O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts ) Jekyll and Hyde . . . Together Again: L. Gordon, U.S., 2370 m, United Int’ l Pictures, L ff-m -g ) , O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts ) The Legend of Witch Hollow: W. Brown, U.S., 2677 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Looks and Smiles: Black Lion Films, Britain, 2770.43 m, Oceania Media Network, L fi-m - j) , O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )L'uomo che sfido I’organizzazione (8mm): S. Grieco, Italy, 600 m, Italian Embassy, S fi-m -g ) , V ff-m -g )The McMasters: Jay Jen Prods, U.S., 1892.67 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-m -g ), O fs e x u a l v io le n c e )The Missionary: Handmade Films, Britain, 2304.12 m, GUO Film Dist., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Mother (16mm): Shieh Win Lin, Hong Kong, 1118 m, Chinese Cultural Centre, O fe m o t io n a l s tre s s )My Favourite Year: M. Gruskoff, U.S., 2468 m, United Int’ l Pictures, L fi-m -g ), O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )Nest in the Wind: Tallinform, Soviet Union, 2605.85 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet Union, V fi-m -g ), O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )

Films examined in terms of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations and States’ film censorship legislation are listedbelow.

An explanatory key to reasons for classifying non-“G” films appears hereunder:

Frequency Explicitness/lntensity Purpose

Infrequent Frequent Low Medium High Justified Gratuitous

S (Sex) ................................... / f I m h / 9V (Violence)............................ i f I m h l 3L (Language) ........................ i f I m h / 9O (Other) ................................ /' f ' m h I 9

Once Upon a Rainbow: Cinema City Films, Hong Kong, 2533 m, Grand Film Corp., V fi-m -g ), O fd ru g s )Passe ton bac d'abord (16mm): M. Pialat, France, 946 m, French Embassy, S ff- l- j)Passion: Jean-Luc Godard, France, 2386 m, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, O fn u d ity , a d u lt c o n c e p ts ) Passion d’amore: Massfilm/Cocinor, France/ltaly, 3209.31 m, AZ Associated Film Dist., S fi-m - j), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 2468.70 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V fi-m -g ) P4W: Prison for Women (short version) (16mm) (b): Spectrum Films, Canada, 647.23 m, Australian Film Institute, L fi-m -g ), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Second Thougts: EMI, U.S., 2633.28 m, GUO Film Dist., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Smash Palace (reconstructed version) (c): R. Donaldson, New Zealand, 2852 m, Roadshow Film Dist., V fi-m -j), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Sword Stained with Royal Blood: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 3022 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V ff-m -j) Those Dirty Dogs: L. Bompari, U.S., 2413.84 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Till Death Do We Scare: Cinema City Films, Hong Kong, 2468 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V ff-m -g )Tony Arzenta (8mm): L. Martino, Italy, 680 m, Italian Embassy, V ff-m -g )

Twenty-six Days in the Life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Mosfilm, Soviet Union, 2221.83 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet Union, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Verdict: Zanuck/Brown, U.S., 3538.47 m, Fox Columbia Film Dist., L fi-m -g ), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Wild Fires of Youth: Y. Jun/C. Chun, Taiwan, 2383 m, Golden Reel Films, O fa d u lt c o n c e p t)The Woman Next Door (La femme d’a cote): Les Films du Carosse, France, 2880 m, Le Clezio Films, S fi-m - j)(a) See also under "For Restricted Exhibition" and

"Films Board of Review".(b) Previously shown on July 1982 list.(c) Previously "R ” (May 1982 list); reduced by

importer's cuts to obtain lower classification.

For Restricted Exhibition (R)Blood on Satan’s Claw (videotape (a): P. Andrews/M. Hayward, Britain, 93 mins, GL Film Enterprises, V fi-m -g ) The Butterfly Murders: Seasonal Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2660.71 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g ) The Challenge (reconstructed version) (b): CBS, U.S./Japan, 2962.44 m, Roadshow Film Dist., V ff-m -g ) First Blood (c): B. Feitshans, U.S./Canada, 2550 m, Roadshow Dist., V ff-m -g )Gambling for Head (videotape): Not shown, Hong Kong, 83 mins, Direct Video, V ff-m -g )

Rabbit (David Argue) and Wimpy (Bruce Spence) in Quentin Masters’ Midnite Spares: rated “R ” but changed to “M ” after an appeal to the Films Board o f Review.

He Lives by Night: Cinema City Films, Hong Kong, 2441.27m, Grand Film Corp., V ff-m -g )Horror on Snape Island: Grenadier Co., Britain,2304.12 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g ), O fn u d ity )How Sleep the Brave (videotape): E. Laurie, U.S., 87 mins, Filmways A’sian Dist., V fi-m -g ), L ff-m -g )Iron Swallow (videotape): Biansing Film Co., Hong Kong, 90 mins, Direct Video, V ff-m -g )I Shall Return: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2540 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g )Kill the Golden Goose (videotape): Video Gems, U.S., 91 mins, PBL Video, V ff-m -g )Madame Olga’s Pupils: Balcazar Prods, Spain/Britain, 2139.54 m, Filmways A’sian Dist., S ff-m -g )Midnite Spares: T. Burstall, Australia, 2386.41 m, Roadshow Dist., V ff-m -g )Murder in the Orient: Not shown, Philippines, 2008 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Mutant: New World Films, U.S., 2057 m, Hoyts Dist., V ff-m -g ), S fi-m -g )Playboy Video (videotape): Playboy, U.S., 95 mins, Twentieth Century-Fox Video (South Pacific), S fi-m -g ) , O fn u d ity )Ugly George (videotape): Electric Blue, U.S., 57 mins, Electric Blue (A’sia), S fi-m -g ) ,-O fn u d ity )(a) Formerly "M " with deletions (February 1972 list).(b) Previously shown in April 1982 list.(c) See also under "For Mature Audiences” and “ Films

Board of Review” .

Films Registered With EliminationsFor Restricted Exhibition (R)Mystique (reconstructed pre-censor cut version) (a): Sendy Films, U.S., 2119 m, impact Films, S ff-m -g ) Deletions: 2.2 m (5 secs)Reason for deletions: S (i-h -g )Randy (videotape): Fast Forward Films, U.S., 74 mins, K. Gough, S ff-m -g )Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )Too All a Good Night: J. Rasumay, U.S., 2331.55 m, International Film Dist. (Aust.), V ff-m -g )Deletions: 4.7 m (8 secs)Reason for deletions: V fi-h -g )Wanda Whips Wall Street: Christian, U.S., 2112 m, AZ Associated Film Dist., S ff-m -g )Deletions: 17.3 m (38 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )(a) Previously shown on August 1982 list.

Films Refused RegistrationThe Budding of Brie (reconstructed version) (a): Scope Picture Prods, U.S., 2051 m, Regent Trading Enterprises, S fi-h -g )F: Gemini Films, U.S., 1872 m, AZ Associated Film Dist., S fi-h -g )Hot Legs (videotape): G. Palmer, U.S., 74 mins, PBL Video, S fi-h -g )The Mystery of Ming Lee (videotape): Not shown, U.S., 49 mins, Rahima Prods, S ff-h -g )Peaches and Cream (videotape): M. Corby, U.S.. 71 mins, Blake Films (Vic.), S ff-h -g )The Slumber Party Massacre: A. Jones, U S.. 2086 m, Hoyts Dist., V fi-h -g )Small Town Girls (reconstructed pre-censor cut soft version) (b): W. Dancer, U.S., 1703 m, Cinerama Films. S fi-h -g )Tangerine (videotape): M. Colby, U.S., 77 mins, Blake Films (Vic.), S ff-h -g )The Taste of the Savage: Wallstein/Gallivar, Spain, 2360 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-h -g )The Women of Inferno Island: I. Dietrich, W. Germany, 2534 m, Filmways A’sian Dist., S fi-h -g )(a) Previously shown on August 1981 list.(b) Previously shown on December 1981 list.

Films Board of ReviewDeutschland privât (a): Robert Van Ackeren, W. Germany, 2273 m, Australian Film Institute Decision reviewed: Refusal to register by the Film Censorship Board.Decision of the Board: Uphold the decision of the Film Censorship Board.First Blood (b): B. Feitshans, U.S./Canada, 2550 m, Roadshow Dist.Decision reviewed: Classify “ R” by the Film Censorship Board.Decision of the Board: Classify “ M".(a) Previously shown on October 1982 list.(b) See also under “ Films Registered Without Elimina

tions” ("For Mature Audiences” and "For Restricted Exhibition” ).


Film Censorship Listings

December 1982

Films Registered Without EliminationsFor General Exhibition (G)Adventures in Paradise (16mm): Scott Dittrich Films, U.S., 833.72 m, Hooley and McCoy Films Racing Scene: B. Scholer, A. Sidaris, U.S., 2395 m, 14th MandolinSuperbug — The Wild One: Barbra Films, South Africa, 2441.27 m, 14th Mandolin Three Minutes Past Nine: Sun Wah Film Co., Taiwan,2304.12 m, Golden Reel FilmsTrap on Cougar Mountain: K. Larsen, U.S., 2649 m, 14th Mandolin

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)Challenge to White Fang: Coralta Cinematografica, Itaiy/France, 2469 m, 14th Mandolin, V(i-l-j)Desperate (16mm): RKO, U.S., 801 m, National Library of Australia, 0 ( a d u l t c o n c e p ts )Encounter With the Unknown: Centronics Int’ l, U.S.,2221.83 m, 14th Mandolin, V (i-m -j)Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth: A. Oboler, U.S.,2496.13 m, G.L. Film Enterprises, 0 (3 -D h o r ro r e ffe c ts ) Fitzcarraldo: Herzog and Stipetic, W. Germany, 4251.65 m, PBL Video, S (i- l-j) , V (i-m -j)Gal Young Un (16mm): V. Nunez, U.S., 1184 m, Shar- mill Films, 0 ( a d u l t c o n c e p ts )Goodbye Joey (videotape): Cunningham and Guilfoyle, Australia, 95 mins, Ceeque No. 15, P. Cunningham, L. Guilfoyle, V (i-m -j), O fa n im a l s u ffe r in g )He Heals and Kills (16mm): H. King, Japan, 899 m, Chinese Cultural Centre, V (i-l-j)Hysterical: H. and W. Filmworks Prod., U.S.,2413.84 m, Roadshow Film Dist., L (i- l-g ) , ¿ (n u d ity , s e x u a l a llu s io n s )Imperial Lady Mi: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2908 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (i-l-j)Legend of a Fighter: Seasonal Film, Hong Kong, 2860 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (i- l-g ), L (i- l-g )My Young Auntie: R. Shaw, Hong Kong, 3236.74 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V (f-l-g )The Narrow Margin (16mm): RKO, U.S., 779 m, National Library of Australia, V (i-m -j)The Ring of Death: Seasonal Films, Hong Kong, 2441.27 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (f-l-j)Six Weeks: Polygram Pictures, U.S., 2935 m, Roadshow Film Dist., 0 ( a d u lt th e m e )Tender Mercies: Anton Media Prods, U.S., 2468.70 m, Greater Union Film Dist., L (i- l- j) , O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Toy: Rastar, U.S., 2797.86 m, Fox Columbia Film Dist., L ff- l-g )Youth of Peter the First — Part 2: Not shown, Soviet Union, 3671 m, Trade Representative of the Soviet Union, L (i- l- j)

For Mature Audiences (M)Another Way: Mafilm, Hungary, 2935 m, Sharmill Films, S fi-m - j), O fa d u lt th e m e s )Bad Blood: Southern Pictures, New Zealand, 3099.59 m, Hoyts Dist., V (i-m -j)Behind the Storm: South Wind Film Prod., Hong Kong, 2330 m, Golden Reel Films, V (i-m -j)Best Friends: N. Jewison, P. Palmer, U.S., 3017.30 m, Warner Bros (Aust), 0 ( a d u l t c o n c e p ts )Boat People: Blue Bird Film Enterprises, Hong Kong, 3127 m, Golden Reel Films, V fi-m -j)Crazed: J. Cassidy, U.S., 2386.41 m, Filmways A’asian Dist., V (i-m -j)Dance of the Drunk Mantis: Seasonal Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2600 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (i-m -j), L (f- l-g )Death Journey: Po' Boy Prods, U.S., 2139 m, 14th Mandolin, V (i-m -g )Der bockerer (The Stubborn Mule): Bockerer Film, W. Germany, 2605.85 m, Festival Films, 0 ( a d u l t c o n c e p ts ) Enigma: Filmcrest Int’ l, Britain/France, 2770.43 m, Hoyts Dist., V (i-m -j)Game of Death (a): R. Chow, Hong Kong, 2646.70 m, Filmways A’asian Dist., V (f-m -g )Ghostkeeper: Badlands Pictures, Canada, 2249 m, Int’ l Film Dist. (Aust), V (i-m -j)Ginger in the Morning: C. Paylow, U.S., 2633.28 m, 14th Mandolin, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Good, the Bad and the Loser: Advance Films, Hong Kong, 2605.85 m, 14th Mandolin, V (f-l-g ), L (f- l-g ), O fn u d ity )Grandison (16mm): Grandison Film Prod., W. Germany, 1120 m, German Embassy, S fi- l- j)A Heart Breaking Woman: T.C. Ching, Taiwan, 2305 m, Golden Reel Films, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Jis desh mein ganga behti-hai: R. Kapoor, India, 4510 m, SKD Film Dist., O fa d u lt th e m e )Journey: P. Almond, Canada, 2386 m, 14th Mandolin, S fi-m -j)Les rendez-vous d’Anna: Helene Films, Belgium, 1338 m, National Library of Australia, O fa d u lt re la t io n s h ip )Lion vs Lion: M. Fong, Hong Kong, 2989.87 m, Joe Siu Int'l Film Co., V fi-m -g )Lookin' to Get Out: R. Schaffel, U.S., 2872 m, Roadshow Film Dist., L ff-m -g )Mad Jo: Barbara Film, W. Germany, 2441.27 m, Film- ways A’asian Dist., V fi-m -g ), O fn u d ity )Midnite Spares (b): T. Burstali, Australia, 2386.41 m, Roadshow Film Dist., V ff-m -g )My Darling My Goddess: Reel Films, Hong Kong, 2249 m, Golden Reel Films, S fi-m - j) , V fi-m -j)National Lampoon’s Class Reunion: M. Simmons, U.S., 2276.69 m, Roadshow Film Dist., L fi-m -g ),O fs e x u a l a llu s io n s )The Night of San Lorenzo: RAI/AGER Cinematografica, Italy, 2880.15 m, A.Z. Associated Film Dist., V fi-m -j)No Way Back: Po’ Boy Prods, U.S., 2386.41 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Pink Motel: Michael McFarland Prods, U.S., 2386.41 m, Roadshow Film Dist., S ff- l- j) , O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )The Return of the Panther: W. Hong, Hong Kong, 2358.98 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Roving Swordsman: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong,2413.84 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V fi-m -g )Seven Black Heroines: Summit Film Co., Hong Kong, 2660 m, Grand Film Corp., V ff-m -g )So Sad About Gloria: H. Thomason, U.S., 2386.41 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-m -g )The Sweet and Sour Cops: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2386.41 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V fi-m -g ), L fi-m -g )

The Sweet and Sour Cops — Part 2: Seasonal Films, Hong Kong, 2300 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V fi-m -g ), O fd ru g s )Sword of Justice (16mm): Y. Ching, Hong Kong, 1064.09 m, Chinese Cultural Centre, V fi-m -g )The Tiger and the Widow: M. Fong, Hong Kong, 2514.94 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., S fi-m -g ) , V fi-m -g ) What Price . . . Stardom: Seasonal Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2743 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, S fi-m -g )The Year of Living Dangerously: McElroy and McElroy, Australia, 3211m, United Int’l Pictures, V fi-m -j), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )(a) Previously “ R” (May 1981 list).(b) Previously “ R" (November 1982 list); see also

under “ Films Board of Review” .

For Restricted Exhibition (R)The Awakening of Annie: L. Sulistrowski, Brazil, 1837.31 m, 14th Mandolin, S ff-m -g )Bionic Heroes: C. Ming, Hong Kong, 2276.89 m, Mutual Film Dist., V ff-m -g )Blackenstein — the Black Frankenstein (videotape): F. Saletri, U.S., 84 mins, P. Arnold, V ff-m -g )Crimson Street: C. Sang, Hong Kong, 2578.42 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g )Day of a Woman (U.S. modified version) (videotape) (a): Cine-Magic Pictures Prod., U.S., 101 mins, Blake Films (Vic.), O fs e x u a l v io le n c e )Deadly Chase for Justice (videotape): J. Shaw, Hong Kong, 86 mins, Direct Video, V ff-m -g )Delicious: Praxis Prod., U.S., 2029 m, A.Z. Associated Film Dist., S ff-m -g ), L ff-m -g )A Dirty Western (videotape) (b): M. Darrin, U.S., 70 mins, PBL Video, ¿ (s e x u a l v io le n c e )Erotic Dream of Rad Chamber: N. Yuen, Hong Kong, 2482 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, S fi-m -g )Family of Lust: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 2139.54 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., S ff-m -g )Fringe Benefits (re-constructed pre-censor cut version)(c): Pendulous Prods, U.S., 1892.67 m, Impact Films, S (f-m -g )La grande bouffe: M. Ferreri, France, 3346.46 m, Valhalla Films, S fi-m -j), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Les fruits de la passion (videotape): A. Dauman, H. Govaers, France/Japan, 83 mins, PBL Video, S fi-m -j), O fs a d o -m a s o c h is t ic th e m e )Marking: IFD Films, Hong Kong, 2276.69 m, Golden Reel Films, V ff-m -g )Misty (modified version) (videotape) (d): Not shown, U.S., 90 mins, K and C Video, S ff-m -g )My Brother Has Bad Dreams: B. Emery, U.S.,2605.85 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-m -g )New York China Town: Wing Scope Prod., Hong Kong/U.S., 2496.13 m, Grand Film Corp., V ff-m -g )Ninja in the Dragon’s Den: Season Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2688.14 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V fi-m -g ) Primitives (videotape): Rapi Films, Philippines, 86 mins, Filmways A’asian Dist., V ff-m -g )Project Kill: D. Sheldon, U.S./Philippines, 2565.70 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Relations: Cineproduction/Forbes Film, Sweden, 2386 m, 14th Mandolin, S ff-m -g )Shoelin Iron Swallow (videotape): Biansing Film Co., Hong Kong, 90 mins, Direct Video, V ff-m -g )The Summer Party Massacre (reconstructed version) (e): A. Jones, U.S., 2084 m, Hoyts Dist., V ff-m -g )Take Some Girls (videotape): M. Elam, Britain, 83 mins, Filmways A’asian Dist., S fi-m -g )Tales of Ordinary Madness: M. Ferreri, U.S./ltaly, 2770.43 m, PBL Video, S fi-m -g ) , V fi-m -j), L fi-m - j)Tiger Killer: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 2770 m, Grand Film Corp., S fi-m - j), V ff-m -g )Virgin Campus (Passion Flower Hotel) (videotape): A. Brauner, Britain, 94 mins, VCL Video, S fi-m - j)We’re Going to Eat You: Seasonal Films, Hong Kong, 2413.84 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g )(a) Previously shown as I Spit On Your Grave (July

1982 list).(bl Previously shown on March 1978 list.(c) Previously shown on July 1982 list.(d) Previously shown as The Sexpert (February 1982

list).(e) Previously shown on November 1982 list.

Films Registered With EliminationsFor Restricted Exhibition (R)China Sisters (pre-censor cut soft version) (a): A. Spinelli, U.S., 1951 m, Blake Films, S ff-m -g )Deletions: 1 m (2 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )Dirty Love Games: F. Gottlieb, W. Germany, 2249.26 m, 14th Mandolin, S ff-m -g )Deletions: 3.2 m (7 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )The Tiffany Minx (reconstructed version) (b): Sendy, U.S., 2194.40 m, Impact Films, S ff-m -g )Deletions: 2 m (4 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )(a) Previously shown on April 1982 list.(b) Previously shown on May 1982 list.

Films Refused RegistrationExposed (videotape) (a): W. Emerson, 78 mins, Blake Films (Vic.), S fl-h -g )Exposed (a): W. Emerson, 2112 m, Blake Films (Vic.), S fi-h -g )Love From Paris (videotape) (b): Harlequin Films, 55 mins, Intercontinental Video, S ff-h -g )Mary Mary! (videotape): B. Morris, U.S., 64 mins, Video Classics, S fi-h -g )Peaches and Cream (videotape): M. Corby, U.S., 67 mins, Video Classics, S ff-h -g )Physical (videotape): J. Blackthorne, U.S., 90 mins, Video Classics, S fi-h -g )Rosemary’s Killer: D. Streit, U.S.. 2413.84 m, Video Classics, V ff-h -g )(a) Supersedes erroneous registration (May 1982 list);

not identical with Exposed (March 1974 list).(b) Supersedes erroneous registration (September

1982 list).

Films Board of ReviewMidnite Spares (a): T. Burstali, Australia, 2386.41 m, Roadshow Film Dist.Decision reviewed: Classify “ R” by Film Censorship BoardDecision of the Board: Classify “ M”(a) See also under “ Films Registered Without Elimina

tions’’ (“ For Mature Audiences” ); previously shown on November 1982 list.

January 1983

Films Registered Without EliminationsFor General Exhibition (G)Musical Mutiny: Recreation Corp., U.S., 1920.10 m, 14th MandolinOn the Road with Circus OZ (videotape): Ukiyo Films, Australia, 74 mins, Ukiyo Films Aust.Stormbreaker: A Quest for Paradise (16mm): FWJ Prods, Australia, 1097 m, P.R. and N.T. Walker Topele: Baron Assoc., Israel, 2139.54 m, 14th Mandolin Traffic (videotape): Les Films Corona, France, 102 mins, PBL Video

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)Burdens of Dreams (16mm): L. Blank, U.S., 987 m, Ronin Films, V fi-l-j), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Bum Phoenix Burn: Superstar Motion Pic. Corp., Hong Kong, 2554.80 m, Grand Film Corp., O fe m o t io n a ls t re s s ) Death Driver: E. Owensby, U.S., 2686.81 m, PBL Video, V fi-m -g )Five Days One Summer: The Ladd Company/Warner Bros, U.S./Britain, 2907.58 m, Roadshow Film Dist., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Frankenstein Island: Chriswar Prods., U.S., 2539.80 m, Filmways A’asian Dist., O fh o rro r )Happy Sixteen: Pearl City Films, Hong Kong, 2715.57 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, S fi- l- j)Journey Into Fear: New World, U.S., 2660.71 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-l-g )Kiss Me Goodbye: Boardwalk/B. Sugarman/K. Barish, U.S., 2715.57 m, Fox Columbia Film Dist., L fi-t-g ) Oliver Twist: T. Childs, Britain, 2816 m, Filmways A’asian Dist., V fi-m -j)The Silver Cord (16mm): RKO, U.S., 823 m, National Library of Australia, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Smart Woman (16mm): RKO, U.S., 746 m, National Library of Australia, O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Table for Five: R. Schaffel, U.S., 3235 m, Roadshow Film Dist., O fe m o tio n a l s tre s s )Taipei My Love: Seasonal Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2320 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts ) The 36 Crazy Fist: United Enterprises (H.K.) Corp., Hong Kong, 2355 m, Golden Reel Films, V ff-l-j), O fn u d ity )Yes, Giorgio: MGM/United Artists, U.S., 2962.44 m, United Int’l Pictures, O fa d u lt th e m e )

For Mature Audiences (M)By Design: B. Fox/W. Aellen, Canada, 2496.13 m, Film- ways A’asian Dist., S fi-m - j), ¿ (a d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Challenge (third reconstructed version) (a): Rosen and Beckman, U.S./Japan, 2962.44 m, Roadshow Film Dist., V ff-m -g )Creepshow: Laurel Film Prod., U.S., 3291.60 m, Hoyts Dist., V ff-m -g ), O fh o rro r)Don’t Kill Me Brother: Wing-Scope Co., Hong Kong 2989.87 m, Grand Film Corp, V ff-m -g )Dragon Force (English-dubbed version): Johnny Mak Prod., Hong Kong, 2563 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff- l-g ), O fn u d ity )Dragon Force (Chinese language version): Johnny Mak Prod., Hong Kong, 2563 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (f-l-g), O fn u d ity )El castilo de la pureza: Estudio Churubosco, Mexico, 2880.15 m, Hugo Barker Lee, O fa d u l t c o n c e p t) Frances: Brooksfilm/EMI, U.S., 3730.48 m, Greater Union Film Dist., O fa d u lt th e m e , e m o t io n a l v io le n c e ) Friend Band: Verdull (Film Dept), Hong Kong, 2748.90 m, Grand Film Corp., V fi-m -g )The Greatest Assisanate: Yue Films, Taiwan, 2335 m, Golden Reel Films, V ff-m -g )Handgun: D. Street, U.S., 2733 m, Greater Union Film Dist., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Head On: M. Grant, Canada, 2370.50 m, Roadshow Film Dist., V ff-m -g ), ¿>fadutt c o n c e p ts )Homework: J. Beshears, U.S., 2359.98 m, Sun Classic Prods, S fi- l- j) , O fd ru g re fe re n c e )Impossible Woman: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2398 m, Golden Reel Films, S fi- l-g ), V ff-m -g )Jinxed: United Artists, U.S., 2797.96 m, United Int’l Pictures, L ff-m -g ), O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )Lackey and the Lady Tiger: Seasonal Film Corp., Hong Kong, 2753.70 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g )Love Child — A True Story: The Ladd Company, U.S., 2605.82 m, Warner Bros (Aust.), L fi-m - j) , O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )

Masked Avengers: Shaw Bros, Hong Kong, 2578.42 m, Joe Siu Int’l Film Co., V ff-m -g )The Night: Charlemagne Prods, Britain, 2413.84 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Nomad: Century Motion Picture and Dist. Co., Hong Kong, 2677 m, Golden Reel Films, S fi-m -g ) , V fi-m -g ) Operation Cross Eagles: I. Panayotovic, U.S./Yugoslavia, 2245 m, 14th Mandolin, V fi-m -g )The Plague Dogs: Nepenthe Films, U.S., 2770.43 m, Hoyts Dist., V fi-m -g ) , O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )Play Dead: F. Rudding, U.S., 2331.55 m, Filmways A’asian Dist., V fi-m -g )The Scarecrow: R. Whitehouse, New Zealand, 2386 m, Nilson Premiere, O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )Scrubbers: Handmade Films, Britain, 2468.70 m, Greater Union Film Dist., V fi-m -j), L ff-m -j)Sophie’s Choice: ITC, U.S., 4224.22 m, United Int’l Pictures, L fi-m - j) , O fa d u l t c o n c e p ts )Split Image: Polygram Pictures, U.S., 3017 m, Roadshow Film Dist., L fi-m - j) , O fe m o t io n a l s tre s s )The Switch: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2633.28 m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V ff-m -g )Theerpu: Sujatha Cine Arts, India, 3456.18 m, Rainbow Int'l/Pyramid Home Video, V ff- l-g ), O fe m o t io n a l s tre s s ) Timerider: Jensen Farley Pictures, U.S., 2550.99 m, Sun Classic Prods, S fi-m -g ) , V fi-m -g )Tootsie: Columbia, U.S., 3099.59 m, Fox Columbia Film Dist., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )War Brides (16mm): Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Canada, 1061.09 m, Publishing and Broadcasting Video Div., O fa d u lt c o n c e p ts )The Women of Pleasure: Box Office Int'l/G and S Prods, U.S., 1755.52 m, 14th Mandolin, O fs tr ip te a s e )

For Restricted Exhibition (R)Electric Blue 10 (videotape): A. Cole, Britain, 60 mins, Electric Blue A’asia, S ff-m -g )Expensive Tastes: Fotocine Film Prods., Hong Kong,2468.70 m, Grand Film Corp., V ff-m -g ), O fs e x u a l v io le n c e )F (reconstructed version) (a): Gemini Films, U.S., 1782.95 m, A.Z. Associated Film Dist., S ff-m -g )Friday 13 Part 3 (3-D version): F. Mancuso, U.S., 2578.42 m, United Int’l Pictures, V ff-m -g )The Last American Virgin: Golan/Globus, U.S., 2359 m, Fox Columbia Film Dist., S fi-m -g ) , L fi-m -g )The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (videotape): S. Krantz, U.S., 77 mins, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (Video Div.), O fa d u lt c a r to o n e x p lo it in g s e x a n d v io le n c e )The Scavengers (b): R. Creese, U.S., 2513 m, 14th Mandolin, S fi-m -g ) , V ff-m -g )The Slayer: W. Ewing, U.S., 2194.40 m, A.Z. Associated Film Dist., V fi-m -g )A Taste of Hell: J. Garwood, U.S., 2331 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )The Taste of the Savage (reconstructed version) (c): Wallstein and Gallivar, Spain, 2304.12 m, 14th Mandolin, V ff-m -g )Wet Rainbow (pre-censor cut version): R. Wald, U.S., 1536.08 m, 14th Mandolin, S ff-m -g )(a) Previously shown on November 1982 list.(b) Previously shown on July 1971 list.(c) Previously shown on November 1982 list.

Films Registered With EliminationsFor Restricted Exhibition (R)House of Hookers (2nd reconstructed version) (16mm) (a): Janus II Prod., U.S., 1261.78 m, 14th Mandolin, S ff-m -g )Deletions: 3 m (16 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )Pandora’s Mirror (reconstructed soft version) (b): W. Evans, U.S., 2331.55 m, A.Z. Associated Film Dist S fi-m -g )Deletions: 13 m (28 secs)Reason for deletions: S fi-h -g )(a ) Previously shown on August 1982 list.(b) Previously shown on July 1982 list.

Films Refused RegistrationKama Sutra (videotape): T. Malik, U.S., 59 mins, Nilsen Premiere, S fi-h -g )Lipps and McCain (videotape): R. Aldrich, U.S., 69 mins, Video Classics, S ff-h -g )No. 16 Park Avenue (videotape): J. Carr, Britain, 53 mins, D. Clark, S fi-h -g )Sigmund Freud’s Dora (16mm) (a): A. McCall and Ors, U.S., 385 m, National Library of Australia, S fi-h -g ) Woman in Love — A Story of Madame Bovary: K. Horulu, U.S., 2068 m, Regent Trading Enterprises, S ff-h -g )(a) Previously shown on September 1981 list. ^

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The Australian Motion Picture Yearbook 1983 ......................................... p . 2The Documentary Film in A ustralia ...................................................................p . 3The New Australian Cinema ..................................................................................p . 4Australian TV: The First 25 Years p . 4Film Expo Seminar Report p . 4Cinema Papers Subscriptions p . 5Cinema Papers Back Issues p. 6Order Form pp • 7 and 8

■0M

The third edition o f the Australian M otion Picture Yearbook has been totally revised and updated.

The Yearbook again takes a detailed look at what has been happening in all sections o f the Australian film scene over the p a s t year, including financing, production, distribution, exhibition, television, film festivals, media, censorship and awards.

A s in the past, all entrants in A ustra lia’s m ost comprehensive film and television industry directory have been contacted to check the accuracy o f entries, and many new categories have been added.

A new series o f profiles has been com piled and will highlight the careers o f director Peter Weir, com poser Brian M ay and actor M el Gibson.

A new feature in the 1983 edition is an extensive editorial section with articles on aspects o f Australian and international cinema, including film financing, special' effects, censorship, and a survey o f the im pact our film s are having on U.S. audiences. $25

Edited by Peter Beilby and Ross Lansell

AUSTRALIAN

MOTION PICTURE YEARBOOK

1983

Reactions to the Second Edition

an invaluable reference for anyone with an interest — vested or altruistic — in the continuing film renaissance down under . . . ”

Variety

“The most useful reference book for me in the past year . . . ”

Ray Stanley Screen International

“The Australian Motion Picture Yearbook is a great asset to the film industry in this country. We at Kodak find it invaluable as a reference aid for the industry. ”

David Wells Kodak

“... one has to admire the detail and effort which has gone into the yearbook. It covers almost every conceivable facet of the film industry and the publisher’s claim that it is ‘the only comprehensive yellow page guide to the film industry’ is irrefutable. ”

The Australian

“Anyone interested in Australian films, whether in the industry or who just enjoys watching them, will find plenty to interest him in this book. ”

The Sydney Sun-Herald

“This significant publication is valuable not only to professionals but everyone interested in Australian film. ’’

The Melbourne Herald

“May I congratulate you on your Australian Motion Picture Yearbook. It is a splendidly useful publication to us, and I ’m sure to most people in, and outside, the business. ”

Mike Walsh Hayden Price Productions

“Indispensable tool of the trade. ”Elizabeth Riddell

Theatre Australia

“The 1981 version of the Australian Motion Picture Yearbook is not only bigger, it’s better — as glossy on the outside as too many Australian films try to be and as packed with content as many more Australian films ought to be . . . ”

The Sydney Morning Herald

“I have been receiving the Cinema Papers Motion Picture Yearbook for the past two years, and always find it to be full of interesting and useful information and facts. It is easy to read and the format is set out in such a way that information is easy to find. I consider the Yearbook to be an asset to the office. ”

Bill Gooley Coloifilm

“... another good effort from the Cinema Papers team, and essential as a desk-top reference for anybody interested in our feature film industry. ”

The Adelaide Advertiser

2

Documentary films occupy a special place in the history and development of Australian filmmaking. From the pioneering efforts of Baldwin Spencer to Damien Parer's Academy Award winning Kokoda Front Line, to Chris Noonan's Stepping Out and David Bradbury's Frontline, Australia's documentary filmmakers have been acclaimed world-wide.

The documentary film is also the mainstay of the Australian film industry. More time, more money and more effort goes into making documentaries in this country than any other film form — features, shorts or animation.

In this, the first comprehensive publication on Australian documentary film, 50 researchers, authors and filmmakers have combined to examine the evolution of documentary filmmaking in Australia, and the state of the art today.

The History of the Documentary:A World ViewInternational landmarks, key figures, major movements.

The Development of the Documentary in AustraliaA general history of the evolution of the documentary film in Australia, highlighting key films, personalities and events.

Documentary ProducersAn examination of the various types of documentaries made in Australia, and who produces them. A study of government and independent production. The aims behind the production of documentaries, and the various film forms adopted to achieve the desired ends. This part surveys the sources of finance for documentary film here and abroad.

NOW AVAILABLE

The MarketplaceThe market for Australian documentary films, here and abroad. This section examines broadcast television, pay television, theatrical distribution, video sales and hire, box-office performances and ratings.

Making a DocumentaryA series of case studies examining the making of documentaries. Examples include large budget documentary series for television; one-off documentaries for television and theatrical release; and educational and instructional documentaries.Each case study examines, in detail, the steps in the production of the documentary, and features interviews with the key production, creative and technical personnel involved.

The Australian Documentary: Themes and ConcernsAn examination of the themes, pre-occupations and film forms used by Australian documentary producers and directors.

Repositories and PreservationA survey of the practices surrounding the storage and preservation of documentary films in Australia. Comparisons of procedures here and abroad.

The FutureA look at the future for documentary films. The impact of new technology as it affects production, distribution and marketing. A forward look at the marketplace and the changing role of the documentary.

Producers and Directors ChecklistA checklist of documentary producers and directors currently working in Australia.

Useful InformationReference information for those dealing with, or interested in, the documentary film. This section will include listings of documentary buyers, distributors, libraries, festivals, etc.

Contents

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3

m m The f ir s t comprehensive book on the A ustralian f i lm revival $14.95

In this major work on the Australian film industry ’s dramatic rebirth, 12 leading film writers combine to provide a lively and entertaining critique. Illustrated with 265 stills, including 55 in fu ll color, this book is an invaluable record for all those interested in the New Australian Cinema.The chapters: The Past (Andrew Pike), Social Realism (Keith Connolly), Comedy (Geoff Mayer), Horror and Suspense (Brian McFarlane), Action and Adventure (Susan Dermody), Fantasy (Adrian M artin), Historical Films (Tom Ryan), Personal Relationships and Sexuality (Meaghan Morris), Loneliness and Alienation (Rod Bishop and Fiona Mackie), Children’s Films (Virginia Duigan), Avant-garde (Sam Rohdie).

m i lAU<The First 2!

AUSTRALIAN TV The firs t 25 years records, year by year, all the important television events. Over 600 photographs, some in full color, recall forgotten images and preserve memories of programmes long since wiped from the tapes.

The book covers every facet of television programming — light entertainment, quizzes, news and documentaries, kids’ programmes, sport, drama, movies, commercials . . . Contributors include Jim Murphy, Brian Courtis, Garrie Hutchinson, Andrew McKay, Christopher Day, Ivan Hutchinson.

AUSTRALIAN TV takes you back to the time when television for most Australians was a curiosity — a shadowy, often soundless, picture in the window of the local electricity store. The qiLality of the early programmes was at best unpredictable, but still people would gather to watch the Melbourne Olympics, Chuck Faulkner reading the news, or even the test pattern!

At first imported series were the order of the day. Only Graham Kennedy and Bob Dyer could challenge the ratings of the westerns and situation comedies from America and Britain.

Then came The Mavis Bramston Show. With the popularity of that rude and irreverent show, Australian television came into its own. Programmes like Number 96, The Box, Against the Wind, Sale of the Century have achieved ratings that are by world standards remarkable.

AUSTRALIAN TV is an entertainment, a delight, and a commemoration of a lively, fast-growing industry. $14.95

p I f E dCIVIIHlin VfEi tin 1 $25In November 1980 the Film and

Television Production Association of Australia and the New South Wales Film Corporation brought together 15 international experts to discuss film financing, marketing, and distribution of Australian films in the 1980s with producers involved in the film and television industry.

The symposium was a resounding success.

Tape recordings made of the proceedings have been transcribed and edited by Cinema Papers, and published as the Film Expo Seminar Report.

Contents

Theatrical ProductionThe Package: Two Perspectives

Theatrical Production Business and Legal Aspects

Distribution in the United States

Producer/Dislribulor Relationship

Distribution Outside the United States

Television Production and Distribution

Financing o f Theatrical Films Major Studios

Financing o f Theatrical Films Independent Studios

Presale o f Rights

Presale o f Territory

Multi-National and Other Co-Productions

ContributorsArthur AbelesChairman, Filmarketeers L td (U .S .)

Barbara D. BoyleExecutive Vice-President, and Chief Operating Officer, New World Pictures (U .S .)

Ashley BooneWorldwide Marketing and Distribution Head, Ladd Company (U .S .)

Mark DamonPresident, Producers Sales Organization (U .S .)

Michael FuchsSenior Vice-President, Programming, Home Box Office (U .S .)

Samuel W. Gelfman Independent Producer (U .S .)

Klaus HellwigPresident, Janus Film Und Fernsehen (Germany)

Lois LugerVice-President, Television Sales, Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation (U .S .)

Professor Avv. Massimo Ferrara-SantamariaLawyer (Italy)

Mike MedavoyExecutive Vice-President, Orion Pictures (U .S .)

Simon O. OlswangSolicitor, Brecker and Company (Britain)

Rudy PetersdorfPresident and Chief Operating Officer,Australian Films Office Inc. (U .S .)

Barry SpikingsChairman and Chief Executive, E M I Film and Theatre Corporation (Britain)

Eric WeissmannPartner, Kaplan, Livingston, Goodwin, Berkowitz and Selvin

Harry UplandPresident, The Ufland Agency (U .S .)

...one o f the most richly informed and reliable o f film periodicals”. p e t e r c o w ie

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Number 1 January 1974David Williamson. Ray Harryhausen. Peter Weir. Gillian Armstrong. Ken G. Hall. Tariff Board Report. Antony I. Ginnane. The Car* That Ate Paris.

Number 12 April 1977Kenneth Loach. Tom Hay- don. Bert Deling. Piero Tosi. John Scott. John Dankworth. The Getting ot Wisdom. Journey Among Women.

Number 2 April 1974Violence in the Cinema. Alvin Purple. Frank Moor- house. Sandy Harbutt. Film Under Allende. Nicholas Roeg. Between Wars.

Number 3 July 1974John Papadopolous. Willis O'Brien. The Mc- Donagh Sisters. Richard Brennan. Luis Buñuel. The True Story of Eskimo Nell.

CINi

Number 13 July 1977

Number 14 October 1977

Louise Malle. Paul Cox. John Power. Peter Sykes. Bernardo Bertolucci. F.J. Holden. In Search of Anna.Index: Volume 3

Phil Noyce. Eric Rohmer. John Huston. Blue Fire Lady. S um m er fie ld . Chinese Cinema.

Number 5 March-April 1975Jennings Lang. Byron Haskin. Surf Films. Brian Probyn. Sunday Too Far Away. Charles Chauvel. Index: Volume 1

Number 15 January 1978Tom Cowan, Francois Truffaut. Delphine Seyrig. The Irishman. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Sri Lankan Cinema. The Last Wave.

Number 9 June-July 1976Milos Forman. Miklos Jancso. Luchino Visconti. Robyn Spry, O r Mad Dog Morgan Joan Long. Index: Volume 2

Number 16 April-June 1978Patrick. Swedish Cinema. John Duigan. Steven Spielberg. Dawn! Mouth to Mouth. Film Periodicals.

Number 10September-October1976Nagisa Oshima. Phillippe Mora. Gay Cinema. John Heyer. Krzysztof Zanussi. Marco Ferreri. Marco Bellocchio.

Number 17August-September1978Bill Bain. Isabelle Huppert. Polish Cinema. The Night the Prowler. Pierre Rissient. Newsfront. Film Study Resources.Index: Volume 4

Number 11 January 1977Emile de Antonio. Australian Film Censorship. Sam Arkoff. Roman Polanski. The Picture Show Man. Don’s Party. Storm Boy.

Number 18October-November1978John Lamond. Dimboola. Indian Cinema. Sonia Borg. Alain ta n n e r. Cathy's Child. The Last Tasmanian.

Number 19January-February1979Antony I, Ginnane Jeremy Thomas. Blue Fin. Andrew Sarris. Asian Cinema Sponsored Documentaries.

Number 20 March-April 1979Ken Cameron. French Cinema. Jim Sharman. My Brilliant Career. Film Study Resources. The Night the Prowler.

Number 21 May-June 1979Mad Max. Vietnam on Film. Grendel, Grendel, Grendel. David Hem- mings The Odd Angry Shot. Box-Office Grosses. Snapshot.

Number 22 July-August 1979Bruce Petty. Albie Thoms. Newsfront Film Study Resources. K ostas . Money Movers. The Australian Film and Television School.Index: Volume 5

Number 24 December 1979 - January 1980Brian Trenchard Smith. Palm Beach. Brazilian Cinema. Jerzy Toeplitz. Community Television. Arthur Hiller.

Number 25 February-March 1980Chain Reaction. David Puttnam. Censorship. Stir. Everett de Roche. Touch and Go. Film and Politics.

Number 26 April-May 1980The Films of Peter Weir. Charles Joffe. Harlequin. Nationalism in Australian Cinema. The Little Convict.Index: Volume 6

Number 27 June-July 1980The New Zealand Film Industry The Z Men. Peter Yeldham. Maybe This Time. Donald Richie. G re n d e l, G re n d e l, Grendel.

Number 28August-September1980The Films of Bruce Beres- ford. Stir. Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals. Breaker Morant. Stacy Keach. R oadgam es.

Number 29October-November1980Bob Ellis. Actors Equity Debate. Uri Windt. Cruising. The Last Outlaw. Philippine Cinema. The Club.

Number 39August1982Helen Morse on Far East, Norwegian Cinema, Two Laws, Melbourne and Sydney Film Festival reports, Monkey Grip.

Number 40October1982Henri Safran, Moving Out, Michael Ritchie, Pauline Kael, Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, Running on Empty.

Number 41 December 1982Igor Auzins, Lonely Hearts, Paul Schrader, Peter Tammer, Liliana Cavani, We of the Never Never, Rim Awards, E.T..

Number 33July-August1981John Duigan on Winter of Our Dreams Government and the Film Industry Tax and Film. Chris Noonan Robert Altman Gallipoli Roadgames. Grendel

Number 42March1983Mel Gibson, Moving Out, John Waters, Financing Films, Living Dangerously, The Plains of Heaven.

Number 36January-February1982Kevin Dobson, Blow Out, Women in Drama, Michael Rubbo, Mad Max 2. Puberty Blues.

i __ .T___

Number 37 March-April 1982Stephen MacLean on Starstruck, Jack! Weaver. Peter Ustinov, Women in Drama, Reds, Heatwave.

Number 38June1982Geoff Burrowes and George Miller on The Man From Snowy R iver, James Ivory, Phil Noyce, Joan Fontaine.

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CINEMA PAPERS M

ay-June — 133

TITLE

Distributor

PERIOD23.1.83 to 9.4.83

PERIOD■* a -e -* o ' ) O O ^ Q O (n°1 22.2.83 as listed in

1 1 . 0 / . l O t z. . 1 . O O previous issue)

SYD.2 MLB. PTH ADL BRI.Total

$ Rank SYD. MLB. PTH ADL. BRI.Total

$ Rank

We of the Never Never Hoyts (10*)

116,124(10*)

114,103(10)

130,338(9)

104,702(10)

150,872 616,139 1(10*)

311,073(10*)

277,584(2*)

52,628(2*)

55,444 696,729 1

The Year of Living Dangerously UIP

(10*)168,608

(10*)147,693

(5/2)46,728

(7)47,833

(9)122,311 533,173 2

(5*)230,794

(5*)154,418

(5*)74,942

(6*)97,754 557,908 2

The Man From Snowy River Hoyts (7)

70,908(10*)

74,777(2/3)

24,176(1)

4266 174,127 3(10*)

140,714(10*)

138,929(10*)

66,264(5)

33,535(4)

35,472 414,914 3

The Clinic RS(6*)

93,967(2)

6183 100,150 4 -

Kitty and the Bagman GUO

(4)27,483

(3)11,410

(2)3762

(2)7711

(2)8041 58,407 5

Fighting Back RS(3*)

30,878 30,878 6

Ginger Meggs Hoyts(2)

18,623(2)

7280(1)

2125(1)

2563 30,591 7(5*)

58,187(5*)

31,514(5*)

8377(6*)

16,145(5*)

27,550 141,773 5

Midnite Spares RS(3)

22,811(2)

2475 25,286 8

Goodbye Paradise OTH N/A N/A

Monkey Grip RS (2)7688

O)1866 9554

(10*/1)90,503

(3)4931

(3*/1)34,408

(3)17,333

(3/2*)9883 157,058 4

Australian Total 503,401 408,952 215,787 N/A 287,356 N/A

Foreign Total0 4,983,095 4,155,170 2,423,421 N/A 1,755,912 N/A

Grand Total 5,486,496 4,564,122 2,639,208 1,987,980 2,043,268 16,721,074

t Not for publication, but ranking correct.Figures exclude N/A figures.

• Box-ottice grosses of individual films have been supplied to C in e m a P a p e rs by the Australian Film Commission, o This figure represents the total box-office gross of all loreign films shown during the period in the area specified. ‘ Continuing into next periodNB Figures in parenthesis above the grosses represent weeks in release. It more than one figure appears, the film has been released in more than one cinema during the period.

(1) Australian theatrical distributor only. RS — Roadshow; GUO — Greater Union Organization Film Distributors; HTS — Hoyts Theatres; FOX — 20th Century Fox; UA — United Artists; CIC — Cinema International Corporation; FW — Filmways Australasian Distributors; 7K — 7 Keys Film Distributors; COL — Columbia Pictures; REG — Regent Film Distributors; CCG — Cinema Centre Group, AFC — Australian Film Commission; SAFC — South Australian Film Corporation; MCA — Music Corporation of America; S — Sharmill Films; OTH — Other. (2) Figures are drawn from capital city and inner suburban first release hardtops only. (3) Split figures Indicate a multiple cinema release.

Box-office

camera that was moved two-and-a-half inches (6.5 cm) for the second exposure, that being the average distance of the separation between people’s eyes.

Sir David Brewster took Wheatstone’s idea and designed a camera with two lenses and a stereoscopic viewer that also used lenses to allow the viewer’s eyes to focus more easily on a smaller stereo pair. Queen Victoria was amused by the new invention at the 1851 London Exhibition and

Brewster was quick to make her a gift of one of his stereoscopes and some stereo “ views” . The newspapers reported this shrewd gesture, making the new invention immediately acceptable to millions of Victorian families.

The popular success of the stereoscopic views (which were often hand-colored) was a phenomenon that lasted more than a decade until, as one historian suggests, the photographic reproductions in books and magazines took over the photo-journalistic role that the stereoscopic views of the arts and outposts of the Empire had provided. The evocative quality of this process is evident in many of the photographs that exist today and there are still many amateur stereo-photography enthusiasts working with modern cameras and filmstocks.

The change from still images to stereo motion pictures was marked by a number of inventions that used sequentially-posed still pictures, shown in “ flip-book” forms or in drum peep-show formats.

Do you want a good movie, or a lion on your lap? The peculiar history and uncertain future o f thé f

Fred Harden

I can confidently predict (as others just as enthusiastic and improperly qualified confidently predicted in 1973 and 1953) that 1983 is the year when 3-D film will finally fulfil the promise that no less a filmmaker and theoretician than Sergei Eisenstein predicted for it in 1949.

In an essay on stereoscopic cinema (presumably written after seeing the 1947 Russian 3-D film Robinson Crusoe by Andreevsky) Eisenstein said,

“ Not in any other art — throughout the whole of history — can there be an instance so dynamic and perfect of volume being transfused into space, and space into volume, both penetrating into each other, existing simultaneously, and this within the process of real movement.

“There is no need to fear the advance of this new era. Still less — to laugh in its face, as our ancestors laughed, throwing lumps of mud at the first umbrellas.

“ A place must be prepared in consciousness for the arrival of new themes which, multiplied by the possibilities of new techniques, will demand new aesthetics for the expression of these new themes in the marvellous creations of the future.

“ To open the way for them is a great and sacred task, and all those who dare to designate themselves as artists are called upon to contribute to its accomplishment.” 1 In contrast to this expression of the capabilities

of a three-dimensional cinema as a fine art is the fact that a badly-acted, technically-poor soft-core porno movie, The Stewardesses, is the top grossing 3-D film, having cost less than $100,000 to make in 1968 and grossing more than $26 million.

Here lies the paradox of the stereoscopic cinema. Ninety-two per cent of us perceive the world in three dimensions, yet we have evolved a sophisticated world where our art and communications are dominated by print, film and television images that are safely contained on a flat plane of two dimensions.

There appears to be something fascinating in the perception of stereoscopic images that keeps filmmakers experimenting and 3-D films being made in approximately ten-year cycles for audiences new to the experience. The following article is an attempt to distil the history and nature of 3-D films from many sources, and to find the reasons for the rise and fall of a cinema that promised nothing less than “ a lover in your arms and a lion in your laps” .

I have drawn heavily from two important books that have been released recently:• Lenny Lipton’s Foundations o f the S te reoscop ic

Cinem a — A s tu d y in dep th , published in 1982 by Van Nostrand Reinhold, and distributed by Thomas Nelson Australia. The recommended retail price is $29.95. (See review below.)

® A m az ing 3-D by Dan Symmes and book designer Hal Morgan is published by Little, Brown and Company. My copy was $18.85 from Space Age Bookshop, Melbourne. The book is a heavily-illustrated (in two-color 3-D with glasses supplied) look at the popular pheno

mena of 3-D movies, still photography and comics, with full-color reproductions of posters of many of the early 3-D films.

3-Dimentia. The Peculiar History of 3-D

The fact that one sees objects in depth — the reason being that our two eyes see different images which are fused by our brain into a very useful and coherent whole — has been noted and often incorrectly theorized about by many, including Euclid, Plato, Galen, Aguilonius, and Leonardo da Vinci. Johannes Kepler, who was myopic and suffered from double vision, offered his theory in 1611; Giovanni Baptista della Porta, a Neapolitan physicist, wrote in 1593; and the Florentine painter Jacopo Chimenti has left painted stereo pairs without any idea of his viewing system.

Their theoretical writing or illustration alluding to the problem of “ doubleness of vision” left the problem unsolved until 1838, when physicist Charles Wheatstone explained that this retinal disparity actually gave people stereo vision. His C ontribution to the P hys io logy o f Vision — P art the F irs t: On so m e re m a rk a b le , a n d h ith e r to unobserved, Phenom ena o f B inocu la r Vision included the first published stereo drawings and an explanation of the mirror stereoscope that he invented in 1833. About six months after his ‘memoir’ was published in the P h ilosoph ica l Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Fox Talbot announced his early photographic process that produced paper prints called Talbotypes. Talbot was asked by Wheatstone to make some stereoscopic Talbotypes and obliged with a number of stereo portraits, and pictures of buildings and statues.

Wheatstone welcomed the camera and the discoveries of Niepce, Daguerre and Talbot which could accomplish greater stereo realism than was possible by any artist, but he did not seem overly eager to publish his further developments of his equipment (P art the S econd appeared in 1852). His mirror stereoscope is illustrated below. These early photographic stereo pairs were taken with a single

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1. Film as Art, Penguin, London, 1977.

134 — M ay-June CINEMA PAPERS

Stereoscopie Film

Edward Muybridge produced many three-dimensional photographs between 1868 and 1874 before his famous series of sequential photographs of a galloping horse started his cinema experiments.

It is William Friese-Greene who is credited with adapting Edison’s invention of the motion picture camera to make real-time stereo films in 1889. Edison and his talented assistant Dickson filed joint patents for stereoscopic motion picture cameras in 1891, and Dickson alone did so in 1893. Edison’s initial insistence that cinema was a peep-show device was in keeping with the stereo viewer, but it meant that it was up to others to work out how to show these images successfully to a large audience.

Audiences in France had been able to watch still images projected using an anaglyphic process (from the Latin ana, up, and glyphein , to cut out, or engrave; hence, to make in relief) since 1858. Joseph d’Almeida in France had projected two pictures superimposed on a screen through an orange and a blue filter respectively and the audience viewed them through orange and blue glasses. The process is the same as one used today where the image for one eye is colored red and is colored green Tor the other. The red colored image is not visible when viewed through the red lens but the green colored image appears black. The green image when viewed through the green colored lens goes through a similar effect, making only the red image visible to that eye. This successfully presents separate left and right images that conform to the depth cues the brain expects for perception of 3-D. (For an explanation of the complex process of perception of depth see “ Further Reading” at the end of this article.)

It is difficult to determine the first public 3-D presentation but there is a newspaper report of a screening at the Astor theatre in New York, on June 10, 1915, of an anaglyphic program of scenes of the streets of New York and New Jersey taken by William E. Waddell and Edwin S. Porter (a cameraman for Edison who turned director and is best known for his film The Great Train Robbery in 1901).

The other type of viewing method proposed at the time (and one of the 3-D techniques presently being developed using sophisticated electronic techniques: see the section, “The future in depth” ) is the idea of an ‘eclipsing’ shutter. This is worn or held by the viewer and synchronized to the projector so that when the left eye image is being shown the shutter is open on that eye and closed on the other, and vice versa. This idea depends on the persistence of vision and was quite successful for still images but it had a curious rippling effect when showing movement. It did, however, allow full color presentation, although it was some years before it was achieved successfully. It was demonstrated as Teleview, in a specially-equipped theatre in New York, on December 27, 1922, and was well-received. However, the complex equipment was impractical to install.

For many years the anaglyph process depended on synchronizing two interlocked projectors, but the interlocked multi-screen work of Abel Gance showed that the technology was available. In fact, Gance shot portions of his 1925 three-camera epic Napoleon in anaglyphic stereo, but chose not to include them in the final version. (There was an easier anaglyphic single projection method made possible by printing black and white images on to one filmstrip with either a dye-toning or matrix process. One idea used a double-sided print film with emulsion on the back. It is now done easily, by printing on to color stock through filters.)

The introduction of modern tripack color films makes possible systems like the Triangle two-filter process (see below for Mike Browning’s description of this process) but it still is restricted in the use of a full color spectrum, reducing it to those possible from a mixture of the two colors. The advantage of this method of anaglyphic stereoscopy remains the ease of single-lens projection.

Polarizing Filters and Adding ColorBecause the most frequently used 3-D process

today is a polarized one, the assumption is that it is a recent invention. In fact, there is an 1881 American patent for the use of polarized light in selecting images for stereoscopic projection. But the polarizing materials were all too crude or expensive until Edwin H. Land, and what is now the Polaroid Corporation, made high-quality sheet polarizers available in 1935. In a demonstration for the Society of Motion Picture Engineers in 1935, Land and his associates showed 16 mm black and white and full-color stereoscopic films taken on the early Kodachrome film that Kodak had released in the 16 mm format less than a year before. Unlike earlier chemical crystalline products, the Land polarizer is made “ by absorbing iodine in a sheet of thin polyvinyl alcohol that has been stretched to arrange the molecules in long parallel chains” .

These parallel chains only pass light orientated in the same plane, a familiar process with the use of polarized sunglasses and camera filters.

The standard orientation for projection is with the left and right eye images polarized at 90 degrees to each other but on an angle of 45 degrees to the horizontal. This effectively presents the separate images to a viewer wearing glasses similarly arranged. The polarizing material is a neutral grey and, although it reduces the amount of transmitted light, it makes full color presentation possible.

The first (and many subsequent) polarizing systems used two interlocked cameras in a side- by-side configuration or with one camera shooting through a semi-silvered mirror and the other shooting the reflected image from its surface (see diagram). By adjusting the angles slightly, the two cameras’ fields of view cross over, or are made to converge, similar to what happens when one looks at an object. The other important adjustment is the distance between the centres or axes of the lenses. This “ interaxial” distance is modified to alter the “ depth” between planes to suit different lenses and enhance distances between subjects.

The size of the early two-camera systems (see the illustration of the huge Natural-Vision camera) would appear to be a major disadvantage. This does not seem to have prevented most production techniques and, as 3-D often requires more careful set-ups to get full impact from the images, the lack of hand-held portability was reportedly not a problem.

The Films and the FilmmakersThe introduction of polarized stereoscopic films

did not mean the end of anaglyphic processes. For reasons mentioned above, it was a simple and effective process, but the world of color 3-D was waiting for a successful polarized system. Filmmakers who had used the earlier process had few problems in changing to the polarizing method. Frederick Eugene Ives and Jacob Leventhal, working from a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, had produced five anaglyphic shorts that had limited release in 1925 under the collective title, Stereo- scopiks.

When the partnership dissolved, Leventhal joined with John Norling to make several unrelated short sequences which they sold to MGM. Pete Smith was in charge of shorts at the time and packaged them into an anaglyphic short, Audio- scopiks, in 1936. Leventhal and Norling then made The New Audioscopiks, released in 1938, and their success convinced MGM to allow Smith to direct his anaglyphic Frankenstein spoof, Third Dimension Murder, in 1941.

Norling than made one of the 3-D films that seems to have had the most impact at the time. The Chrysler Motors Corporation commissioned a 15-minute promotional film for its display at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. With technical assistance from Polaroid, the high-quality black and white film, In Tune with Tomorrow, was seen by more than a million-and-a-half people and was successfully remade in color to attract further audiences at the 1940 World’s Fair.

In Europe, polarized films were made in Italy (Nozze Vagabond in 1936) and Germany’s first 3-D color feature Zum greifen nah (You Can Nearly Touch It) was shot with a Zeiss single-band process and released in 1937. The Soviet Union had been experimenting with anaglyphic, eclipsing and polarized processes since the mid-1930s and had decided that the discomfort to the viewer of glasses could be solved by a lenticular screen process (see illustration). This successfully presented a limited-depth image that depended on

stereocinema has been a consistent innovator and its current 70 mm polarized process is presented in exclusively 3-D theatres, with a regular production rate of at least one feature a year.

The audience for 3-D film was often content to put up with badly registered, two-projector features and uncomfortable glasses to view the novelty. World War 2 stopped 3-D production except for strategic use in aerial reconnaissance and training, and public interest in 3-D turned to still photography.


Stereoscopie Film

The War is Over, the Battle BeginsThe slump in cinema attendances after the war,

in the period 1946 to 1952, has been attributed to Hollywood’s ignoring the growth of television (which had turned commercial in 1948). In the post-war boom years, with the importance of a growing economy and home incomes, the Americans looked to television for entertainment for their growing families. Hollywood studios had forbidden their contract players to appear on television, and refused to advertise their new productions or to allow their backlog of films to be sold for television viewing. There was a feeling of contempt for the tiny flickering black and white images that could not compete with the color and glamor of the movies, and it took the imminent collapse of some of the large film studios before the message of the new medium was understood. Television was replacing the cinema as the regular source of entertainment for the majority of the public.

There was a fall in cinema attendance worldwide between 1946 and 1952, of between a half and two-thirds depending on the source of one’s figures. The average cinema attendance in 1946 was about 80 million per week, and in 1952 it had dropped to less than 50 million. The House Committee on Un-American Activities had effectively prevented many of the top creative filmmakers from working, and the numbers of actors and actresses under contract were being reduced. The studios finally had to face the small screen and try to win back the audience.

There was a rush for the files where the technical patents had been kept and a collection of new processes was proposed to make cinema screens larger, and films brighter, sharper and more colorful — that is, as different from the small home screen as possible. There was no difficulty in attracting audiences to the expensive spectacular type of film; what was needed was a way to bring the audience back to a regular cinema attendance, and stereo vision seemed to provide some hope. Most accounts of this period seem to ignore the earlier large screen experiments and talk about 3-D as being introduced for the first time to an audience new to the phenomenon.

There is considerable evidence to suggest that the public had never really forgotten the 3-D process because of the commercial success of devices such as the stereo still photography View- Master and take-it-yourself 3-D cameras, such as the David White Company’s 35 mm Stereo Realist camera. Dan Symmes in A m azin g 3-D tells the story this way:

“ By the fall of 1952 3-D had swelled to a presence the movie industry could no longer ignore. There were six different stereo cameras on the market, two projectors, at least seven different viewers, a stereo attachment for Polaroid Land cameras, and even a stereo wedding album from Holson. Realist cameras kept showing up unexpectedly in travel ads, not to mention around the necks of movie stars and Presidential candidates [Eisenhower], And stereo slides were being used extensively in advertising and sales . . . Even Forest Lawn Cemetery got into the act; they prepared a complete set of stereo slides illustrating their services.”

At this time Kodak offered a special extended, stereo-length film and a stereo mounting service and, in 1954, introduced their Kodak Stereo camera. Bolex had also released the Bolex Stereo attachment in 1952 that made two vertical format pictures side by side on the 16 mm frame.

“ Depthies” and “ Flatties” — the Films of the 1950s

For the 1951 Festival of Britain, brothers Nigel and Raymond Spottiswoode were asked to design and program a special Theatre of the Future. The theatre was equipped for polarized 3-D, and had an optional lenticular 3-D screen and a video projector. Their program of five films included two animated shorts from Norman McLaren at the National Film Board of Canada: Around is Around and Now is the Time (to put on your glasses). These were released later in the U.S. and critic Rudolf Arnheim described the abstract films “ as though Art was streaming from the skies” 2.

The Spottiswoodes showed two polarized black and white shorts and somehow managed to get two of the giant Technicolor, three filmstrip process cameras to make Royal River, a color film about travelling down the Thames. The camera system that was used for their other films consisted of two 35 mm interlocked Newman- Sinclair cameras mounted with the lenses pointing at each other. Two mirrors set at a 45 degree angle allowed a large degree of control over the reflected image.

This arrangement was virtually the same that was used in 1953 for the Gunzberg’s Natural Vision system, except for the use of Mitchell NC cameras with a large and heavy sound blimp. The Natural Vision camera was used to film Bwana Devil, released on November 27, 1952, in Los Angeles. It grossed $100,000 in one theatre in its first week, although it was uniformly panned by the critics. Here the studios saw a cheaply-made B- grade film making record profits without the massive costs involved in the other record

2. Lipton describes the stereo effects as “ fun” but the graphics as “ terribly dated” , when viewed at a screening in 1977.

breaking process: the three-camera, three- projector Cinerama which had premiered in New York two months earlier.

The first Cinerama program, This is Cinerama (directed by documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty), had audiences and critics delightedly clutching their seats as the camera swooped down roller-coasters and up Niagara Falls. The success of the effect was due to the size and curvature of the screen that used the sides or peripheral areas of vision to add to the impressions of movement and involvement. Although the process was simplified later to a single camera and projector system, the complex interlocked equipment was an expense that theatre owners were reluctant to incur with no guarantee of a continued product.

Warner Bros was the first major studio to contract the Natural Vision system for three features. Julian Gunzberg became technical consultant and Jack L. Warner appointed Andre de Toth3 to direct what was to be the first of the 3-D classic horror films. Unlike many of the movies rushed into production, House of Wax shows careful use of 3-D production values. Filming began on January 19,1953, and was completed 28 days later at a cost of $680,000. But the speed of production was not enough to stop Harry Cohn at Columbia from rushing a black and white 3-D feature, Man in the Dark, on to the New York market two days before the premiere of House of Wax.

The Columbia film was stopped in pre-production as a flat film, rewritten to add some stereo effects and its shooting completed in 11 days. Although the effects were interesting, it became the first of many poorly-scripted, badly-acted, B- grade films that were to give 3-D the reputation of something merely sensational. Columbia’s second film was a Western filmed in color, Fort Ti. It was only slightly better than the first effort, but the novelty was still enough to make it a top-grossing film for a few weeks.

The studios must have been in an uproar as each 3-D feature went on to break records. From April until mid-September 1953, the 3-D boom seemed the answer to all their problems. House of Wax took more than a million dollars in the first three weeks of April. Fort Ti, accompanied by Walt Disney’s 3-D cartoon Melody4, was the topgrossing film in late May and early June. Universal, with its own equipment, rushed a Ray Bradbury short story into production and It Came From Outer Space was the top-grossing film for June and July. The film was shot in black and white but released tinted in brown in what was billed as “ scientifically perfected eye-resting Full Sepia Mono-Color” .

Paramount released a Technicolor costume drama, Sangaree, in June 1953 and, in spite of poor reviews, it grossed about $2 million before the end of the year. MGM, again with its own equipment, offered a crudely-shot rodeo story, Arena, that barely surfaced in the box-office, and Allied Artists released a horror film, The Maze, that did good business. Warner Bros returned with a Western, Charge at Feather River, that threw as many different objects as the story would allow at the audience, and it too was a box-office success.

In June 1953, viewers in the major cities could have chosen from five 3-D features and a number of shorts and cartoons. Warner Bros announced that ail its future productions would be “ depthies” , including Elia Kazan’s East of Eden, and the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born. The announcement was made more to convince cinema owners it was worth installing the synchronizing equipment, paying for the extra projectionist the union demanded for 3-D screenings, and paying the high 50 per cent of the profit the distributors asked for the 3-D films, than it was to attract audiences. The cinema owners also had to install special reflective screens but many theatres painted inferior metallic paints on their conventional screens. These were

3. Much comment was made at the time of the fact that Toth had only one eye, and so could not see 3-D. His retort to the Time reporter was, “ Hadn’t Beethoven been deaf.”

4. This was billed as the first stereo cartoon but there had been a number of earlier releases. Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Bugs Bunny and Casper the Friendly Ghost all appeared in some form of stereo depth cartoons at this time.

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the factors that contributed to the resistance to continued 3-D production and made the studios look for a simpler way to reach into the public’s pocket. If those two quality films had been made in 3-D instead of the continuing rush of exploitative product, the story may have been different.

Some quality films were made in 3-D, stereoscopic films continued to be made5 and the process continued to improve. Some of the studios then offered the films in 3-D or 2-D versions and, as in the case of MGM’s Kiss Me Kate, had trouble convincing exhibitors that they would do better business with the 3-D version. Kiss Me Kate was shown flat at its New York premiere. Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder was also shown flat for its premiere (but has recently been revived in depth to a mixed reaction from critics who had become used to the flat version). There had been more than 2000 theatres in the U.S. that could show 3-D films but the studios needed something that could be adapted to all their theatres. By the end of 1953, the stage was being set for “ The new dimensional marvel you see without glasses! — Cinemascope” .

Developed by French lens designer Henri Chretien, and offered originally to the Hollywood studios 30 years earlier, Cinemascope was the first of several anamorphic processes6. The system was developed for Twentieth Century-Fox but they made the lenses available to the other studios in an attempt to create a standard.

The first Cinemascope feature was The Robe: it had its premiere at the Roly Theatre in New York and took $267,000 in its first week. The advertising stressed the “ depth” 7 of the image and Fox promoted the format’s ability to carry magnetic stereo soundtracks, but few theatres took advantage of the improved audio. Promises of future 3-D features were changed to promises that all future productions were to be in Cinemascope, and Hollywood tried to forget that there had ever been a third dimension.

Features from the Black LagoonAmong the B-grade 3-D features in production

after the introduction of CinemaScope were a few that explored new techniques and subject matter. There was a documentary drama of the Korean war, Cease Fire, and, using a camera rig built by its camera department, Warner Bros was able to add subtleties to the John Wayne Western Hondo (soon to be re-released by Wayne’s son). Columbia used a rig of its own design to film Rita Hayworth in a lush tropical setting in Miss Sadie Thompson and director Jack Arnold built a compact underwater housing for Universal’s Creature from the Black Lagoon. The importance of Creature, other than as a well-made horror film that has been shown frequently in its 3-D form since 1953, was its release as a single-strip print with the double images printed side by side, but vertically. This required a set of mirrors and prisms to rotate the images and superimpose them (see the description of formats below).

The Polaroid Vectorgraph system was another single-strip process that was to have been a joint venture with the Technicolor lab and would have solved many of the two-image registration problems. Polaroid was intent on controlling the 3-D laboratory market but waited too long to see if the volume of work was to continue. Its announcement coincided with the end of the boom.

The Vectorgraph process depends on printing two already-polarized images by a dye-transfer process in superimposition on a single strip of film.

5. There is a fairly comprehensive list up to the 1981 releases Cornin’ at Ya and Parasite in Amazing 3-D, and the American Cinematographer April 1974 issue has a more thorough listing of films to that date.

6. These lenses take a wide-angle image and optically compress the image so that it appears squashed vertically. This image will then fit the standard ratio 35 mm frame and can be ‘stretched’ back to its wide screen format using a lens similar to the camera lens but rotated through 90 degrees.

7. In a promotional booklet for CinemaScope, Fox declared

“ Actors seem to walk into the audience, vehicles roar into the front rows . . . audiences are made to feel part of the action — the goal of the earliest Greek dramatists — instead of merely watching it.”


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Above: CinemaScope promised to ‘embrace the audience, without spectacles’, but the audience didn’t believe it was 3-D. Below: the top grossing 3-D film to date was a badly made skin-flick that started another B-grade 3-D boom in 1968.

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The image depends on the cross polarization to give the light and shade to the image instead of the usual silver grains. It was demonstrated as a black and white film process but was capable of color imaging. The advantage was that it can be shown on a single projector with the ordinary lenses and is already in register. It remains one of the most elegant solutions to the easy presentation of 3-D.

The period from 1954 until 1960 was one of frustration for the designers who were building cameras and projection systems that would have made the process simpler and better. The studios had finally released their library of almost 9000 films for profitable television screening and had started their own production units for television programs. Twentieth Century-Fox surprisingly released a two-strip CinemaScope 3-D feature and two shorts, and a number of films included short 3-D segments as part of the plot. Francis Ford Coppola directed a short segment for a skin flick, The Bellboy and the Playgirls, released in 1962, and Arch Obeler returned with his somewhat boring but technically innovative The Bubble in 1966. The process was a single-strip with the two images printed horizontally, one above the other.

This was to be the most often used format for the next 10 years, and, after the success of The Stewardesses, mainly porno films were released in that format. With titles like Heavy Equipment, Ram Rod, Love in 3D and even The New Stewardesses, they continued the image of poor- quality 3-D as a cheap gimmick. Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, directed by Paul Morrissey, was released in 1974 and has become the second biggest grossing 3-D film.

There were some theatres that showed 3-D films as regular revival screenings to an audience of enthusiasts, and sometimes have paid to have fresh prints made to preserve the medium. There has been enough stereo still photography business for Kodak to continue its stereo slide mounting service, and the Viewmaster viewers have been promoted strongly by GAF to a new audience with some success. Lenny Lipton describes his early fascination with 3-D as being due to the 3-D comic

The Terry toon’s Mighty Mouse was the first mass market 3-D comic success, going through two printings o f over a million.

strips that have been available over the years.8 A m azin g 3-D includes many examples of the best of these anaglyphic drawings and a number of the sci-fi and fan magazines have had articles on 3-D films and comic art.

The Future — In DepthThe introduction of cable television in the U.S.,

and the subsequent opening up of profitable programming for a minority audience, has allowed the successful presentation of 3-D films on television. The broadcasting of 3-D television has been restricted because of the necessity to have special glasses. There have been relaxations of these restrictions recently in the U.S. and Germany, and a number of networks are planning further experiments. For special event presentation, such as sports, parades, variety specials and movies, the audience seems willing to purchase the special glasses or collect them as an advertiser’s special offer with coupons or box tops.

There are a number of the older 3-D films due for release on video-cassette, and Philips has demonstrated a video projector arrangement playing from a 3-D video disc. There have been tests done on 3-D television in Melbourne using the Triangle process (see the comments by Mike Browning, below) and Australians will probably see sections of Alex Stitt’s animated 3-D feature, Abra Cadabra, on television as part of a documentary that Browning made earlier this year.

There are also new 3-D features in reiease or production: the sequel to the sequel, Jaws 3-D, and Friday the 13th 3-D which was released in 1982 in wide-screen polarized format. The problems of light loss with the polarizing process, requiring special screens or increased light output from the projectors, can be solved with special theatres for exclusive 3-D presentation. This is possible for entertainment parks and expositions; one production of note is the well-received Sea Dreams, made by Murray Lerner for the Florida Marineland park. The latest of these productions is the Kodak-sponsored Magic Journeys at the EPCOT centre at Disney World, also in Florida.

Future developments appear to be restricted to improving existing techniques. The limitations of the holographic process are such that the screen size will be limited; if there is no development in this area it would be difficult to imagine holographs as anything other than a return to a peep-show format. The ease with which computers can manipulate the mathematics of perspective has seen a number of programs released for home computerists to make simple wire-frame type 3-D images. The more sophisticated full-color computer animation in films, such as Tron, can be

8. Lipton was the technical adviser on a 3-D feature, Rottweiler, released In 1982. There is a good description of his involvement in the stereophotography in the October 1982 issue of American Cinematographer.

Stereoscopic Film

This ‘wire-frame’ computer generated image is from a U.S. television commercial produced by Bob Abel and Associates, one o f the innovative computer graphics companies experimenting with 3-D animation.

a. Standard 1.3:1 ratio, used in twin projection systems.b. Anamorphic “ squeezed" vertically, projects as

Standard 1.3:1.c. Stacked “ Scope" format, projects 2.35:1.d. Anamorphic rotated 90 degrees, projects as 1.85:1.e. 70mm with two standard 35mm size left and right

images. These could be anamorphic. The brightest screen image makes this a desirable future system.

Stereo presentation formats.

adapted for 3-D viewing at a cost and could be adapted for home or arcade video games. The use of electro-optical materials that become instantly opaque when an electric current is applied gives a simple solution to the occluding shutter process’s problems. Synchronized with the television screen or projector, the process requires wired glasses or a broadcast signal. The glasses would be expensive but there are many advantages.

The development of special screens that vibrate or rotate to present two or more different images, which can be viewed without glasses, seems a goal that, while desirable, will complicate the production process considerably. The qualities of the lenticular screens have been applied in a simple fashion in the Nimslo still camera (that is being produced at the Timex factory in Britain). This camera uses four lenses and the four vertical images, when processed, are printed in narrow strips on to color photographic paper which is then bonded to a lenticular plastic surface. The effect is similar to the cheap 3-D postcards of animals and religious scenes, but, in the examples I have seen of typical home snapshots, it gives a good 3-D depth with only a slight loss of definition. If it costs no more, as promised, than a standard color print, then it will be another successful step in expanding the 2-D environment.

TRIUMPH OF THE FAT PEOPLE —The Aesthetics of 3-D

“ In what is the dramatism of the situation enriched by means of this technical discovery? Does a three-dimensionally represented comedian find some additional means of expressiveness in this stereoscopy? A physical roundness? Will this be a triumph of the fat people?

“ What can anger, jealousy, hatred gain from the fact that they will occur in three dimensions? And laughter. . . I cannot believe that one could induce more laughter than is induced by a custard pie hitting Mack Sennett’s flat personages. And intrigue? Comedy?

“ Is there any need of further proof that stereoscopic cinema is a fruitless, sterile instrument?” Eisenstein quoted these lines from Louis

Chavance, written in 1946, as a typical argument in his essay on 3-D. Most of the great filmmakers have addressed themselves at some time to the stereoscopic cinema. D. W. Griffith said, “ It will add a mighty force to motion pictures . . . make them beyond any comparison the most powerful medium of expression of which anyone has dreamed.” There have even been critics who have complained that 3-D makes films too lifelike. English film critic Roger Manvell warned against the trend of making films into

“ the three dimensional, all-talking, all-smelling, all-tasting, all-feeling chaos which is the inartistic affair called the experience of life . . . It is wrong to try to make art too life-like.”

The argument that there is only novelty value in 3-D to be exploited was expressed by an industry spokesman Peter Vlahos in 1974:

“ Every ten or fifteen years a new audience has grown up, one that has not seen 3-D. There are several millions of young viewers who will pay to see a few 3-D presentations. After seeing them the novelty is gone . . . One can enjoy a good 3-D presentation, or a good movie, but it is unlikely one can produce both at the same time.”This argument is undoubtedly based on the

experience of the B-grade films of the time. It is not difficult to think of a number of favorite films that would have had greater moments of impact or involvement if they had been made in 3-D.

There are many films that depend on the premise of the audience as voyeur that would gain complexity from being able, like Grace Kelly’s hand, to reach towards the audience in Dial M for Murder, as she tried to find the scissors to kill her attacker. Until directors of ability are given the

chance to show the qualities of the medium, we will only have the conviction of writers like Michael Kerbel9 who pleads for the process:

“ Images in depth raise questions about realism vs expressionism, mise en scene vs montage, and the audience’s relationship to the screen — in short, about the very nature of the film medium. That 3-D hasn’t always been used well, and didn’t become accepted the way sound and widescreen did, shouldn’t be of central importance to someone concerned with cinema’s possibilities. Imagine a theorist’s ignoring sound just because the earliest sound films were technically and artistically crude.”Audiences will soon be presented with the

opportunity to acknowledge or ignore the stereoscopic cinema as once again Hollywood presents them with lovers who refuse to stay on the screen and lions (or sharks) that leap into your lap. ^

9. “ 3-D or not 3-D” , Film Comment, November- December 1980.

Until a print marked ‘left’ and ‘right’ was found at Warner Bros in 1979 most people had forgotten that this 1954 Hitchcock film was shot in 3-D.

CINEMA PAPERS M ay-June — 139

Stereoscopie Film

Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema: a study in depth

Lenny LiptonVan Nostrand Reinhold, distributed in Australia by Thomas Nelson Australia. Rrp: $29.95

“ It was 1952 and I was twelve years old. I bought a 3-D comic book about a Stone Age hero who used an axe to clobber dinosaurs. I wore cardboard goggles to see the illustrations in proper 3-D. The goggles had red and blue filters. After looking at the pictures for some time I noticed that I was seeing the world bluish in one eye and reddish in the other. This occurred when I took off the goggles and looked around the backyards and vacant lots of my youth. Even now, years later I will blink one eye to see if the world is tinted red and the other to see if it is tinted blue. Sometimes it happens! Could Mother have been correct? Did those comic books really ruin my eyes?”In the same way as Lenny Lipton describes it

in this paragraph taken from the preface to his new book, I shared his childhood fascination with 3-D comic books (although the one I remember best was Mighty Mouse), and I also tried (with little success) to make my own 3-D drawings with colored pencils. After reading Lipton’s book, I have a renewed interest in 3-D and have been inspired to repeat the experiment and try some 3-D still and film photography.

This inspiration is not just the result of Lip- ton’s usual friendly and informative writing

style that made a success of his previous books, Independent Filmmaking and The Super 8 Book (which are still recommended, even though some of the equipment information is now in need of revision).

Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema is a more technical work, with dozens of formulae and charts that illustrate the work of many different 3-D experimenters, with Lipton’s own valuable conclusions from his work over many years. He acknowledges and deals with the expectations of readers of his earlier books in this way:

“ Readers of my other books may be in for a surprise. This is a more difficult book, and a warning is in order. Although this has certain aspects of a how-to-do-it book, the major portion is, by its nature, a monograph presenting original research. Readers seeking a more simplified approach are referred to Lipton on Filmmaking (Simon and Schuster, 1979), which contains a how-to-do-it section devoted to some of the tools used in this study.

“ The early portions of the book are tutorial and historical. It was necessary to discuss some of the fundamentals, since stereoscopy is an interdisciplinary art, yet lines had to be drawn. For example, trigonometry is used to obtain some results, but obviously this is not a handbook on basic trigonometry. The mathematics are on an advanced high-school, or perhaps freshman college, level. Some readers will thumb through the book and challenge that contention. For them and for the reader in a hurry, the results of mathematical derivations may be accepted at face value, and I have striven to explain all concepts in simple English.

“ I admit that I have had a difficult time

deciding on the proper tone or level of difficulty of this book. It has been my desire to reach the greatest number of readers; I am hopeful that filmmakers will take up the call so that stereoscopic filmmaking will proliferate. Yet the state of the art is such that large chunks of basic information have not until now existed. I had to invent or discover what the reader now has in hand. This book, like my others, contains the information that I needed to know in the years before I wrote it.”I can recommend this book as the only

complete overview of stereo motion picture techniques, and it will certainly help make the principles in 3-D easier to apply for filmmakers involved in 3-D film production. Lipton dismisses the anaglyph process as limiting and unsatisfactory, and has an obvious preference for full-color, polarized systems. He has not mentioned the hybrid anaglyph Triangle system described below but the book has, given its publication date, probably the best bibliography of articles and books on stereoscopy.

Not included in that list was the recent piece Lipton has written for American Cinematographer (October 1982) discussing his involvement in filming the 3-D film, Rottweiler, and the article by his business partner Michael Starks, “ The rebirth of 3-D” . The section in the book on 3-D television is very short and does not mention the considerable amount of activity in Europe, Japan and the U.S. since 1981.

So, use the book as an important introduction to the principles of 3-D photography and for its charts and formulae but watch other sources for up-to-date developments as yet another 3-D boom continues. ★F.H.

Although polarized 3-D will be the standard requirement for presentation in theatres, broadcast television, which requires a compatible picture for those viewers who don’t have or choose not to wear glasses, has to find a different method. The system that seems to have been most successful in overseas experiments was developed by Jim Butterfield and Bud Alger of the Hollywood company 3-D Video Corporation. Their system was used in the British experiments in November 1982, and they have been arranging live broadcasts in the U.S.

The 3-D Video process has been used to transfer many of the mid-1950s 3-D films to videotape for videocassette and cable presentation. The system uses a pale blue and dark red color combination for the glasses which gives an almost full color view from one eye and a monochrome image from the other. That, apparently, is enough to block the slight fringing encoded in the picture and convince the brain it is seeing a 3-D image. The effect has been reported to be excellent.

It is interesting to see references in the articles appearing overseas to the successful broadcasts of 3-D

television in Australia, the result of press reports of experiments carried out by Mike Browning and Volk Mol in Melbourne. The overseas reports have been premature as the system is yet to have its first (acknowledged) broadcasts. The industry gossip about their Triangle 3-D system had almost been forgotten until the announcement that Alex Stitt’s new animated feature Abra Cadabra was being filmed in the process. With the arrival of the Lenny Lipton and Amazing 3-D books, the feature ComiiT At Ya, and the announcement about Abra Cadabra, my interest in 3-D film and television was aroused.

The following interviews are with Volk Mol, a respected Melbourne cinematographer, Mike Browning, who has been directing documentaries and television commercials for two decades, and Alexander Stitt, who moves from animated commercials to full-length features with equal success. They explain the differences and unique qualities of their 3-D system and Phillip Adams adds the news that soon we will be able to judge the results for ourselves.


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Can you explain the technical requirements of the Triangle 3-D process?

The only special equipment required is a modification of the camera lens; the rest of the process remains the same. Once the image is on film or tape, you can project or transmit it normally.

It is essentially an anaglyph process dependent on two specially- colored filter elements fitted inside the lens. There is a module, consisting o f a white keyway and two filters, but no circular iris; instead, there is a horizontal light valve which moves like a Venetian blind.

When the image is sharp and in focus the colored light from the filters is mixed evenly with the natural (white) light coming through the lens, and all the points of focus are on the film plane. Obviously, when you change focus, you move those points of focus to different positions, and the result is a color fringe on the out-of-focus parts of the image.

There is a blue fringe on one side and a red fringe on the other. They

are not true blue and red, they are a mild peacock-turquoise and the red is almost magenta. By wearing glasses with those two colors you are blocking and counteracting the fringes and, unless you are slightly color blind, you see an image in depth.

Although the images are quite normal in color without the glasses, the system does depend on that “blocking” of some of the natural color to be able to see the 3-D. Yet the reduction in color with the glasses on seemed acceptable. The flesh tones in particular were very good . . .

Because the colors are so mild, within a matter of 10 seconds you forget the glasses, and the eyes seem just to click into seeing normal color. It is like watching a pale pastel picture, or a print in Hollywood MGM Metrocolor, it looks unnatural at first but you get used to it. You are okay as long as you don’t keep taking off the glasses; when you do, you realize that you have been looking at two

colors because the eye that has been seeing one color sees the world more in the opposite shade for a while. You don’t realize the two color bias until you have been wearing the glasses for 10 minutes and taken them off.

“Correct color” is very subjective: there are many cues one depends on for the correct perception of color which are almost as subtle as the cues for perceiving depth . . .

Yes, things like diminishing lines, and perspective. Take Alex Stitt’s Panavision cartoon as an example. Because the actual characters and scenery are two- dimensional and because they are drawings, the system is pressed to its limit; it has to rely entirely on the distances between the planes. In live action, I can frame it for the best 3-D, and there is movement in the frame or lighting to take advantage of the effect, but with a cartoon it must be constructed.

Does the name Triangle have any special significance?

It is three dimensions, three angles, and there were three people involved in the patent. It seemed as good a name as any other.

The three people were yourself, Volk Mol and . . .?

John Taylor. When I sold Studio Corporation to John, I became executive producer on contract to John’s company, Riverside. Volk was lighting cameraman, also under contract.

John’s share of the patent was bought out by Phillip Adams, who later bought out our shares in exchange for a percentage of the action. We now have to wait for the action! The holder of the patent is Television Digital Systems.

Unfortunately, Phillip Adams was ill and not able to comment on the applications of the process and the story of the development of the Triangle system. He did dictate the following information in reply to an early request:

All I want to say is that we’ll be going to air with a series of 3-D specials during the latter part of 1983 and I have, this week, solved the last remaining problem, that is, how to mass-distribute glasses. I can’t reveal the Machiavellian methodology, but I will be able to put a pair of classes into the hands of 13 million Australians in time for the telecast. Quite a tall order.

I’ve been a 3-D buff since childhood. As a kid I invented a system that didn’t require glasses and was astonished to discover that the Russians had come to exactly the same technical conclusions. And had made a film in “ my” system. So 30 years later, when I bought the rights for Mike and Volk’s process, I

What are the differences between the Triangle system and the Video West patent?

Their system was very basic. The patent only says that the process depends on two filters fitted inside the lens, but that was enough to prevent us from patenting ours in the U.S. The examples I have are CinemaScope tests, a workprint of Julie Andrews walking around her backyard and swimming pool. One side of the screen is red and one side blue, and there is a heavy fringe. Our system uses carefully- shaped filters and has our special light valve.

Does the fringe disappear as you stop down?

The advantage of the horizontal iris is that you can stop down and the fringe remains the same. Even at f:22 you get the fringes at the sides of the object.

How complicated is it to get good 3-D results?

It is much simpler, of course, on tape because you can see the effect immediately and build up what you want. With careful art direction it should be possible for any director to get good 3-D results — it is so easy to use. On the sample tape with Don Lane it was very simple. We taped it at 2 a.m. at Channel 9, and the camera operators easily worked out what focus pulling was required and were very excited by the system. It is the simplest and I feel the most natural of the 3-D systems.

I still remember Phillip’s comment after seeing the original tests. We were standing in the control room and everyone was watching the banks of monitors, wearing their glasses and jumping up and down. But he just turned to me and said, “ Do you take Diner’s Club?” ★

should have been ready for the shock that confronted me in the U.S. — that a virtually identical system had been invented at exactly the same time by an American scientist. Although the American system didn’t work as well as Mike and Volk’s, the patent effectively blocked ours. It was owned by Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews and I had to buy their patent out!

The invention that will go to air is very largely Volk and Mike’s but with modifications created by a team of scientists I gathered together in New York and at Berkely. These include a vertical [sic] iris device that increases depth perception while minimizing ‘fringing’ and more subtle, balanced tints for the special glasses. All in all, over 300 scientists, technologists and “ visual psychologists” contributed to the program although Volk and Mike certainly deserve credit for 90 per cent of what is, I believe, a remarkable breakthrough.” (December 16, 1982.) ★


Mike Browning mentioned that your first experiments with 3-D were in 1977 while you were both working at Riverside Studios. Can you remember what prompted those experiments?

It was a combination of things. I like to tinker around with lenses and I was fascinated by what is described as the nodal point of the lens, where the aperture is. I found that it was like a mixing chamber. I did a bit of fiddling around with color and things to see what would happen. I also had an enlarger that had a focusing system with, I think, red, blue and green filters in it. I don’t have it any more, but when it was out of focus the colors would shift a little. If it were in focus, it would be white.

At that time, I was reading something about the red and blue- green 3-D process and I thought, “ That’s interesting; maybe that is a way to build up the principle.” I used an SX-70 camera and some filters from a Rosco sample book, and took some pictures that I thought were interesting, which I showed to Mike. We live in the country only about a mile from each other. He looked at them and at me and said, “ I think you have something here.” I thought he might have been joking but he was serious, so I pulled an old Schneider lens apart and shot some film with it. He was thinking more of the technical aspects, such as colors of the filters and glasses, while I was concerned with perfecting the module. If you only use two colors in the mixing chamber it is not as good as when you use white light as well. It took a while to discover that.

Fortunately, I had worked for years with Mike and he saw commercial applications that I hadn’t given much thought to. This is why we have worked together over the years. There was money available to develop it a bit further, so we did a lot of tests on film and 35mm stills, and at this stage Phillip Adams became interested.

Phillip is probably a genius in his own band of the spectrum. He certainly has a very active mind about marketing, and at that time

he was probably the perfect and only man to get the thing off the ground. He made lots of the early arrangements.

There was another partner, John Taylor . . .

John was the managing director of Riverside. This project was only a sideline, something we did when there was nothing else. Admittedly it cost him a fair amount of money — $10,000 to $20,000 — but the arrangement was that his share would be paid off. So, although we didn’t make any money out of it then, he did!

I think you know the story about the expert from the U.S. who came to judge the value of the system. He was wearing glasses that looked like clear marbles cut in half and had to stand a foot away from the monitor. He thought it was a great thing: he had the contacts in the U.S. and concluded that although it was a simple system and working it could always be made better.

So, a lot of money and three years were spent by the Americans to make it better, which didn’t work. Mike and I knew it wouldn’t work and, if you place the module as it is today in Alex’s lens beside our first one, you would see it is virtually the same.

What about the horizontal iris?

That was actually one o f the only worthwhile ideas they came up with. It was very primitive but sound. It was hardly worth all the money. We actually perfected the idea mechanically, so that instead of a slot in the lens with two horizontal slides moving vertically up and down they are connected to the rotating aperture ring. This meant that we would contain the new iris inside the lens. It works exactly like a normal round iris except that it eliminates, or reduces to an acceptable extent, the fringing on the top and the bottom of the objects. Any fringing for our purpose should be on the verticals.

Does it alter the speed of the lens, or make it harder to use?

Yes, it reduces the speed by about one-and-a-half stops, and the different mechanical system means the settings have to be recalibrated. The shapes of the filters have been worked out mathematically to mix in the right amount with ordinary light. You need very little fringing and it is only with experience that you know when you have gone too far. Stopping down may bring other things into focus which you might not want. With a still camera you can easily change the shutter speed but with film you would have to add ND filters. There is no question about

it: if someone wanted to shoot something tomorrow, you would need some assistance to get the best result. The effect would be there but we have done hundreds of experiments to determine the best results.

To my knowledge, with all the stuff I have read, this system is still the best for television, for the simple reason that it is compatible for viewers without the glasses. Although polarized 3-D comes pretty close to being perfect, there is no simple way to use it on a single television screen using polarizing glasses. I have seen an electronic glasses system that you would plug into the back o f the set, but the glasses cost about $300 each. It is very clever and the expertise behind it is probably many times greater than ours, but it is hardly a commercial proposition.

You have to remember that the television monitor is a small picture and with any system you will still have the effect of looking out a window with some depth in it. It is specifically the size that has the impact. If you have a cinema screen that is 2.2:1 screen ratio or even smaller still (e.g., an academy ratio) it is still quite big, and you have the effect in the theatre o f being physically moved by the image. If you go smaller to a slide projector and then to a television set, you end up with what is just

Stills from the Triangle 3-D presentation videotape with Don Lane gesturing into the audience.


Stereoscopie Film

the same as a good photographic en la rg em en t. T his certa in ly doesn’t help you give the effect of 3-D, even with the most perfect system.

Depth is partly dependent on the size. With the polarizing system you will get a better perception o f depth because o f the varying stages. Our system has only three: foreground, middle and background. It is like the comic strips in the [A m azing 3-D] book which I showed to Alex as a suggestion as to what some o f the titles could be. Our system was designed for live action, not for the flat planes; Alex doesn’t draw lines around his flat planes anyway. I said some time ago you can actually enhance it by artificially putting some of that comic strip effect in.

Our system remains the simplest and cheapest to introduce now. Mike and I could go into production tomorrow. There is a 10 to 1 zoom already converted; we could do a film, we could shoot some tape. The ironic thing, for which I have no answer, is that it is not being used. Mike may understand the reasons better than I, but when you see the magazines and all the current interest in 3-D, it should be used now! Especially on television.

In his article on 3-D television in the December ‘American Cinematographer’, Daniel Symmes talks in the language that I am sure would be convincing to Kerry Packer. It speaks about increased rating shares and an incredible public interest in the older 3-D films. They are scrambled pictures: you have to wear the glasses, and people went to considerable trouble to collect them. The Americans found that the FCC did not care about the compatibility problem of viewers without glasses saying that “ as long as the video sync and reference signals were ‘normal’ it was up to the local station what it broadcasts” . . .

I don’t know if you know much about the experiments in Germany in February last year. It was a Philips broadcast television experiment and they sold something like four million glasses.

Apparently people were very disappointed: the films were very old and not in color.

I remember the first time we demonstrated the two lenses we had converted at Channel 9. The chief engineer there was absolutely fascinated. He had the glasses on and all the monitors had 3-D images. He said, “ Now I know how Marconi must have felt.” He was very enthusiastic but after a couple o f months he got cold feet and his opinion changed. I can understand why, although I don’t accept the logic o f it. He was trained to transmit perfect pictures with perfect sharpness and skin tones, etc., and suddenly the picture he was viewing didn’t have perfect color. There was Don Lane standing there and the colors were perfect, but the moment you put your glasses on the colors were reduced. That was what worried them. The engineer said, “ But the color is reduced.” We said, “ Yes it is reduced to about 85 percent but so what!” They were afraid, frightened.

Just imagine, for example, you sold this idea to Holden or Ford or Toyota. One o f them is bound to pick it up, not because it is great 3-D but because it would make people look more carefully at their car ad than the others. Yet no one has taken it up!

The suggestion has been that it might be used for special events such as the Moomba parade, or sporting or variety specials . . .

Our point is that it is not special. It looks almost perfectly normal until you have the glasses on, then it is 3-D. You can follow it equally well. It is simple, cheap and immediately applicable to television. Tomorrow it might be superseded, but today it is the most effective television system. It is patented around the world; in the U.S. it is patented in conjunction with Sanger at Video West. So, why aren’t we rich?

You said that the colors were scientifically worked out. How acceptable do you feel the choice is aesthetically?

Some o f the colors that they came up with in the U.S. were quite bizarre. One I remember was a greenish, light green and purple, color, probably scientifically perfect but objectionable to look through. The color has to be strong enough to eliminate the fringe image but subtle enough to allow the other colors to come through. Mike and I have always had a fight about the glasses. I have always felt that the colors should be heavy because the effect is so good; Mike says there is too much loss of color and make them lighter. So we have a compromise.

Since seeing some of the scenes from “Abra Cadabra” , I have been conscious of the limitations of the effect with its three distinct planes. What happens when, in live action, someone walks toward you and you pull focus with them?

The fringing in the background would just get more obvious, but it is not a real problem. One of the things we found out very early was that that the mind of the viewer has to ‘click’ onto the effect. It is an almost audible click. Some people cannot see it at first and we say walk around a bit and stand at the back, then suddenly they see it. Once their minds are conditioned to it, it works every time. You can put a 9.8 mm lens on an Arri — there would have to be objects touching the lens before there was any out-of-focus fringing — and people feel that they can still see depth because the brain thinks it’s there, especially when cut between two shots with a stronger effect.

One o f the grips at Riverside was looking at some still photos with the glasses while it was still top secret and he thought it was wonderful. He then looked at the front cover of the telephone book and said, “ These glasses are terrific, I can see 3-D here.” He was sure the effect was in the glasses. That is a fringe benefit that works for any system using glasses.

Lenny Lipton quotes a figure of between 5 and 8 per cent who either can’t see polarized stereo (stereo blind) or experience discomfort. You would have the added red-blue colorblind problems.1 Do you have many people who say they cannot see the effect?

1. Mol’s story about the U.S. expert and his glasses reminded me of a story from Lipton’s book which tells how Brewster, who made one of the first stereoscopes, was trying to obtain endorsement for his invention from the French Academy of Sciences:

“ He had incredibly bad luck with the men he visited. Aragon, Savat, Becquerel, and Poillet, were all stereoblind and had, respectively, diplopia, some sort of serious defect in one eye, only one eye, and strabismus. A fifth, Boit, failed to observe a stereo effect, although no reason is given for his inability.” Finally they found a member with normal vision.

There was some research done in the U.S. to find if there were any viewing problems. I think there was something like one person in ten who had problems seeing the effect.

If you had control of the application of the system, how would you approach it? Are there improvements that could be made?

Our system might have some further fine tuning coming from its use and experiments but it would be minor, using different colors. I don’t think you could take it much further technically; you would have to go to a different system.

I think that lenticular screens might have some future, especially when they make solid state screens where each dot is in a fixed position. With a lenticular screen on top of that, nothing can move and you could have television viewing without glasses.

As far as applications o f the system, if some supernatural power gave me control, I would find the most competitive market and approach the individuals with the proposal of a half-hour show, at the most, or a segment in a show like The Don Lane Show. Then I would say, “ Put on your glasses. Let’s go to 3-D” , and have a program with some commercials in 3-D. Millions of dollars could be made from that intense viewer involvement. It is perfect for television where the viewers’ attention is fragmented: they get up and go to the fridge, and you never have their full attention. In a cinema you might find the limitations of the system more obvious, because people have to stay put for a few hours.

I don’t really want to make the programs, but as a commercial application I can see a wasted opportunity. When you ask how much gimmick value there is, I would say some but that it has a perfectly valid commercial use. We are not cheating, there is a valid depth effect. It also works for magazines and printing, as you saw from that early A ustralian P la yb o y (although there were problems with that),2 but its time is now because tomorrow it could be old hat. ★

2. Mol: It’s a long story but I was asked to supervise the photography and although the editor John Jost thought it was okay, I found it difficult to explain to the photographers that they couldn’t do everything as they were used to. They didn’t want to be restricted. I am used to studio lighting and found their flash lighting too flat. There was disagreement about the model and it was left to the last minute and it had to go in because the Marlboro ad was booked. So what you saw was the result of a day and a half shooting and we had no time to change. The color reproduction was another problem and the paper surface needs to be carefully selected because the shine draws the brain’s attention to it. There are lots of things that need thinking about.


Why 3-D, when your first feature, “Grendel, Grendel, Grendel” , was in a conventional form?

We had the option o f doing Grendel in 3-D. We had just finished the soundtrack when Mike Browning told me about the process he and Yolk Mol had invented. I thought he was pulling my leg, but a couple of days later he carted us off to Riverside Studio and showed it all to us on the Moviola.

We thought very seriously about it but decided against using the process because we were so far down the line. To build the equipment would have added about $100,000 to the budget and, as the budget for Grendel was only $500,000, it meant a lot of extra money. It also meant gearing up to make the glasses and so on. We had already raised the money for Grendel so we decided to let it go as it was.

From that moment, however, I wanted to use the process in my next film, and so Abra Cadabra was written specifically with it in mind. That is why it is called Abra Cadabra; we are using the process as a part of the film.

We are doing little bits of new film grammar, and re-thinking the process. We are not thinking of it as a ‘round’ 3-D film but as a series of planes. The analogy is toy theatre: instead o f doing a cross dissolve, as you would in a regular film with one flat plane, you dissolve out only the back plane. For instance, we can dissolve out a forest and dissolve in to space, with the characters remaining in the foreground doing what they were doing.

We are also using a lot of tricks; for example, curtains that drop down and pull up again. The curtains have funny words written on them and give the film a theatrical, pantomime feeling. We are calling the film “ an animated rock-pantomime” . There is a lot o f music but it is well-known nursery rhyme and Christmas carol-type music that has been embroidered on, fiddled with and to which new words have been added. It is all recognizable at once.

When you decided to go to 3-D and multi-plane, what decisions did you have to make about choosing the new equipment? Was it a standard, “off the shelf” purchase?

It had to be because it takes forever just to get an animation rostrum off the shelf. We chose the Neilson-Hordell unit because it was available; they had one on the production line at about the right stage. The one big feature we needed was that the column that supports the camera be in the back left hand corner instead of the back centre. Peter N eilson designed it so that when the table is turned to vertical, it will accommodate long, roll-up titles. This is great because normally you roll up the titles as far as you can until you hit the column at the back, and then you have to bend them up or cut them off. The corner column suited us because we had to install another column anyway to support the multiple planes that hang up in the air.

We also have an intricate lighting problem because we have to light every plane individually. The sides immediately would have been taken up with lights and we needed the space at the back to hang the planes.

We made some modifications to their unit, mainly because we are shooting it anamorphic, in Pana- vision. We needed a much larger hole for the back projection in the table; instead o f the usual 12 inches (30cm), we wanted a hole that was 18 inches (45cm) across. This meant revising the table design because the rods that hold the winders and controls had to be moved out and changed. All of the focusing system had to be altered. Normally the follow focus system operates on a bellows, so that the lens is moving up or down in relation to the focal plane. However, the Panavision lens has its focusing system within it, so a cog system that meshed into the lens had to be built.

In the meantime Ian Scott, of Scott Animation in St Kilda, who builds the devices to animate signs and turn cars in showrooms, built everything to Mike Browning’s original designs for the planes. That meant a couple of columns so that the planes could be moved vertically, independently of the rest of the gear. Each of the three planes needed a platen to hold the cells flat, and moveable peg bars so that we could pan cells in and out, which is an essential part o f the 3-D effect. Being able to pan the scene across is one of the things that really give you the effect of depth, so the cells had to be moveable. It was a lot of work getting those things done.

So your work is restricted to those planes . . .

It has four planes: the basic camera plane and three up in the air. We can shoot eight planes without any trouble by introducing the back projection system — that was my contribution to the system. We have a thing called a Zoptic screen, invented by Zoran Persic, which is a smart bit of back projection material and works well optically. We put it in because the four planes were a long way apart. It is about a metre from the table to the

top plane and if you were to go to eight planes you would be up to two metres, which would mean that the camera would be six metres up in the air instead o f the four metres it is now. Also, on the bottom plane we work to a drawing 17 inches (43cm) across while the top plane is 7 inches (18cm) across, so you can imagine on eight planes the top one would be an inch-and-a-half wide (3.8cm). Or conversely the bottom one could be five feet (1.52m). Painting the cells, let alone trying to change them under the camera, would be horrific.

By breaking the system in half we shoot background material which can contain animation four planes deep, process it and put it in the background projector, which gives us, in effect, four planes below our base plane.

How do you control the color fringe on that many planes?

We have the color fringe from our shooting o f the original material, which is projected onto the Zoptic screen. The only trick is that we make that back projection plane the one in focus, which means that there is no further effect on the fringing. It works brilliantly: we can run scenes that have back projection and scenes that do not and no one can detect a difference in quality on a big screen. We are delighted by it all.

The only problem with the Zoptic screen is that we have had to shoot at a very slow speed because of the low light level coming through the screen. In fact, we are on about a two-second exposure per frame instead o f the normal quarter of a second.

Does the computer save you any time in controlling those planes?

The computer is essential when you are doing a pan and you have four planes moving. The cameraman has to stop and wind the first plane across one-hundredth of an inch (0.25mm), then the next one and so on, and put all the drawings down and take the picture. However, the computer controls all the planes. While it doesn’t make the shooting any faster it eliminates a lot o f human error, and frees the cameraman to think about the d r a w i n g s r a t he r t h a n the mechanics. I think it is even more essential for this film because looking at the drawings is hard enough. The operator can be changing cells on all levels because we are doing a lot o f atmospheric stuff, such as rain cycles, on all the planes.

If that is hard for the operator, how do the animators approach the multiple planes?

Although it certainly is irregular, all the animators have handled it well; there are a couple o f tricks to it. It is difficult to get your mind


Stereoscopie Film

around the change o f size and the fact that something in the foreground is drawn smaller than something in the background is peculiar. It is due to the focal length o f the lens we are using and the size o f drawings.

I solve most o f the problems when I am doing the layouts. I do a basic layout o f the scene at the major field size, say 17 inches (43cm) across. I draw all the elements at that size, then put .them into the copy camera and make reduction drawings o f the appropriate elements. The animator then has a basic layout that shows him how the whole thing looks and a series o f separate pieces of paper with items drawn to scale. Once that is provided, it is all clear and understandable. But the tricks such as jumping from one plane to another and having a character move out o f frame on one plane and in on another, which happens quite often, certainly test their concentration.

These are the kind o f problems to which animators are accustomed anyway. There are many things that only make sense to an animator who is solving the mechanical problems associated with these sorts of tricks.

In live action you can have a person move from background to foreground easily, but in animation you are limited to a few “ The Naughty Song” . We have planes. How have you handled painted the words “ Naughty these movements? Song” on the curtain and when it

comes down with a great big thud,Originally we thought we could the impact is terrific. We have kept

have that kind o f movement vermilion o ff all the characters but because the planes are capable of the blue isn’t as bad: it just tends discrete vertical movement. We to be recessive, it doesn’t ‘vibrate’; can do it if we have just one plane so we have used it judiciously. But but if we are using all the planes, there are lots o f blues; you don’t which we do more often than not, have to use the same cerulean base, we can’t get them close enoughbecause o f the lighting and the The reduction in available colors is reflection problems when they get actually part of your own style, so close together. So we have had to you don’t feel it is restrictive? abandon that idea.

We get around it using tricks Not at all. Instead of using every you don’t really notice. You can color in the world, stylistically I cheat when objects move quickly use a reduced palette. In choosing towards you, because you don’t colors for the characters I select really perceive them in dimension, those that work well together, It takes a while for you to decide which means staying within a where things are and, if they come limited range. We designed all the hurling at you, you can’t decide characters, colored them as I anyway. Even the Cornin’ At Ya thought they should be, shot some effects depend on the fact that you of them and looked through the duck instinctively when something glasses to see if there was any prob- has been thrown towards you, lem. There were one or two colors rather than thinking that the object that looked a bit odd so we is actually leaving the screen. changed them. There was no

feeling of restriction.How have you handled the limitedcolor palette that the process in- To what extent have you convolves? sidered the possibility of the film

being viewed in 2-D?The only limitation is that you

can’t use the precise colors of the I haven’t really considered it at glasses. If you do, you see the all; it would be like making things color but it takes on a certain for color television and worrying fluorescence and won’t sit in fore- about black and white. We see it in ground or background. We have 2-D most o f the time on the work- actually used the effect early in the print; you don’t bother sitting at film when a big curtain comes the editing bench while wearing down to signal the beginning o f glasses, so you watch it as 2-D

immediately tell which part o f the scene is going to move! There are two ways to go: one is to put lines around everything, which is not silly. Disney has been doing that recently in The Animal Book and a couple of others.

The other way, also used by Disney, is to paint soft, colored lines around everything; when they

Yes, and it is very interesting that The Secret of Nimh (Don Bluth Productions), while looking like a nice Disney film with little animals and things, was shot on a two-plane system. They built the camera rostrum especially, and, judging from the photos in A m erican C inem atographer, it is huge, They built two animation benches and stacked them on top o f each other, with giant lights and complete controls on each, just to get soft focus material. If you have little animated characters sitting on a background, they are always as sharp as the main characters, so you are stuck with that as a style, especially when you cut to close- ups. But if you can throw the background out of focus it looks terrific.

On Grendel, and again on Abra Cadabra, I have adopted an idea of mine, which is to take all the lines off and leave flat shapes of color. I did it on Grendel purely for stylistic reasons because I hate the backgrounds being painted shapes and all the characters having lines around them. You can

Early character designs fo r Abra Cadabra.

material; looking at it that way there are no problems. If there was a scene that didn’t work you would consider doing something about it, but so far it is working fine.

One is immediately aware of the out-of-focus foregrounds, not so much as an intrusion but as something one is unaccustomed to seeing in hard-edged cartoon animation . . .

went to the Xerol process, which has solid black lines, they began putting black lines around things in the background.

Although in Grendel the lines were left o ff for stylistic reasons, in Abra hard lines around things would become messy when thrown out o f focus. Now, the flat areas of color just become soft at the edges, which looks acceptable. The same thing happens in real films when a dark foreground shape is against a dark background. There are many scenes where you can’t see anything, and it looks okay. It has never been done in animation; people draw lines around the shape to make it stand out all the time. It means that in a strange way Abra is coming very close to real cinematography: colored shapes on characters tend to merge with colored shapes on backgrounds, and things in the foreground and background tend to move out of focus. In that regard it is all getting ‘real-er’, but our drawing style is so stylized it takes the film away from reality: in that way it is ambivalent.

Do you find the creative aspects of the 3-D process attractive enough to consider another 3-D film?

In the case o f Abra Cadabra, it happens to work with the magic elements o f the story. One o f the things I find limiting is the restriction on the amount o f movement of the new camera, which otherwise has the potential to go from a full wide frame down to a close-up an inch across. With the multiple planes you would go crashing through three sheets of glass!

There are many other things that put aesthetic limits on your work with 3-D, but ask me again when we complete this film.

Camera details: the Neilson- Hordell camera is operated by John Curtain and Kim Humphreys. Curtain was a camera operator at Filmgraphics in Sydney and then at Raymond Lea. Although he did not work the Oxberry computer stand at Film- graphics, he has watched its operation and considers the Neilson- Hordell operation is much simpler to use and program. The programmer of the animation stand computer-control program was Mark Robert's who came out from Canada for the installation with Peter Neilson. He then travelled to Britain where the BBC has recently i ns tal l ed a Ne i l s o n - Ho r d e l l computer-controlled stand. ★


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FEATURES

P R E -P R O D U C T IO N

ACADEMYProd, company.......................Crystal Prods.Producers..........................Colin Eggleston,

Ron McLeanDirector...............................Colin EgglestonExecutive producer...............David WilliamsScriptwriter.............................. Ron McLeanSynopsis: Karbin, a cool, tough, professional soldier, signs up for training at the Academy — an institute so secret that none of its graduates ever discuss the training they undergo. Run by a dangerous psychotic, the Academy has training tests designed to kill. Karbin fights for his life but turns killer when the colonel marks him as expendable.

DAISYProd, company.......... Argus Motion PicturesProducers............................... Hugh Kitson,

Colin BorgononDirector...........................Richard McCarthyScriptwriter.....................................Anthony WheelerBased on the original idea

by................................................Anthony WheelerLine producer..................Pamela N. BorainProd, accountant................. Marie C. BrownScript editor............................ John SmytheArt director............................................ Phil MonaghanLength............................................. 90 min.Gauge............................................... 35mmSynopsis: A simple, unpretentious story about two people: an obese, cantankerous elderly Australian countrywoman and a sensitive English school-teacher in his thirties. The story reveals the very special relationship that grows between these two, who might never have managed without each other.

DEATHWATCHProd, company............. Deathwatch Prods.

— Virgo Prods.Producer..................................Judith WestDirector................................. Peter MaxwellScriptwriter................................Peter WestBased on the original

idea by...............................Michael RalphPhotography..........................Ray HenmanSound recordist........................Bob ClaytonExec, producers..................Brock Halliday,

Peter WestProd, manager................... Victoria ChristieProd, accountant...........N. G. Prabsch & CoArt director..........................Owen PattersonWardrobe.................................David RoweFight choreography................. Jim RichardsStunts co-ordinator....................Peter WestStudios.......................................... ArtransaLaboratory...........................................AtlabCompletion guarantors....................Haliday

and NichollasLength...........................................100 minsGauge..............................35mm PanavisionCast: Hugh Keays-Byrne (Quin).Synopsis: One of the great terrors is being caught in an army tank when a bullet penetrates and richochets about inside.

It is that concept of confined mayhem that will have viewers gasping with terror!

They will be gently led into the familiar non-threatening environment of a department store, and then subjected to an inexorable build-up of tension and suspense which explodes into all-out warfare — from which there is no escape.

THE DIRTY HALF MILEProd, company.......... David Hannay Prods.,

Underworld Prods.Producers..............................Lance Peters,

David HannayDirector................................ Hayes GordonExecutive producer.............. Bob Sanders,

CinecorpScriptwriter..............................Lance PetersSynopsis: Set in the ‘dirty 30s’, this is the saga of a deadly rivalry between an undercover detective and master of disguises, and the biggest underworld madam in town.

FACES IN THE WATERProducer...................................Lynn BarkerExecutive producer............. William SterlingSynopsis: The harrowing yet deeply moving story of a young teacher who suffers a nervous breakdown and finally manages to claw her way back to a new life after eight years in a mental institution.

FOR LOVE ALONEProd, company............. Margaret Fink FilmsProducer................................Margaret FinkDirector............................ Stephen WallaceScriptwriter....................... Stephen WallaceSynopsis: The story of a young girl's passionate search for love and sexual fulfilment, and the men who help her find it.

FUNNY BUSINESSProd, company............... Seven DimensionsProducer........................................Eve AshDirector................................. Ted RobinsonScriptwriters........................ Ian McFadyen,

Patrick Cook, Ted Robinson

Script editor............................ John ClarkeExec, producer....................... Jim McElroyAssoc, producer........................... Eli SuttonProd, co-ordinator.....................Nancy PeckLength........................................... 90 minsGauge...............................................35mmSynopsis: We have seen how the people with qualifications manage the business of running the world . . . now we see how the unqualified manage in the world of running a business.

GETTING ONProd, company............................ GO ProdsDirector...................................Ted HamiltonScriptwriters.......................... Ted Hamilton,

David SmilowGauge...............................................35mmShooting stock..................... EastmancolorSynopsis: The story of four ageing classical musicians who by accident become the hottest rock’n'roll group in Australia. The scenario unfolds around a ten-day concert tour during which they are exposed to a lifestyle they have only read about, now they’re part of it.

THE LAST REUNIONProd, company.....................Reunion FilmsProducer.............................. David HannayDirector.................................... Brian JonesScriptwriters........................................Brian Jones,

Bernard DavisSound recordist....................................John RowleyEditor................................................Robert MartinConsultant editor.................Tony PattersonProd, designer...........................Neil AngwinComposer.............................................. Lee HobberExec, producer............................... Bernard DavisProd, manager......................... John ChaseAsst director....................... Alan McKenzieLighting cameraman.............................Tom CowanFocus puller/steadicam op............ Ian JonesBoom operator..................Bruce LamsheadMake-up........................... Deryck De NieseSpecial effects................................. Conrad HiltonSet construction................Ken HazelwoodSound editor.....................Bruce LamsheadMixer................................... Tony PattersonRunner............................................Vic BellPublicity....................................Wendy DayStudios............................... Port MelbourneBudget......................................... $880,000Length..........................................100 minsGauge..........................................Super 16Shooting stock...................................KodakCast: Max Fairchild (Chris), Rod Mullinar (Robert), Chris Hallum (Allan), Jim Smillie (Jeff), Stuart Faichney (Richard), Ian Scott (Alistair), David Cameron (David), Trevor Kilgour (Ken), Harold Baigent (Jackson), Moira Claux (Mrs Jackson).Synopsis: A contemporary ghost story of powerful and terrifying suspense, set in the alienating isolation of the Australian outback.

LOVE ON A TOURIST VISAProd, company............................. Laughing

Kookaburra Prods.Producers..............................................Jan Sharp,

Barbara GibbsDirector..................................Phillip NoyceScriptwriter..................................Jan SharpPhotography........................................Dean SemlerSound recordist...................................Lloyd CarrickEditor...................................................John ScottArt director........................ Norma MoriceauComposer..................................... Cameron AllanLength..................................................... 90 minsGauge...............................................35mmBudget..................................................$1.5 millionSynopsis: The story of a woman who must choose between her children in Sydney and her love affair with a Balinese dancer.

THE NOSTRADAMUS KIDProducer.............................Jane BallantyneDirector........................................ Paul CoxScriptwriter...................................Bob EllisBased on the original idea

by.............................................. Bob EllisExec, producer.....................Andrew MartinAssoc, producer....................... Patric JuilletCast: Robert Menzies (Elkin).Synopsis: A gentle comedy about the end of the world.

ONE NIGHT STANDProd, company............................Astra Film

Productions in assoc, with Michael Edgley International

and Hoyts TheatresProducer.........................................Richard MasonDirector....................................John DuiganScriptwriter..............................John DuiganAssoc, producer..................... Julia OvertonLength.............................................93 minsGauge...............................................35mmBudget..................................................... $1 millionCast: Cassandra Delaney, Saskia Post, Tyler Coppin.Synopsis: Set in the Sydney Opera House, the film follows the fate of four young people on the first night of World War 3.

OVERSEXED, OVERPAID, OVER HERE

Prod, company...........McElroy and McElroyProducer............................................... Jim McElroyScriptwriter........................................Trevor FarrantSynopsis: A crazy comedy set in Sydney in 1942. At the beginning of the year the Americans were welcome saviours. By September the mood had changed. Before long a saying was going around that there were three things wrong with the Yanks: “overpaid, oversexed and over here”.

THE PERFECTIONISTProducer..........................................Patricia LovellDirector............................ David WilliamsonScriptwriter...................... David WilliamsonSynopsis: An incisive and humorous look at the pressures inherent in a two-career marriage.

RAZORBACKProd, company...........McElroy and McElroyProducer.................................. Hal McElroyDirector.............................Russell MulcahyScriptwriter....................... Everett de RocheBased on the novel

by....................................................Peter BrennanGauge...............................................35mmBudget...................................... $3.5 millionSynopsis: After the disappearance of an American woman campaigning against the slaughter of kangaroos, her husband attempts to avenge her death.

THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKEProd, company......Universal Entertainment

CorporationProducer......................................... Maurice MurphyDirector...........................................Maurice MurphyScriptwriters................................. Bob Eliis,

Maurice MurphyBased on the book of

verse by................................ C. J. DennisProd, designer...................... George LiddleCostume designer...................... Jan HurleyCast: Philip Quast (Bloke), Jackie Wood- burne (Doreen), Linda Cropper (Rose), John Howard (Ginger).Synopsis: A romantic comedy based on C. J. Dennis’ book of verse in which a rough- tough Australian is unafraid of sentimental feelings.

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

Producer.............................. Jane BallantyeDirector ........................................Paul CoxScriptwriter................... Anne BrooksbankAssoc, producers.................... Patric Juillet,

Andrew MartinCasting director............................ Bob EllisCast: Wendy Hughes (Jenny)Synopsis: A contemporary psychological thriller.

SILVER CITYProd, company............................. Limelight ProdsProducer.................................... Joan LongDirector.......................... Sophia T urkiewiczScriptwriters................. Sophia Turkiewicz,

Thomas KeneallyGauge...............................................35mmShooting stock.......................Eastmancolor

SIMPSONProducer..................................Lynn BarkerDirector...................................Adrian CarrExecutive producer.......................... William SterlingScriptwriter....................................... James MitchellSynopsis: A film inspired by the roving life of John Simpson — the man with the donkey — one of the heroes of the Anzacs in World War

STREET STORYProd, company...............Helen Boyd Prods.Producer........ ..........................Helen BoydDirector................................ Howard RubieScriptwriter.........................Forrest RedlichBased on the original idea

by....................................Forrest Redlich

Photography..............................John SealeProd, manager.......................... Irene KorolCast: Scott Burgess (Denny), Nicole Kidman (Maddy), Barry Otto (Ralph), Marianne Howard (Chrissie), Chris Connelly (Harry). Synopsis: The film explores the relationship between Denny and Maddy, a boy and girl from opposite sides of the track. Strangers who find something as innocent and inspiring as love in a world that is rapidly going to hell.

THE WRONG WORLDProd, company................. Seon Film Prods.Producers.......................................... Bryce Menzies,

Ian PringleDirector...................................... Ian PringleScriptwriters..............................Doug Ling,

Ian PringlePhotography............................... Ray ArgaliProd, superviser..................... Daniel ScharfProducer’s assistant........................Cristina PozzanMusical director.....................................Eric GradmanLength............................................ 90 minsProgress.............................. Pre-productionCast: Richard Moir.

P R O D U C T IO N

ABRA CADABRAProd, company ..................Adams Packer

Film Prod.Producer.......................................... Phillip AdamsDirector .............................Alexander StittScriptwriter........................Alexander StittBased on the original

idea by ..........................Alexander StittSound recordist ............Brian Lawrence,

AAV AustraliaComposer............................... peter BestExec, producer ................... Phillip AdamsAssoc, producer ................Andrew KnightProd, secretary .......................Janet ArupAnimation director .............. Frank HellardKey animators...................................Anne Jolliffe,

Gus McLaren, Steve Robinson,

Ralph PeverillPainting supervisor .......... Marilyn DaviesDirector special fx

photography................. Mike BrowningArt director.........................Alexander StittMusical director .......................Peter BestTech, advisers................ Mike Browning,

Volk MolStudios............................................Al et alLaboratory ..........................Victorian Film

LaboratoriesLength .......................................... go minsGauge ........................35mm Panavision,

Triangle 3DShooting stock.................... EastmancolorScheduled release .....................Late 1983Voices: Jacki Weaver, John Farnham, Hayes Gordon, Gary Files, Jim Smilie, Hamish Hughes.Synopsis: Will Abra Cadabra thwart the plans of rotten B. L. Z’Bubb and nasty Klaw, the Rat King, to control all of the known and unknown universe? Of course he will, with the help of beautiful Primrose Buttercup, Mr. Pig and Zodiac the space dog, among others. But not until the end.

BMX BANDITSProd, company....................... BMX BanditsDist. company....................Nilsen PremiereProducers.......................Tom Broadbridge,

Paul DaviesDirector................... Brian Trenchard-SmithScriptwriter.....................Patrick EdgeworthBased on a screenplay

by........................................Russell HaggPhotography...............................John SealeSound recordist................... Ken HammondEditor..........................................Alan LakeProd, designer............................Ross MajorComposer..................................Colin SteadAssoc, producer................ Brian D. BurgessUnit manager.........Carolynne CunninghamProd, secretary.............. Rosslyn AbernethyProd, accountant............... Candice DuboisProd, assistant................... Joanne Rooney1st asst director.....................................Bob Howard2nd asst director......................................Ian Kenny3rd asst director............................... Murray RobertsonContinuity...................................Linda RayProducer’s assistant............................Libby ThomsonCasting...............................................Susie MaizelsCasting consultants........Mitch ConsultancyCamera operator................................. John SealeFocus puller........................................Steve MasonClapper/loader.................................... Derry FieldKey grip.............................................. Peter MardellAsst grips.............................................Gary Carden,

Phillip Shapiera, Boris Janjic

Gaffer................................................... Reg GarsideElectrician............................................ Sam BienstockBoom operator.................................... Steve MillerArt director...........................................Ross Major

PRODUCERS,DIRECTORS

ANDPRODUCTIONCOMPANIESTo ensure the accuracy of your

entry, please contact the editor of this column and ask for copies of our Production Survey blank, on which the details of your production can be entered. All details must be typed In upper and lower case.

The cast entry should be no more than the 10 main actors/ actresses — their names and character names. The length of the synopsis should not exceed 50 words.

Editor’s note: All entries are supplied by producers/production companies, or by their agents. C in e m a P a p e r s cannot, therefore, accept responsibility for the correctness of any entry.

Wardrobe mistress............................. Leslie TurnballWard, assistant.........................Jenny MilesProps buyer......................................Derrick ChetwynStandby props....................... Igor LazareffSpecial effects.......................Chris Murray,

David HardieAsst editors.............................Jim Walker,

Sue BlaneyStunts co-ordinator...................... Bob HicksStunts/riding doubles...............Craig White,

Jim O’Neill, Robbie Moreton

Still photography........................ Bliss SwiftBMX tech, adviser...................... Des WhiteRunner............................ Kimball AndersonPublicity.................................................Jan Crocker,

International Public RelationsCatering..............................................Kaos CateringStudios............................. Mort Bay StudiosLaboratory.................................... ColorfilmLab. liaison................................ Bill GooleyGauge........35mm, Panavision, AnamorphicShooting stock...................................KodakCast: David Argue (Whitey), John Ley (Moustache), Brian Marshall (Boss), Angelo d'Angelo (PJ), James Lugton (Goose), Nicole Kidman (Judy), Brian Sloman (Creep), Peter Browne (Fearsome Police Constable), Bill Brady (Police Sergeant).Synopsis: The adventures of two 15-year- olds living in Manly. Goose and PJ really wish the area had its own BMX track because there is nowhere they can ride their bikes at speed and do the stunts they enjoy. A series of incidents leads to the pair getting just what they wish for.

BULLAMAKANKAProd, company..................... Bullamakanka

Film Prods.Dist. company...................................... Lone Star

Pictures InternationalProducer...............................David JosephDirector.................................Simon HeathScriptwriter............................Simon HeathBased on the original

idea by...............................Simon HeathPhotography.......................................David EggbySound recordist................................... Ross LintonEditor.........................................John ScottComposer..............................Clive PascoeExec, producer......................David JosephAssoc, producer................................ Murray FrancisProd, supervisor...................................Irene KorolProd, co-ordinator................................ Sally Ayre-SmithProd, manager........................... Irene KorolUnit manager......................................Steve JohnstonProd, secretary.....................................Sally Ayre-SmithProd, accountant.................................Peter DonsProd, assistant ....Natalie Wentworth-Sheilds1st asst director...................................Peter Willesee2nd asst director....................................Phil Rich3rd asst director.................................. Geoff BarterContinuity..............................Daphne ParisProducer’s assistant...........................Diana DavisonCasting................................................Nene MorganLighting cameraman............................David EggbyFocus puller......................... Kim BatterhamClapper/loader....................................Steve ArnoldKey grip............................Graham LichfieldAsst grip................................................ Roy MicoGaffer....................................... Roger WoodAssistant electrician..............Douglas WoodSound recordist................................... Ross LintonBoom operator................................Graham McKinneyArt director............................ Terry StantonAsst art director................................Marcus SkipperMake-up...............................................Rina HofmanisWardrobe............................................... Lyn AskewWard, assistant......................Sandy BeachProps buyer........................... Richard Kent

C IN E M A P A P E R S May-June — 147

P roduction Survey

Standby props.................................... Harry ZettelSpecial effects......................Monty FeiguthAsst editor...................... Frans VandenburgMusic performed by.............. Various ArtistsStunts co-ordinator....................Grant PageStill photography.......................Bliss Swift,

Jim TownleyBest boy............................Philip GolombickRunner.................................Kerry JacksonPublicity........................International Public

Relations (Bruce Glen)Catering.............................................. Plum CrazyMixed at...............................United SoundLaboratory.....................................ColorfilmLab. liaison............................................. Bill GooleyBudget..................................................$1.2 millionLength...........................................105 minsGauge...............................................35mmShooting stock.................. Kodak ECN5247Cast: Steve Rackman (Rhino Jackson) Mark Hambrow (LD Jones), lain Gardiner (TM), Aiyson Best (Clare Hampton), Kristoffer Greaves (Sausage Johnson), David Bracks (Lionel), James G. Steele (Mole), Garry Kliger (Waldo Jackson), Norman Coburn (Walter Williams), Debbie Matts (Maureen). Synopsis: Three days and nights of anarchy in the life of Bullamakanka.

FAST TALKINGProd, company...................... Oldata Prods.Producer............................. Ross MatthewsDirector................................Ken CameronScriptwriter...........................Ken CameronPhotography.........................David GribbleSound recordist...........................Tim LloydEditor.................................... David HuggettProd, designer....................................... Neil AngwinComposer............................Sharon CalcraftProd, co-ordinator...................... Liz WrightProd, manager........................... Uxie BettsLocation manager/unit

manager............................... Peta LawsonProd, accountant........Moneypenny ServicesProd, assistant......................Carol Hughes1st asst director....................... John Rooke2nd asst director............................. Timothy Higgins3rd asst director.............Anthony HeffernanContinuity............................................... Liz BartonCasting...............................................M & LFocus puller....................Peter Menzies jun.Clapper/loader.............................Geraldine CatchpoolKey grip................................Lester BishopAsst grip......................................Geoff FullSpecial fx.......................................... Reece RobinsonGaffer...................................Miles MoulsonBoom operator..................... Jack FriedmanCostume designer............................... Terry RyanStandby wardrobe.................................Rita CrouchMake-up/hairdresser................Viv MephamProps buyer/set dresser....... David BowdenStandby props......................Nick McCallumConstruction man.................Brian HockingEditing assistants............................Danielle Wiesner,

Glen AuchinachieSafety and stunts

co-ordinator......................................Peter WestBest boy...............................Richard CurtisAsst best boy.......................................Hugh WorrellRunner................................ Claire O’BrienCatering............................................. FillumTutor.................................................. Grant McDonaldBudget.........................................$900,000Length..................................................... 95 minsGauge..........................................Super 16Cast: Rod Zuanic (Steve Carson), Toni Allaylis (Vicki), Chris Truswell (The Moose), Gail Sweeny (Narelle), Dave Godden (Warren), Peter Hehir (Ralph Carson), Steve Blsley (Redback), Tracy Mann (Sharon), Denis Moore (Yates), Gary Cook (Al Carson). Synopsis: A contemporary comedy. The story of a young urban “bushranger” fighting for survival in Sydney’s oppressed western suburbs.

P O S T -P R O D U C T IO N

BUDDIESProd, company.............................J D ProdsProducer..............................................John DingwallDirector................................................Arch NicholsonScriptwriter..........................................John DingwallBased on the original idea

by..................................................... John DingwallPhotography............................David EggbySound recordist........................Peter BarkerEditor.................................................Martin DownProd, designer.......................Phillip WarnerAssoc, producer.................................. Brian BurgessProd, co-ordinator...........Rosslyn AbernethyLoc. manager....................................Narelle BarsbyProd, secretary................................Rosslyn AbernethyProd, accountant................................... Lea CollinsAsst, accountant............................... Candy DuboisLoc. asst..................................... Jane Cook1st asst director............... Phillip Hearnshaw2nd asst director...................................Keith Heygate3rd asst director................................Marcus SkipperContinuity....................................Linda RayCasting...............................................Alison BarrettCamera operator..................................Clive DuncanFocus puller.................................... Algenon SucharovClapper/loader....................................Leigh McKenzieKey grip.............................................. Peter MardellGrip's best boy.................................Michael NelsonAsst, grip............. Colin Livingstone-PullochStandby carpenter..............................Jamie EganSpecial fx supervisor........................... Chris MurrayGaffer.................................................Roger WoodBoom operator...................................... Keir WelchArt director.............................................Ron HighfieldAsst art director..................................Phillip ChambersCostume designer............................... Jane HylandMake-up.............................................. Sally GordonHairdresser...........................................Willi KenrickStand-by wardrobe............................Margot LindsayProps buyer........................... Alethea DeanStandby props....................................Shane RushbrookSet construction.................................. Peter TempletonUnit runner.......................................... Fiona Sullivan

Standby unit runner........................... Jamie EganCarpenter......................................... Wayne AllenStunts co-ordinator................................ Bob HicksEditing asst........................ Leslie MannisonStill photography.................................. Bliss SwiftElecs best boy................... Philip GolombickPublicity....................................Ken Newton

Media ConsultantsCatering..................................Ken SharpiesUnit nurse............................ Rhonda ArthurLength..................................................... 97 mins.Cast: Colin Friels (Mike), Harold Hopkins (Johnny), Kris McQuade (Stella), Simon Chilvers (Alfred), Norman Kaye (George), Dennis Miller (Andy), Lisa Peers. (Jennifer), Andrew Sharp (Peter), Bruce Spence (Ted), Dinah Shearing (Merl).Synopsis: An action drama based on two miners digging for sapphires. Filmed on location in Emerald, Queensland.

BUSH CHRISTMASProd, company.........Producers.................

Director.....................Scriptwriter...............Based on the novel by

Photography.............Loc. sound recordist...Editor.......................Prod, designer...........Exec, producer.........Prod, manager..........Prod, secretary..........Loc. manager............Prod, accountant......1st asst director.........2nd asst director........3rd asst director........Continuity.................Camera grip.............Clapper/loader..........Camera assistant......Asst grip...................Gaffer......................Make-up...................Wardrobe.................Standby props..........Set dresser...............Sound asst...............Editing assistant.......Horse master............Best boy...................Runner.....................Location runner........Catering...................Laboratory................Length......................Gauge......................Shooting stock..........

.Bush Christmas Prods..........Gilda Baracchi,

Paul Barron...............Henri Safran................Ted Roberts..............Ralph Smart,

Mary Borer......Malcolm Richards..............Don Connolly...............Ron Williams............... Darrell Lass.................Paul Barron...............Kevin Powell................ Penny Wall........David Adermann...............Marie Brown..............David Munro.................. Ian Kenny......Murray Robertson............ Jenny Quigley............... Paul Holford............... Gene Moller............... John Ogden................. Tom Hoffie...............Derek Jones....Vivienne Rushbrook...............Fiona Nicolls................Mike Fowley..............Martin O'Neill......Graham Ademann.........Pippa Anderson............. Graham Ware.............. Ted Williams................ Steve Otten.............. Craig Bowles............... Frank Manly...........................Atlab...................... 96 mins.................... Super 16...........................7247

Cast: John Howard (Sly), John Ewart (Bill), Manalpuy (Aboriginal boy), James Wingrove (Michael), Mark Spain (Jonn), Nicole Kidman (Helen), Vanetta O’Malley (Kate), Peter Sumner (Ben), Bushwackers Band (Band). Synopsis: A re-make of the film made in 1947 starring Chips Rafferty, Bush Christmas is an adventure involving a group of teenagers in pursuit of two would-be horse thieves.

CAREFUL, HE MIGHT HEAR YOUProd, company........... Syme EntertainmentProducer.................................................Jill RobbDirector................................... Carl SchultzScriptwriter........................ Michael JenkinsBased on the original idea

by............................Sumner Locke ElliottPhotography........................................ John SealeSound recordist..................Syd ButterworthEditor.....................Richard Frances BruceProd, designer...................... John StoddartComposer..............................................Ray CookProd, manager................... Greg RicketsonUnit manager/location

manager.............Carolynne Cunningham

Prod, secretary.......................Lynda HouseProd, accountant....Craig Scott-Moneypenny1st asst director.................... Colin Fletcher2nd asst director....................................Sue Parker3rd asst director.......................Tom BlacketContinuity............................................. Pam WillisProducer’s assistant...............Judy HughesCasting............................................ForcastLighting cameraman............................ John SealeCamera operator................................. John SealeFocus puller............................Steve MasonClapper/loader.................................... Derry FieldKey grip................................Ross EricksonAsst grips..............................................Roy Mico’

Robert ver KerkGaffer.....................................Reg GarsideBest boy...............................Sam BienstockElectrician........................Jonathon HughesBoom operator..................................... Noel QuinnArt director..............................John CarrollAsst art director...................John WingroveCostume designer...............Bruce FinlaysonMake-up/hair.......................................Anne PospischilHairdresser/make-up..................... Rochelle FordStand-by wardrobe.............. Julie ConstableWard, assistants..................................... Liz Keogh,

Linda Mapledoram, Chris Klingenberg,

Miranda SkinnerProps buyers.....................................Sandy Wingrove,

Clarrissa Patterson, Jock McLachlan

Standby props....................................... Igor LazareffSpecial effects............................. Brian CoxScenic artists.......................Brian Nickless,

Gillian NicholasCarpenters................... Michael Fearnhead,

Grant Ford, Steven Volich,

Ian DayConstruction manager...........................Ray ElphickAsst editor........................................Marcus DarcyNeg. matching.................................... AtlabSound editor.......................Andrew SteuartEditing assistants................... Robin Judge,

Louise InnesSupervising sound

mixer.............................................. Roger SavageSound mixer................... Julian EllingworthStill photography........................ Tony PottsTitle designer........................ John StoddartRunners............................Elizabeth Symes,

Richard HobbsUnit publicist........................................Chris DayCatering.............................................. John FaithfulStudios..........................................SupremePost-production facilities...............SpectrumMixed at..............................................AtlabLaboratory...........................................AtlabLab. liaison..........................................Greg DohertyLength................................................... 110 minsGauge...............................................35mmScreen ratio..............................AnamorphicShooting stock................Kodak 5247, 5293Scheduled release................................ Late 1983Cast: Wendy Hughes (Vanessa), Robyn Nevin (Lila), Nicholas Gledhill (PS), John Hargreaves (Logan), Geraldine Turner (Vere), Isabelle Anderson (Agnes), Peter Whltford (George), Colleen Clifford (Ettie). Synopsis: Set in Sydney in the 1930s, this is the poignant story of a small boy caught up in a bitter custody battle between two sisters.

THE CITY’S EDGE(formerly Running Man)

Prod, company..............................EastcapsProducers................................Pom Oliver,

Errol SullivanDirector................................Ken QuinnellScriptwriters......................... Robert Merritt,

Ken QuinnellBased on the novel

by.................................. W. A. HarbinsonPhotography............................. Louis IrvingSound recordist.........................Noel QuinnEditor......................................Greg RopertArt director.............................. Robert DeinAssoc, producer................... Barbara Gibbs

Prod, manager......................Barbara GibbsUnit manager.................................Adrienne ReadProd, accountant.................... Moneypenny

Services, Anthony Shepherd

1 st asst director..................... Mark Tumbull2nd asst director.....................................Ian PageContinuity............................................... Liz BartonCasting...............................................Susie MaizelsFocus puller..................................... Jeremy RobbinsClapper/loader....................................Derry FieldKey grip...................................Stuart GreenGaffer................................................... Reg GarsideBoom operator.................. Andrew DuncanCostume designer.......................... Anthony JonesMake-up................................................. Viv MephamHairdresser............................................Viv MephamStandby wardrobe.............................. Roger MorkStandby props.................. Jock McLachlanScenic artist....................................... David McKayArmourer................................... Brian BurnsEditing assistant............... Josephine CookeStunts co-ordinator..............................Grant PageMotorbike stunts....................................Guy NorrisBest boy...............................................Sam BienstockRunner.................................................Judy RymerCatering........................... DJ & CJ Location

Catering, John Welch

Post-production..................Studio Clip JointLaboratory...........................................AtlabLab. liaison..........................................Greg DohertyCast: Tom Lewis, Hugo Weaving, Katrina Foster, Mark Lee, Ralph Cotterill.Synopsis: The story of a strange love affaire in a world of young outsiders living on the edge.

MOLLYProd, company............................... TroplisaDist. company............... Greater Union Org.Producer............................. Hilary LinsteadDirector.................................... Ned LanderScriptwriters..........................Phillip Roope,

Mark Thomas, Ned Lander

Based on a story by...................

Photography.....................Sound recordist................Editor...............................Composer/musical directorExec, producer................Assoc, producers..............

Prod, supervisor...............Location manager.............Prod, secretary................Prod, accountant.............1st asst director................2nd asst director..............Continuity........................Producer’s assistant.........Casting............................Focus puller.....................Clapper/loader.................Key grip...........................Asst grip...........................Gaffer..............................Electrician.......................Boom operator.................Art director.......................Costume designer............Make-up/

hairdresser...................Ward, assistant................Props buyer.....................Standby props.................Special effects.................Circus consultants...........

Asst editor.......................Music performed by.........

.....Phillip Roope,Mark Thomas, Hilary Linstead

...Vincent Monton

......Lloyd Carrick....Stewart Young....Graeme Issac.Richard Brennan.....Phillip Roope,

Mark Thomas....Barbara Gibbs......Phillip Roope....Adrienne Read Howard Wheatley ..Tony Wellington............ Ian Page........ Ann Walton.......Jean Bevins................. M&L....Kim Batterham.......Steve Arnold......Bruce Barber....Graham Young....Miles Moulson...Richard Oldfield ...Andrew Duncan........Robert Dein.......Laurel Frank

.Elizabeth Fardon Lesley McLennan.............Ro Bruen........Clark Munro..Reece Robinson......Tim Coldwell,

Bomber Perrier ..Lesley Mannison.....Mick Conway,

Jim Conway, Dave Clayton,

Jim Niven, Geoffrey Hales

Stanley

Sound editors.............................. Greg Bell,Helen Brown,

Ashley GrenvilleMixer.......................................... Phil JuddStill photography......................... Carol RuffAdditional photography............Mark ManionWrangler.................................. Don T regearBest boy.......................................... Richard CurtisRunner...............................Duncan StemlerCatering.................................. Plum Crazy,

Christina NormanMixed at............................................United SoundLaboratory..................................... ColorfilmLab. liaison.................................Bill GooleyLength.............................................88 minsGauge............................................... 35mmShooting stock........... Kodak 5247 and 5293Scheduled release....................... Christmas 1983Cast: Claudia Karvan (Maxie), Garry McDonald (Jones), Molly as herself, Ruth Cracknell (Mrs Reach), Reg Lye (Old Dan), Mellissa Jaffer (Jenny), Slim de Grey (Tommy), Leslie Dayman (Bill Ireland), Robin Laurie (Stella), and members of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus.Synopsis: A fairy tale adventure about an 11-year-old girl who inherits a dog that sings.

PHAR LAPProd, company............. John Sexton Prods/

Michael Edgley International Producer..............................................John SextonDirector.............................................. Simon WincerScriptwriter.........................................David WilliamsonPhotography.....................................Russell BoydSound recordist....................................Gary WilkinProd, designer.................... Larry EastwoodProd, supervisor.................... Richard DavisProd, co-ordinator............................... Cathy FlanneryProd, manager....................................Paula GibbsUnit manager..............................Philip CorrProd, secretary..............................Elizabeth WrightProd, accountant......Moneypenny Services,

AndroullaAsst prod, accountant.............Jill CoverdaleProd, assistant..................................... Julia Ritchie1st asst director................................ Murray Newey2nd asst director..............................Michael Bourchier3rd asst director.................. Deuel Droogan4th asst director......................... Christopher WalkerContinuity................................................ Jo WeeksProducer’s assistant........ r..........Di HolmesCasting.............................................. Alison BarrettCamera operator.................................Nixon BinneyFocus puller.........................................Peter MenziesClapper/loader................................Geoffrey WhartonKey grip.................................................Ray BrownAsst grips........................................Geordie Dryden,

Stuart GreenGaffer..................................................Brian BansgroveElectrician............................................Colin ChaseBoom operator.....................Mark WasiutakArt director..........................David BowdenAsst designer...............................Lisa ElvyCostume designer............................... Anna SeniorMake-up.................... Lesley Lamont-FisherHairdresser........................................Cheryl WilliamsWardrobe supervisor............Graham PurcellWardrobe standby.................................Rita CrouchAsst wardrobe standby......................... Leah CocksProps buyer.........................................Clark MunroStandby props................Karan MonkhouseSet decorator.......................Sally CampbellScenic artist.............................. Peter HarrisAsst painter.........................................Tony BabicciCarpenters.............. .......Errol Glassenbury,

Peter Watson, Christopher Reid

Set construction...................................Brian HockingDraughtsman.................Marc SchulenbergArt dept runner.............................Geoff FullStill photography................................. David ParkerWrangler............................................ Heath HarrisBest boy................................................Paul GantnerPublicity..............................................Suzie HowieCatering.....................Chris Smith “Feast”

(Sydney), Helen Wright (Melbourne)

Budget.....................................................$5 millionCast: Tom Burlinson (Tommy Woodcock), Martin Vaughan (Harry Telford), Judy Morris (Bea Davis), Dave Davis (Ron Leibman). Synopsis: The story of the world’s greatest racehorse, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It tells of Phar Lap’s sudden rise to national fame and the controversies surrounding his career, including attempts on his life before the 1930 Melbourne Cup. The story moves to the U.S. with Phar Lap’s success at the world’s richest horserace, and his untimely death in mysterious circumstances.

PLATYPUS COVEProd, company.............Producer......................Director.........................Scriptwriter...................Photography.................Sound recordist.............Editor...........................Exec, producer.............Prod, co-ordinator........Prod, secretary.............Prod, accountant...........1st asst director............2nd asst director...........3rd asst director...........Continuity.....................Casting........................Clapper/loader.............Camera assistant.........Key grip........................2nd unit photography....

Gaffer..........................Boom operator.............Art director...................Make-up......................Wardrobe....................Ward, assistant............Props buyer.................Standby props..............Asst editor...................

Independent Prods.......Geof Gardinei.......Peter Maxwell......Charles Stamp.....Phil Pike A.C.S.........Don Connolly...........Bob Cogger__Brendon Lunney............ Dixie Betts............ Fiona King......... Peter Layard....Tony Wellington......Paul Callaghan....Michael Faranda....... Jenny Quigley..Mitch Consultancy........Sean McClory.......... Keith Bryant...Graham Litchfield......... Greg Hunter,

Garry Maunder.......... Derek Jones............Steve Miller.............Ken James........ Fiona Spence........ Fiona Spence....Kerry Thompson......Brian Edmonds.......... Igor Lazareff....... Michelle Cattle


Production Survey

The Sunbeam Shaft

Stunts co-ordinator..............................Peter WestStill photography................... Bruce HaswellBest boy................................Matt SlatteryPublicity................... Rea Francis CompanyUnit publicist.......................................Annie PageCatering...............................Jems CateringLaboratory............................................CFLLab. liaison..............................Cal GardinerLength....................................................100 minsGauge...............................................16mmShooting stock......Eastmancolor 7247/7293Cast: Tony Barry (Frank Wilson), Allen Bickford (Ted Finch), Aileen Britton (Gran Mason), Simone Buchanan (Jenny Nelson), Carmen Duncan (Margaret Davis), Bill Kerr (Mr Anderson), Martin Lewis (Peter Nelson), John Ley (Leo Baldwin), Paul Smith (Jim Mason), Henri Szeps (Winston Bell). Synopsis: Saboteurs, attempting to cripple the tug-boat, Platypus, and put her owner out of business, are thwarted by young deckhand, Jim Mason, who is anxious to clear himself of suspicion of the sabotage.

PRISONERSProd, company ................ Endeavour Film

Management (No. 2) — Lemon Crest

Dist. company ............... 20th Century-FoxFilm Corporation

Producers.....................Antony I. Ginnane,John Barnett

Director............................................ Peter WernerScriptwriters ...................... Meredith Baer,

Hilary HenkinBased on a story by ...........Meredith BaerPhotography....................................James GlennonSound recordist.................................. Gary WilkinsEditor ......................................Adrian CarrProd, designer....................Bernard HidesExec, producers ...........David Hammings,

Keith Barish, Craig Baumgarten

Assoc, producer................................Brian CookUnit manager ......................Murray NeweyProd, secretary ...................... Jenny BartyProd, accountant ................ Stanley SopelAsst accountant..................................Tony WhymanProd, assistant.............. Barbara WilliamsProd, trainee................... Tim Coddington1st asst director ..............Terry Needham2nd asst directors ............... Kevan O'Dell,

Jonothan Barraud3rd asst director.........................Geoff HillContinuity................. Jacqueline SaundersDirector's assistant...................Cass CotyProducer's assistant:

Asst to Mr Ginnane __Sylvia Van WykAsst to Mr Barnett ......... Frances Gush

Casting:Australia__M & L Casting ConsultantsNew Zealand .................... Diana Rowan

Camera operator .................... David BurrFocus puller .................. Malcolm BurrowsClapper/loader................................Roland CaratiCamera dept, trainee........William GrieveKey grip..........................Grahame MardellAsst grips........................................... Gary Carden,

Richard ScottGaffer..............................................Warren MearnsElectricians......................................Murray Gray,

Ian BealeLighting dept, trainee.........................John KaiserBoom operator................................... Mark WasiutakArt director .................Virginia BienemanCostume designer ......Aphrodite KondosMake-up ...................................Jose PerezMake-up assistant........Robern PjckeringHairdresser ..............................Joan PetchWardrobe...........................Julia Mansford .Ward, assistant ............... Glenis Hitchens,

Elizabeth JowseyWardrobe dept, trainee........Jude CrozierProps buyer.........................................Paul DulieuStandby props.................................Trevor Haysom,

Morris QuinnDressing props ..................... Mike BecroftArt dept, trainees............. Francey Young,

Jeremy ChunnScenic artist .............................Ray PedlerPainter..................................Paul RadfordStand-by stage hand ............Adrian LaneSet construction .................. Trevor MajorAsst editor........................ Virginia MurrayEditing dept, trainee ... Vicky Yiannoutsos Still photography..................................Rob Tucker

Tech, adviser ....................Greg NewboldUnit nurse...........................Toni OkkerseBest boy.....................................Ian PhilpPublicity:

Worldwide.................. Dennis DavidsonAssociates

Australia............................Carlie DeansNew Zealand .. .Consultus New Zealand

Unit publicist..........................Tony NobleCatering.......................... David Williams,

Location CaterersStudios..................... Northern Television,

Auckland, New ZealandLaboratory...................................ColorfilmLab. liaison .......................... Dick BagnallLength ........................................95 minsGauge...............................................35mmShooting stock..................... EastmancolorCast: Tatum O’Neal (Christie Wilkens), Colin Friels (Nick Skinner), Shirley Knight (Virginia Wilkens), David Hemmings (Superintendent Wilkens), Bruno Lawrence (Peeky), Ralph Cotterill (Holmby), John Bach (Bodell).Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet: R-rated and updated to a New Zealand prison.

STANLEYProd, company.................................. Seven Keys

Group of CompaniesProducer................................Andrew GatyDirector..................................Esben StormScriptwriter.............................Esben StormPhotography........................... Russell BoydSound recordist................................... Mark LewisEditor......................................................Bill AndersonProd, designer....................................Owen WilliamsExec, producer....................................Brian RosenAssoc, producer............................. Warwick RossProd, manager..................Antonia BarnardLocation manager...................Tony WinleyProd, secretary.......................Julie ForsterProd, accountant.................... Kevin Wright1 st asst director................. Steve Andrews2nd asst director.......................Chris Webb3rd asst director....................Richard Hobbs2nd unit director.................................. Colin FletcherContinuity.........................Therese O’LearyExecutive producer’s

assistant...................................Rosie LeeCasting................... Michael Lynch, ForcastCamera operator.................... Nixon BinneyFocus puller........................................Geoff WhartonClapper/loader...................Robyn PetersenKey grip.................................................Ray BrownAsst grips................................Stuart Green,

Geordie Dryden2nd unit photography............... Louis IrvingGaffer.............................. Brian BansgroveElectrician................................ Colin ChaseBoom operator..........................Steve MillerArt director.........................Owen PatersonMake-up designer................................Lloyd JamesMake-up artist....................Robin PickeringHairdresser........................Jan ZeigenbeinWardrobe designer.............Robyn RichardsWard, assistant..................Cheyne PhillipsProps.......................................Lissa CooteProps buyer....................................... Martin O'NeillStandby props......................................Colin GibsonChoreograpny........................Robyn MoaseSet decorator......................... Blossom FlintScenic artist.........................Len ArmstrongCarpenters.............................Les Seaward,

Gordon McIntyre, Paul Fawdon,

Kieron O’Connell, Paul McKey

Asst editor..........................Cathy SheehanSound................................. Transfers Film

Production ServicesStunts co-ordinator............................. Grant PageStill photography..................Carolyn JohnsBest boy............................... Paul GantnerRunners............................... Chris Barnum,

Catherine BishopPublicity................... Rea Francis CompanyCatering.................................Kevin VarnesStudios.............................................. Seven KeysLaboratory.....................................ColorfilmLab. liaison.................................Bill GooleyBudget.....................................................$4 millionLength...........................................106 minsCast: Graham Kennedy (Norm Norris), Nell Campbell (Amy Benton), Peter Bensley(Stanley), Michael Craig (Sir Stanley

Dunstan), Max Cullen (Berger), David Argue (Morris Norris), Lorna Lesley (Cheryl Benton), Betty Lucas (Lady Dunstan), Susan Walker (Doris Norris), Jon Ewing (Reg). Synopsis: The film is about an eccentric young millionaire whose one aim in life is to become normal. To achieve this goal, he seeks out the most normal family in Australia and moves in with them. It is not long before he discovers that the family is not all it appears to be.

THE SUNBEAM SHAFT (working title)

Prod, company.........Producers................

Director....................Scriptwriter...............Based on the original

research by...........Photography.............Sound recordist........Editor.......................Prod, designer..........Exec, producers.......

Prod, consultant....Prod, co-ordinators

Prod, accountant...1st asst director....2nd asst director....3rd asst director....Continuity.............Camera operator....Focus puller.........Clapper/loader.....

Boom operator...........Art directors..............

Asst, art director........Costume designer......Make-up....................Assistant Make-up.....Hairdresser................Wardrobe...................Ward, assistant.........Props supervisor........Props buyer..............Standby props...........Special effects...........Special effects asst....Set decorator............Construction manager Asst editors................

Sound editors............

............. TRM Prods

.........Miranda Bain,Timothy White

.Richard Lowenstein

.Richard Lowenstein

..Wendy Lowenstein....Andrew de Groot.......... Dean Gawen.............. Jill Bilcock............. Tracy Watt............. Erik Lipins,

Don Fleming, Miranda Bain

...Michael Bourchier............ Julie Stone,

Chris Warner.........Mandy Carter........ Robert Kewley.....Brendan Lavelle........ Mandy Walker........Andrea Jordan.................Paul Eliot........... David Knaus.....Steve McDonald.............Jack Lester........ Colin Williams...........Jacquie Fine........... Neil Angwin,

Harry Zettel......McGregor Knox............. Jenny Tate.......Deryk de Neise.........Nick Seymour.......George Huxley........Frankie HoganLynn-Maree Milburn.......Paddy Reardon......Harvey Mawson......McGregor Knox.............Clive Jones.......... David Hardie......Andrew Mitchell...........Bill Chandler.........Robert Grant,

Jaqui Horvath......... Dean Gawen,

Frank LipsonStunts co-ordinator/

safety officer..................Chris AndersonStill photography..............Steve McDonald,

Vladimir OsherovOpticals............. Victorian Film LaboratoriesTech, adviser................................ Bill HallBest boy............................Adrian CherubinRunners................................... Serge Zaza,

Daniel Scharf, Geoff Smith

Unit doctor................. Dr Christopher BrookUnit publicist............................. Julie StoneCatering..............................Kristina FrolichPost-production......................... Mike Reed

Post ProductionLaboratory............................................VFLLab. liaison..........................Bill Harrington,

Steve MitchellLength..........................................100 min.Gauge............................................... 35mmScreen ratio.......................................1:1.83Shooting stock........................EastmancolorScheduled release.....................June, 1983Cast: Chris Haywood (Wattie Doig), Carol Burns (Agnes Doig), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Idris Williams), David Kendall (Edward Birch), Nik Forster (Harry Bell), Rob Steele (Charlie Nelson), Anthony Hawkins (Sergeant), Marion Edward (Meg), Reg Evans (Ernie).Synopsis: In 1936, the miners in the small South Gippsland town of Korumburra barricaded themselves in the main shaft of the Sunbeam colliery, demanding better pay and conditions. Their story is that of the Australian Labor Movement of the 1930s.

UNDERCOVERProd, company........................ Palm Beach

PicturesProducer.................................David ElfickDirector................................ David StevensScriptwriter.......................Miranda DownesBased on the original idea

by................................................Miranda DownesPhotography............................Dean SemlerSound recordist.......................Peter BarkerEditor.................................... Tim WellburnExec, producer...................Richard M. ToltzProd, superviser..................... Lynn GaileyProd, co-ordinator........................ Catherine Phillips

KnapmanLocation manager............................... Steve KnapmanUnit manager...........................Chris JonesProd, secretary.......................Julia RitchieProd, accountants....Moneypenny Services,

Debbie Eastwood, Alan Marco

Assistant unitmanager.......................... Hugh Hamilton

1st asst director.....................Mark Turnbull2nd asst director....................Keith Heygate3rd asst directors................................. Judy Rymer,

Lisa HennesseyContinuity....................................Jo WeeksProducer’s assistant............Basia PlacheckiCasting........................... M & L, Liz MullinarExtras casting

co-ordinator...............................Jo HardieLighting cameraman............................Dean SemlerFocus puller....................................... Steve DobsonClapper/loader................................. Felicity SurteesKey grip............................Merv McLaughlinAsst grips....................................Pat Nash,

Ric Bartsch

Gaffer..................................................John MortonBest boy...................................Craig BryantElectrician......................... Wayne SimpsonGenni operator..........................Dean BryanBoom operator............................Keir WelchArt director................................. Herb PinterAsst art director............................... Stewart MayCostume designer......... Kristian FredriksonMaxe-up........................Lesley VanderwaltAsst make-up.......................................... Jill PorterHairdresser.........................Cheryl WilliamsAsst hairdresser..................Penny MorrisonWardrobe superviser...................... Anthony JonesStandby ward robe....................Kathy J amesWard, assistants................................. Jenni Bolton,

Anna FrenchArt dept, manager...........Sandra AlexanderSet dressers/props buyers......Jenny Green,

Larry Meltzer, David McKay

Standby props.................Karan MonkhouseChoreography................... Leigh ChambersConstruction assistant......... Derek WynessScenic artist........................Michael ChornyCarpenters......................... Paul Vosiliunas,

John Miles, John Parker,

Stan Ruch, Ian Day,

Michael PattersonConstruction manager........ Ron SutherlandArt dept, assistants...............Juliette Otton,

Nick ReynoldsSound editor.....................Marc Van BuurenAssistant editor.....................Vicki AmbroseAsst sound editor................................. Karin WhittingtonMixer.................................... Roger SavageDialogue editor.......................... Tim JordanAsst dialogue editor......Annabelle SheehanStill photography................. Patrick RiviereRunners.............................Annie Peacock,

Henry OsborneUnit nurses.........................Michael Brooke,

Sue CowanPublicity....................................Annie PageUnit publicist............. Rea Francis CompanyCatering..................................John WelchPost production..................Spectrum FilmsMixed at.............................. Film AustraliaLaboratory.........................................AtlabLab. liaison..............................Jim ParsonsLength.......................................... 100 minsGauge...............................................35mmScreen ratio.............................AnamorphicShooting stock.........................5293 & 5247Scheduled release..............December 1983Cast: Genevieve Picot (Libby), John Walton (Fred), Michael Pare (Max Wylde), Sandy Gore (Nina), Peter Phelps (Theo), Andrew Sharp (Arthur Burley), Caz Lederman (May Burley), Wallas Eaton (Mr Breedlove), Sue Leith (Alice).Synopsis: A romantic comedy set in Sydney in the frenetic, energetic 1920s. It is about coming of age; about a girl Libby McKenzie, a man Fred Burley and his business — The Berlei Undergarment Company — and an Australia emerging from the sedate traditions of Edwardianism into a period of dramatic change.

THE WILD DUCKProd, company....................... Tinzu Pty LtdDist. company............................ RoadshowProducer............................ Phillip Emanuel

Director.................................Henri SafranBased on the play

by.........................................Henrik IbsenPhotography............................ Peter JamesSound recordist.................. Syd ButterworthEditor....................................................Don SaundersProd, designer...........................Darrell LassComposer.............................Simon WalkerExec, producer...................................Phillip EmanuelCo-producer.........................................Basil ApplebyProd, manager.......................... Susan WildUnit manager.......Rosanne Andrews-BaxterProd, secretary............. Suzanne DonnolleyProd, accountants....Moneypenny Services,

Valerie Williams1st asst director...................................David Munro2nd asst director....................................Kim Anning3rd asst director................................ Steven OttonContinuity.............................................Sian HughesProducers assistant.................. Debra ColeCasting consultants.............................Mitch MathewsLighting cameraman............................Peter JamesCamera operator.............. Danny BatterhamFocus puller.....................................Andrew McLeanClapper/loader................................. Conrad SlackKey grip............................Graeme MardellAsst grip.............................................. Gary CardinGaffer...................................................Mick MorrisElectrician.............................................Matt SlatteryBoom operator.......................... Noel QuinnArt director.....................................Igor NayCostume designer ............... David RoweMake-up..............................................Helen EvansLiv Ullmann’s

hairdresser.......................................Mara SchiavettiHairdresser........................................ Suzie ClementsWardrobe superviser...........................Terry ThorleyWardrobe........................................... Fiona NicollsProps buyer.........................................Brian EdmondsProperty master....................................Mike FowlieAsst standby props.......................... Carolyn PolinSet decorator....................Ken MugglestonSet dresser....................... Olivia IsherwoodScenic artists.........................................Ray Pedlar,

Billy MalcolmConstruction

co-ordinator................. Stan WoolveridgeConstruction foreman...........Dennis DonellyCarpenters.................... Errol Glassenbury,

Wayne AllanConstruction assistant..........George ZammitArt department runner.............. Fiona MohrAsst editor..................................... Marianne RodwellEdge numberer................................. Simon SmithersTransport manager........Clark Film ServicesTutor/chaperone......... Johanna KauffmannDubbing editor..............................Tim ChauStill photography.....................................Jim TownleyDialogue coach....................................Mitch MathewsAnimal handler..........................Dale AspenBest boy................................................ Reg GarsideGenerator operator.......... Jonathon HughesRunner............................................ Roxane DelbarreDrivers...............................................Jamie Barnes,

Tracy LockPublicity....................................Wendy DayReceptionist/

telephonist............................ Vicki TrainoCatering.............................................. Kaos CateringCast: Liv Ullmann (Gina), Jeremy Irons (Harold), Lucinda Jones (Henrietta), John Meillon (Old Ackland), Arthur Dignam (Gregory), Michael Pate (Wardle), Colin Croft (Mollison), Rhys McConnochie (Dr Roland), Marion Edward (Mrs Summers), Peter de Salis (Peters).

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Preproduction Announcement.

36 Howe Crescent South Melbourne • Victoria • Australia 3205 Telephone (03) 690 7711

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Boulevard Films Pty. Ltd. proudly announce that they are currently in preproduction of the movie LES D ARCY, screenplay by Frank Howson and Jonathan Hardy. Shooting to commence late *83.

Boulevard Films Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 66, South Melbourne, Vic. 3205. Australia. Telephone: (03) 699 6190. Telex: A A 135028.

Legal Representation, Mr. Peter Zablud. Zablud, Maughan, Wolski & Co., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Telephone:(03) 63 9111.Telex:AA 38046.

R LTD

Production Survey

THE WINDS OF JARRAHProd, company...................Film Corporation

of Western AustraliaProducers...............................Mark Egerton,

Marj PearsonDirector................................................Mark EgertonScriptwriters.................................. Bob Ellis.

Anne BrooksbankDirector of photography............Geoff BurtonSound recordist............................... Gary WilkinsEditor.....................................Sara BennettProd, designer................... Graham WalkerComposer.......................... Bruce SmeatonAssoc, producer....................................Cara FamesProd, supervisor....................Su ArmstrongLoc. manager..................................Phil RichUnit manager.......................................Peter GaiieyProd, secretary......................Carol HughesProd, accountant................... Peter Sjoquist1st asst director............................... Michael Falloon2nd asst director............................ Phil Rich3rd asst director.....................Mark LamprellContinuity..............................Daphne ParisExtras casting........................Klay LamprellCasting consultants............... Alison BarrettCamera operator...............David WilliamsonFocus puller......................... David ForemanClapper/loader....................................Gillian LeahyFilm school attachment/

camera assistant............Nick McPhersonKey grip................................................. Rob MorganAsst grip..........................................Graham SheltonUnderwater photography..........David Burr &

Production DiversGaffer........................... Graham RutherfordBoom operator.................... Mark WasiutakArt director........................Steve AmezdrozCostume designer.................... David RoweMake-up.....................Lesley Lamont-FisherStandby wardrobe.................... Jenny MilesWard, assistant..................... Penny GordonProps buyer...........................Anni BrowningStandby props.............................Tony HuntSpecial effects.....................................Chris Murray,

David HardiePainter................................ Len ArmstrongCarpenters................................John Rann,

Keron Stevens, Bob McLeod, Brian Childs

Set construction................................Dennis Smith,Bill Howe

Asst editor.......................................... Lynne WilliamsEdge numberer................................... Kathy CookMusical director..................Bruce SmeatonSound editor..........................................Paul MaxwellDubbing editor..........................Peter FosterEditing assistants................................ Anne Breslin,

Emma HayStunts co-ordinator..............................Peter WestStill photography................................... Chic StringerAnimal wrangler.................................. Steve PhillipsBest boy................................................ Ken MoffattRunners.............................................. Peter Brown,

Shane WalkerCatering..................Take One Film CateringMixed a t.........................................ColorfilmLaboratory......................................ColorfilmLab. liaison............................................. Bill GooleyLength....................................................100 mins.Gauge............................35mm anamorphicShooting stock................................... KodakCast: Terence Donovan, Susan Lyons, Harold Hopkins, Steve Bisley, Martin Vaughan, Isabelle Anderson, Dorothy Alison, Steven Grives, Emil Minty, Nikki Gemmell, Mark Kounnas.Synopsis: A young Englishwoman finds herself in Australia at the end of World War 2. A romantic drama unfolds as she takes work as a governess to the children of a timber baron in NSW.

AWAITING RELEASE

DOT AND THE BUNNY(animated on live action background)

Prod, company..................................... Yoram GrossFilm Studio

Dist. company...............Young Australia FilmProducer............................................... Yoram GrossDirector..................................................Yoram GrossDirector of animation...............................Athol HenryScriptwriters.............................. John Palmer,

Yoram GrossScreenplay............................................... John PalmerBased on the original

idea by................................................Yoram GrossPhotographs used............................Douglass BaglinSound recordists........Black Inc. Recorders,

Sound on FilmEditor.......................... Christopher PlowrightMusic............................................. Bob YoungExec, producer..................................... Yoram GrossAssoc, producer..................................Sandra GrossProd, co-ordinator.....................................Meg RowedProd, manager.................................. Jeanette TomsProd, secretary.......................... Trish O’NeillProd, accountant....................... Penny LangProd, assistant..................................... Narelle HopleyAnimation camera

operators ............................... Jenny Ochse,Graham Sharpe

Asst editor............................ Angela ZivkovicNeg. matching.......................................Miriam CortesAnimators.....................................................Ty Bosco,

John Burge, Ariel Ferrari,

Murray Griffin, Nicholas Harding,

Eva Helischer, Athol Henry,

Lianne Hughes, Victor Johnson, Cynthia Leech,

Chris Minos, Pere van Reyk, Laurie Sharpe,

Eva Szabo, Szabolcs Szabo,

Andrew Szemenyei

Sound editor........................Tomas PokornyMixer................................................... Peter FentonOpticals ..f.......................Optical & GraphicsPublicity...........................Helena Wakefield

(International Media Marketing)Studios............... Yoram Gross Film StudiosMixed a t............................................ United SoundLaboratory..................................... ColorfilmLab. liaison............................................. Bill GooleyBudget.............................$1 million approx.Length............................................. 81 minsGauge................................................35mmShooting stock....................E/Col neg. 5247Scheduled release.............. Christmas 1983Character voices: Drew Forsythe, Barbara Frawley, Ron Haddrjck, Anne Haddy, Ross Higgins, Robyn Moore.Synopsis: The adventures of Dot as she continues her search for the missing joey, amidst the native flora and fauna of the Australian bush. During the course of her search she is constantly confronted by a little rabbit who is desperately trying to be recognized as a kangaroo in order to be a protected species. Dot’s encounters with the rabbit prove to be highly amusing.

THE SETTLEMENTA revised listing of information as it appeared in the previous issue of C in e m a P a p e r s is as follows:

Prod, company......... Robert Bruning Prods.Producer..............................Robert BruningDirector........................................... Howard RubieScriptwriter............................................ Ted RobertsBased on the original

idea by.............................. Ted RobertsSound recordist.....................................Max BowringEditor..................................................Henry DangarComposer.............................................Sven LibaekAssoc, producer................................... Anne BruningProd, superviser......................... Irene KorolProd, co-ordinator..............Sally Ayre-SmithUnit manager..........................................Bill AustinProd, accountant....................... Rob PrinceProd, assistant...........................Debra Cole1 st asst director......................................Les Currie2nd asst director....................................Paul Healey3rd asst director.................................Wayne MooreContinuity............................................ Anne McLeodLighting cameraman................ Ernest ClarkFocus puller........................................Martin TurnerClapper/loader....................................Garry PhillipsKey grip..............................................Lester BishopAsst grip................................... Wilfred FlintGaffer..............................................Graham RutherfordBoom operator......................Bruce WallaceArt director...........................................John WatsonMake-up.........................Margaret LinghamWardrobe.................................... Ron ReidWard assistant.................................... Anne WatsonProps buyer.................................... Graham BlackmoreStandby props............................. Barry HallSpecial effects...................Conrad RothmanAsst editor......................... Pamela BarnettaNeg. matching....................................Karen ClarkeMusical director................................... Sven LibaekSound editors................... Ashley Grenville,

Anne BreslinEditing assistants................................... Phil Dickson,

Glen LockingtonMixer.................................................. Julian EllingworthAsst mixer.........................Michael ThomasStunts co-ordinator........... Peter ArmstrongTitle designer............................. Fran BurkeBest boy.................................... Ken MoffattRunner..................................Tonti ConnollyCatering............................................SmokoStudios.......................................... JumbuckMixed at...............................................AtlabLaboratory........................................... AtlabLab. liaison.......................................... Greg DohertyLength............................................. 95 minsGauge................................................35mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorCast: Bill Kerr (Kearney), John Jarratt (Martin), Lorna Lesley (Joycie), Tony Barry (Sgt Crowe), Alan Cassell (Lohan), Katy Wild (Mrs Crowe), Elaine Cusick (Mrs Lohan), Babetta Stephens (Mrs Gansman), Neil Fitzpatrick (Carter), Dennis Grosvenor (Reilly). Synopsis: Two men and a girl set up house in an abandoned mining shack on the outskirts of a small country town in the mid-’50s. The scandalized townsfolk resolve to move them on, but the situation gets out of hand.

For full details of other films awaiting release, see Cinem a P apers issue number 41.

SHORTS

THE HARD LiFEProd, company..... Shadowplay ProductionsProducer................................. Rod WaymanDirector...................................Rod WaymanScriptwriter............................. Rod WaymanPhotography.............................John D'ArcySound recordist...................................Anne JohnstonEditor...................................................John WaymanProd, manager...................Jacqui RobinsonNeg. matching.....................Richard CarrollSound editor.........................................Tony PatersonMixer....................................................Tony PatersonOpticals............. Victorian Film LaboratoriesTitle designer................................Bill OwenMixed at...............................................Tony Paterson

Post-ProductionLaboratories............... Group Color CinevexLength............................................. 34 minsGauge............................................... 16mmProgress........................................ Awaiting releaseCast: Cathy Fewster (Marie), Rod Wayman (Bill).Synopsis: A docu-drama about a journalist assigned to report on the destitute in her city.

The Franklin Adventure

STATIONSProd, company...............Hawkins McKImmieProducers........Jackie McKimmie,

Trevor HawkinsDirector...............................Jacki McKimmieScriptwriter..........................Jacki McKimmiePhotography....................................Andrew LesnieSound recordist.................................... Max BowringEditor.................................................. Geoff BennettProd, designer.................... Chris McKimmieProd, manager.......................Nick OughtonProd, secretary......................Jenny Stalker1st asst director..................Trevor HawkinsLighting assistants..............James Henson,

Gary SilkCamera operator.................Andrew LesnieCamera assistant................ John AndersenGaffer................................................. Jamie EganBoom operator...................................Kieran KnoxArt director..........................Chris McKimmieAsst art director................................... Ross PullbrookMake-up............................................... Gian FluckigerWardrobe............................Merilyn FairskyeArt department....................... Kelvin Baker,

Andrew Massie, Richard van Luyn

Music............................... The LamingtonsSound mixer....................................Graham TardiffStill photography............... Merilyn FairskyeTitle designer.....................Chris McKimmieCatering..................................Jenny StuartLaboratory......................................ColorfilmLength......................................................22 minsGauge................................................16mmShooting stock................................Eastman 7222Progress............................. Post-productionScheduled release......................... Mid-1983Cast: Noni Hazlehurst (Dora), Tim Burns (Dick), Elaine Cusick (Dora’s Mum), Bronwyn Naylor (Judy).Synopsis: Dora thinks she has met the man of her dreams when she falls in love with Dick at a ballroom. However, reality for a woman in Brisbane in 1953 is quite different from the myth of Hollywood romance, as Dora soon finds out.

DOCUMENTARIES

Props.........................Members of T.R.E.E.Choreography................. Ronaldo CameronMusic performed

by........................... Martin Wesley Smith,Ian Fredericks

Mixed at................................... Dubbs & Co.Laboratory..................................... ColorfilmLength..................................................... 60 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting stock........... Kodak EastmancolorScheduled release.............................. June, 1983Cast: Participants and performers in Theatre Reaching Environments Everywhere. Synopsis: T.R.E.E. is a large community performance group, which brings together more than 100 people to create and perform a visually-spectacular multi-media event, in the natural environment of The Royal National Park, south of Sydney. Audiences of several thousands attend these performances. This is T.R.E.E.’s sixth such event, since it was established in 1979.

THE VOYAGE OF THE BOUNTY’S CHILD

Prod, company.................................... Look FilmProductions

Dist. company.................... Look Film Prodsin association with Bounty Films

and J & J MarketingProducer...................................Will DaviesDirector............................................Michael EdolsScriptwriter...........................................Cecil HolmesPhotography....................................Michael EdolsSound recordist......................... Bob HayesExec, producer................... Capt. Ron WareResearcher............................Bee ReynoldsProd, assistant.....................................Rose WiseCamera assistant.............................. Wayne Taylor2nd unit photography........................ Wayne TaylorExpedition photography....Rory McGuinnessLaboratory........................................... AtlabLength..................................................... 90 minsShooting stock......................................ECN 7247Progress............................... Pre-productionFirst released.................................. OctoberSynopsis: A film about the re-enactment of Capt. William Bligh's open boat voyage from Tonga to Java in 1789 after the mutiny on the “Bounty”.

FEATURES SHORTS

THE UNFOUND LANDProd, company............... Gittoes and Dalton

ProductionsProducer............................Gabrielle DaltonDirector............................. George GittoesBased on the original idea

by.................................................George Gittoes,Gabrielle Dalton

Photography.....................................George Gittoes,David Perry

Ross Myers, Simon Smith,

Michael Balson, Walt Deas

Sound recordists..............................Marsha Bennett,Peter Lipskin

Editors.............................................George Gittoes,Gabrielle Dalton

Composers................ Martin Wesley Smith,Ian Fredericks

Exec, producers...............................George Gittoes,Gabrielle Dalton

Prod, manager...............................Gabrielle DaltonLighting cameraman.........................George GittoesSpecial fx photography........ George GittoesElectrician..............................................Bob BleachArt directors......................................George Gittoes,

Gabrielle Dalton

THE BUSH BEYOND YOUR GARDEN

Prod, company.......................................Sky VisualsProducer.................................... Gary SteerDirector......................................Gary SteerScriptwriters...............................Gary Steer,

Roland BreckwoidtPhotography..............................Gary SteerSound recordist..........................Geoff GristEditor...........................................Peter ButtProducer’s assistant......Monette Lee-SmithWardrobe..............................Rosalea HoodProps............................. Monette Lee-SmithNeg. matching..........................Chris RoweliNarrator............................... Robin RamsayOpticals................ Springett Optical ServiceTitle designer................................... Myriam Kin-yeeMixed at...............................................Palm StudiosLaboratory..................................... ColorfilmLength.............................................16 minsGauge................................................16mmShooting stock........................ EastmancolorProgress............................. Post-productionCast: Robin Ramsay, Monette Lee-Smith. Synopsis: The value of bushland in urban areas as a source of aesthetics, recreation and habitat for native animals. Made for the Ku-ring-gai Municipal Council.

EXERCISE GREENProd, company...............................Kingcroft Prods.Dist. company........................................Film AustraliaProducer..............................................Terry OhlssonDirectors............................................. Philip Bond,

Terry OhlssonScriptwriter............................ Terry OhlssonBased on the original idea

by....................................... Terry OhlssonPhotography.......................... Michael KingsSound recordist........... David McConnachieEditor..........................................Bill StaceyComposers......................Rimsky-Korsakov,

Billy WestonExec, producer............., Peter JohnsonProd, supervisor.................................. Terry SlackProd, manager.................................... Terry SlackUnit manager...................................... Terry SlackProd, secretary..................................Marina SeetoLighting cameraman...............Michael KingsCamera operator....................Michael KingsFocus puller.......................................Martyn GoundryClapper/loader.................................. Martyn GoundryKey grip........................................Peter DoigAsst grip..............................................Kerry BesgroveMusical director.......................Billy WestonStudios......................Kingcroft (Melbourne)Mixed at....................... Film Australia/DolbyLaboratory..................................... ColorfilmLength..............................................20 minsGauge................................................35mmScreen ratio.............................. Wide-screenShooting stock........................ EastmancolorScheduled release.......................April 1983Synopsis: A film showing the story of amilitary exercise.

THE FRANKLIN ADVENTUREProd, company..................Adventure FilmsDist. company..........................de Montignie

Media EnterprisesProducer.....................John Blackett-SmithDirector.....................................Joe ConnorScriptwriters.............. John Blackett-Smith,

Joe ConnorPhotography...........................Zenon SawkoSound recordist...................... George CraigEditor.............................Rebecca GrubelichComposer................. Burkhard von DallwitzCamera assistant................... John OgdenNeg. matching.......Victorian Neg. Matching

ServicesStill photography.................... John Ogden,

Joe ConnorLaboratory......................................CinevexLength......................................................50 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting Stock....................... Eastmancolor 7247

and 7293Scheduled release.................................April 1983Synopsis: A group of four men and two women in solo rafts take up the challenge of the Franklin River and the wilderness of south-west Tasmania.

THE MARATHON MEN (Working Title)

Prod, company..................................... John Blackett-SmithProds

Dist. company.......................................... de MontignieMedia Enterprises

Producer.............................................. John Blackett-SmithDirector.................................................. Tim KupshScriptwriters.............................Tim Kupsch,

Bob LeamenPhotography..................................... Dennis NicholsonSound recordist................................... Geoff WilsonEditor............................................. Rebecca GrubelichOriginal music......................................Tony Hatch,

Jackie TrentProd, manager........ Bernadette O’MahoneyNeg. matching.......Victorian Neg. Matching

ServiceLaboratory......................................CinevexGauge............................................... 16mm


SUPER* SERVICES

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Australian Film and Television SchoolFulltime Program Training Courses

Applications are now being called for full time courses beginning in February 1984

Three-year diplom a cou rseTraining in

Cam era Sound EditingProduction M anagem ent Writing

for film and televisionScreenwriting course Maximum term 12 months Applicants for both courses must b e .........

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The AFTS is a statutory authority funded by the Federal government. Full time AFTS students are paid a living allowance while training, plus

dependants’ allowances where applicable.All applications must be on the appropriate official application form, available (with Fulltime Program course brochures) from:AFTS Students Officer, PO Box 126 North Ryde NSW 2113(02) 887 1666AFTS Melbourne representative, PO Box 373, North Melbourne 3051(03) 328 2683 (Monday and Thursday)

Closing Date: W ednesday 1 June 1983

Before you own one, you earn one.

16mm and Super 16

Filmwest Equipment Sales Pty Ltd. importers and distributors of Aaton cameras throughout Australia &South East Asia.PERTHFilmwest Equipment Sales Pty Ltd 75 Bennett Street, East Perth, 6000 Western Australia.Phone (09) 325 1177, 325 1423.Telex AA94150.SYDNEY ADELAIDEPercy Jones, Edwin Scragg,Phone (02) 871 2253. Phone (08) 389 1091.SINGAPORE Filmwest Pte LtdSuite 172, Raffles Hotel, 1-3 Beach Road. Phone 337 8041, 336 1509.Telex RS36389.

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FILMWEST B for AATON

Production Survey

Shooting stock.............. Eastmancolor 7247and 7293

Progress..................................... ProductionScheduled release........................May 1983Synopsis: What makes the marathon men push their bodies beyond human endurance? An examination of the motivational and training techniques of Robert de Castella and Alberto Salazar.

GOVERNMENT FILM PRODUCTION

AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION

SCHOOL

VIDEO EFFECTSProducer................................. EricHallidayDirector..................................Mark SandersScriptwriter/Presenter.......... Stephen JonesCameras.....................George Petrykowski,

John AgapitosTechnical director..................... Bob ForsterLength.............................................40 minsGauge...................................1 in. videotapeSynopsis: How to set up and explore the artistic possibilities of a video system, including luminance keying, feed-back, colorising and computer graphics.

AVRB FILM UNIT

THE AGE OF CHANGE (Working title)

Prod, company..................I..AVRB Film UnitDist. company.............................Curriculum Branch

— Ed. Dept, of Vic.Producer............................................... Ivan GaalDirector................................................. Ivan GaalCurriculum Consultant........................Helen KonPhotography........................................Kevin AndersonSound recordist......................................Phil StirlingEditor.................................................... Ivan GaalProd, assistants.....................Steven Radic,

Michelle MorrisSound editor.........................David HughesMixer....................................David HarrisonLaboratory..................................... Victorian Film

LaboratoriesLength............................... approx. 25 minsGauge...............................................16mmShooting stock.....................................ECNProgress............................ Post-productionScheduled release............................ August 1983Synopsis: Technological changes in the newspaper printing industry, its effect on the quality of service and the changes it brings to the lives of people who are directly involved in the process.

TANDBERG ON PAGE ONEProd, company................... AVRB Film UnitDist. company................ Curriculum Branch

— Ed. Dept, of Vic.Producer............................................... Ivan GaalDirector................................................. Ivan GaalCurriculum consultant.........................Helen KonPhotography.......................Kevin AndersonSound recordist......................... Phil StirlingEditor.................................................... Ivan GaalComposer............................ Laurie BalmerProd, manager..................... Rob McCubbinProd, assistants....................Steven Radic,

Michelle Morris Neg. matching................ Victorian Negative

Cutting ServiceMusic performed by..............Laurie BalmerSound editor........................ David HughesMixer....................................David HarrisonTitle designer........................Ron TandbergMixed at..........................Film Soundtrack

AustraliaLaboratory.........Victorian Film LaboratoriesLength.............................................28 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting stock.....................................ECNProgress............................. Post-productionScheduled release................................ May 1983Synopsis: Ron Tandberg is Australia’s best known political cartoonist. This film follows Tandberg’s work for the front page of T h e A g e , on one particular night’s edition.

FILM VICTORIA

Feature Film and Television DevelopmentBallet TV Series — Film Victoria is currently developing a major television series to be produced for the Australian Ballet, the series 13 x half-hour episodes on an action/adventure format highlighting the essentials of dance capability; scripting and pre-production underway.Breakfast Creek — Ben Lewin; cinema feature; scripting.The Last Star Model — Forrest Redlich; cinema feature; scripting.

The Marathon Men

Haxby’s Circus — John McRae; cinema feature.Family Matters — Roger Dunn, Maggie Millar; cinema feature; scripting. Everybody’s Talking — Adrian Tame, Philip Askman; television special; scripting.Naked Under Capricorn — David Wad- dington, Bloodwood Films; television mini series; scripting.Gordon — Hugh Stuckey, Sue Woolfe, television mini series; scripting.Nemesis — Glen Crawford; cinema feature; scripting.The Phantom Treehouse — Paul Williams; animated feature; scripting.Survival Camp — Serge De Nardo and Andrew Coleman; cinema feature; scripting. Fit for Heroes — Cliff Green; television mini series; scripting.The Whale Savers — Laurie Levy, Neil Bethune; television special; post-production underway.Demons Rising — Ivan Hexter; cinema feature; scripting.Snowy and The Whale — Tim Burstall, Sonia Borg, cinema feature; scripting.The Living Canvas — George Mallaby, Lindsay Foote; television special; scripting. Crow On A Barbed Wire Fence — Edward McQueen Mason; television mini series; scripting.Tooradin — Russell Hagg; cinema feature; pre-production.Buckley’s Hope — Tom Haydon; television mini series; scripting.Slim Dusty — The Movie — Kent Chadwick, feature scripting.Return From Paradise — TV mini series, Roger Simpson, Roger Le Mesurier, scripting.A Handful of Sun — Paul Cox, Norman Kaye, feature scripting.

AUSTRALIA’S HIDDEN WEALTHProducer.......................................Margaret MarshallDirector...............................................David CoppingScriptwriters............................ Roger Dunn,

Gary HutchinsonProd, supervisor.................................. Brian DouglasProgress.............................. Pre-productionSynopsis: A two-hour television special unearthing the characters, locations, methods, facts and figures on the pursuit of treasures that for centuries have fascinated, people of all nations. A contemporary view of Australia and its gold and precious gemstone deposits.

DOCUMENTARYDIVISION

Prog ress.............................. P re-prod uctionSynopsis: A series of programs intended to provide motivation, inspiration and techniques to assist prisoners avoid a return to crime.

VICTORIA’S 150TH ARCHIVAL FILMING

Exec, producer............... Vincent O’DonnellProd, co-ordinator............Sue ChamberlainProgress..............................Pre-productionSynopsis: Filming that documents a range of projects planned for completion in 1984-85 as part of Victoria’s sesquicenten- nial.

TELEVISION■€

P R E -P R O D U C T IO N

ASIA UNLIMITEDProd, company.............Temple Parer ProdsProducer......................................... Damien ParerScriptwriter..............................John TempleLength..................................... 13 x 30 minsSynopsis: A series which captures the excitement, color and magic of Asia.

CHASE THROUGH THE NIGHTProd, company..............Independent ProdsProducer...................................Jim GeorgeDirector...........................................Howard RubieExecutive producer.........................Brendon LunneyScriptwriter............................... Rob GeorgeScript editor...........................Phillip W. PikeProduction manager................... Jan TyrrellLength.......................................5 x 24 minsSynopsis: An adventure/thriller for all the family.

CHILDREN OF TWO COUNTRIESProd, company............. ......Kingcraft Prods

(Australia)Producer...................... ............Philip BondDirector........................ ........Terry OhlssonScriptwriter.................. ........Terry OhlssonPhotography................ ........Michael KingsEditors......................... ............Bill Stacey,

Liz IrwinExec, producer............. ..........Neil OhlssonProd, manager............. ............Terry SlackUnit manager............... ............ Terry SlackProd, secretary............. .........Marina SeetoLighting cameraman..... ........Michael KingsCamera operator.......... ........Michael KingsFocus puller................. .....Martyn GoundryClapper/loader............. .....Martyn GoundryKey grip........................ ..............Peter Doig

Asst grip............................. Kerry BesgroveStudios...................... Kingcraft (Melbourne)Post Prod........................Kingcraft (Sydney)Mixed at.............................. Sound On FilmLaboratory.....................................ColorfilmLength.......................................2 x 60 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting stock........................EastmancolorProgress...............................Pre-productionScheduled release.......................December 1983Synopsis: Two television specials about an exchange visit between children from China and Australia,

DESCANT FOR GOSSIPSProd, company.....................................ABCProducer.............................................Erina RaynerDirectors............................................... Tim Burstall,

Erina RaynerBased on the novel

by......................................... Thea AstleyLength.......................................3 x 50 minsGauge............................................... 16mmCast: Peter Carroll, Genevieve Picot, Karin Fairfax.Synopsis: The story of a young girl who becomes a victim of circumstances.

EDEN’S LOSTProducer............................... Margaret FinkScriptwriter........................ Helen HodgmanSynopsis: Young Angus Weeks is plucked from his work-a-day world into the colorful orbit of the St James family and the Ritz Hotel in the Blue Mountains. The spell of it remains, and over the years it proves to be one from which he is unable or unwilling to escape.

NAKED UNDER CAPRICORNProd, company................. Bloodwood FilmsProducers..................... David Waddington,

Geof GardinerDirector...................................Don CrombieScriptwriters......................................Dieter Chidel,

Everett de RochePhotography........................... Ernest ClarkSound recordist.......................Ned DawsonProd, supervisor................................... Tom BinnsProd, manager................................... Frank BrownLoc. manager/

Unit manager.........................Phillip CorrProd, secretary.................Pauline MaloneProd, accountant...............Spiros Sideratos1st asst director.................Sheraton James2nd asst director................................ Stuart WoodFocus puller....................................... Martin TurnerCamera assistant/

Clapper/loader.......................Chris CainKey grip............................................... Noel MudieGrip.................................................... Barry BrownLighting gaffer................................. Stewart SorbyElectrician...........................................Peter MaloneBoom operator/

Asst sound recordist............Grant StewartArt directors.............................Trevor Ling,

Josephine FordWardrobe master................................ Terry Ryan

.Props master.......................Richard FrancisConstruction man............. Gerry PowderleyMusical director................ Ray RivamonteDesign draughtsman...........................Peter TyersMixer and sound

supervisor..........................Roger SavageBest boy/Genni operator.........Garry ScholesRunner................................................Brian GilmourPublicity.................................. Barbara VonPost-production supervisor....John LeonardPost-production facilities...................... AAVLaboratory.....................................CinevexLength..................................... 3 x 100 minsCast: Keith Michell (Davis Mariner), Judy Davis (Monica), David Gulpilil (Activity), Tony Barry (Bluey Dallas), Bruce Spence (Cummings), Gus Mercurio (Harris), Gerard Kennedy (Edrinaton), Richard Moir (Perrin), Jim Smillie (Watkins), Sean Kramer (Mission Mo).Synopsis: Robbed and left for dead, naked beneath the Capricorn sun, Davis Mariner embarks on a remarkable adventure spanning more than 30 years from the turn of the century, to his establishment as one of Australia's richest cattle barons. It is a story of great success, exacted at an awful price.

OPERA HOUSEProd, company.............. Independent ProdsProducer.............................. Geof Gardiner

Executive producer.................. Peter AbbottScript editor........................................ Hugh StuckeyMusic consultant............. Robert BickerstaffLength......................................13 x 28 minsSynopsis: Two children, sceptical about things operatic, become caught up in the world of a group of eccentric, would-be opera stars.

POOR FELLOW MY COUNTRYProd, company....................... Crystal ProdsProducers.............................. Ron McLean,

Colin EgglestonDirector.............................. Colin EgglestonExecutive producer.............................David WilliamsScriptwriter........................................... Ron McLeanLength............................................10 partsSynopsis: Based on the award-winning novel by Xavier Herbert, it is the story of one man’s great love of northern Australia and of the anomalies and contradictions of the Australian people.

VOYEUR(Te le-feature)

Prod, company.......................Crystal ProdsProducers..............................Ron McLean,

Colin EgglestonDirector.............................. Colin EgglestonExecutive producer..............David WilliamsScriptwriter............................. Ron McLeanSynopsis: A suspense thriller about an American girl whose husband is a mass slayer out to get her when she discovers his secret. She flees to Australia and safety, but the voyeur is watching.

P R O D U C T IO N

THE BOY IN THE BUSHProd, company...............................Portman Prods

— ABCProducer............................................ Geoff DanielsScriptwriter....................... Hugh WhitemoreBased on the original idea

by.................................... D.H. Lawrenceand Molly Skinner

Exec, producer........................... Ray AlehinLength.......................................4 x 50 minsGauge...............................................16mmCast: Sigrid Thornton, Steve Bisley, Jon Blake, Celia de Burgh, Ken Branagh, Bunney Brooke, Richard Morgan, Paul Smith, Kim Deacon, Ralph Cotterell. Synopsis: An 18-year-old boy is sent from England to live with distant relatives in Australia in 1882. He falls in love with a distant cousin and sets out to win his fortune on the Australian goldfields.

PRETTY PETROLProd, company........... Grundy OrganizationProducer.............................................David CummingDirector..............................Peter BernardosScriptwriter.........................................David CummingLength...................................30 mins (pilot)Cast: Victoria Nicolls (Lucy), Willie Fennell (Everett Quince), Diana Davidson (Olivia Quince), Lance Curtis (Jerry).Synopsis: Jerry Quince’s parents buy him a petrol station. He hires two girls to help out and them the fun begins.

RUNAWAY ISLANDProd, company........... Grundy OrganizationProducer...............................Roger MiramsDirector................................David StevensScriptwriter........................ Paul WheelahanLength.................... 1 x 96 mins, 8 x 72 minsCast: Miles Buchanan, Simone Buchanan, Julie Tyler, Julian Gilespie, Rodney Bell. Synopsis: Set in Sydney in the 1830s, two children are on the run from corrupt government officials.

WATERFRONTProd, companyProducer.........Director..........Photography....

.......Waterfront........ Bob Weis.Chris Thomson ....Dan Burstall

CYSTIC FIBROSISProd, company.......................Just Another

Production CompanyDirector..................................John HughesResearch........................... John TredinnickExec, producer...............Vincent O’DonnellProd, co-ordinator............Sue ChamberlainProgress...............................Pre-productionSynopsis: Many countries turn their backs on sufferers of cystic fibrosis, the most common genetic disorder of our species. The therapeutic approach in Victoria stresses engagement in the community and living life to its full potential.

OLDER ADULT SWIMMINGProd, company...................................Ukiyo FilmsDirector............................... Don McLennanExec, producer..............Vincent O’DonnellProd, co-ordinator............Sue ChamberlainCamera operator............Zbigniew FriedrichMixer....................................Tony PattersonProgress...............................Pre-productionSynopsis: A film to promote swimming as an appropriate activity for older adults and motivate them to join special learn-to-swim programs.

RECIVIDISM (AND HOW TO AVOID IT)

Director............................................ Juliana FochtScriptwriter...................................... Jeremy PressAdviser..................... Simon Brown-GreavesExec, producer...............Vincent O’Donnell

QUEENSLAND FILM CORPORATIONIn future all applications for assistance to the Queensland Film Corporation will close three weeks prior to the following board meeting.The next Corporation meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 9th June, and the closing date for submissions will be 5.00 p.m., Thursday,19th May, 1983.


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P roduction Survey

Undercover

Sound recordist....................... John PhillipsEditor................... Edward McQueen MasonProd, designer....................................Tracy WattAssoc, producer................... Mac GudgeonProd, supervisor.............. Margot McDonaldUnit manager....................... Jake AtkinsonAsst unit manager......... Michael McGennanProd, secretary..................Elizabeth SymesProd, accountant............................. Carolyn FyfeProd, assistant...................Milanka ComfortTrainee

prod, assistant...............................Kattina Bowell1st asst director...................................David Clarke2nd asst director..................................John Titley3rd asst director.............................. Stephen SaksContinuity........................................Andrea JordonFocus puller..................................... Natalie GreenClapper/loader.................. Brendon LavelleKey grip............................ Paul AmmitzbollAsst grip..............................................Peter KershawGaffer................................................. Brian AdamsSound assistants.............. Bruce Lamshed,

Ray PhillipsAsst art director.................... Bryce RenzowMake-up...........................................Kirsten VeyseyHairdresser......................................... Joan PetchWardrobe............................................Rose Chong,

Karen MerkeStandby wardrobe.................................Gail MayesProps buyer/

set decorator..................................Paddy ReardonAsst buyer/decorator.................Chris JamesStandby props....................................... Phil EaglesArt dept, trainee.........................Tara FerrierConstruction manager.........................Colin BurchallEditing assistant.............................Warwick CraneStill photography..............Vladimir OsherovBest boy.............................................. John beaverRunner................................................ Colin TudhopePublicity................... Rea Francis CompanyCatering.............................................Helen Wright,

Beeb FleetwoodLaboratory......................................CinevexCast: Jack Thompson (Maxey), Greta Scacchi (Anna), Frank Gallacher (Paddy), Tony Rickards (Snowy), Mark Little (Allan), Jay Mannerlng (Davo), Ray Barrett (Sam), Chris Haywood (Ernie), Warren Mitchell (Les), Noni Hazelhurst (Maggie).Synopsis: An impossible love story set against a background of political and social violence. A story full of bitterness and of the racism that formed the early days of migration in Australia.

P O ST-PR O D U C TIO N

ALL THE RIVERS RUNProd, company..............................Crawford ProdsDist. company................................Crawford ProdsProducer.............................................. Alan HardyDirectors..........................................George Miller,

Pino AmentaScriptwriters....................................... Peter Yeldham,

Vince Moran, Colin Free,

Gwenda MarshBased on the novel by........................Nancy CatoPhotography......................... David ConnellSound recordist.......................... Paul ClarkEditor............................................Phil ReidComposer..........................................Bruce RowlandsExec, producers............................... Hector Crawford

Ian CrawfordProd, supervisor.............................. Michael LakeProd, manager....................................Helen WattsLocation manager................Stewart WrightProd, secretary.....................VenetiaTaylorProd, accountant................................Vince Smits1st asst director....................John Powditch

2nd asst director..................................Tony McDonald3rd asst director...............................Michael McIntyreContinuity...........................................Jenni TosiCasting............................... Bunney BrookeLighting cameraman..............David ConnellFocus puller..............................Greg RyanClapper/loader....................... Bruce PhillipsKey grip................................. Ian BennalickAsst grip...................................Kerry BoyleGaffer................................................. David ParkinsonElectrician......................................... Laurie FishBoom operator................................... Steve HaggettyArt director..............................Otello StolfoAsst art director...................... Frank JakabCostume designer...................Clare GriffinMake-up............................................. Fiona CampbellHairdresser.............................. Joan PetchWardrobe asst..............................Sue MilesWard, standby.......................... Phil EaglesProps buyer........................ Bernie WynackStandby props.....................Gary BottomleySpecial effects........................ Brian PearceSet construction......................Ray PattisonAsst editor.......................................... Peter BurgessMusical director..................................Bruce RowlandsStunts co-ordinator....................Grant PageStill photography............... David SimmondsWrangler...................................John BairdBoats...................................................Scott RawlingsBest boy.......................................... Richard TummelRunner................................................Craig DustingPublicity....................................Christopher DayCatering....................................... Wolfgang GrafStudios.............................................. HSV7Laboratory..................................... Victorian Film

LaboratoriesLength......................................4x 120 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting stock..................................... 7247Cast: Sigrld Thornton, John Waters, Bud Tingwell, Dinah Shearing, William Upjohn, Diane Craig, Adrian Wright, Gus Mercurio, Darius Perkins, Frank Gallacher.Synopsis: An action-romance filmed on location on the Murray River at Echuca. Philadelphia Gordon survives a shipwreck and becomes the first woman licensed river- boat captain. She also finds Brenton Edwards, a man to match her passion, her commitment and her zest for life . . .

BREAKTHROUGHProd, company...................... Nomad Films

InternationalDist. company........................Nomad Films

InternationalProducer...........................Douglas StanleyScriptwriter.......................................Gerald LyonsBased on the original idea

by.......................................Gerald LyonsPhotography..........................David Olney,

Alex McPheeSound recordists................................... Bob Clayton,

Rob CutcherEditors..................................................Paul Howard,

Jeremy HogarthProd, co-ordinator.................................Pam HowardAsst editor..........................................Karen HarveyNeg. matching............Cinevex LaboratoriesSound editor........................Michael MinterMixer................................... David HarrisonNarrator...............................................John StantonMixed at............................Film SoundtrackLaboratory.................Cinevex LaboratoriesLength...................................... 13 x 30 minsGauge...............................................16mmShooting stock....................................... Fuji 8527/28Scheduled release....................... April 1983Synopsis: The series reveals In compelling human terms some of the amazing advances in science, medicine and technology which are rapidly changing the shape of our physical world and the way we work, love and live. It explores, and demystifies, some of the mysteries and staggering implications of high technology.

EUREKA STOCKADEProd, company.................................Eureka Stockade

Film PartnershipProducer............................................Henry CrawfordDirector.......................................Rod HardyScriptwriter..............................Tom HegartyPhotography........................................Keith WagstaffSound recordist......................................Phil StirlingEditor..................................................David PulbrookProd, designer................................... Leslie BinnsComposer...........................................Bruce SmeatonExec, producer........... Carnegie FieldhouseProd, supervisor...........................David LeeProd, co-ordinator..................Janine KerleyProd, manager.......................................Jan BladierLocation manager.................Phil McCarthyProd, accountant..................... Carolyn FyfeAccounts assistant..............Jennie Crowley1st asst director................................. Stuart Freeman2nd asst directors............................ Michael Faranda,

Ian Kenny3rd asst director.............. Murray RobertsonContinuity.............................Jenny QuigleyProducer s assistant......... Vicki PopplewellCasting.............................Vicki Popplewell,

M & L CastingCasting consultants........... Loretta Crawford

— Los Angeles, Sheila McIntosh — London

Camera operator.................................Barry WilsonFocus puller...........................................Rob MurrayClapper/loader..................... Rex NicholsonKey grip..........................................Ian ParkAsst grips............................. Jamie Leckie,

Peter KershawGaffer..................................................Tony HolthamElectricians...........................................Guy Hancock,

Jim HuntBoom operator...........................Ray PhillipsAsst art director.......................Peter KendallCostume designer............................... Anne FraserMake-up..............................................Terry Worth,

Patricia PayneHairdresser..............................Terry Worth,

Patricia PayneMake-up and hair

assistant.............................Leanne WhiteWardrobe........................................... Jenny ArnottWard assistants......................................Viv Wilson,

James Watson, Judy Ann Fitzgerald,

Lea HaigProps buyer........................................David O’GradyStandby props..................................... Barry KennedySpecial effects.....................................Brian PearceSet decorator......................................David O’GradyCarpenter............................................ John MooreSet construction......................Bruce MichellAsst editor.......................................Annette BingerSound editors..................Stuart Armstrong,

Penn RobinsonEditing assistants.............................. Phillip Dixon,

Hugh WaddellMixer............................... Julian ElllngworthStunts co-ordinator................................. Bill StaceyStunts.................................................... Bill Stacey,

Lou TrifunovicStill photography.................................David ParkerDialogue coach...................................... Jim NortonWrangler..............................................John BairdBest boy.................................Bruce TowersRunners............................................. Peter Culpan,

G. J. CarrollPublicity................... Rea Francis CompanyCatering...............................................Gem CateringStudios............................HSV 7 MelbourneMixed at..............................................AtlabLaboratory...........................................AtlabLab. liaison......................................Andrew MasonBudget..................................................$2.5 millionLength................................................... 192 minsGauge............................................... 16mmShooting stock................................... Kodak 7247Cast: Bryan Brown (Peter Lalor), Bill Hunter (Timothy Hayes), Carol Burns (Anastasia Hayes), Amy Madigan (Sarah Jamieson), Brett Cullen (Charles Ross), Penelope

Stewart (Alicia Dunne), Tom Burlinson (Father Smythe).Synopsis: Based on the 1854 incident which became known as Eureka Stockade when the citizens of Ballarat took up arms against a tyrannical and corrupt colonial administration.

THE FIRE IN THE STONE (Tele-feature)

Prod, company................................... SAFCProducer...................... Pamela H. VanneckDirector...................................Gary ConwayFrom the novel by......................Colin ThielePhotography...................... Ross BerrymanSound recordist...................................Lloyd CarrickEditor....................................................Phil ReidExec, producer.....................................Jock BlairScript editor........................................ Peter GawlerProd, co-ordinator....................Barbara RingProd, manager.............................Jan Tyrrell1st asst director...............Philip HearnshawContinuity..........................................Jackie SullivanProducer s secretary...................Ros SmythDialogue coach........................Audine LeithCasting consultant....................Audine LeithCamera assistant....................Martin TurnerAsst grip...................................Jon GoldneyGaffer..................................................... Ian PlummerBoom operator................... Chris GoldsmithArt director.........................................Derek MillsHairdresser......................................... Sash LameyWardrobe........................ Louise WakefieldArt dept.............................................. Anna Senior,

Graham PurcellSpecial effects.....................................Brian PearceAsst editor..........................Denise HaratzisAsst sound editor.............................. Robert GrantMixer................................................ James CurrieStunts co-ordinator..................... Vic WilsonMechanic..............................Mark Alan BottBest boy..............................................Keith JohnsonStudios............................................... SAFCMixed at............................................. SAFCLength..................................................... 90 minsGauge................................................16mmShooting stock................................... Kodak 5432Synopsis: Teenage Ernie Ryan and his no- hoper dad scratch a living in the tough mining town of Coober Pedy. During one scorching Christmas, Ernie and his mates strike it lucky — they find a rich vein of opal! But their dreams are short-lived. The hoard is stolen. In tracking down the thief Ernie finds himself plunged into a ruthless adult world. Before his adventure is over he falls in love a little, grows up a lot, and ultimately makes the toughest decision of his life.

INTRUDERS 2Prod, company....................... Nomad Films

InternationalDist. company........................ Nomad Films

InternationalDirector............................. Jeremy HogarthScriptwriter....................... Jeremy HogarthBased on the original idea

by................... Nomad Films InternationalPhotography...........................David Olney,

Terry Carlyon, Gary Smith

Sound recordists.................................Sean Meltzer,Eric Briggs,

George CraigEditor....................................................Paul HowardComposer....... ...........................Bob StarkieExec, producer................. Douglas StanleyProd, co-ordinator............. Judith AndersonResearch............................................ Peter Copley,

Noel Douglas-EvansSpecial fx photography............... Jim FrazierAsst editor...............................Karen HarveyNeg. matching............Cinevex LaboratoriesSound editor........................Michael MinterMixer................................... David HarrisonNarrator...............................................John StantonAnimation...............................ModelmationOpticals.................................Acme OpticalsMixed a t............... Filmsoundtrack AustraliaLaboratory......................................Cinevex

Length.................................... 6 x 30 minsGauge...............................................16mmShooting stock.........................Fuji 8527/28Scheduled release....................... April 1983Synopsis: A wildlife series of six programs which explores the impact of certain introduced species on Australia’s ecology and environment and the future, should their spread not be kept in check.

RETURN TO EDENProd, company.....................Hanna-Barbera

and McElroy & McElroyProducer.................................................Hal McElroyDirector...............................................Karen ArthurCo-producer

and Scriptwriter............ Michael LaurenceBased on the idea

by.................................Michael LaurencePhotography........................................Dean SemlerSound recordist.....................................Tim LloydEditor................. ..................David HuggettProd, designer....................................Owen WilliamsProd, co-ordinator................................Carol HughesProd, manager.......................................Tim SandersUnit manager...................................Michael FullerProd, secretary............... Fiona McConaghyLocation consultant............................ Jenny FoxLocation manager

(Darwin).......................Gerd JakubowskiFinancial controller................................ Rob FisherBusiness manager...........................Michael WilcoxProd, accountant................................Elaine Crowther1st asst director..................................Steve Andrews2nd asst director................. ^....Tony Linley3rd asst director.................. Lisa HennesseyContinuity........................................Daphne ParisCasting................................................Faith MartinFocus puller...................Richard MerrymanClapper/loader.....................................Colin DeaneKey grip.............................. Paul ThompsonAsst grip...........................Brendan Shanley2nd unit photography............................Mike AtkinsonGaffer..................................................John MortonAssistant Electrician.......................... Jason RogersBoom operator..................................... Jack FriedmanArt director.........................Steve AmezdrozArt department

assistant.......................David T retheweyWardrobe designer............................ Robyn RichardsMake-up ................... Leslie Vanderwalt,

Liz FardonWardrobe co-ordinator............Helen HooperWard, assistant...................................Carol BogardProps buyer.................................Billy AllenStandby props...................................... Paul JonesSpecial effects make-up.........Bob McCarronAsst editor......................................... Claire O’Brien2nd assistant editor and

assistant dubbing editor.....Rosemary LeeDubbing editor.............................Tim ChauStunts co-ordinator...........................Dennis HuntStunts................................................Jamie Hunt,

Billy DeanesStill photography.....................................Ian WhittakerBest boy.................................................. Ian PlummerRunner.................................................Mark ClaytonPublicity.............................Christopher DayCatering.............................................. John FaithfulStudios........................................Mort BayConstruction manager.................Bill HoweLaboratory.....................................ColorfilmLab. liaison.............................................Bill GooleyBudget......................... $2.5 million approx.Length.......................................6 x 60 minsGauge...............................................16mmShooting stock................................E/C NegCast: Rebecca Gilling (Stephanie Harper, Tara Welles), James Reyne (Greg Marsden), Wendy Hughes (Jilly Stewart), James Smillie (Dan Marshall), Olivia Hamnett (JoannaRandall), Patricia Kennedy (Katy Basklain), Peter Gwynne (Bill McMaster), Bill Kerr (Old Dave), Christopher Haywood (Jason Peebles), John Lee (Phillip Stewart). Synopsis: A story of murder, love and vengeance set in Sydney and outback Queensland. Tara Welles is the beautiful model who haunts Greg Marsden, a Wimbledon champion who believes his wealthy wife is dead.

35m m & 16mm N egative C utting

CHRIS ROW ELL PRODUCTIONS24 Carlotta StArtarmon N.S.W. 2064 (02)439 3522


‘Snowy River’s’ got $18.5 million to say Cinema Papers is wrong

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— J-4CYf CLANCY WRITING IN CINEMA PAPERS, March 1983

"As m uch as I applaud Jack Clancy’s motives in taking a 'Second Glance’ at the popular success of THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, a correction of fact is in order. Snowy River is enjoying spectacular success overseas.

"It is the second of only two Australian films to be considered a hit in the American market (the first w as Road Warrior — but that didn’t rate a mention either). At the time of writing Snowy River has grossed $ 18.5 million in U.S. and Canadian theatres alone. It has appeared several times on the U.S. top ten weekly grosses list, it is still in the top 30 — the third longest run on the list (after 28 weeks of release). It has played in as m any as 700 theatres at any one time. As well, it w as nom inated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for a Golden Globe as best foreign film. And it w on for director George Miller the m ost popular film award at the Montreal World Film Festival.

'W ith American free and pay TV to come, with the rest of the world about to start, I will go on record as saying that Snowy River will gross at least $35 million overseas”.

inEF3 r H nJ u

Dusty

Arnold Zable

Dusty is something of a surprise as a film. With its unpretentious style, this gently-paced feature emerges as a significant contribution to the growing number of films that tackle aspects of Australian bushlore. The director, John Richardson, remains faithful to the spirit of the book upon which it is based, and the film should rekindle interest in the works of the novel’s author, Frank Dalby Davison.

Davison’s short stories and novels have been placed in the literary tradition of the work of Henry Lawson, A. B. “ Banjo” Paterson and later authors such as Vance Palmer. Like them, Davison sets many of his stories in the context of outback life. Several of his best works use animals to portray the struggle between domesticity and freedom, between conformity and rebellion, and Davison pays particular attention to the interplay of the instinctual behaviour and tame discipline of the domesticated animal. These themes are also applied to humans who are seen as being subject to the same conflicts. In his novel, Dusty, Davison touches on other universal themes: the relationship between man and animal, and man’s attitude to the environment.

Davison had a deep empathy for his animal and human characters. He spent a lot of time on the land as a farmer and his works are full of detailed observations about the countryside and its inhabitants. In Dusty, as in Man-Shy, much of the story is told from the animal’s point of view: Davison detected in animals an intelligence and sensitivity that combined with instinct to create vibrant creatures. Richardson’s major achievement in the film adaptation is to create Dusty as just such a creature. In doing so, he makes full use of his solid background as a documentary filmmaker and his experience in filming animals and wildlife.

The film’s prologue condenses Davison’s rich opening chapter, which depicts the mating of homestead kelpie and dingo bitch, the union of a domesticated working dog and a creature of the wild. The film recaptures in visual shorthand the scene’s primordial quality. The dingo makes her first brief appearance as a creature with rare links to an ancient land; a creature of mystery who, thousands of years ago, as the narrator states, “ wandered without fear or restraint over a vast continent” .

The dingo bitch is killed by a youth who stumbles on her lair of pups. The surviving pup, in appearance a kelpie, is sold to Tom Lincoln (Bill Kerr), a former drover who now works as a hired hand for sheep-farmer Harry Morrison (Noel Trevarthen). Tom trains the pup into a fine, prizewinning sheep dog, highly sought after

by the farmers in the district. But it soon becomes apparent that Dusty has also retained the hunting instincts of his dingo mother: he becomes a sheep killer, a menace to the local farmers who must now remove him. Tom’s great attachment to the dog sees him leave the Morrisons and his secure job.

Richardson introduces a range of characters into the film version to enable him to deal with several subthemes that are less apparent in the book. Harry Morrison’s son Jack (Nick Holland) is portrayed as a young man with a love for the land, and a desire to break out and explore other aspects of life. Although he is tied to the domestic life he is to inherit, he is also drawn to the wisdom and free nature of the ageing Tom. Harry Morrison respects Tom as a reliable worker, but 'measures success in terms of property and family; for him Tom is essentially an outsider and an example of failure in life. The crisis caused by Dusty affects the relationships among all the central characters: it brings to the surface tensions between father and son, husband and wife (Carol Burns), farmer and hired hand.

A highlight of the film is Bill Kerr’s beautifully-controlled portrayal of Tom Lincoln. Kerr creates a character of great integrity, relying on the subtle language of gesture and movement, with a minimum of words, to create an aura of brittle strength; a character who is self-contained, yet lonely, with

a great love and knowledge of the bush, and a warmth that he pours into his relationship with Dusty. Richardson has said that in earlier drafts of the script Tom was more verbose, but by the final draft there is an economy of language as the director came to realize, “ the more we gave him to say for himself, the more we lost him.” The sparing use of words is also more true to the writing of Davison; his characters move in a world of unstated feelings, suppressed emotions and feelings expressed by action rather than words.

After a long career that included vaudeville, comedy, broadcasting and theatre, Kerr showed his ability to act out a very different character in the opening sequences of Gallipoli. He had a special presence and depth; a man who could convey private drama, introspection and strength of character. As Tom Lincoln, Kerr creates the type of bushman that was so sadly missing in Kirk Douglas’ portrayal of Spur in The Man From Snowy River. Spur was a caricature that owed more to Walt Disney than it did to the Australian bush.

John Stanton as Railey Jordan, the professional dog-hunter, creates another complex character of the Australian bush. Part of Railey is as wild as the dingoes that he tracks and kills. He is of a dying breed in the modern world of technology, a man who is closer to the basic primordial reality

where hunter and hunted are locked together in a game of survival. He therefore possesses an understanding of the cycle of life and a respect for the quarry he stalks out of necessity. In a sense, Railey Jordan is a younger version of Tom Lincoln: a loner, with a deep knowledge of bushcraft and a feeling for the delicate balances in nature. Again these characteristics are conveyed with a minimum of words.

An interesting sidelight is the development of Railey’s relationship with Clara Morrison, her early antagonism giving way to a growing admiration. There is a hint of deep passion in Railey’s free ways; he represents a striking contrast to her husband and her life of domestication and self- control. In keeping with the approach of the film this relationship is acted out at a physical distance, through suggestion rather than statement.

But the film belongs mainly, as it should, to Dusty. He is brought to life in a way that does justice to Davison’s account. The Dusty of the film was specifically prepared for the role for more than 18 months by skilled dog- trainer Mary McCrabb. He was developed as a working dog — he actually won one of the sheep trials in which he participated — and was allowed to retain a very appropriate flaw: a tendency to bring down sheep. Richardson used his knowledge of documentary filmmaking to create authenticity: none of the dogs was


D usty Une sem aine de vacances

trained as actors; the dingoes were brought from their natural habitat in the Simpson desert to interact with true working-dogs; the animal scenes were shot in a 30-acre paddock with a rabbit-proof fence; and a small crew did the filming, with a minimum of disturbance to the natural movement of the dogs.

Dusty’s authenticity can be seen in his working of the sheep and, more dramatically, in his nocturnal forays into the bush where he gives way to his hereditary traits as a hunter. The sheep trial that establishes Dusty’s great skill is particularly powerful in its delicate interaction between man, dog and sheep. The scene has the quality of a subtle dance, with cameras using wide angles and close-ups to pick up the tension between the three focal points. Several scenes were shot from low angles to capture Davison’s effort to relate the story from the dog’s point of view: for example, scenes of homestead life are shot from inside the wire compound in which Dusty is kept as a pup. Although this approach runs the risk of audience disorientation, it is more than justified in its intent to remain true to Davison’s novel.

Above all, the audience is able to feel Dusty’s joy in his work; his delight in running loose and exploring his environment; and his curiosity about the homestead, and life in the open fields and forests. This is almost as close as the medium of film can come to translating Davison’s vivid descriptions:

“ His senses were rich with retrospective satisfactions; breath of freedom, sight and smell of night-bound paddocks, scent of warm flesh and fur and feather, wool in his eyes, smell of sheep in his nostrils, the tug of flesh between his teeth and the taste of blood on his tongue.” Richardson’s documentary skills are

also in evidence in his portraits of country life: close-ups of country folk at the sheep trials, a barn dance and in the pub. Once again he uses economy and restraint. The authentic feel of these scenes was enhanced by setting them up as genuine happenings: the local Red Cross ran the dance and the sheep trials were open to the local farmers and town residents. Cameraman Alex McPhee, also working on his first feature, was able to employ the patience and experience gained from his previous work in current affairs and documentaries to capture the atmosphere.

Although the film is shot in a contemporary setting, it sometimes has a period feeling and, in the animal scenes, a timeless quality. Richardson finally decided on the 1980s setting because it would highlight the relevance of the themes to present day audiences and avoid the glut of period films about the Australian outback. Yet, as he says, the bush settings and the scenes of the homestead (which has not been essentially altered since the present owner’s family acquired it almost 50 years ago) are as they were in the 1930s. Tom leaves the Morrisons in a sulky, establishing a link with the not-too-distant past of Davison’s novel; his room on the homestead is without electricity and he wears the clothes of an earlier time. This emphasizes him as one of a dying breed, the loner bushman, self- sufficient and still deeply bound to a semi-nomadic existence.

It would be an injustice to the film and the novel if Dusty were to be seen as only for children. It is an indication

Laurence (Nathalie Bayej: “her private anguish, the product o f the conflict between institutions and the idealistic quest that challenges their foundations”. Bertrand Tavernier’s Une semaine de vacances.

of our alienation from them that films about animals are labelled as mainly suitable for juvenile audiences. In Dusty, Davison wrote about the inner impulses that govern people’s lives; he tackled universal themes based on a knowledge born out of experience in the world of humans and animals. He often stressed that “ there is a bit of the kelpie and the dingo in all of us” and the connection between man and nature, or as he put it, “ the fellowship of all flesh” and “ the oneness of all life” . Davison also has been described as “ the artist of the inarticulate” . The film brings out those aspects of Davison’s work, bringing to life ordinary households as well as the reticent men of the bush.

Finally, Richardson has made a film within his means and values. He avoids using the violence of some of Davison’s descriptions, such as the brutal killing of the dingo pups or the more ferocious attacks between animals. The book can afford to be more graphic; Richardson, instead, relies on understatement. In reading the book one is also struck by the descriptions of the interplay between man, animal and the elements. When Tom battles the storm that leads to his fatal illness one is reminded of scenes in Akira Kurosawa’s magnificent Dersu Uzula, with its sub-arctic blizzards and Dersu’s heroic struggles to survive. Dersu Uzula is a testimony to the heights a director can reach in depicting the battle between human beings and the environment. Dusty is a more modest venture which, nevertheless, shows that these themes can be presented in an Australian setting without resort to contrived situations. It is a film of understanding, patience, restraint and deep commitment; it touches on the spiritual intimations that lie just beneath the surface of human beings.

Dusty: Directed by: John Richardson. Producer: Gil Brealey. Executive producer: John Richardson. Associate producer: David Morgan. Screenplay: Sonia Borg. Based on the novel by Frank Dalby Davison. Director of photography: Alex McPhee. Editor: David Greig. Production designer: Robbie Perkins. Music: Frank Strangio. Sound recordist: John Phillips. Cast: Bill Kerr (Tom), Noel Trevarthen (Harry), Carol Burns (Clara), John Stanton (Railey), Nick Holland (Jack), Dan Lynch (Ron), Kati Edwards (Mrs Muspratt), Will Kerr (Jim). Production company: Dusty Prods. Distributor: Filmways. 35mm. 88 mins. Australia. 1983.

Une semaine de vacances

Tom Ryan

“ . . . for me the characters are very deeply rooted in and related to their social context . . . ”

Bertrand Tavernier1

Perhaps the defining characteristic of Bertrand Tavernier’s Une semaine de vacances is its evocation of an era of uncertainty. Its tale is set in Lyon in

1. Quart, Leonard and Lenny Rubenstein, “ Blending the Personal with the Political: An Interview with Bertrand Tavernier,” Cineaste, Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 25.

the winter of 1980 (the year in which the film was made), its central character, Laurence Cuers (Nathalie Baye), constructed in the terms of a moral confusion: her personal dismay, the heritage of the social upheaval of 1968; her private anguish, the product of the conflict between institutions and the idealistic quest that challenges their foundations. She is a character afflicted by history, yet also an individual who has to come to terms with her condition.

As in other Tavernier films (L’horloger de St Paul, Des enfants gates, Death Watch), Une semaine de vacances produces the sense of a journey, even if it is a moral rather than a geographical one. A recurrent image in the film is that of a restless Laurence, wandering the streets of Lyon, travelling to visit her parents in Beaujolais, constantly in motion and in search of comfort. Aged 31, a child of the ’60s, she is a teacher committed to the values of a liberal education, but frustrated by the way in which those values seem to have no relevance to her experience of working in a school and teaching a class. She finds the children in her charge unable to accept the kind of liberation she wants to offer them: “The more freedom of expression we allow them, the less they have to say . . . Only their spelling is original.”

One of the direct concerns of the film is the problem of education and, though it is secondary to the problems of the characters and of Laurence in particular, it nonetheless is an aspect of the post-’68 malaise which seems to shroud their lives. “ Teach maths, not literature. It’s stable. Not even the communists can make parallels meet. Even after ’68, a right angle is still 90 degrees” , her doctor (Philippe Leotard) observes as he signs her week’s release from teaching. The comment, though spoken in jest, does point to the lesson Laurence has to learn, sounding a warning: in the arena of human relations there can be no fixed solutions, no certainties.

The week off from teaching, which gives the film its title and its temporal framework, finds her faced with a crucial decision about her future and, in the absence of the distraction that her work provides, a crushing awareness of her uncertainties. Her struggle to make sense of her environment and of her relationship to it becomes a problem which the film’s structure in

vites the viewer to share. Its construction of characters and of the exchanges or conflicts between them is pervaded by an ordered ambiguity, simultaneously demanding an empathy with Laurence’s plight and a critical distance from it.

In response to Laurence’s continuing ambition to urge her students to seek out complexities rather than take refuge in stereotyped views, her lover, Pierre (Gerard Lanvin), notes to her with a sense of assured finality, “ Doubting is a luxury. Kids need certainty first.” The thrust of the film reveals no inclination to invite the viewer to endorse this view and certainly not the perspective from which it is coming (regardless of how sympathetic the character with whom it is linked may be), for its practical consequences seem doomed to produce the kind of education against which Laurence is struggling. Yet it is this kind of certainty that Laurence lacks, the ability to situate herself in relation to her environment and to relate constructively to it.

The Lyon in which Laurence lives with Pierre and through which she roams, immersed in her reflection, is a wintry, urban landscape scarred by repetitive apartment blocks, leafless trees, graffiti and an aimless vandalism. Its life is that of the disillusioned and the lonely, those who seem to have lost control of their lives. Their communal bitterness is suggested in the lyrics of the reactionary pop song on a juke-box in a café Laurence visits briefly,

“ You plant a tree and let it be,And then you call it ecology . . .You vote left because it’s done,Now you’re in the revolution.”

or in the sense of impotence that underlies the comments of the father of one of Laurence’s students, Man- cheron (Michel Galabru), as he reflects on his son, “ Kids no longer resemble their parents. They resemble their time. Jean’s not a Mancheron, he’s a 1980” , or expresses his frustration at the changing face of the city itself, its modern road system with its complex system of one-way entry routes.

Yet the loving camera-embrace of the city in the aerial tracking shot behind the opening credits and Pierre- William Glenn’s beautifully misted images of its panorama suggest there is another way of seeing Lyon. Similarly, the energetic appearance in the film of


Une sem aine de vacances Gandhi

Michel Descombes (Philippe Noiret) points to the possibility of coming to terms with the forces that seem beyond the characters’ control. His ability to grow through crisis, to refuse the terms of a given order, provided the moral centre of L’horloger de St Paul, at the beginning of which his belief in the rightness of that order had been such he had refused to cross a deserted midnight street against a red light. In Une semaine de vacances, he is characterized as one who has come to terms with his life, advising Laurence after they have shared a dinner at Mancheron’s and as they walk to his car, parked by a ‘No Parking’ sign, “ You must go on. You can’t stop, otherwise the rot sets in . . .’’ Descombes offers a wisdom born of his own experience. It would seem that Tavernier uses him as his own voice as he has Descombes respond to Laurence’s doubts about her teaching, directing her attention away from her immediate problems and towards a need to locate them in a broader context: “ Maybe it’s not you or them. It’s what’s around us.”

Descombes is shown as one who has come to terms with his pain, who can openly discuss his son’s imprisonment and wryly recognize the irony of the prison being situated by a railway station. He provides a sharp contrast to Mancheron’s sustained bitterness about his past, a childhood tormented by “ sadistic teachers” (“ I still dream of spitting in their faces” ) and a failed marriage (“ There are people you love so much, it hurts to remember” ), and with the kind of confusion or unproblematic certainty that afflicts most of the other characters in the film. Their unfulfilled dreams and continuing fears weave a tapestry of adolescent and adult dissatisfaction around Laurence whose dismay extends beyond her professional occupation, making it a symptom of a broader discontent.

An immensely appealing character, Laurence is admirably gentle in her dealings with others. She handles Mancheron’s distress at his son’s progress in an exemplary fashion and, later, delicately refuses his awkward sexual advances. With an excessively shy student, Lucie (Genevieve Vauzeilles), who comes to visit during her absence, she is understanding and supportive, urging her to find a self-confidence by not making so many demands on herself: “ Cats play and birds fly, but imagine if a cat wanted to fly . . . Happiness is all that’s important really.” There is a sense in which Lucie represents a young Laurence, not just in terms of their physical features but in the way Laurence’s advice to her could equally be directed at herself. Again, in the context of the film’s ordering of ambiguities, Laurence’s counsel has a constructive aspect, but it also creates a framework for a creeping self-satisfaction, a resistance to the potential for change and to the growth it is possible to achieve through straining to discover a more productive way of dealing with the world.

And it is precisely this kind of stasis that threatens Laurence. A voice on the radio smugly reassures her of the advances of modern education, of its ability to help those with socio-cultural handicaps. Her friend, Anne (Flore Fitzgerald), with whom she seems most comfortable, appears not to share her dissatisfaction with teaching, content to work within its limitations. Pierre, who sells real estate, seems unconcerned at the kind of deceptions entailed in his daily work, at his verbal

transformation of drab houses into dream homes. He dismisses Laurence’s challenge to this by refusing to deal with it: “ I thought problems of conscience were only for intellectuals.” Everyone seems to refuse to see the need for change or else is helpless to effect it.

Thus alienated from those around her, Laurence is also confronted with the penultimate terror, the logical consequence of her existence, the inevitability of old age. She obsessively watches the old woman confined to a wheelchair in the apartment opposite, an image for her of human stagnation, a mirror of her own fate. Early in the film, as she leaves the doctor’s rooms, she is faced with the sight of an old man stumbling on the sidewalk, unable to bend down, to retrieve his walking- stick, Tavernier’s camera tracking an arc behind Laurence as she watches, the framing evoking the empathy she feels as well as her inability to act to help. Later, she visits her father, immobilized by a stroke, but leaves earlier than she had promised, excusing herself on the grounds of the pile of untouched essays that await her. It is true, the essays are piled up on her desk at home, but the suggestion is, again, her inability to face her father’s condition, scarcely able to communicate with those around him. As she farewells him, his whispered parting echoes her own frustrations, of a knowledge that cannot be passed on: “ I know so many things.”

Her fears of isolation find her seeking comfort in the mere fact of companionship, her fragile sense of her own worth strengthened by the love and warmth she is offered. Throughout the film, and despite their differences,' Pierre is represented as a positive force for Laurence in his humor, personal drive and patience. His function for her is as a kind of paternal presence (Descombes and Mancheron become variations of this), providing her with at least a domestic security and challenging her attempts to avoid coming to terms with her problems. She gains similar support from Anne, and their empathy is beautifully caught in the sequence when, with Anne staying with Laurence in Pierre’s absence, Laurence’s anguish finds its outlet in nausea. Anne comes upon her in the bathroom, tentatively moving to comfort her at the washbasin. A cut to the two women, reflected in the mirror and watching each other, is marked by a shift to a longer lens, flattening out the image, emotionally binding them together.

Anne seems to provide a distinct contrast to Laurence, giving the impression that she is well-adjusted to her world, professionally at ease and personally clear-headed, even if she remains unsure of her romantic liaison (“ I’m not sure whether I can tell the difference between wanting to be in love and being in love” ). But, in a neat irony, the end of the film reveals that Anne has resigned her teaching post as a result of the doubts awoken in her by Laurence’s agitation at the frustrations of teaching, no longer able to live with teachers who are more like “ lab scientists” imposing their will on the students who become their “ guinea pigs” . Laurence, on the other hand, has chosen to return to her role as teacher, the context of her choice ambiguous.

In one way, teaching provides a refuge for her, a retreat from the realities of adult life and from the inevitability that she will grow old. She

says of the students, “ They make me feel alive . . . In a world of only adults I’d be lost.” Yet, in another, Laurence’s can be seen as a productive choice. She is clearly a good teacher, even if she only sees that in negative terms: “ For them, I’m less rotten.” Her return to the classroom sees her draw increasingly insightful and politically alert responses from an enthusiastic class about the works of Molière and, despite her dissatisfactions, she has made the choice to “go on” . The option Anne has taken up, writing for television, is scarcely likely to relieve her of doubts, as Descombes’ experience with the medium in L’horloger de St Paul suggests, though she too has made a choice, has committed herself to a course of action.

However, Laurence’s closing conversation with Anne creates a further perspective on the kinds of problems that remain for her. Her reaction to Anne’s question about the old woman opposite, whose apartment windows are now boarded-up, is illuminating in terms of the fact that it seems to signify and which she refuses to consider: “ I don’t know. One day she was gone. Maybe she moved. No one ever visited her. She was alone.” Laurence’s deepest fears are constantly represented in the film, but she is never able to speak of them in any clear way.

Her actions seem designed to construct a refuge from them, attempts to rationalize them in other terms, to keep them below the level of her consciousness. As Pierre watches a recital of Purcell’s “ Solitude” by Alfred Deller on television, she insists that he turn the channel to a series program that she says she knows her class will be watching. Her declared motive is her desire to familiarize herself with the elements that make up their lives and thus to become better equipped to deal with them. Such an aspiration is admirable, but behind it lies the implication of a deeper incentive: the retreat from the kind of experience dealt with by the song. And, earlier, she bought a plant for her apartment, drawn by the guarantee that it has “ a long life” , as if to create for herself an environment whose continuing survival will ensure her own.

Laurence complains to Pierre that no one takes her crisis seriously, “ coddling” her and implying in their treatment of her that they believe “ it’ll pass” : “ I’m allowed to dream, but no more . . . ” But she is the one unable to satisfy the demands she makes of her life. It is the fears that oppress and obstruct her, not the emotional support system she has around her. Une semaine de vacances ends with her crisis having receded, but the range of problems it entails clearly remain unresolved. Her moral journey, like that of the history to which she belongs, is far from over.

Une semaine de vacances: Directed by: Bertrand Tavernier. Screenplay: Bertrand Tavernier, Colo Tavernier, Marie-Francoise Hans. Director of photography: Pierre William Glenn. Editors: Armand Psenny, Sophie Cornu. Music: Pierre Papadia- mandis. Cast: Nathalie Baye (Laurence), Gerard Lanvin (Pierre), Michel Galabru (Mancheron), Philippe Noiret (Descombes), Philippe Leotard (Sabouret), Flore Fitzgerald (Anne), Jean Daste (Father), Marie-Louise Ebeli (Mother). Production company: Sarafilms-Little Bear-Az. Distributor: Richard Walberg. 35mm. 102 mins. France. 1980.

Gandhi

Arnold Zable

Ghandi is a film of great vitality and commitment, a moving account of the Mahatma, “ Great Soul” of the Indian independence movement.

As the scriptwriter (John Briley) points out at the outset, “ No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling” : this is particularly the case in the life of a man who was so complex, long-lived and multi-faceted as Gandhi. It is a daunting task portraying his life in three hours of film. But to some extent the film succeeds in showing, through a succession of key episodes, the evolution in Gandhi’s life to the mature leader who created a new vocabulary in the methods of political struggle. It also succeeds, to some extent, in its stated intention, “ to try and find one’s way to the heart of the man” . But there are inevitable problems and gaps; and there are distortions.

The film is prefaced by a haunting prologue, and framed at both ends by the assassination of the 78-year-old Gandhi (Ben Kingsley). The intense opening sequence demonstrates the film’s blend of restraint and understatement: an almost surreal effect is created as one follows the movements of the assassin, with Ravi Shankar’s score slowly emerging from the silence during Gandhi’s final moments. A funeral dirge then amplifies this mood, as it accompanies the body of the slain Gandhi, on its final procession through the wide thoroughfares of Delhi, packed with countless mourners and dignitaries from many nations.

The audience has caught a glimpse of the man, of the aura of sainthood which surrounded him, and of the deep grief experienced by both the Indian and international community. An American broadcaster covering the funeral quotes the words of Einstein: “ Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”

This emerges as director Richard Attenborough’s view of Gandhi: the film is, essentially, a gentle ballad in praise of the apostle of non-violence. With a few significant exceptions, the more controversial aspects of Gandhi’s personal and political life are glossed over or avoided.

Given the time constraint, the audience’s first view of the young Gandhi is a wise choice by Briley. Gandhi is seen, barely a week after his arrival in South Africa, preparing to take up a legal position for a firm in the minority Indian community. While travelling from Durban to Pretoria, he is ejected violently from the train for having insisted on his right to travel first class. This was, as Gandhi wrote in his autobiography, a fundamental turning point, when he first experienced the humiliation of racial prejudice.

The South African period is handled well in a series of succinct episodes that show the gradual evolution of G andh i’s unique and creative approach to political struggle. One sees his first physical confrontation with the police in a scene that foreshadows the qualities of the mature Gandhi: an iron-willed determination and a courage that enabled him, and later his trained followers, to face the blows of their armed opponents.


G andhi

Touring the Indian countryside: Kasturbai (Rohini Hattangady), Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) and Charlie (Ian Charleson) Richard A ttenborough’s Gandhi.

In another memorable scene, Gandhi finds his voice as a leader capable of arousing and disciplining a mass movement to adopt his unorthodox tactics of non-violence. There is also a fine portrayal of his relationship with Jan Smuts (Athol Fugard), one of the first of many such encounters with powerful political opponents who were at first furious at this obstinate little Indian, but who gradually were seduced by his curious blend of gentle strength, self-possession and unbending commitment. As Gandhi and his followers face the head-on assault of galloping horses, one is left in no doubt about the immense dangers of the ways of non-violent resistance.

Gandhi’s first attempt at ashram life is also shown: the Phoenix settlement which was to become the forerunner of a succession of ashrams in which Gandhi experimented with various forms of communal living and self- reliance.

But, with one striking exception, one sees little of one of Gandhi’s major problems at this time: his relationship with his family. The exception is a scene with his wife, based on Gandhi’s disarmingly frank account in his autobiography. Kasturbai Gandhi, acted with subtle grace by Rohini Hattangady, confronts her husband when he orders her to do her share in raking and covering the latrines. The darker shades of Gandhi’s aspirations to perfection appear here. He momentarily loses control and castigates her for not living up to his demands. As Gandhi has pointed out, this was one of many confrontations between two strong personalities, thrown together in marriage at the age of 13.

But the audience does not see any other instances of this turbulence or of the conflict between Gandhi and his sons, particularly Harilal, the first born. While Harilal was an active participant in Gandhi’s South African campaigns, and was gaoled on several occasions for up to six months, he eventually rebelled and challenged his father. He felt deep resentment at having become a pawn in his father’s political and spiritual experiments, and was extremely angry at his refusal to grant him a formal education. Gandhi insisted that his children grow up on

his communal farms, subject to his radical ideas on the virtues of non- academic education and self-reliance. Harilal pointed out that Gandhi himself had received legal training in London and that many of his skills had come from formal education. None of this is shown in the film and, in a sense, it detracts from its integrity and from its avowed aim of getting at the heart of the man.

It should be added that the relationship between the ageing Kasturbai and Gandhi is very well portrayed. It did mature into an enduring and sensitive marriage and their conflicts did not necessarily detract from Gandhi’s stature. He never tried to hide anything: his life was a deliberately- open book in line with his constant search for deeper truth. In fact, he credited Kasturbai with teaching him many lessons in the arts of patience and non-violent resistance, and he became an advocate for women’s rights in a society in which a deep repression of women was sanctioned by both the orthodox Hindu and Muslim faiths.

When Gandhi finally resettled in India in 1915, he was in his midforties, and an acclaimed leader for his work in South Africa. The film tends to overplay his humility and innocence of Indian politics at the time. He had, in fact, made several journeys back home and had become acquainted with many of the key figures in the Indian struggle for home rule. He was very firm in his ideas of non-violence, the links between spiritual development and politics, and on the virtues of communal living. It was largely at the insistence of Gopal Krishna Gokhale (Sheeram Lagoo), who appears briefly in the film, that Gandhi undertook to refrain from trying immediately to apply his methods to the Indian scene, and to travel the country for a firsthand view of its conditions.

Attenborough is not, however, concerned with the intricacies of Indian politics and social conditions. Alternative viewpoints, the spectrum of ideas and tactics in the independence struggle, and some of Gandhi’s major conflicts with other leading members of the movement are overlooked. As well, the characters of Nehru, Sardar

Patel and Jinnah are simplified or caricatured.

The most interesting portrayal is that of Nehru, very well acted by Roshan Seth, although one misses some of the elegance and style noted by his biographers. There are glimpses of that mixture of deep love and veneration, tinged with moments of deep frustration, that characterized his relationship with Gandhi, but what one does not see are the major differences in their outlooks. Gandhi had a deep and lasting impact on Nehru, steering him in the direction of greater simplicity. But, whereas Gandhi clung to a vision of a peasant-based Utopia, an India of revived cottage industries and village co-operatives, Nehru was a passionate believer in modernization — material progress based on socialist principles. Perhaps more important was Nehru’s secular outlook as compared with Gandhi’s insistence on the links between religion and politics.

Sardar Patel (Saeed Jaffrey) is the most misrepresented figure in the film. He was, by most accounts, a hard- headed and shrewd political organizer. Often described as a Tammany Hall- style boss, Patel, under Gandhi’s guidance, built the Congress party into an impressive national machine that reached every province of India. One sees little of his peasant pragmatism and his distrust of intellectuals which helped bring him into conflict with Nehru.

The portrayal of Jinnah (Alyque Padamsee) seems closer to the mark. He was suspicious of the ascetic Gandhi and apparently repulsed by his close identification with the peasantry. Jinnah believed in the leadership of an educated city-based elite. In his private life he enjoyed the trappings of his affluence and took pride in his profession and the good life that went with it. These differences are depicted in the film in subtle ways that suggest that similar nuances could have been brought out in other characters without detracting from the film’s necessary concentration on Gandhi.

Despite these limitations, there are many fine scenes of key events in the Indian independence struggle and a masterly performance by Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. Kingsley makes up for any

physical dissimilarities by employing a range of subtle gestures, and recreating the gradual changes in accent, posture and inner conviction of the maturing Gandhi. The change in accent is almost imperceptible, from the refined English that Gandhi picked up as a young law student in London, to the shades of Indian lilt that creep in during his later years. At the same time, one sees Gandhi move from the opulent bourgeois surroundings of his early years in South Africa, through a process of continual simplification, until he emerges as that “ half-naked fakir” , as the enraged Winston Churchill labelled him.

There are several memorable glimpses that capture the legendary profile: his solitary figure setting foot on the steps of the Vice-regal palace, a frail dwarf taking on the might of an empire; or striding vigorously in front of mass marches, his bent figure clutching his staff, his followers barely able to keep pace; or sitting beside his spinning wheel, the famous symbol of his aspirations for an independent India based on peasant simplicity.

In many respects Gandhi was a loner, who deliberately conducted his politics outside the mainstream. His home base was the ashram. Politicians had to meet him on his home territory and they frequently motored or trekked out to convey their news and hold vital discussions. Gandhi is seen to interrupt them occasionally to attend to his ashram chores — tasks as basic as feeding his goats. He held fast to this view of political life from the time of his arrival, as he set out to discover India and to touch the pulse of some of those 700,000 villages that made up the scattered backbone of his country.

This Indian journey is a lyrical interlude in the film, set to the rhythm of Ravi Shankar’s music and synchronized with the beat of trains bearing the Gandhis in their third-class carriage, catching an overview of that vast complexity in landscape and lifestyle of India. However, this interlude could have been extended. Gandhi’s autobiography contains several chapters on this journey, and described how it challenged his religious and political views. He was very critical of some of the more regressive aspects of Hinduism and upset by the lack of awareness about the basics of hygiene, sanitation and self-reliance. He also developed a deep antipathy towards the treatment of the millions of outcastes, whom he renamed the Harijans, “ the children of God” . His relationship with the Harijans became an important aspect of his Indian crusades, but is barely touched on in the film. Furthermore, the grinding poverty that he so frequently referred to is underplayed. The film presents, at most, a distanced and brief view of poverty, rather than the harsh realities that persist to this day.

From this initial journey one sees the rapid growth of Gandhi as a unique national figure with the capacity for mobilizing people to action, and for gathering a group of devoted followers. Attenborough focuses on the campaign of the Champaran farmers, who had been reduced to subsistence level by the exploitation of the British indigo planters. Once again time-limits enable only a brief view of this campaign during which Gandhi established schools in the villages, lectured on sanitation and provided medical facilities.

The turning point for Gandhi in India came with the brutal actions of


G andhi Fighting B ack

the British in Amritsar. Attenborough does not avoid the callous brutality of the massacre. One sees General Dyer’s soldiers line up and fire point blank into the crowd of thousands that had assembled in Jallianwala Bagh to protest at British oppression. 379 people were killed and 1139 wounded in 10 minutes of non-stop firing. There were no exits for the trapped crowd. After this action Gandhi lost his respect for the British in India and became an uncompromising supporter of total independence.

The film captures this hardening of attitude. Although he may have glossed over a number of crucial aspects of Gandhi’s life, Attenborough confronts head-on the most critical challenge to Gandhi’s non-violence campaigns, the ironical tendency to violence. Gandhi had the capacity to set the Indians alight with his calls to civil disobedience. But he also was faced with situations that got out of control. In some of the film’s finer moments, Attenborough focuses on Gandhi’s anguish at the bloodshed he had indirectly triggered. On several occasions he called off his campaigns or fasted to end their violence, much to the exasperation of other leaders of the Congress party, eager to capitalize on an aroused mass movement. Those moments revealed Gandhi’s intense com m itm ent to his overriding concerns: unlike many freedom fighters, he always felt that the means were as important as the ends.

The finest hour for Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence came with the inspired Salt March of 1931. Attenborough does full justice to this campaign. He touches on the initial British response of ridicule. The audience sees the march gaining momentum, with thousands of people witnessing Gandhi’s first handful of illegal salt gathered from the sea, the mass arrests of enthusiastic followers and finally the dramatic raid on the

Dharamsala salt works. This was a telling display of the power, as well as the courage, involved in disciplined civil disobedience. Row upon row of Gandhi’s disciples walk up to the savage blows of the police batons and, while the wounded are dragged away, the next row advances. In this sequence the naked force of an era of Imperialism was dramatically exposed by the “ soul force” Gandhi had spent a lifetime developing.

But another enemy virtually destroyed Gandhi’s dream of the triumph of non-violent revolution. The Hindu-Muslim conflict was based on a history of violent confrontation deeply etched into the Indian consciousness. This is another instance where A ttenborough confron ts realities w ithout pulling many punches. There are telling scenes of a people gone mad in an orgy of killing and destruction. A despairing and almost desperate Gandhi is shown trying to avoid partition as he uses drastic means to placate Jinnah’s insistence on a separate Muslim state. While the nation celebrates its independence, Gandhi is in Calcutta, fasting in a bid to bring the violence to an end.

In these concluding scenes Attenborough is able to bring out the combination of loneliness, anguish, dis-' illusion and finally the greatness of Gandhi in facing what seemed to be the destruction of all he had fought for.

Mahatma Gandhi lived a long and active life. For more than half a century he immersed himself in political struggle, constantly sought to evolve and develop his creative approach to life, openly expressed his views to countless friends, followers, journalists and comrades, and wrote prolifically on a wide range of ideas and on his “ experiments with truth” . Such a life is impossible to confine to three hours of celluloid: Attenborough

could only expect to create an impression. He succeeds in his intention to inspire the viewer with what he regarded as the greatness of Gandhi’s remarkable life.

However, the film does not adequately convey the most important aspect of his achievements: the underlying consistency that ran through all work and struggle. Gandhi viewed all his many activities as part of a unified endeavor, a struggle to find the ultimate truth that some call God, others call spirit, or any one of countless names. He drew on many sources, but always, when something appealed to him, he was compelled to try and put it into practice, immediately.

The mature Gandhi appears from most accounts to have been a man of great energy, warmth and humor, an inspired tactician, and a shrewd and infinitely patient politician. Gandhi touched a chord in his people that was deep and personal. His appeal lay in the fact that he was a living embodiment of what he preached. Perhaps this is one of the major reasons why the film is proving so popular with both Indian and Western audiences.

Gandhi: Directed by: Richard Attenborough. Producer: Richard Attenborough. Executive producer: Michael Stanley-Evans. Co-producer: Rani Dube. Screenplay: John Briley. Directors of photography: Billy Williams, Ronnie Taylor. Editor: John Bloom. Production designer: Stuart Craig. Music: Ravi Shankar, George Fenton. Sound: Simon Kaye. Cast: Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), Candice Bergen (Margaret), Edward Fox (Dyer), John Gielgud (Irwin), Trevor Howard (B room field), John Mills (Viceroy), Martin Sheen (Walker), Rohini Hattangady (Kasturbai), Ian Charleson (Charlie), Athol Fugard (Smuts), Saeed Ja ffre y (P a te l) , G erald ine Jam es (Mirabehn), Alyque Padamsee (Jinnah), Amrish Puri (Khan), Roshan Seth (Nehru).

Production company: International Film Investors-Goldcrest Films . International- National Film Development Corporation of India-Indo-British Films. Distributor: Fox- Columbia. 35mm. 188 mins. U.K.-India. 1982.

Fighting Back

Jim Schembri

When a film starts with the words, “ What follows is a true story” , the audience is in effect being assured that what it is about to see will be realistic, possibly startling and, presumably, important. Such a pre-claimer also suggests a “ warts-and-all” approach to the subject matter.

Thus Fighting Back begins and, initially, it does demonstrate remarkable conviction and power. Through some strong performances and grainy, documentary-style photography, it quickly establishes the difficult environment of a hyperactive, psycholog ically -d istu rbed , 13-year-old schoolboy, Tom (Paul Smith), and the valiant attempts by his compassionate teacher, John Em bling (Lewis Fitz-Gerald), to bring him back to normality.

The opening shots of the local teenagers in their industrialized, suburban environment directs the audience towards Tom, who, while riding a motorcycle at high speed, has mental flashes from his past. These mental disturbances cause Tom to crash into a wire fence, the viewer becoming aware of the boy’s deep social and psychological problems. During the film, these brief glimpses into Tom’s past will be exposed at length and, to some extent, reconciled.

Tom is truculent, abusive and defiant. At home he bashes his sister, and hits and swears at his mother, who, while vainly chastizing him, insists that, “ I took enough of that from your father.” At school, after being unable to complete a test, he angers his teacher with irritating shrugs before throwing desks and bags, making bizarre stabbing gestures in the corridor, and running out of the school. When Tom is found and returned to school by the police, he is sent to Mr Payne (Wyn Roberts) for punishment. In this scene, Tom’s entrapment in an institution which can neither recognize nor deal adequately with his problems is strikingly conveyed.

As Payne straps the increasingly hurt and resentful Tom, he makes the weak, pedagogical assertion that, “ You must learn, and you’re going to learn.” When Tom bursts out screaming and tosses things around, Payne’s only recourse is to unlock the door so Tom can run out. The similarity to an unsuccessful trainer releasing an untamed animal from a cage is telling.

When John Embling arrives at the school, he discusses Tom with Mary (Robyn Nevin), the lone, haggardlooking remedial teacher at the school. John recognizes Tom as a problem child, and briefly succeeds in winning his confidence by offering him the choice of participating in a class activity, rather than forcing him to. Their subsequent walk to the shops, and Tom’s honesty in returning John’s change, suggests the possibility of a rapport between teacher and student.The Viceroy (John Mills) and staff are concerned by news of Gandhi’s increasing power. Gandhi.


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Fighting B ack An Officer and a Gentleman

This atmosphere of tentative friendship is soon shattered when, during a class, Tom erupts into violence. John manages to contain Tom but, rather than use the strap so thoughtfully provided by Mr Payne, he tosses it to Tom’s side of the room. Tom, desperate for a new target, begins swearing, smashing windows and tipping over lockers.

Eventually, John calms him down and they start cleaning up the room in an act of emerging, though still fragile, friendship. John later vents his feelings of frustration and powerlessness onto Mary, angry at the futility of his university training.

In contrast to this sympathetic portrait of John, most of the teachers in the film are absurdly-contrived, sadistic caricatures. When John is introduced to the staff, one teacher proudly lectures him about the need for a strap. He shows John his strap, relishing the quality of the leather, its durability, and even recalling with affection the time when he administered three cuts apiece to a class of 30 students.

Equally important as the school environment in Tom’s life is that of friends and home. Unfortunately, the depiction of Tom’s restricted social world is sensationalized and incredible. He and his mates, for example, swill beer constantly without bothering to get drunk and like to indulge in a little “ wog bashing” on the spur of the moment. They also exhibit exceptional survival and driving skills for 13-year- olds as they steal a high-powered car, perform some professional-looking skids and crash at high speed into a shop without injury.

On the other hand, the portrait of Tom’s mother (Kris McQuade) is a moving evocation of a truly pathetic, frustrated parent. But, although shown in a sympathetic light, she is presented as at least partly responsible for Tom’s continued neglect. Spiritless and ignorant, she has no authority over or communication with her son. Her despondency reflects her broken

spirit and resignation to Tom’s fate. And her ignorance is exemplified by her blind faith in the archaic school system. John pleads with her to write a letter to the principal forbidding corporal punishment being inflicted on Tom, but she resists saying, “ I can’t interfere with what his teachers think is best.” ‘‘But I’m one of his teachers,” John insists. ‘‘Yes,” she replies, ‘‘but you’re only a young one, aren’t you.” 1

Another person who shares John’s desire to develop close ties with these youngsters and help them is Rosemary (Caroline Gillmer), the coffee-shop owner. It could be argued that the desire of both to help these children appeals to and fulfils the assumed moral sensibilities of the viewer. But whatever their role, their lack of motivating background renders them both incomplete characters. Ultimately, what the film seems to be saying is that the only hope for children like Tom is with the Good Samaritans of the world.

Tom’s salvation is argued in the film to be dependent on the developing bond between he and John. And this in part is dependent on Tom coming to terms with the nightmarish visions that disturb him. The first revelation, which Tom recalls in graphic, monochrome images, is of his violent, wifebeating father (Barry Branson). This is the dramatic and emotional high point of the film, showing, in one scene, the tortured mix of emotions within Tom as he switches from anger, violence, sadness, hate and self-reflection. After this outburst, Tom begins to trust John, asking him to help him at school, almost seeing him as a surrogate father for the one who deserted him.

But what follows is a saccharine montage of them together, skipping stones, learning and enjoying each other’s company, all to an angelic

1. It is interesting to note that the level of awareness Tom’s mother has of her child’s activities is on par with that of the parents in Puberty Blues.

score (by Colin Stead). This sentimentality is typical of the rest of the film and at odds with the realist, documentary style that had been maintained until then. The film even degenerates into slapstick comedy. During a church camp, children on motorcycles leap into the lake, chase naked campers and wage flour raids at night while a Jesus freak (Michael Cove) helplessly tries to control the confusion, appealing mutely for help from the Almighty — all to a silly banjo score.

Tom’s second revelation to John is of his time in a boys’ home where he was locked up with a deranged young boy. But the scene lacks impact, appearing from nowhere. Even the effect of the stark images of the home is nullified by an over-dramatic soundtrack.

More detrimental to the film, however, is the film’s increasingly unquestioning view of John’s character and attitudes. His attitudes are dearly sincere and he exhibits his admirable resolve in trying to help these teenagers. As he explains to a school principal, ‘‘In order to help them, you must take on their whole lives, not just school . . . physical reassurance is very important to these kids.” But the effectiveness and practicality of these methods are never questioned or explored.

For example, John’s all-consuming interaction with and attention to Tom is generalized into a philosophy of child care which John sees as applicable to all troubled teenagers. The film doesn’t acknowledge or deal with the possibility that, while these methods may be effective on an individual basis, a methodology requiring total devotion of one person to one child (Tom is the only beneficiary the viewer sees of John’s dedication) may not be practical on a larger scale, and may lead to the neglect of other needy children.

Equally, when John resigns from the Education Department, he is shown as quite unworried by the fact that he has

no regular income and is facing life on the dole. He and Rosemary then talk of setting up an independent house for children in the area, leaving the viewer bewildered as to how they would manage with such limited finance — let alone whether such a house would work effectively. As this scene is shot at the seaside, in the optimistic hues of the setting sun (giving Rosemary and John a rather heroic gleam), such basic considerations seem out of place. But they aren’t, and shouldn’t appear so.

The final segment of the film has Tom and John trekking about the Murray River in glowing, picturesque compositions reminiscent of a tourist bureau travelogue. Tom makes a final revelation about a pet horse his father slaughtered, a perfunctory, histrionic gesture to ‘‘fill us in” on the images in Tom’s head, and to signify John’s success in reclaiming Tom. The triumphant music swells as a title informs the viewer that John and Rosemary did set up their independent house and are continuing to help children such as Tom.

The film’s closing at this point is most unsatisfactory, denying the viewer any opportunity to assess whether John’s decision to leave the education system, rather than remain within it and try to effect reforms internally, was a sensible one, or, indeed, whether it proved effective in helping him to tackle the undoubtedly widespread problems.

The subject matter at the heart of Fighting Back is far too important to be treated in such a superficial, blindly-optimistic manner. Surely, if the film claims to deal with particular contemporary social problems that have their basis in reality, then the viewer, in order to be able to take the film seriously, deserves a much more balanced picture.

Fighting Back: D i r e c t e d b y : M i c h a e l C a u l f i e l d . P r o d u c e r s : S u e M i l l i k e n , T o m J e f f r e y . E x e c u t i v e p r o d u c e r : P h i l l i p A d a m s . S c r e e n p l a y : M i c h a e l C o v e , T o m J e f f r e y . B a s e d o n t h e n o v e l , Tom , b y J o h n E m b l i n g . D i r e c t o r o f p h o t o g r a p h y : J o h n S e a l e . E d i t o r : R o n W i l l i a m s . A r t d i r e c t o r : C h r i s t o p h e r W e b s t e r . M u s i c : C o l i n S t e a d . S o u n d r e c o r d i s t : T i m L l o y d . C a s t : L e w i s F i t z - G e r a l d ( J o h n ) , P a u l S m i t h ( T o m ) , K r i s M c Q u a d e ( T o m ’s m u m ) , C a r o l i n e G i l l m e r ( R o s e m a r y ) , R o b y n N e v i n ( M a r y ) , B e n G a b r i e l ( M o r e l a n d ) , W y n R o b e r t s ( P a y n e ) , B a r r y B r a n s o n ( T o m ’s f a t h e r ) , M i c h a e l C o v e ( J e s u s f r e a k ) . P r o d u c t i o n c o m p a n y : A d a m s P a c k e r - S a m s o n . D i s t r i b u t o r : R o a d s h o w . 3 5 m m . 1 00 m i n s . A u s t r a l i a . 1 9 8 3 .

An Officer and a Gentleman

Brian McFarlane

In a season more than usually crammed with solid box-office successes, all of them thoroughly crafted — Tootsie, Gandhi, The Verdict, for example — none is more satisfying than Taylor Hackford’s An Officer and a Gentleman. And despite its modish and mimetically authentic foul-mouthed dialogue, it is essentially an old-fashioned entertainment. It offers a well-made story, with an upbeat ending, and some fine perfor-


An Officer and a Gentleman

mances which effortlessly enlist audience rapport.

The film begins with Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) looking at two nude people, his father and girlfriend it transpires, on a bed in a squalid room, and as he recalls his past the screen is suffused with a yellow glow. His father, a sailor (Robert Loggia), had deserted Zack and his mother when Zack was a child. His mother had subsequently suicided and Zack was passed on to his reluctant father. In the film’s last scene, he strides into the factory where his girl Paula (Debra Winger) works, picks her up in his arms and carries her off into a symmetrically yellow glow. He has come to terms with his past and the sense of reconciliation is underscored by the film’s final color effect, which matches the sheen of the flash-backs in which Zack’s chip-on-the-shoulder has been created. It is appropriate to recall those scenes at this final moment when the chip has been dislodged, through a sense of mutual caring and commitment.

Within this frame, Zack, in search of the kind of orderliness and purpose that have been missing from his life, enlists in a naval training camp as an aviator cadet. What follows has echoes of those war films in which raw young recruits are shaped into a crack unit by a brutal-seeming sergeant who proves to have had their interests at heart all along; of crossing-the-tracks romantic dramas; and of those studies of selfish loners (“ I don’t need anyone” ) who must learn to be their brothers’ keepers.

This probably does not exhaust the film’s references to classic Hollywood narrative. However, what needs to be stressed is that new director Taylor

Hackford has taken some well-tried ingredients, shaken them up, and made them over into something which both belongs to a recognizable narrative tradition and has the look and feel of contemporary filmmaking.

The opening scene in the training camp at once creates that sense of order that Zack craves, even when it gives way to the ritual abuse of the line-up as conducted by the black sergeant Foley (Louis Gossett jun.). This abuse is meant to humiliate (“ You from Oklahoma? Only two things come from Oklahoma — steers and queers. Which are you?” ) but, even without the shot near the end of a new set of recruits subject to the same assault, it is clear that Zack accepts it as part of a predictable pattern.

The training scenes themselves are convincingly rigorous. As Richard Price has written: “ His [Zack’s] education is so linear you feel like you’re sitting through a training film” 1; and part of the film’s appeal is in the way it trusts its audience to be interested in the learning processes. In this respect, it recalls Carol Reed’s 40-year-old The Way Ahead which puts its rookies through comp -able paces, even if the tone was considerably more genteel than in An Officer and a Gentleman. William Hartnell, Reed’s sergeant, sounds like Ronald Colman compared with Louis Gossett’s line in abuse and obscenity.

The film acknowledges the ritualistic aspects of the cadets’ lives but allows these a goal of personal satisfaction which is absent from the assembly-line

1. Richard Price, “ Mister Richard Gere: The Am erican Gigolo ' Becomes America’s Sweetheart” , Rolling Stone, September 30, 1982, p. 13.

routine of the factory in which the girls, Paula and Lynette (Lisa Blount), earn their living. This is numbing work and the point is not just to make a qualified parallel with the naval trainees’ lives, but to provide a motivation for the film’s romances.

Foley warns the men against the local girls who are then presented against, and driving away from, an utterly dreary urban landscape. Their only hope of escape is to marry an officer and a gentleman. Lynette tries to trap Zack’s buddy Sid (David Keith) into marriage by pretending to be pregnant. When Sid, who has planned to marry a girl back home, decides to desert and marry Lynette, she makes it plain that it’s an officer she wants. If Sid is not to be an officer then it’s all off as far as she is concerned. Anyway, since this morning she knows she’s not pregnant. The film measures the glamor of an officer’s uniform by standards of drabness with which it forces one to sympathize.

This tracks-crossing romance is the final narrative nudge Zack needs to complete the emergence from his loner’s shell. He and Paula race to the motel Sid and Lynette have frequented only to find he has hanged himself. Zack fights it out with Foley in a final effort to prove he doesn’t need anyone, but the film’s penultimate scene shows him restored to the culmination of the training program: the passing-out parade. As the graduates file out, they shake hands with Foley and Zack assures him, “ I never could have made it without you.”

Sid’s death has given Zack the impetus he has needed to complete the course — and to retrieve his relationship with Paula. As much as Lynette,

she wants to get away from her shabby home (complete with mother who had loved a naval cadet), but unlike Lynette she will not resort to tricks to catch the man she wants. There is a very touching dignity and reticence in Debra Winger’s performance as Paula and. the film discriminates sharply but humanely between this role and Lisa Blount’s shrewdly-judged Lynette. Part of its contemporary treatment of some well-tried situations is in the film ’s acknowledgement of its heroine’s sexual liberalism. Paula would have had to reform or, better still, die 40 years ago.

Given the generally down-beat mood of Hollywood films in the past decade or so, with their conventional unhappy endings, An Officer and a Gentleman is quite audacious in the way it builds up audience enthusiasm for its hero’s success — in both of the film’s eponymous roles. Early on, Gere’s cocky performance, spiked with cynicism and a solipsistic guardedness, epitomized in that oddly cat-like walk, has recalled William Holden's opportunist hero in Wilder’s Stalag 17. But Hackford doesn’t want the audience to stay at that kind of admiring remove from Zack.

Taunted by Foley for his incapacity to “mesh” , for his solitariness (“ You should be good at this [water training] — you can do it alone” ) and for the shyster opportunism of his “ deals” , he breaks down as Foley "intends he should do. As he sobs “ I got nowhere else to go” , the importance to him of the camp and its life is made clear to the audience — and to Zack himself. It is truly an old-fashioned moment but, played as it is by Gere and Gossett, it undeniably works.

So does the moment when Zack helps the one woman (Lisa Eilbacher) in the training squad over an obstacle wall; and so do two others already mentioned — the passing-out parade and the gathering up of Paula. Zack Mayo’s emergence as an officer and a decent human being carries a surprising emotional punch that derives partly from literate scripting and partly from Gere’s performance. He has given several remarkable film performances before — in Days of Heaven, Yanks, and, above all, in American Gigolo. Here, for the first time, encouraged by a role that invites him to approach an audience, he looks like an actor and a star. As a result there is a warmth and an invitation to empathy that belong to the role but which are also part of a star’s equipment.

Everyone else is convincing too, especially David Keith as the vulnerable, good-natured Sid, Gossett in his Oscar-winning virtuoso display as Foley, and Robert Loggia (non-star leading man of the 1950s and ’60s) in an accurate display of moral slovenliness as Zack’s crummy Dad.

Backed by a splendidly stirring score, An Officer and a Gentleman is a film that clicks: that is, it evokes in its playing and mise-en-scene the kinds of emotional response the elements of its screenplay seem to be seeking. I hope it won’t usher in a batch of “ heartwarming” films but there is no denying the way the old formulas can be brought up to date and made to work again when professionalism and honest feelings are brought to bear on them.

An Officer and a Gentleman: Directed by: Taylor Hackford. Producer: MartinSid Worley (David Keith) proposes marriage to Lynette (Lisa Blount). Taylor Hackford’s An Officer and a Gentleman.


First C on tact

Highlanders o f Papua New Guinea react to contraptions o f an intruding white society. Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson’s First Contact.

Elfand. Associate producer: Douglas Day Stewart. Screenplay: Douglas Day Stewart. Director of photography: Donald Thorin. Editor: Peter Zinner. Production designer: Philip M. Jeffries. Music: Jack Nitzsche. Sound: Jeff Wexler. Cast: Richard Gere (Zack), Debra Winger (Paula), Louis Gossett jun. (Foley), David Keith (Worley), Lisa Blount (Lynette), Lisa Eilbacher (Casey), Robert Loggia (Byron), Tony Plana (Emiliano), Harold Sylvester (Perryman). Production company: Lorimar. Distributor: UIP. 35mm. 126 mins. U.S. 1982.

First Contact

Barbara Alysen

The success of Spielberg’s E.T. is proof of just how appealing is the story of initial, friendly contact between two different worlds. First Contact also has that appeal.

In 1930 three Australian brothers, Mick, Tim and Dan Leahy, trekked into the until-then unexplored highlands of Papua New Guinea looking for gold. Like other colonists, they assumed the mountains were uninhabited. Similarly, the million residents of the valleys behind the mountain walls believed they were the only people in the world.

The Leahy brothers’ excursions were one of the last times Europeans would intrude on an ‘undiscovered’ people. Certainly it was the last time so large a group would be found.

What made the Leahys’ trips unique was that the brothers were amateur photographers. They captured their first meetings with, and subsequent life among, the highlanders on photographs and 16mm film.

In 1980, Robin Anderson was in Papua New Guinea researching a planned film on Australian colonialism in the former territory. In the course of her enquiries she was told about some old film held by the son of one of the Leahy brothers. What he had was 2200 feet of disintegrating material. The restored film, and photographs taken by the Leahys, form the basis of First Contact. The images are fleshed out with interviews with the two, then-surviving Leahy brothers and with many of the highlanders who recall the strangers’ arrival and who, by their recollections, establish a context for these old images. Their memories are presented as a mixture of fear, wonder, curiosity and, in retrospect, cynicism.

The highlanders tell their story matter-of-factly, revealing an exceptional concern for minute detail. How they first interpreted the white men’s arrival (plus the arrival of contraptions such as phonographs and planes) and how they worked to reconcile the obvious differences and similarities between themselves and the strangers are part of the film’s magic. This is no place to reveal details. What is striking, however, is their apparent lack of anger at the intrusion. There were some fights in which the Leahys killed natives (in self-defence they said, though it does not square with a villager’s story of how a man was shot after the theft of a lap lap), yet there is little sign of resentment. Did the high

landers take the fighting for granted?When relations were friendly, the

Leahys conducted a busy trade with them: shells, knives and axes in exchange for food and women. Again the tone of their recollections is matter-of-fact. Women who bore children to the Leahy brothers explain how they were traded for “ good things’’. The brothers clearly didn’t disturb paradise.

Robin Anderson came to filmmaking from an academic background and from work as a television researcher; Bob Connolly is one of the old-hands from ABC current affairs; and Stewart Young is one of the most respected documentary film editors in the country (with credits that include Frontline, Public Enemy No. 1 and Angels of War). What the three have produced is an entertaining film about a series of historic meetings — selective, as most accounts are — that is as much drama as conventional documentary.

Stylistically, First Contact contains a little of everything. The narration is by the Leahy brothers, highland villagers and a narrator. Sometimes the faces on the screen talk to an (unseen and unheard) interviewer behind the camera, sometimes to the camera itself. Some events are reenacted for the camera, others for an audience of children with the camera as observer.

The mix of styles enhances the story’s appeal, but produces its own frustrations. The sequence of events, for example, becomes rather jumbled and, without a detailed explanation of relations between the highland villagers, it is difficult to understand the different reactions of the villagers

to the white explorers. First Contact’s success is in recreating a mood rather than chronicling events.

First Contact is one of several recent Australian-made documentaries on Papua New Guinea. The other most significant such film is Angels of War, directed by Andrew Pike, Hank Nelson and Gavan Daws. The story of how Papua New Guinea and its people were treated during World War 2, Angels of War inevitably is an angry film, one which deals with the continuing neglect of one-time service men and women and one which invites analysis and judgment of events.

First Contact doesn’t dwell on analysis, beyond confirming that for the Leahy brothers, and some native men, self-interest played a big part in their relations. And although judgments of the European intrusion on life in the highlands could be made, First Contact does not invite them. What it does do is juxtapose white plans with black naivete. Because the latter is novel and amusing it is that which is the more memorable.

The sombre side of First Contact, and what followed, is another story.

First Contact: Directed by: Bob Connolly, Robin A nderson. P roducers: Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson. Associate producer: Dick Smith. Directors of photography: Tony Wilson, Dennis O’Rourke. Editors: Stewart Young, Martyn Down. Music: Ron Carpenter. Sound recordist: Ian Wilson. Narrator: Dick Oxenburgh. Production company: Arundel Prods. Distributor: Ronin Films. 16mm. 53 mins. Australia. 1983.


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M onsignor

Monsignor

Peter Malone

A facile but not unfair thumbnail review of Frank Perry’s Monsignor could be The Cardinal meets The Godfather via The Shoes of the Fisherman.But that would omit a topical and expensive cousin, The Thorn Birds.

As with so many films with a religious theme, Monsignor tends to assume that religion is a phenomenon of reverential probity (heavenward eyes and pious gestures backed by strings and choirs) and that any deviation takes on solemnity requiring open-mouthed wonder or disgust or both. Monsignor (Christopher Reeve), not unlike the Cardinal (Tom Tryon) 20 years ago, is a pleasantly stolid cleric who is tried in the international as well as internal forum. Reeve uses some of his Superman style and mannerisms — and even changes his clothes for disguise quite often. Things being as they are in the 1980s, prurient curiosity about the temptations afflicting, and falls from, celibacy is soon answered, if not satisfied. From the opening, which parallels ordination and marriage in a Mafia-business wedding-reception (echoing The Godfather’s wedding, baptism and massacre), to the Brotherhood’s black- market deals and to the ‘clean’ arrangements of post-war Mafia activities, The Godfather and Godfather II are not far from the memory. Jason Miller as the Don seems particularly to relish his melodramatic role. But Mafia business and violence are only a part of the film.

Perhaps Monsignor is an example of that ever-popular genre: the over-ripe melodrama. This is a suitable description of Frank Perry’s previous film, the high-pitched portrait of Joan Crawford as Mommie Dearest. By and large, this kind of film is easy to enjoy while it is on the screen, easy to rubbish afterwards. The screenplay takes on so much (too much?) that it cannot do justice to all the issues. In this case, it is the Catholic church, its administration during World War 2 and its financial organization since; interconnections with Italian crime and international banking; the Papacy and its Italian dominance; U.S. influence and religious politics; chaplains in action in war; vocation to priesthood and integrity; celibacy; emotional betrayal — and more. A film like Monsignor is ambitious but

generally can rely on surface treatment — the sensational, the simplistic and the glib — to achieve an effect.

But, while the exploitive elements can be criticized, it does not mean that the scenario and the details are necessarily untrue. Vatican finance is topical enough: in 1982 American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was under investigation about his high finance connections; banking director Roberto Calvi was found dead under Black- friars Bridge in London — murder or suicide? Fraud, embezzlement and criminals serving gaol sentences made headlines. Monsignor thus raises questions that echo reality as well as raising eyebrows.

But the screenplay also attempts to offer a philosophy, perhaps a ‘spirituality’, of the Catholic church. The screenwriters are veterans Abraham Polonsky and Wendell Mayes, noted for hard-hitting dramas of action and corruption; their picture of almost- absolute power in the Vatican (much ring-kissing, even Byzantine kissing of the Pope’s foot) suggests power corrupting — and fairly absolutely.

Yet, the writers seem to be presenting sincerely, through Cardinal Santoni (Fernando Rey), what they see as the Catholic church’s religious belief. The penitent Monsignor is advised that, “ Where you have Peter [the Pope], there you have the Church” : the principal virtue is obedience. Cardinal Santoni seems to believe this and Christopher Reeve acts the sequence of Monsignor’s hearing this sentiment as a repentance and salvation scene.

Obedience, it seems, also will atone for every sin and grant the sinner respectability. Monsignor’s (later Cardinal’s) long, financial, power-hungry and unscrupulous career seems almost justified. Although the Pope finally quotes St John’s Gospel to say that the Church must be in but not o f the world and, although Monsignor will spend time in a monastery soul-searching, his quest seems doomed to be less a discovery of self in any spiritual sense than a reinforcing of the “ right attitude” to obedience. Many Catholics may believe this and act accordingly; many people outside the Catholic church may see it as projecting this image. However, this is not the tradition of the church, with its focus on Jesus Christ, personal religious commitment and the primacy of love and charity. In Monsignor, Christ is reduced to a crucifix figure, an icon or part of the ornamental pageantry. Audiences who are not of the opinion that obedience is the key virtue will be

more sympathetic to Genevieve Bujold’s disillusioned Clara, whose condemnation of the betrayal by her lover is heartfelt and savage. Monsignor seeks God’s forgiveness. Clara says that it is not God that has to forgive. She does; and she never will. However, according to the screenplay, obedience will justify Monsignor’s actions despite Clara’s not forgiving him.

As melodrama, Monsignor takes on a vast best-seller range of issues and characters, and offers a purple- passage, two-hour film, entertaining enough of its kind. Underlying the film is a topicality with some plausibility and definite fascination. It presupposes a view of the Catholic church which highlights its worldliness and over-stresses obedience to make a virtue of the veneer of respectability.

That means that the bases of Monsignor are as simplistic as its surfaces.

Monsignor: Directed by: Frank Perry. Producers: Frank Yablans, David Niven jun. Screenplay: Abraham Polonsky, Wendell Mayes. Based on the novel by Jack Alain Leger. Director of photography: Billy Williams. Editor: Peter E. Berger. Production designer: John de Cuir. Music: John Williams. Sound: Roy Charman. Cast: Christopher Reeve (Flaherty), Genevieve Bujold (Clara), Fernando Rey (Santoni), Jason Miller (Appolini), Joe Cortese (Varese), Adolfo Celi (Vinci), Leonardo Cimino (Pope), Tomas Milan (Francisco), Robert J. Prosky (Bishop). Production company: Twentieth Century-Fox. Distributor: Fox-Columbia. 35mm. 122 mins. U.S. 1982. ^

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The Witness — Jeff Peck; 1st draft funding (commitment due 1.7.83) — $7500Turtle Beach — Polygon Pictures; bank guarantee in lieu of investment — $17,829 The Lesson — Richard Cassidy, Allied Talent; bank guarantee in lieu of investment; 3rd draft funding — $11,500 Taipan Negative — Anthony Buckley Films; bank guarantee in lieu of investment to cover project development funds — $52,327Razorback — McElroy & McElroy; bank guarantee for six weeks — $75,000 Funny Business — Eve Ash, Seven Dimensions; bank guarantee in lieu of investment; 3rd draft funding — $17,000 Oversexed, Overpaid, Overhere — McElroy & McElroy; bank guarantee in lieu of investment; 2nd draft funding —■ $15,000A Grave for a Dolphin — McElroy & McElroy; bank guarantee in lieu of investment; 2nd draft funding — $26,800 The Man with the Donkey — Lynn Barker, Barker Productions; bank guarantee in lieu of investment; 2nd draft funding — $12,000Street Heroes — Michael Pattinson, Julie Monton; 2nd draft funding — $20,320 Daisy — Argus Motion Pictures; final draft funding — $8477DocumentariesAustralian Poets on Film — Richard Tipping; treatment/research funding — $1750I’m Floating on Top of the World — Richard Dennison, Orana Films; treatment/survey costs — $6322 The Bridge — Lesley Stevens; treatment/storyboand funding — $1700

Television SeriesThe Garbos — Terry Bissaker; 1st draft funding (commitment due 1.7.83) — $8000In Like Flynn — Russell Hagg; treatment funding (commitment available 1.7.83) — $7000Eden’s Lost — Michael Edgley Inter- national/Margaret Fink Films; bank guarantee; 1st draft funding — $23,500 The Lancaster Miller Affair — Nilsen Premiere; bank guarantee; 2nd draft funding — $23,000

PackagesPavilion Films Package No. 2 — Pavilion Films; revised treatment development for Clean Straw for Nothing — $9000

Production InvestmentFast Talking — Zarwot; underwriting facility — $79,500

GrantsTravel grant — Alan Maxwell, Peter Evans; to travel to Los Angeles to study special effects techniques — $5743 American Dreams, Australian Movies — Hamilton/Mathews Associates; grant which includes $1000 contributed by Fen- church Insurance Brokers and $1000 to be contributed by NSWFC — $5000

Nominated WritersSilver City — Sophia Turkiewicz, Thomas KeneallyBelow the Line — Mark Stiles Goodbye Adelaide — Bob Ellis Alone Together — Genni Batterham The Grasshoppers — Debra Oswald, Jane OehrLove on a Tourist Visa — Jan Sharp The Umbrella Woman — Peter Kenna Nightshade — Brian Hannant, John Baxter

Compulsion — Terry Jennings, Scott HicksEarth Versus the Globos — Stephen Maclean, Lyndall Hobbs The Witness — Jeff Peck Turtle Beach — Laura Jones The Lesson — Richard Cassidy Taipan Negative — Philip Cornford Razorback — Everett De Roche Funny Business — Patrick Cook Oversexed, Overpaid, Overhere — Trevor FarrantA Grave for a Dolphin — Peter Clifton The Man with the Donkey — James MitchellStreet Heroes — Jan Sardi Daisy — Anthony Wheeler Australian Poets on Film — Richard TippingI’m Floating on Top of the World —Richard DennisonThe Bridge — Lesley StevensThe Garbos — Terry BissakerIn Like Flynn — Russell HaggEden’s Lost — Helen HodgmanThe Lancaster Miller Affair — PeterYeldhamClean Straw for Nothing — Laura Jones

C re a tiv e D e v e lo p m e n t B ra n ch

P r o je c ts a p p r o v e d b y th e A u s tr a lian F ilm C o m m iss io n , D e c e m b e r 1982 to J a n u a ry 1983

ProductionLiz Alexander (NSW); projection investment for Memento — $30,960 Bruno Annetta (Vic.); post-production grant for Balanced (revoked monies reinstated) — $729Michael Glasheen (NSW); production grant for Atomic Landscape — $4713 Debbie Glasser (NSW); production grant for Migrants in Australia (revoked monies reinstated) — $2740

Ros Horin (NSW); additional investment for Tissue (to cover rehearsal costs) — $2000Gary Kildea (NSW); production investment in Celso and Cora — $27,600 Red Heart Pictures (NSW); former distribution guarantee converted to production investment for On Guard — $33,750 Dennis Tupicoff (Vic.); production investment in Dance of Death (revoked monies reinstated) — $3794Robert Wyatt (Qld); production grants for Land (revoked monies reinstated) — $7756

MarketingMatt Butler (NSW); marketing loan for Cityscope — $6020Margaret Dodd; marketing loan for This Woman is Not a Car — $4863 Helen Grace (NSW); marketing loan for Serious Undertakings — $6391 Clytie Jessop (NSW); marketing grant for Flamingo Park — $137 Philip Roope (NSW); supplementary marketing loan for The Applicant — $43 Antoinette Starkiewicz (NSW); marketing loan for Pussy Pumps Up — $84

GrantsCome Out Media Activities Group (SA); grant for Come Out Festival — $1080 Fringe Network (Vic.); grant for Melbourne Artists Festival — $3000 Manly Warringah Media Co-operative; grant for 7th National Youth Film Festival — $1500Metro Television Ltd (NSW); grant for the Television Committee of the Public Broadcasting Association of Australia — $7000 Perth Institute of Film and Television (WA); grant for artist-in-residence, Michael Edols — $2400South Australian Media Resource Centre (SA); additional grant for equipment — $500 +

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G raem e C lifford

Graeme CliffordC ontinued fro m p . 129

writer. He wasn’t exactly filled with humility.

The scene where he first meets Frances, in her dressing room, is shot using cuts to her reflection in the mirror, suggesting that he is talking to her reflection . . .

Yes, he was and she was talking to his. I felt that they were confronting one another indirectly.— From the minute these two people saw one another, there was an instant attraction, an electricity jumping between them. It seemed logical that Frances would talk to him in the mirror because it put that much more distance between them. Then, when she looked at him directly, there was silence.

It seemed that he was relating to Frances Farmer the film star whose name could bring big audiences to his play . . .

No, I think Odets was more concerned with putting her on; he wanted to get a rise out o f her. He dropped those things in to make her react. It goes back to what I said about probing people to make them react. The most honest reaction you will get out o f someone is when you get them unexpectedly. He was sitting on the couch,

testing her, and she was allowing herself to be tested. But she also swings it around and challenges him. I saw it as a little duel between them. I wanted to indicate to the audience that there was an immediate attraction and competitiveness.

You also get a very strong element of competition between Frances and her mother, Lillian . . .

Yes, that was the major competition in her life. That again brings up the scenes that were taken out. There was more use of the scrapbook, which you now only see once in the film: you don’t see Lillian thumbing through this book o f all those images that she held so dear, images o f herself juxtaposed with Frances on the opposite page.

Why did you depict Lillian as the monster of the film?

That is a bit unfortunate because I don’t think she was a monster. In the scenes that I removed, she showed great compassion towards Frances and it made for a much better balanced relationship. It made it a little more understandable as to why Frances kept coming back home.

You construct the home at the beginning as a shining letter box, a

well-kept house that is all clean and nice. There is a wonderful daughter and it looks like the ideal nuclear family. When you see the house at the.end, it has fallen apart, and the letter box is rusty. The whole ideal has gone into decay. Do you see that as a parallel to Frances’ deterioration?

I was trying to indicate that Frances was in fact keeping the mother and the father together. Once she left, there was no family, no home. There was no reason to keep up the house and it just disintegrated along with her.

The contrasts in weather conditions, particularly the use of rain and snow, also seem to reflect Frances’ disintegration . . .

Yes. It comes back to the elements, which have a great effect on me and I know they had a great effect on Frances. One of the first things I discussed with Laszlo Kovacs was the weather. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain in Seattle as

. much as I wanted it to, and I had to use rain machines. I wanted to contrast the rain o f Seattle with the endless sun o f Hollywood.

The sun in California has an effect on you. You get very depressed. There’s all this sun, sun, sun, sun — everything is perfect every day. You just wish for something to go wrong, so that you

could appreciate the good times. You live in perennial sunshine for six months and you get bored stiff.

After the film’s depiction of the conditions in the asylum, the disclaimer at the end seems ironic . . .

I am glad you used that word; that’s exactly the way I wanted it to appear: ironic. The reason I prefaced the disclaimer with my own disclaimer was because I don’t believe it. We were forced to put it there in return for the use of certain facilities. The producers agreed to the disclaimer and I was hoping to imply that I didn’t.

After the obvious commitment you have had to this film, what do you do next?

It is very difficult for me to find something that I feel as passionate about. Before Frances, I was very keen on making the story of Burke and Wills. I have just to rekindle my enthusiasm for it. There are other stories I am interested in making. Jessica and I are going to make the story of Amelia Ear- hart, sometime in the future, and there is another book called O ut o f A frica that I am very interested in. I am also very interested in Charlie C haplin , another astounding person whose life story has fascinated me since I could read. I am talking to a producer about th a t^

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Opposite top: the staff at Berlei have mixed feelings about the newest, ‘chic’ undergarment from New York. Opposite bottom: Nina (Sandy Gore), Berlei’s chief designer, tells some Australian women: “In the great battle of the bulge, we are all undercover agents.” Right: Libby McKenzie (Genevieve Picot) learns the first laws of corsetry: “Displaced flesh must go somewhere. ” Below: Fred Burley (John Walton) defends “Australian made” at a public meeting.

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