Cinema Papers no. 15 January 1978 (2025)

OCR

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Following the Australian Film

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is responsibility for the administration of

a; the Experimental Film and Television

* Fund from the Australian Film
Institute, the Commission has just
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Melbourne oflice.

With a big percentage of Creative
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coming to the Commission from

, Victoria, South Australia and
Tasmania, it made a lot of sense to have
an office and an advisor where those
applicants are.

Greg Tepper came to the
Commission from freelancing and
Experimental Film Fund work for the
A.F.I., before that he was Fred
Schepisi’s prod[...]sible
for providing information on all
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The Australan Film Institute
. . . developing a film culture in Australia

The Australian Film Institute is an independent,
non-profit, cultural organisation. It was established
in 1958 with the principal aim being to encourage
the development of the art of film. in 1976, the AFI
adopted a new constitution and it now has a

nationally-based membership which is open to the
public.

The AFI. is actively involved in developing a film
culture in Australia through the following activities:

Distributing

Through the Vincent Library, the AFI distributes a
wide variety of 16mm and 35mm shorts, short
features and features[...]s, schools,
groups, festivals, film societies and other bodies all
over Australia. The Library has been operating
since 1970 and was named after the late Senator
Vincent. It distributes independent Australian and
overseas productions, films produced with the
assistance of the Experimental Film and Television
Fund, maintains collections for embassies as well
as a collection of classic features and shorts. The
Library has just released a new catalogue which is
available for $3.60 (includes postage). The
catalogue is an invaluable aid to any person or
group interested in film. The Library is situated at
81 Cardigan Street, Carlton, 3053, but films are
available for use anywhere in Australia.

Publishing

In conjunction with publishing houses, the AFl is
publishing Australian Film Posters 1 906-1 958 , a
colourful compilation of early Australian film
posters; and Australian Film 1 906-1 976 , a
companion to film in Australia with an entry
containing full technical details on every feature
film made in Australia. The poster book is due for
release in January. Plans are underway to publish a
further series of books and monographs.

The Australian Film
Awards

The most important annual event for Australian
filmmakers. Now in its twentieth year, the
presentation of the Awards is televised nationally -_
to draw public attention to the latest achievements

of the nation’s film industry.

Resource Facilities[...]blished to provide extensive research facilities.
The centre comprises a substantial book library, an
extensive collection of magazines, and some vital
indices. These include the FIAF index to
International film periodicals published since
1972, the British Film lnstitute’s Film Title Index

1 908-1974 (containing on microfilm details on
over 200,000 films produced throughout the
world) and the BF|’s personality and general
subject index 1935-74. As well as the complete
run of a number of significant magazines
(including Film Quarterlyand the Monthly Film
Bulletin), the centre will soon make available on
microfilm every copy ofvariety ever published.

The information centre has recently made
available a Master Index Of Current Film
Periodical Holdings ln Australian Sp[...]lens lantern by W. C. Hughes, late
19th century)

The AFl has under its curatorship a newly acquired
collection of cinematographic memorabilia
covering the history of cinema up to the coming of
sound. Many of the exhibits are exceptionally rare.
It is envisaged that this substantial collection will be
opened to the public in the near future.

Exhibiting

The AFI operates the Longford Cinema in
Melbourne and the State Cinema in Hobart.
Through it's cinemas, the AF! introduces the public
to Australian and overseas films that are otherwise
unlikely to be released. The cinemas are attractive,
comfortable alternative outlets serving the needs of
filmmakers, independent distributors and a large
section of the community.

”The Longford is, in my opinion, the best place to see
films in Melbourne.”
John Hindle, Nation Review

Other Activities

The AFI, in conjunction with the Australian Council
of Film Societies, organises film viewing weekends
t[...]ped that finance
will be available soon to extend this service
nationally.

The AFI operates a festivals bureau and has
arranged screenings of Australian films in a
number of overseas film festivals.

Australian Film Institu[...]*~A~lr*~k* aia *ir**-kt

If you’re interested in the AFI why not become an
Associate Member? it's the easiest way to keep
informed of the activities and services of the AFI.
Benefits include: Concessions to AFI cinemas[...]ions, a
regular newsletter, and voting rights for the Award
for Best Film of the Year in the Australian Film
Awards.

To join, fill in the details below and send them to
the:

Executive Director, Australian Film institute,[...]ic. 3053

I hereby apply for Associate Membership of the Australian Film
institute and enclose $5.00 (chequelmoney order) being
membership fee for the period to 30 June 1978.

Name . . . . . .[...]

Your scenario calls for the hero to be shot out of the sky
three times . ..

You will be doing a lot of filming in a tropical jungle gorge
(during the monsoon season) and your rushes will have to
travel by flying fox to the nearest helicopter pad, from
where they will be flown over territory held by hostile
savages to the only processing lab within 5000 miles
(which incidentally is run by a kinky native with a diet[...].

Your lead suffers from ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and
has a trick knee as well . . ..

For your final scene (in Arnhem Land) you will be flying thethe way, is rumoured to be having a flu
epidemic) . . .

There is a last minute hassle looming over the music rights. ..

You’ve got your AFC loan, you begin shooting inother
insurances with an expert who understands your business. From the time you call until we
arrange cover can be as little as 24 hours. Contact David Solomon — Sydney, or Wayne Lewis—
Melbourne; the expert directors who will be handling the placement.

ADAIR INSURANCE BROKING GROUP

specialists in insurances for the entertainment industry

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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 on manuscripts and
materials supplied for this magazine, neither the Editor 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 prior permission of the
copyright owner. Cinema Papers is published quarterly _by Cinema Papers Pty. Ltd. Main Office: 143 Therry St.,
Melbourne 3000. Telephone (03) 329 5963. Sydney Office: 365A Pitt St., Sydney. Telephone (02) 26[...]

TAX BREAKTHROUGH

Prior to the December 10 election, the
Liberal Party announced that changes would
be mad[...]t write-offs for feature
films. Considered a unit of industrial
property, a feature could tilt now only be
written off over 25 years, if the film failed
commercially. The mooted tax revisions
would see this changed to a 100 per cent
write-off in two-three years.

While the Australian Film Commission
and other bodies, including the Independent
Feature Film Producers, were hoping for a
12-month write—off period, this new incentive
is a much-awaited step forward. it is now a
question of awaiting the implementation and
seeing if this will in fact encourage private
investment in an industry sorely in need of

new injections of finance.
R.O.T.

FILM STUDY RESOURCE CRISIS

The Australian Film Commission, in taking
over the duties of the Film, Radio and Tele-
vision Board of the Australia Council, was
obliged to assume the cultural responsi-
bilities of that organization. These include

-‘financial support for services providing film
information for the use of students and the
public.

However, recent budget cuts to two
resources centres in Melbourne are
seriously affecting their operations. These
are the George Lugg Library, which did not
get its submitted budget and has been given
notice by the AFC that from the end of 1978
it will have to look elsewhere for financial
support, and the Australian Film Institute.

When the George Lugg Library began in
1957 it was the private domain of George
Lugg, editor of Federation News, the journal
of the Victorian Federation of Film Societies.
Mr Lugg‘s efforts in acquiring research
material for his film program notes have
resulted in the library being able to collect
more than 1000 film[...]r Lugg also instituted a 65,000 card
index system which is unique for a film
library in this country, for it documents
individual references to films and film per-
sonalities in each one of the library's
periodicals.

In 1973, a grant of federal government
funds enabled the George Lugg Information
Service to be set up, and this placed the
resources of the library at the service of the
Australian public. A part-time research
officer w[...]de journals,
were supplied for a nominal charge.

The service has been used by teachers
and students, film critics and film societies,
and by members of the film industry through-
out the country, at a cost to the Australian
taxpayer of $7000 per year.

The George Lugg Information Service is of
particular value to the historian of the
Australian cinema, for among the journals
held by the library are extensive holdings of
such short-lived Australian film periodicals
as F[...]Melbourne Film Bu//efin (1968-71).

Complementing this historical material
are contemporary newspaper clippings,
which provide a critical record of every

Australian feature production of recent
years, taken from the nation's leading
newspapers.

The facilities of the Information and
Resource Centre of the AFl are equally
impressive. For the film student, the AFl's
microfilm reader provides a complete biblio-
graphy of articles on a film or a film
personality to be printed from microfilm
editions of the British Film |nstitute‘s card
indexes. Details[...]s,
made between 1908 and 1976, are
available, and the index, which was compiled
in London, is updated every two years.

There are also rare first editions of film
publications which form part of the David
Francis Collection recently acquired by the
AFI. There are more than 1300 books in this

collection (including works in French,‘

200 — Cinema Papers. January

Germa[...]and Italian), and it is
supported by a collection of rare film
journals dating back to the first years of
cinema.

However, lack of funds is preventing this
collection being made available to the
public.

The institute also subscribes to the
International Federation of Film Archives
(FIAF) card index to international film
literature. The journals indexed are current
ones, and the subject headings (eg., film
distribution and exhibition; sociology of film;
film history and criticism; producers,
directors, actors) make access to informa-
tion an easy task. The system is remarkably
up—to-date, for the cards are added to on a
weekly basis.

The AFI is also planning to make its
resources available to a wider number of
Australian users. It has been studying the
experiments of the BFI, which has been
extending its services to the regions of
Britain, particularly through the use of
duplicate and microfilm material.

The_AFl could also take a lesson from the
Danish Film Museum in Copenhagen. This
progressive body not only supplies leaflets
on films to the public, but also adds to its
extensive collection of the world's film
classics by arranging exchanges with[...]SES

While it is a simple matter to ascertain
box-office grosses in the U.S. and Britain,
these figures still remain largely secret in
Australia. It is therefore with interest one
notices the Australian grosses of Star Wars
as printed in Variety, November 30. (All
figures are in U.S. dollars.)

WEEK SYD. MELB.
1 $73,71 1 $66,61[...]$59,587
3 $72,784 $64,981

It is to be hoped that the release of these
figures is the beginning of a trend, one which
will be of considerable value to people in all

areas of the film world.
S.M.

CHILDREN'S FILM AND TV SEMINAR

A seminar in Children's Film and
Television took place in Canberra during
October 12-16, 1977.

Following in the wake of the Australian
Broadcasting Trib-una|'s report on self-
regulation for broadcasters, the seminar was
clearly very important. it was organized by
the Australian Film and Television School,
the Australian Broadcasting Commission,
the Federation of Australian‘ Commercial
Television Stations, Film Australia and the
Australian Film Commission. These bodies,
representing varied and sometimes
conflicting interest, co-operated in trying to
improve the quality of material for children.
Their interaction was perh[...]r unified action may be forthcoming,
and not only in the area of Chi|dren’s Film
and Television.

The first three days of the seminar con-
centrated on discussion, but the last two
days were set aside towards producing a
final, crucial report and recommendations.

In all, 25 recommendations were passed,
and the seminar agreed to send them, as
soon as possible, to the Minister for Post and
Telecommunications, the Senate Standing
Committee on Education and the Arts, and
the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in
the Arts.

These recommendations and a fuller
article on this important seminar will be
printed in the next issue of Cinema Papers.

B.T.

TASMANIAN FILM
CORPORATION

Further to a Quarter item in the October,
1977, issue of Cinema Papers noting the
Corporation's establishment, Corporation

director Malcolm Smith’has issued the
following policy statement:

The Tasmanian Film Corporation is a stat-
utory body of the State Government. It is an
independent, profit-oriented organization
which aims to participate in, and help the
growth of, a stable film industry in Australia.

It plans to operate with high artistic
business standards, presenting Australia,
and in particular Tasmania, to the world
through factual and fictional productions.

It is interested in the economic and best
use of film to meet the needs of audiences
and sponsors and to provide effective s[...]assist, where possible, with
training programs.

The main functions of the Corporation are
to produce, market, distribute and exhibit film
(including video tapes, photographs and
other works) for the entertainment and
education of adults and children through
commercial and government agencies in
Australia as well as overseas. It is also
involved in hiring its personnel and
equipment.

The Corporation will work with private
industry, public organizations and with State
and Federal Government departments and
instrumentalities. it does not receive govern-
ment grants, but is guaranteed the
production of all State Government films, has
the right to borrow Loan Fund money from
the State Government, and also has the right
to borrow from any source. subject to
Treasury approval, with an expectation of
profit from any investment.

The Corporation will promote audience
education in film and television (both critical
study and crea[...]wn
staff and members, teachers and students,

and the public.
A.P.

HODSDON REPORT UPDATE

The Australian Film Commission has lent
financial assistance for the recent exhibition
in Sydney of films produced with the
assistance of its Creative Development
Branch, for the ongoing activities of the
Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-operative Ltd, and
the exploratory seasons early next year at
the Sydney Opera House Music Room by the
Australian Film Institute. it is perhaps now
worth asking what, if any, are the likely gains
of this flurry of film exhibition and whether
the filmmaker is benefiting.

An analysis of the audited statements of
the AFl and the Sydney Co-op for 76/77, and
figures supplied by the AFC, possibly cast
new light on the conclusions made by Barrett
Hodsdon in his report on Minority Exhibition
and Distribution in Australia.‘

In examining the relevant figures, one can
concentrate on either of two ratios: amount
of subsidy for every dollar returned in film
hire (derived by dividing total film hire paid
out into total subsidy for the financial year);
or, total cost of generating $1 in film hire.
While the second may have some relation to
the efficiency of an organization, the former
ratio is of more importance, because it is the
subsidy level which alone may decide
whether a screening of independent Aus-
tralian films can proceed.

(i) The Sydney Co-op operates a small,
112-seat cinema in St. Peter's Lane
and was subsidized by $23,460 to
return $8685 in film hire. Gross
receipts totalled $17,029 and the
cinema cost $40,990 to run. Overall,
this represents a cost of $2.66 in
subsidy for $1 of film hire generated.

(ii) Over the same period, the AFl's
Longford Cinema (300 seats) grossed
$110,695 to return $29,901 in film
hire. The cinema, which cost
$165,684 to run, lost $53,021; this
meant it was subsidized by $1.77 to
return $1 in film hire.

(iii) The Creative Development Branch's

‘In studying the effectiveness of subsidization to the
Playbox and Co-op cinemas, Hodsdon examined the
cost of subsidy per attendant This broke down to
Playbox $1.40; Sydney Co-op $2.30; and Melbourne
Co-op $2.70.

involvement in this area is via the
“four—walling” of the Union Theatre at
the University of Sydney. Although the
exact breakdown was not available at
the time of going to press, it appears
that almost $13,000 was outlayed in
promotion for a total of three weeks’
exhibition (although these programs
were subsequentl given seasons at
the Co-op cinema .

The only film hire generated was
$1200 for one program (The Singer
and the Dancer and Love Letters
From Teralba Road) and the gross
receipts for the seasons were about
$10,000 for a loss of about $3000. In
other words, it cost $2.50 to generate
$1 in film hire, which appears to have
been calculated according to what
was left after all costs had been
deducted.

Given this, in comparing the AFl and Co-
op operations, it must be pointed out that the
Co-op operates a different programming
policy from the AFI. This results in a much
higher turnover of product (including, like the
AFI, a good proportion of foreign films) and
the considerably smaller seating capacity
means that the figures can't be very high.
Therefore, the above ratios should be viewed
in this light.

B.G.

ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT
FILMMAKERS

The first annual general meeting of the
Association of Independent Filmmakers was
held in Melbourne on Wednesday, November
30, 1977.

The objects of the Association are:

a) to promote and encourage the de-
velopment of a strong independent
Australian cinema, free of foreign
domination;

b) to represent the interes_ts of its
members by lobbying, making repre-
sentations, providing information for
the media and any other activity that
promotes the interests of its members;

c) to promote ways and means of facili-
tating the production, distribution and
exhibition of the films of its members.

Membership is restricted to people who
have produced or directed a film, but
associate membership is available to those
who are employed or otherwise engaged in
the film industry. The founding membership
is made up of those present at the inaugural
meeting, though new members will, from[...]e admitted.

it was also decided that a committee of six
(three members each from the Association
and the Australian Film Institute) be formed
to meet and formulate a two-year plan to
facilitate the distribution and exhibition of
the films of the Association's members
through the Vincent Library.

The elected office holders are Don
McLennan (president), Basil Gilbe[...]QUEENSLAND FILM
CORPORATION

On October 3, 1977, the Queensland
State Government passed the Queensland
Film Industry Development Act 1977. This
Act provides for the establishment of the
Queensland Film Corporation whose
functions are:

(a) to encourage the development of the
film industry in the State;

(b) to continuously review the state of
development of the film industry in
Queensland;

(c) to advise the Minister on matters
concerned with the development of the
film industry in Queensland;

(d) to administer financial and other
asssistance provided by the Govern-
ment of the State to the film industry;
and

(e) to co-ordinate the provision of all forms

The members of the Corporation are: Mr
Syd_ Schubert, Co-ordinator-General
(chairman); Mr John Bensted, Director of
Industrial Development (deputy chairman);
Mr Lee[...]islative
Assembly, Queensland Parliament.

Powers of the Corporation

To enable its functions to be carried out,
the Corporation is empowered:

(a) to investigate and make recommen-
dations to the Minister on applications
for financial and other assistance;

(b) to provide financial assistance for the
purpose of this Act on such terms and
conditions as the Governor-in-Council
approves;

(c) to levy such fees and charges in
respect of the provision of financial
assistance as are prescribed by Order-
in-Council;

(d) to acquire plant, machinery and other
equipment, and to sell, lease or other-
wise make it available to the film
industry on such terms and conditions
as it[...]gifts, devises, bequests and
assignments made to the Corporation
(whether on trust or othenuisel;

(t) to provide advice and such other assis-
tance to the film industry as it thinks fit,
and on such terms[...]ch and investi-
gation into any matter related to the
functions of the Corporation;

(h) to acquire rights in respect of films;

(i) to act as trustee of moneys, films or
other property vested in the Corp-
oration upon trust;

(i) to engage persons having suitable
qualifications or experience as consul-
tants to the Corporation; and

(k) to exercise such other powers and
functions and to perform such other
duties as are prescribed.

Conditions of Financial Assistance

The provision of financial assistance will
be conditional upon the employment of
Queensland film industry personnel,
including local trainees where appropriate.
In addition, films supported by the Corp-
oration will be expected to be shot predom-
inantly in the State.

Logistical Support

Government back-up services, such as
technical advice and the use of government
buildings, police cars, uniforms etc., will be
made available to film producers.

Free or concessional transport on the
state railways will also be provided for film
personnel and equipment moving to or from
a Queensland film location.

Production of Films

The Corporation will not itself produce
films. However, in order to promote co-
ordination in the government production of
films, State Government departments will be
requested to keep the Corporation advised
of their filmmaking activities. AP

‘AFC ANNUAL REPORT

The 1975-76 Annual Report of the
Australian Film Commission was tabled in
federal parliament on September 21, 1977.
An examination of this important report will
appear in the next issue of Cinema Papers.

RS.

CENSOFISHIP

The two most important films to pass
through censorship this quarter were
Walerian Borowczyk’s La Beta (The Beast)
and Nagisha Oshima‘s L’empire des sens
(Empire of the Senses).

La Bete was originally banned in
November 1976. The decision was appealed
in July 1977, but the film was again denied
registration. At this stage it ran 2815m or
102.61 min. The film was then cut by its
distributors to 2701.-70[...]min
had to be deleted. These cuts represent most
of the sequence where Romilda’s (Sirpa

Patti D'Arbanville as Bilitis in David Hamilton's film of the same name. Unaccountably it has
been classified "R".

Lane) passionate lovemaking exhausts the
beast who collapses to the ground and
expires. As a result, the tale has been robbed
of its irony.

Oshima’s L’empire des sens, the troubled
history of which has already been well
documented in Cinema Papers, was finally
passed by the Censorship Board. This
apparently necessitated three cuts: the
climax to the fellatio sequence; a shot of
some geishas impregnating a virgin with the
tail of a china bird; and one close-up of an
erection.

One issue of growing importance in the
past months has been the ‘upgrading’ of
“NRC" classified films to “M" and “M" films
to “R". Richard Fleischefs The Prince and
The Pauper, when given an “M" classifica-
tion to the amazement of distributors and
exhibitors who expected no more than an
“NRC", highlighted an observable tendency
on the part of the censorship office. Another
example was the James Bond film, The Spy
Who Loved Me, which received an “M"
rating, though clearly it is not a film “for
mature audiences only".

In an effort to show its disapproval of
stylized violence, the censors have created a
situation where television[...]ith
regard to violence, are far more lenient than
the corresponding cinema classifications.
And, of course, television has none of the
built-in safeguards of the cinema.

Three more examples are the “R”
classifications given to Serail, Grand Th[...]ject matter.
Grand Theft Auto was rated “R" but the
distributors appealed and the appeals board
overturned the rating and reclassified the
film

Bilitis‘ rating represents Australian
censorship at its most moralistic. The film
has only fleeting nudity and two brief
glimpses of intercourse which are not as
explicit as those, say, in the “M"-rated Inside

Looking Out. So the film is being
deliberately kept out of the reach of those
who would most appreciate and gain from it.
Clearly, the censors regard Mr Hamilton’s
liberating views o[...]s. S M

ACTORS’ EQUITY FEATURE FILM
AGREEMENTS

in the previous issue of Cinema Papers,
No 14, authors Antony I. Ginnane, Leon Gorr
and Ian Baillieu printed the standard Actors’
Agreement By way of reply, Uri Windt of
Actors‘ Equity was invited to write on
unionism within the industry and to comment
on the Actors’ Agreement.

I appreciate the opportunity to present the
rationale for many of the clauses in the
feature film agreement published in Cinema
Papers.

Unfortunately, the tone and expression
used by the authors indicate that they
believe half their fears. The reference to an
actor deliberately breaching his contract by
“purposely forgetting his lines or otherwise
failing to perform" (p 129) verges on the
offensive.

I would, however, like to concentrate on
the positive, and explain Equity’s attitudes
and policy on a number of matters.

1. Local Production vrlnternationalization

We are firmly of the attitude that the
capacity and talents are available, within
Austra[...]ide for an artistically
successful film industry. The days when it
was argued that we had so much to learn
from an overseas actor (or director, etc.) are
no longer with us.

it is now more common to argue that it is

THE QUARTER

economically necessary to have that
overseas actor in order to break into the
overseas market. Common as that attitude is,
no evidence has yet been produced to
support this proposition. It is an article of
faith held by some producers, more for the
comfort it gives than the results it shows.

Australian producers are caught in a
contradiction of their own making. Not satis-
fied with Australian artists as a means of
drawing box-office in Australia, they seek an
overseas actor. Most Australian productions
do not have the budgets to carry "artists of
international repute", so a string of foreign
artists of either lesser capacity or a smaller
“box-office appeal" are proposed.

The irony, of course, is that it is precisely
because these overseas artists are used,
that the logic of a “big-name" does not work.
it is because the foreign artists are not of
"international repute" that the question
arises of whether or not they are assisting
the industry or displacing Australian artists.

We would wish to examine each case on
its merits.

2. Billing.

The agreement provides for credits
(clause 21) for any speaking part of more
than two lines. The only additional stip-
ulation made is when a foreign artist is
engaged — in which case we seek co-billing
for at least one Australian on par with the
foreign artist. That is, equal prominence (eg.
ab[...]rtant, if producers are taken at
their word, that the Australian industry is
seen as viable and vibrant. it is of little use to
have Australia projected as a source of
“cute" fauna and flora. We do not believe
that it is helpful to the industry to have Aust-
ralian actors credited overseas as only
supporting performers. The only answer is to
have equal billing.

3. Union Membership

The principle of union membership has
been fought and won: no one who is not a
member of Equity should walk in front of a
camera.

There has to exist a pool of people, of
sufficient variety in skills and looks, to
portray all that is asked of them.

And actors have to be alive and well to be
available for casual work offered them.

A number of irresponsible producers seek
to cast new faces merely for the sake of
doing so; often without thought to any
responsibility they may have to keeping films
"within" the industry.

It is the policy of the union to restrict entry
of new members to the union. We have done
this to encourage producers to make the
work available, in the first instance, to
existing financial members. If no one is
suitable, or available, from the existing
membership, then we will allow the
producer's nominated artist to join the union.
4. Supplementary Rights

The agreement incorporates rights of
exploitation associated with theatrical and
“fr[...]is an important principle that remunera-
ation to the artist is comparable to the
exposure his/her performance receives. The
horrific prospect of actors starving while
audiences applaud their exc[...]e—recorded performances dominate our
thoughts.

The way in which recorded material is
exploited directly affects an actor's
potential for earning a living. That is the
reason repeats in television drama are
limited to three or less — the less repeats,
the more production is generated.

An unregulated exploitation of recorded
performances would kill the film and tele-
vision industry. That is why the Canadian
industry has sought to stop the introduction
of pay television.

In the case of Australia, supplementary
markets would prove detr[...]and equitable
that Australian performers receive the
“market value" for their work. Hence, we
have set the ceiling for these supplementary
rights at the prevailing rates — that of the
Screen Actors Guild in the U.S.

Conclusion

The agreement as published in issue
No. 14 is the basis for current negotiations
between Equity and feature film producers.
Alterations are made in nearly all instances
to accommodate specific problems of
individual producers.

Equity is quite happy for[...]gated, and negotiations
have twice been initiated in the recent past.
in fact, the Independent Feature Film
Producers Associa[...]

I

.\.g»'[...]“Journey Among Women” is a recent
phenomenon of the Australian cinema. Made for the

very low budget of $170,000,

the film not only

managed to find a commercial release through a major
chain (The Greater Union Organization) but has also
done well at the box-office. In Melbourne, for example, it
opened at the Rapallo Cinema and took $14,732 in its

first week, the highest figure since the re-release there of

“Gone With The Wind”.

“Journey Among Women” is Cowan’s third feature
and follows the critically-regarded “The Office Picnic”
and “Promised Woman”, both of which have managed

only limited releases.

In the following interview, conducted by Tom Ryan and
Nadya Anderson, Cowan explains the concepts behind
“Journey Among Women” and the ways in which he

sought to realize them.

Where did you get the idea for
“Journey Among Women”?

It is an original idea, though
influenced by various sources. At
that time I was r[...]ch writer, Monique
Whittique. It is about a group of
women in the future who, after a
nuclear disaster, live outside of
the cities and society — they have
an Amazon type of existence.

I was also living in the bush then
and seeing things very differently.
So I put a lot of ideas together,
though ultimately it is an original
and fictional idea. _

Then John Weiley came in as
producer and he decided we
should make it into[...]m.
We wrote a screenplay to help
raise money, and this was done by
John, Dorothy Hewett and myself.

Where did you raise the finance?

From private investors that
John found, as well as the Aust-

ralian Film Commission. There
was also an original loan of
$25,000 from the Experimental
Film Fund. ‘

Throughout your career you have
relied on government funding.
Are you happiest working in that
sort of situation?

It doesn’t really matter; the only
thing is whether a film should be
subsidized or not. I think there
should be room for subsidized
films and for films that are viable
in the commercial market place.

“Journey Among Women” is
concerned with woman;
“Promised Woman” the same.
Is this an intended continuity in
your work?

There is a very strong
connection between Office Picnic
and Journey Among Women
because they utilize the same plot;
that of a group of people who
make an escape from confinement

(0 I . on Saunders, Sydney

and go into the wilderness. They
go through certain rituals and try
to find a new basis for existence.
Finally, a balance is attempted
between the two. Journey Among
Women, however, is the more
full—blooded version.

Office Picnic is really more
about the man than the group — I
think he is the hero of it. So to say
I have only been making films
abou[...]e it’s
about a psyche, about balancing
elements in a single personality.
And though it fits in with many
interesting contemporary sociol-
ogical views, I didn‘t make it for
or about an audience of women,
but for myself.

In Promised Woman, the film I
made in between these two, I
made a lot of mistakes; it’s more
conventionally motivated and
commercial. I didn’t actually write
the story for that.

If not a continuity of theme, do
you have a continuity of style?

No. I think my photography is
very simple and straightforward.

Is that deliberate or a virtue of
your limitations?

I think it’s both. I don’t think of
myself as a very good cameraman;
I just do what I[...]at
you would call competence.

Obviously a number of people
would disagree since you have
worked for m[...]gained anything
from these experiences?

Yes. One of the inspirations for
doing Journey the way we did was
Pure Shit, which I photographed.
Bert Deling was using workshop
techniques with the actors and
developing their characters this
way. That was a big impetus.

John Duigan’s film Mouth to
Mouth was also very stimulating
because of the idea behind it.
Working on other films keeps me
thinking, though it is sometimes a
strain, and I only work with the
few people I get on with.

You have focused in “Journey
Among Women” on the strength
of women; the male characters by
comparison are very weak. Yet
you say the film isn’t about
women, it’s about yourself. How
do you relate yourself to the
strength of the women as you
portray them?

Well, it’s the strength of the
intuitive faculty in the personality.
I am using women as a sort of
symbol of that. The male side, the
logical part of the personality, is
rigid.

Cinema Papers, Jan[...]

I hoped you wouIdn’t say
that. . .

Well, you have to use these
words. The man in the film you
say is weak, but he has a vision
and he has plans, though he
doesn’t have an ability to cope
with the present. That’s his weak-
ness, whereas the women are
weak in that they are totally irre-
sponsible; they have no way of
using their faculties con-
structively. I see them as being
almost as extremely out of balance
as the main character.

Why is the film set historically?
You took it from a futuristic
poem, and set it 200 years in the
past. . .

I think this film is pretty clearly
about the present, and one of the

ways I look at the film is that it is a.

sort ofjourney though time; one

204 — Cinema Papers. January

of its themes, the history of the
struggle for emotional liberation.
Perhaps its a bit obscure.

I am not quite sure that I ever
feel the women become liberated
emotionally; I find them trapped
all the time — despite the
ending. . .

Well, I would only find it to be a
true liberation if it was an inte-
gration of the emotional and
logical sides of the personality —
its not just being able to do what
you want.

It is obvious that there has been
a certain liberation of our
emotions over the years, an
upward thing of being able to
express the emotional side of
one"s personality. I am really
speaking about men[...]o see Elizabeth as
being emotionally liberated at
the end, when she can go back to
civilization and end[...]to me
that it is a far more constructive
act than the violence and the
inevitable further retreat . . .

Yes, that’s l[...]society; she is a
more fully integrated person.

The actresses have very strong
personalities. Did you choose
them because of this?

Yes, they had to be fairly strong
to withstand it. Only one ran away
and she did come back to finish off
the war.

How closely were the women
modelled on themselves?

Fairly closely, but that was the
idea. We felt the film would be

more lively and vivid if the

Tom Cowan, with cast and crew, debate the next set—up while on location for Journey
Among[...]heir own characters.

You have taken on a subject
which at least partially deals
with women’s liberation; what
are your feelings on the move-
ment?

I feel very strongly and
emotionally about the liberation
movement because of all sorts of
confrontations I have had with
women who were try[...]ss themselves. It was painful
and I got caught up in it. It was if
they were in a relationship in
which they were trying to work
things out.

At the same time, I was living in
the bush near the Hawkesbury,
and I began to see how beautiful it
was. I was also studying how the
British had always described the
bush as ugly, and because of this
the whole cultural cringe in Aust-
ralia had for years accepted that
the Australian landscape wasn’t as
beautiful as that in Europe; that it
was empty and colorless.

Obviously when the British first
struck it, they just couldn’t mak[...]t was and so it appeared
awful to them. And it is the same
way that women are looking at the
new, at acting in a new way. It is
unknown and, therefore, awful.
A[...]taken it into ourselves, there
could be no beauty in it. The
perception was that it was ugly, as
the other perception of the bush
was that it was ugly. So Ijust tied
the two things together.

Various reports have said that
the screenplay was written as
you went along. What sort of
control did you have and how
much of the film is yours?

The structure of the film was
very rigid, and I hope strong
enough to give us the freedom to
try, other things, to go off theof control
at times, and thats a sort of
criticism that one makes of that
aspect of life; that too much
freedom means things fall apa[...]that it was a
rich emotional experience.

During the six-week shooting
period, you lived together in
conditions like those seen in the
film. Did that raise problems?

Yes, it was a tremendously
difficult way of making a film‘, but
I thought it was the only way to
make one which would have
enough guts to outweigh its limi-
tations of budget. I think one of
the things we did achieve was
getting our strengths onto the
screen, and we used these
techniques to do it.

I found quite a bit of the dialogue
embarrassing; as when the
soldier sees Elizabeth at theThe voice-over reflection about
the process of love seemed an
intrusion on what was
happening; it didn’t really have a
context . . .

I get this kind of response often,
and what it says to me is that
people have very strong ideas
about what happens in a film and
what they feel people should be
doing or thinking. They seem to
get very uncomforta[...]

ventional[...]what they expect them
to do.

That does not deny the voice-over
was unexpected. . .

I agree, because its not estab-
lished as a convention — it only
happens once in the film. Itjust so
happened that we liked this tape of
Diana talking about herself, and it
seemed to comment on other
parts of the film.

But there is such a thing as
dramatic logic, whereby you
construct certain expectations
within the film itself. Now you
don’t construct the expectations
of her discussing herself in those
terms. . .

You are quite right, and ifthat’s
a[...]amatic logic, I think
is questionable.

I believe the planned ending was
quite different, in that you were
going to wipe everybody out . . .

The ending in the film is similar
to the scripted one. I think the
only difference was that everyone
was to be caught in the bushfire,
but with the women rising up
again from the ashes — a very
poetic image. What I originally
had in mind is now suggested by
the couple of women who are
reborn at the end.

Jude Kuring, for instance, is
shot off her horse, but rises up
again out of the waters. The girl
who is shot in the tree (Lisa
Peers) also re-appears later on.

.4

The flashback to the Greek island in Cowan‘s Promised Woman. Jean-Claude Petit and
Yelena Zigon.

The dramatic logic of the film led
me to think that there would be
an annihilation at the end . . .

Well, we chose to have a
romantic ending which suggested
the possible overcoming of
repression — this is really the
essence of it. I thought I would be
able to convey thatthrough the
character of Elizabeth, in that she
was able to overcome her
repression and integrate the two
faculties of her personality.

I got the feeling that when she
went back I could not trust her in
the same way as I might have
before she left . . .

Well you are a hopeless, cruel
romantic.

At the beginning there is a
panning shot which picks up a
soldier riding a horse through
green forest. You then cut to a
different movement over the
naked body of the woman, a
movement connected with the
gentle fall of a feather. You
move, in effect, from romance to
reality. Now that movement is
reversed at the end; it almost
seems a retreat into the romantic
rather than a confrontation with
the reality . . .

I think those elements are
definitely and strongly there. One
feminist lady who saw the film
said that after she had seen the
first couple of scenes she thought
to herself, “Oh there’s a bloody
guy riding through Marlboro
Country; this is going to be
another of those shit films.” But
then its certainly got contras[...]film and I don’t know
about your interpretation of the
ending. I suppose it is a bit
romantic, but I believe that
repression can be overcome. At
the same time, I think there have
been a lot offilms over the past 15
years that have had very negative
readings of reality. I am sick of
that convention.

Was there a recut on the film?
Apparently the Cannes print was
different from those in current
release?

Basically there are about four

minutes taken out, which was two
very long shots of people walking
in the bush. We felt it was a good
idea to make it move a little
quicker.

As far as the flow of the film,
something happens after the
escape from the camp; it begins
to meander, become aimless . .

It changes throughout the film
and that seems to have been the
most upsetting thing about_it for
the critics. The first scenes are
very structured, and refined
soc[...]that is
because there was less direction
applied in that part of the film.

I had the feeling, after about half
an hour, that we are going to
have another “Dalmas” which
set up a fictional context, then
threw it away .[...]ofthat, but
I had considered it as a possibility
in the audiences perception. I
hope that all along the sequences
question each other, like at the
end where it turns to fantasy in
the war.

I hope the film relies on
contrasts, not only in the visual
sense, but also in the way the
shots are taken and the changes in
the style ofof life in
it. In contrast to many other Aust-
ralian films, it moves along and
has a lot of energy. Bert is the
foremost director in Australia for
getting energy on the screen. I
haven’t seen Backroads, but I
believe that’s also got a lot of fire
in it.

The films that have most
influenced me are my own, ju[...]d what
didn’t. Every time I make a film it
sort of comes up to 20 per cent of
what I wanted. Then ljust feel like
going out and solving those
problems: technical ‘problems,
organizational problems,
problems of communication,

. .
“'3. a
C‘? "
.5 ‘, ‘[...]3 ,.,
-: ' ' 1 V
~_ _, » .. .4
._,‘’h ‘ _

The lovers (Gay Steele and Philip
Deamer) in Cowan‘s first feature, The
Office Picnic.

production, editing, etc. I am a
real filmmaker in that sense; I like
to be able to do the whole thing
myself. But now that I am working

with John Weiley (the producer)
my experience and confidence is
such that I can now trust other
people to do things. I am doing
less and less, and the films will
start making themselves soon.

What are your future plans?

The next film is going to be
about two people trying to come
to terms with each other. They
live in a bed-sitting room, cut off
from society. There i[...]lk to and no one is repressing
them — just each other and that’s
the drama of it.

So, in fact, you are moving away
from a film about group[...]hips . . .

Yes, though there are relation-
ships in Journey, even ifthey are
only schematic. *

FILMOGRAPHY

I962 Nimmo Street (short)

1964 The Dancing Class (Short)
1967 Helen of Sydney,(short)

1970 Australia Felix (short)

1971 The Story of a House (short)
I972 The Office Picnic

1974 Promised Woman

1975 Wild Win[...]

0 Films of promiscuous experience (most
notably the Antoine Doinel cycle), usually in
the form of a sentimental education, and
driving their protagonist towards the
conclusion that, no matter how full of cruelty
and suffering it is, life is marvellous and people
are unique.

0 Films of l’amourfou —— La mariee etait
en noir (The Bride Wore Black), La sirene du
Mississippi (Mississippi Mermaid),
L’histoire d’Adele H. — in which a central
character remains faithful to a preconceived
passion, to an idea of the person he/she loves,
in the face of all kinds of conflicting
experiences. It is the nature of such fidelity to
be treated unto death, and thes[...]i Pflflllill

Jan Dawson

fulfilment.

0 Films which celebrate human
achievements rather than human emotions:
Fahrenheit 451 was a hymn to the power of
literature, L’enfant sauvage (The Wild
Child) a hymn to the power of language —
linking the two films was the idea that
communication is sacred and separates man
from the beasts.

The three parts of Truffaut’s cinema,
however, have never been entirely separate.
The fidelity with which the Fahrenheit
bookmen stuck to the classics of world
literature in a world which had outlawed the
printed word had all the emotional hallmarks
of l’amourfou. In the course of acting out her
single obsession, the bride-in-black discovered
on the way the infinite variety of the human
species.

Whether fighting the provisional nature of
all relationships or joyfully endorsing the
status quo, the fickle and the faithful have
been guided by a single perception of the
magical nature of one or more other people.

Yet, even if the three parts were never
entirely separate, they were never entirely
equal. With the possible exception of La nuit
americaine (Day for Night) — in which

Bottom left: Francois Truffaut with his stars of L’argent

du poc_he. Top left: Truffaut with Brigitte Fossey (as

Genevieve) in The Man Who Loved Women. Above:
Truffaut in his role of Ferrand in Day for Night.

Truffaut, through a collection of'unstable and
provisional characters describes his own amour
fou. for another form of communication, the
cinema — one strand or another has always
been dominant. Now, with L’homme qui
amait les femmes (The Man Who Loved
Woman), he has achieved a perfect synthesis
of all three strands.

It is another tale of amour fou, distinguished
by the fact that the object of his hero’s love is
this time collective rather than individual:
Bertrand[...]ssed, not with one
woman, but with all women; and in the best
dramatic tradition of heroes who devote their
lives to the pursuit of a single goal, he dies as
he has lived, \ in the active service of his
dominant passion. It is the sight of a unique
pair of legs that causes him to make the final,
suicidal move from his hospital bed.

At the same time, the nature of Bertrand’s
single-minded passion is such that he is
constantly open to, and in active pursuit of,
new and varied experiences.

His promiscuity is not ofthe common stamp.
He does not collect love-affaires in the spirit of
the vulgar womanizer for whom quantity is
more import[...]ess, but idealism that drives him from
one bed to the next. Each seduction is an act of
homage to what is unique and irreplaceable in
each woman he meets.

Bertrand’s job at the Institute for Fluid

Mechanics is a more responsible version of
Antoine Doinel’s work with the model boats
in Domicile conjugale (Bed and Board), and
there are enough other similarities between
the two characters for one to interpret
Bertrand Morane as a 40 year-old version of
Antoine Doinel. He may be seen as someone
who has taken literally Delphine Seyrig’s
advice to the adolescent Antoine in Baisers
voles (Stolen Kisses) — “Nous sommes[...]aceable consummation.

Bertrand’s recollections of his negligent and
promiscuous mother also invite comparison
with Antoine’s. While in his final affaire with
Genevieve, the one woman he can talk to, he
seems also to be coming to the same
conclusion that drove Antoine back to his
rather boring marital nest in Bed and Board:
that exotica is all right in the short run, but
that it’s no substitute for communication.

For in Truffaut’s tale of the amour-fbu of a
promiscuous hero, the third strand of his
filmmaking is equally dominant. Bertrand is a
man of reflection as well as of action. He is in
the process of writing a book about himself,
and this work (through which he meets
Genevieve) brings him face to face with the
paradox of all artistic creation: that com-
munication is a solitary business.

Like Ferrand (the director played by
Truffaut in Day for Night), Bertrand spends
his nights alone.[...]. At his
funeral, Genevieve reflects that, beyond the
tenderness and momentary pleasure which he
gave to all his women, Bertrand has left
somet[...]ehind him. Once
again, Truffaut attests his faith in the power of

*“We are all extraordinary beings.“[...]ne
Darbon) and Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) in
Stolen Kisses.

the written world - Ars longa, vita brevis. . . ,
the message of all his films.

Apart from the obvious parallels between
Bertrand and Antoine Doinel, The Man Who
Loved Women is more than usually crammed
with references to Truffaut’s earlier films. This
is not so much a form of self-indulgenceas a
recapitulation, for in loving all women,
Bertrand inevitably loves all f[...]roines (and minor female characters) as
well. For the hardened film—buff, part of the
fun of the new film lies in spotting the
references, and it would be wrong to spoil that
f[...]his friend Alphonsine
performs a skeleton number in a fairground

FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT

The Word Triumphs: Oskar Werner and Francois Truffaut
in the last scene of Fahrenheit 451.

L'amour fom Julie (Jeanne Moreau) and one of the
‘imaginary’ portraits. The Bride Wore Black.

identical to the number described by the
prostitute in Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the
Pianist); his friend Delphine goes to prison
for a crime passionnel — The Bride Wore
Black, Une belle fille comme moi (A
Go[...]ike Me)‘, he finds what might
be a durable love over breakfast in bed (cf.
Stolen Kisses, Day for Night).

Finally, Bertrand meets his end in a manner
already described, for comic effect, in Shoot
the Pianist. One of the crook’s fathers had
also been killed while pursuing a pretty girl
across the street.

It is not so much that women (or their legs)
obsess Bertrand as that they perpetua[...]. As Fabienne explains when she
leaves him, it is the idea of love, not love
itself, which motivates him. Behind this idea,
there lurks the mystery of otherness, the
mystery of one sex for another, described in a
variation of Renoir’s La regle du jeu (Rules of
the Game) and showing, like Renoir’s film, a
society in which the rules for social and sexual
behavior are undergoing a striking change.

Whatever the moral of his story, Bertrand
Morane, at the age of 40, is still building his
life around the question put by the juvenile
lead, Alphonse, in Day for Night: “Est-ce que
les femmes sont magiques?”

And Truffaut’s answer, expressed this time
through Genevieve, is still the same: if women
are magic, then men are mag[...]

The Man Who Loved Women, Truffaut‘s perfect synthesis of the strands of his previous cinema.

Did you intend to make a kind of
resume film about a middle-aged
Antoine Doinel who falls in love
with all your previous heroines?

It wasn’t that deliberate. It was
rather that there were a number of
actresses I wanted to work with.
And I realized that this film gave
me the chance to do so. It was just
a question of following the logic of
the script. Though in fact, I still
wan’t able to provide parts for half
the actresses I’d have liked to use.

The script was written for
Charles Denner, and in the end he
was the only person for whom a
part was specially written.

A couple of reviews have
criticized the film as being
misogynistic. . .

I knew that was one of the
dangers. But on the other hand, I
think its very important to stand
firm and not be too servile
towards the latest trends. Of
course it’s true that no one today
is going to talk about women in
the same terms they did in the old
days, but that doesn’t mean that
men have to abandon a male point
of view. That would be absurd,
pure servility.

And is a male point of view the
same as a misogynist one?

208 — Cinema Papers.[...]don’t
feel guilty about it. It’s obvious
that in my 15 years films, the
women’s parts were better than
the men’s. Not just from the
actresses’ point of View but also
on the feel of the characters — the
women were much more postive.

Anyway, people have often
complained that the men in my
films are too weak, so ifl had to
make a consc[...]be to make my male
characters stronger. Although in
fact, as with women, I show men
the way I see them.

What I am trying to say is that[...]or me. I
don’t need to keep telling myself
that in 1977 you can’t talk about
women the way you used to.

I have the feeling that I just
have to be true to myself. Being
natural is the most important
thing of all. It’s better to stay
natural and be attacke[...]to time.

Servility is unforgiveable,
especially in the cinema, where
it’s glaringly obvious when
someo[...]just
reproducing and not actually
feeling.

Most of the complaints about
the film being misogynistic are
from men who have seen the film

and decided that women were
going to be offended by it.
Whereas women’s reactions to the
film have been about 80 per cent
positive.

Even[...]al
before 1968, didn’t have any
complaints. No, the complaints
really came from men who were
trying to put themselves in a
woman’s place.

Most of the reviews from
women critics have been very
favorable. There is much pressure
nowadays to conform to a certain
political line. And you have to
resist it. You ca[...]st that people make
films with a positive ending. Or
with a feminist ending.

You can’t make films to please
otherthe unconscious
as well. You have to work with
both elements. I don’t like films
where it’s obvious that the
meaning was entirely determined
before they had e[...]what I call
Cayattism.

Andre Cayatte used to be the

mioiint out mm

LES FENMES

.5 H4

only French director to make this
kind of pre-planned cinema.
Unfortunately, since 1968 there
has been a rebirth of Cayattism. It
forced the cinema in that
direction. Films whose meaning is
spelled out on paper in advance.
And I can’t see what pleasure you
can get from making a film in that
situation, because so many things
change when you start to shoot.

When we had finished the script
for The Man Who Loved Women,
we thought it was going to be very
funny. The people who saw it at
the first private screening came
out saying they hadn[...]ll it a
dramatic comedy. That’s what I’d
call the script, though again, the
proportions of comedy and drama
change once you start to shoot.[...]Hundred
Blows)

I960 Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the
Pianist)

l96l Jules et Jim

1964 La peau douce ([...]966 Fahrenheit 451

I967 La mariee etait en noir (The Bride
Wore Black)

I968 Baisers voles (Stolen Kis[...]ket Money)

1977 L’homme qui aimait les femmes
(The Man Who Loved Women)

While The Picture Show magazine rated
Faulkner’s performance as the best of his
career,2 a portryal which reached well beyond
surface departure in make-up to probe the
subtle mental distinctions separating the two
look-alikes, a murder victim and his imperson-
ator, the Sydney Sunday News wrote that “Mr
Jack Faulkner rises to the heights of genius.”3

The Blue Mountains Mystery came
approximately halfway[...]s
most demanding and best work up until his
death in 1934. That he was given no other role
to seriously challenge his range was a
reflection of the declining fortunes of the
Australian film industry and Faulkner’s own
lack of ambition. As his son, actor Trader
Faulkner, was[...]John Faulkner had a solid theatrical
background in Britain and the U. S. , and had
been associated with such showbus[...]overseas, Faulkner preferred
sporadic employment in Australian silent
films.

Despite his experience in theatre overseas,
Faulkner was seldom seen on the Australian
stage. He kept out of debt by dividing his

Graham Shirley is a lilm hi[...]alian cinema.

employment between acting and work in other
professions — as an inventor, entrepreneur’s

offsider and even as a salesman. His
knowledge of drama was enough to involve
him on the production side of Australian films
as well.

As an actor, his most distinctive roles were
those ofthe refined heavy, but he also played a
gallery of indulgent or put-upon fathers. His
appearance was more suited to the villains than
fathers.

The polish which he brought to even minor
roles was again evident in Silks and Saddles, a
recently restored film of 1921, which was
featured at the 1977 Sydney Film Festival.

Between 1918 and 1929, Faulkner appeared
in 12 Australian films and one in New Zealand.
And more than any other British actor of the

period, Faulkner provided an added dash of

llll

Ell

Trader Faulkner

style through his own appearances, and helped
directors boost the work of other performers.

John Faulkner’s son, Trader, has lived in
London since 1950, when he left Australia to
pursue a career in the theatre. As a young stage
and radio actor in Australia, Trader Faulkner
trained under Peter Fi[...]between 1948 and 1950 made impressive
appearances in stage productions of They Walk
Alone, The Guinea Pig, Ah, Wi/dernessl, Fly
Away, Peter, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Recognizing his talent in Merry Wives,
Tyrone Guthrie sent Trader Faulkner to
London. Since then, his career has embraced
the stage, feature films, and television. His
non-act[...]phy, journalism, and work on
English translations of the plays of Spanish
playwrights, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Aleja[...]his
father’s career when he read press reports in
August 1976 that the National Film Archive
had rediscovered vitalmissing sections of The
Breaking Of The Drought, filmed by W.
Franklyn Barrett in 1920. John Faulkner had
played the star heavy in this film and served as
the f1lm’s co-producer.

The following article has been drawn from
John Faulkn[...]ader
Faulkner has had with relatives and friends. In
editing this article, I have expanded various
points with info[...]tional research.

My father’s death was sudden. The day after
he collapsed, in September 1934, I was sent
away to my grandparents at Manly Vale. I ran
away and was finally sent to stay in Mosman,

Cinema Papers, January — 209

‘u

‘o
'9
.
O
In.‘

The family was relieved he had gone,
except me. Some of his mementos were
thrown out, and I remember a dustman
furious at finding me raking through a garbage
bin in search of Dad’s things at eight o’clock
one morning, in the backyard of our flat at
North Steyne.

By the time I was an adolescent, my mother
and other relatives regarded Dad as a bit of a
joke. I believe he was an extremely good actor,
born about 20 years ahead of his time. In truth,
my mother adored him. According to her, he
was very much the John Barrymore type —
arrogant, Victorian/Edwar[...]zy. Everything came
too easily to him.

I am sure the arrogance, good looks and
great charm were his un[...]him more vividly than anyone now
gone, because at the time of his death, I was at
a very impressionable age.

He was like Jean Gabin. He had the same
weight and strength, though he was more
raffiné than Gabin. The Englishman he
sounded and looked most like was the actor
Clive Brook.

When I grew up in Sydney in the 1930s and
’40s, nobody wanted to know about peo[...]ymond Longford, Franklyn Barrett,
Beaumont Smith; or the actors my father had
worked with — Claude Flemi[...]or. They
were passé by 1930, and by 1946 unheard of.

Tal Ordell was very kind and helpful during
the time I was trying to break into Sydney
radio. When I spoke to Tal Ordell, Nan Taylor
and Bobby MacKinnon in 1948, they were
reticent about those years in which they had
done so much. By then, they were giving radio
some of the dimension, style and tradition it
lacked, and they seemed ashamed of silent
film as a non-auditory medium.

I worked as a make-up assistant on Eureka
Stockade in 1948 under Ealing’s Tom
Shenton, but I kept ver[...]ant to hear any smart alec talk
about what a load of crap all that silent shit
was. This was the way they talked about silent
film in the late ’40s.

John Faulkner was the fifth of 10 children,
born at Ashby-de—la—Zouche, Leicestershire,
England, on July 13, 1872. He was a
descendant of Warren Hastings, the first
Governor-General of India. John Faulkner’s
grandfather was the Marquis Warren Hastings
of Donisthorpe, who, facing old age and
imminent death, married his nurseand sired
one child. The child was John’s father Edwin,
born on April 23, 1836. John later told
relatives that his father ruled the family with
draconian discipline.

By the time his wife had died in childbirth in
1885, Edwin was in charge of the big Moira
Colliery at Ashby-de—la-Zouche. That same
year, his second wife demanded that all the
Faulkner children aged 13 and over should
leave home. John turned 13 in July, and clad
in a cerise blazer, white ducks and straw
boater, he[...]to work as a sty-
hand on a relative’S pig farm in Ontario,
Canada.

Clearing out the sties was not the herculean
role in which he saw himself at that age, so he
fled the farm and made for Toronto. There he
trained for eight years with the Canadian Bank

ofCommerce. In 1893, he returned to England
and worked several years as a traveller for the
brewing concern of Bass and Company. In the
early 1890s he met and formed a long-lasting
frie[...]stralia.

Asche had left Australia to study drama in
Norway and Britain. From 1893 he was
engaged by the Benson Shakespearian
Company. With John Faulkner, he travelled
the length and breadth of Britain. Among his
other accomplishments, John was an inspired
inventor, a[...]n on wheels loosely
described as a thermosfridge. In one half, a
cooked meal could be kept at the required
level of heat all day; and in the other, salads,
wine and other perishables could be kept cool
or frozen.

Dressed in black like undertakers, Faulkner

and Asche wheeled and sold their thermos-
fridge across the country. They successfully
lured the lonely housewives with its potential

and made a small fortune. Oscar Asche
invested his half in theatrical productions,
climaxed in the 1910s with his spectacular
success C/124 C/zin C/z0w.4 Faulkner’s profits
went into horses, the good life, and eventually
a trip to Australia.

I[...]entation on John’s entry
into professional work in the theatre between
the 1890s and 1906. He had behind him that
Victorian—Edwardian conditioning which made
that generation aware the world was theirs; and
after the pig farm interlude, he was
determined never to start at the bottom again.
Too frequently, however, his positi[...]y an enormous ego.

One example I heard concerned the time
Oscar Asche tried to get him a contract with
the Benson Shakespearian Company. Sir Frank
Benson’s insistence that male members of his
company must be able to play a first-class game
of cricket drew from John the comment that
he found cricket as exciting as masturbation —
and that the advantage of masturbation over
cricket was one’s ability to play in winter,
never having to . assume fancy dress, and
finding the balls to be far less lethal. Needless
to say, he failed to get the job.

In the early 1900s he became a drinking
companion of John Barrymore, of whom he
later said he had his own understanding.[...]Top: John Faulkner as Capt. Wolff Forrest in £500
Reward (1918). Above: Cast and crew of the film,
including Lacey Percival (behind camera), R[...]ht).

Barrymore was a painter before he turned to
the stage, and Faulkner had the highest regard
for him as a painter, as an actor,[...]n.

Barrymore invited Faulkner to travel with
him in the William Collier Company to
Melbourne in 1906 to appear in The Dictator.
But Faulkner refused on the grounds that he
was planning to take his less-known company
to South America.

On March 8, 1906, the Faulkner company
embarked from New York for Buenos Aires on
the Hobart. They played to capacity houses in
Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Las
Palmas, Panama and Celina. In his youth John
had achieved some notoriety through the
performance of risque, sometimes bawdy
monologues and ballads at society parties.
Judging from the rave reviews in press
cuttings of the South American tour, this
amateur preparation in comedy had paid off.
Reviewing his work as a char[...]enos Aires newspaper wrote: “Mr
Faulkner is one of the far too few entertainers
who can be exceedingly funny, and yet entirely
free from anything that savours on the
vulgar.”

Cinema Papers, January —- 2ll

Above: The Enemy Within (1918), Faulkner‘s first Aust-
ralian film. Centre foreground: Lily Molloy and Faulkner
as the German spy Karl Brandt.

Right: At opposite ends ofthe table in this scene from The
Enemy Within are Billy Ryan and John Faulkner.

Below: John Faulkner as “Patch" Mason in The Birth of
New Zealand, one ofFaulkner’s few non-villainous roles.

In 1907 he then appeared as a comedian at
the Lincoln Square theatre in New York.

In 1911, John’s big break came when he
played George D’Alroy in a U.S. tour of T. W.
Robertson’s Caste. Charles Frohman, the
American impresario, wanted a young leading
man t[...]n
stage, and invited him to go on tour with Ethel
in a repertoire of plays by Pinero and J. M.
Barrie. In another moment of arrogant
madness which was to determine the future
pattern of his life, John turned down the offer
and insulted Frohman and Ethel Barrymore by
saying he regarded the U.S. as a zoo for the

scum of the worst British and European bour-
geoisie. After this tirade, John took a boat back

to England and began his film career.

There is no record of the films he made in
London, though one title, remembered as the
butt of family jokes, was God’s Prodigal.5
Between 1911[...]astic-
sided shoe called “Boscalace”. Another of his
inventions, still in vogue when I was a child,
was a roulette-style horse racing game, in
which a cardboard disc the size of a record
would be marked up with horses and their[...]pun on a gramophone. He
was to remain an inventor of gimmicks and
useful devices for the rest of his life.

It was a meeting with fellow actor Roy[...]ohn decide to come to
Australia. Redgrave, father of Sir Michael, had
worked on the Australian stage since around
the turn of the century, and found frequent
employment in Australian films. Redgrave’s
account of Australian entertainment possibil-
ities inspired John to book his own passage,
and he left for Australia in early 1914.

Soon after settling in Sydney, he married an
older woman — a wealthy w[...]a
houseboat, and a photograph shows John
looking the real Edwardian dandy in white
ducks, with Annie beside him in a wicker
chair, very much the femmefarale.

He may have known Claude Fleming, an
actor with whom he would work in Australian
films. Like Faulkner, Fleming had already
toured Britain and the U.S. with the added
distinction of film roles in both countries.
John’s other friends and drinking companions
were the Sydneyjet set ofthe period, including
Percy Stewa[...]es Du Val, Libbias Hordern, and Hugh
D. McIntosh, the vaudeville and boxing entre-
preneur. These peopl[...]osh.
and also by another friend, J. D. MacDonald,
in the sale of Parkinson and Cowan gas stoves.
MacDonald also dealt, and was an expert, in

antiques. _ _
lt is more than likely that John Faulkner

appeared on the Australian stage between
1914 and 1918, although no reviews have been
found to support this assumption. Probably in
early 1916, he decided to re-visit the U.S.

He visited Hollywood and befriended
Charles[...]got to know him well
enough to devise a scenario, which my mother

« found in 1934 at Manly scrawled with

Chaplin‘s comments. The scenario, which was
never filmed, was based on one of John’s
experiences while travelling through Cornwall
for Bass and Co.

In late 1917, John returned to Australia. The
next year he became the business manager of
Sheila Whytock, a ballerina working for J. C.
Williamsons. Sheila had studied under
Espinosa and Diaghilev in London and toured
South America with Pavlova. She was the
niece of John’s friend Jim McDonald, and
came to Australia with her parents in 1917.

Faulkner’s marriage to Annie Bedment had
collapsed, and while arranging divorce in 1918,
he asked Sheila to become his second wife.[...]married
man and was disenchanted with Sydney and
the dance scene. She was planning to leave and
sign a contract as premiere danseuse at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York, when
she was able to watch John at work[...]ralian films.

Faulkner was cast as a heavy from the outset.
At 46, he was beyond the range of ingenue,
and Australian filmmakers normally cast him
as a villain. Exceptions included the pirate he
played in his second film, £500 Reward
(1918), and portraits oflower class evil in The
Blue Mountains Mystery and The Birth Of
New Zealand (1921). But his most charac-
teristic roles were suave Edwardians, rarely
out of a formal suit, butterfly collar and spats.

Faulkner’s first Australian film was The
Enemy Within (1918), directed by Roland
Stavely.[...]hin’, while
averting suspicion through a facade of society
life. Brandt’s world of respectable soirées and
garden parties masked his plotting with lower-
class thugs in a concealed room, and such
dastardly deeds as the kidnapping of the
heroine and a wild brawl with Jack Airlie, a
special agent played by Reg L. (Snowy) Baker.

The Enemy Within gave Baker the chance
to display his athletic skills; but Faulkner’s
portrait of least-suspected evil was subtler.
Amid all his films surviving today, it is his
best.

The Enemy Within was Snowy Baker‘s first
film as[...]r’s; they made their
second appearance together in The Lure Of
The Bush (1918), directed by Claude

writer and star as well as director. John
Faulkner played Captain Wolff Forrest, alias
“The Pirate of the Pacific”. Renee Adorée,
later prominent in Hollywood in King Vidor’s
The Big Parade (1925), made her film debut
as the heroine.

Filming of £500 Reward took place on
Sydney Harbor and in heavy seas off the coast
aboard the six-masted American barquentine
E. R. Stirling. According to Sheila Whytock,
the film came close to abandonment. She
recalled that Faulkner and Fleming clashed
frequently over interpretation, and battled for
a lion’s share of the limelight. Sheila judged
Fleming as a “ham with a capital H”, and John
Faulkner, who could deliver the goods when
required, could not stomach Fleming‘s own
brand of thespian bullshit and grandeur.

The Theatre Magazine classified £500
Reward as a “five-act melodrama of the old-
fashioned once-aboard-the-lugger-and-the-
girl-is-mine type”, and denied that the film
marked “any advance in local picture
production”.6

According to Sheila Whytock, John
frequently helped with the scripting,
production and direction of the films in which
he appeared. He was a good ‘actor’s director’,
and helped with the direction of .£500’Reward,
as well as Silks And Saddles, The Breaking
Of The Drought, and The Blue Mountains
Mystery.

The fact that he knew a great deal and was a
strong p[...]ht
resentment. Nan Taylor, who worked with him
on The Breaking Of The Drought and The
Man From Snowy River, told me that John
was a “[...]lt that a scene was misdirected, he went
straight in with the gloves off and without tact.
He also cared little about whom he offended in
his fight to see that the actors were well paid
and treated. When companies penny-pinched
overthe backers of films he
appeared in, and he used this advantage more
than once in arguments with directors.7

John Faulkner’s name was among the
syndicate that backed his next film, The

Breaking Of The Drought (1920). His
financial partners were the film’s director,
Franklyn Barrett, C. F. Pugliese, and Jack
North, who had written The Lure Of The
Bush. As a theatrical piece, The Breaking Of
The Drought had enjoyed consistent success
from its first production by Bland Holt in 1902.
Holt had, until then, refused to sell the screen
rights to the property, but he expressed
confidence in the ability of Barrett and North
to do fulljustice to the subject.8

The results netted high praise and good
returns. The Breaking Of The Drought took
eight weeks to film, in locations ranging from
actual drought district around Narrabri, to
Mulgoa, Kangaroo Valley and the National
Park south of Sydney. The interiors were
filmed at Sydney’s Theatre Royal, and by
courtesy of Hugh D. Mclntosh, Trilby Clarke
and Marie La Varre were engaged to play the
country heroine and city femme fatale.

Marie La[...]ection,
and on screen played Faulkner’s partner in
crime and eventual victim by strangulation.

The Picture Show magazine quoted John
Faulkner’s desire to play fewer heavies in
future — Faulkner’s fight scene with Marie La
Varre had cost him two fistfuls of hair. The
magazine described Faulkner‘s work as
“always distinctive”.9

After The Breaking Of The Drought,
Faulkner hoped to re-visit Hollywood to
update his knowledge of filmmaking tech-
niques. Instead he remained to appear in
Beaumont Smith’s screen adaptation of the
Banjo Paterson poem, The Man From Snowy
River. The co—directors were Beaumont Smith
and John K. We[...]n quickies, was determined to
lavish more care on this film, which reviews
indicate to have been one of his best.
Doubtless, John Wells, with American
directorial experience, and a strong cast were
of considerable help.

Above: Franklyn Barrett‘s The Breaking of the Drought (1920).
Marie La Varre and John Faulkner as partners in crime.

Left: John Faulkner, Robert MacKinnon and American actress
Brownie Vernon, in Silks and Saddles.

Below: John Faulkner in The Man From Snowy River. The film
was co-directed by Beaumont Smith and John K. Wells.

Sheila Whytock, who saw and later
remembered The Man From Snowy River,
commented on the deep sincerity of the
performances. Supporting the leads, Cyril
Mackay and Stella Southern, were Joh[...], Robert
MacKinnon, Nan Taylor and Dunstan Webb.

In August 1920, John Wells, Smith’s co-
director, planned to launch his own film
venture. The result was Silks And Saddles, a
racing film featu[...]earlier appeared as
Snowy Baker’s leading lady in The Man From
Kangaroo (1919). The supporting cast was
lifted almost intact from The Man From
Snowy River —— Robert MacKinnon, John
Cosgrove and John Faulkner, with Tal Ordell
as the gentleman villain. Faulkner played
Vernon’s fat[...]by his customary polish.

Commonwealth Pictures, the backing com-
pany, went into liquidation after Silks And
Saddles: not because the film had failed (it was
sold to Britain and the U. S. ), but because of
the familiar tale of ludicrously small share of
box—office returns.

In August 1921, six months after the Sydney
premiere of Silks And Saddles, John
Faulkner was at work on his most challenging
role — in Raymond Longford’s The Blue
Mountains Mystery. Many scenes were
filmed amid the old—world palatial atmosphere
ofthe Hydro Majestic and Carrington hotels in
the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. The
script by Longford and Lottie Lyell was
adapted f[...]Owen’s novel Mount
Marunga Mystery. John played the dual role of
wealthy businessman Henry Tracey, who is
murdered and in turn impersonated by his
murderer —— a[...]

Do you prefer stage or film work?

That all depends on when you
ask me.[...]it just
happens that way.

It’s not a question of what I like
best, although right now I am
enjoying the theatre.

I am what I would call a
“dilettante[...]er myself to have
gone into acting deeply enough,
or tried to put to practical use,
whatever I have le[...]much for
television?

I have done several things in
France. I don’t like working in
France, however, because things
are not done well[...]ng about them.

Before a stage actor is confirmed
or becomes well-known, any
deviation from the norm is not
acceptable. In my case, it was that
I didn’t speak normally. T[...]some
time been linked with her outspoken advocacy of the
women’s movement, abortion and other important issues.

This has, in some cases, resulted in professional
friction, but the continued excellence of her performances
has always enabled her to work w[...]uffaut. However, it is probably her per-
formance in “India Song” — that hypnotic poem of the
past by Duras — that is her most remembered.

Seyrig was in London recently to work in the BBC’s
adaptation of James’ ‘The Ambassadors’ and to perform
on stage in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’. Cinema Papers’
Scan[...]ail Heathwood, inter-
viewed her there, and talks of her films with Bunuel and
Duras, her attitudes on the role of feminism in her
professional and private life, and her recent work with
video.

spoke a certain way and not
another. Now they tend to trust
what I do and give me less of a
hard time — at least in France.
There they feel fairly safe with me
— t[...]eel that I
had to be sociable whether I
wanted to or not, but now I am
trying to force myself not to
behave in the same way with
people I like as with those I don’t.
I think the women’s movement
has helped me a lot.

I was very impressed by
something I read in the U.S.
about a Smile Strike — about not
necessarily smiling, which I didn’t
know you could do. Things like
that have at last got through to

me; they have always been in me
but I have never dared practise
them. Now I da[...]greatly influenced
by American thinking?

I lived in the U. S. when I was a
child, then went back after I[...]nter
called Jack Youngerman. I didn’t
work much in . New York, and
when Alain Resnais offered me
L’anee derniere a Marienbad
(Last Year In Marienbad), I
went to work in France. That was
the beginning of my stay there.

What was it like working with
Bunuel?

With certain exceptions, it
doesn’t matter whether or not.you
are just a pawn in a director’s
game. And I liked to be one for
Bu[...]difference to him whom he uses as
long as it’s the kind of character
he wants. So, I feel as though I
chose him and not the opposite.

Bunuel is a very respectful
person and a humorous one. I
think he has a sort of genius, and
even though I may now have
reservations about his way of
approaching certain. things, I still

In comparison, how do you find
working with Margueri[...]ale genius with a culture that‘s
past, although in a way he is still
very much avant garde. I feel
much closer to Marguerite Duras
in a more effective, emotional

way.

Are your ideol[...]tisfaction
when I see any Bunuel film and I
think of him as a very moral and
healthy person.

With Duras it’s muc.h more to
do with the subconscious — with
the fact of being a woman, and her
use of language, her poetry. I feel
that I am her twin. When she
directs me, or when we discuss
things together, I feel as though[...]is like
a double view.

Marguerite was brought up in
Indo-China and I in Lebanon, and
I can’t help thinking that there is a
parallel and that her fascination
with certain people she knew in
her childhood is very close to the
fascination I had with, let’s say,
women in my childhood.

Perhaps it was because we grew
up in foreign countries. And
suddenly we saw people who were
from our own cultures, but who
emerged from the banality of the
rest, who made us dream. I am
very touched by her fantasy.

Do you therefore have a
particular affinity for the
characters you play in Duras’
films?

Very much so. I feel I know
what[...]I know that he
knows what he is doing and I
sort of blindly follow. If he says
“move one step to the right” I do
it. It’s his film and I am a pawn in
his game. But with Duras, it’s a
kind of girlish feeling, as though I
was meeting a schoolfriend again.
We are not quite the same
generation, and had different class
upbringi[...]Musica, 12 years ago and I
probably met her once or twice
before then. On La Musica,
Duras was only a co-director with
Paul Seban. And for this reason
the film was, I think, very unsatis-
factory. She was not able to do
what she had in mind, to do what
she proved later she was capable

of.

Do you find the theatrical quality
of Duras’ films suits you?

Theatrical is a vague[...]. She started
making films very late, but she
has the same kind of freshness
towards filmmaking that the new
German filmmakers have, and the
same taste for music and visual
things, although they are still

different.

When I saw India Song for the
first time, I told her that I felt she
had much in common with people
like Schmidt and Schroeder.
Perhaps it’s a use of the past with

very modern means; a great
nostalgia for the past that is still
quite original in its own making.

Does the past hold a special
fascination for you?

I am quite devoted to the

DELPHINE SEYRIG

present, but I find I can only
understand it through re-finding
the past —— it doesn‘t make sense
without the accumulation.

When did you first become
interested in the women’s
movement?

In 1969, when I began to read
texts written by American
women. They were the first to
come out and speak in a strong
way. I remember reading Notes

Top left: Seyrig and Jean-Pierre Leaud in

Truffaut‘s Baisers Voles. Left: Seyrig and

Duras during the shooting of India Song.
Above: Seyrig in Resnais’ Muriel.

From the First Year, a sort of
review of all the writings of what
they called “The First Year”,
which I suppose was ’68.

It was a revelation and sin[...]women. Suddenly it
seemed urgent to find out what
other women thought and felt,
which I’d always heard through
men’s interpretations or trans-
lations. Suddenly they were
speaking out f[...]ail,
and as I have become more and
more conscious of my own
strength I have found that I
couldn’t ac[...]cepted before. I find that it
destroys me to give inor dishonest
because there will be compensa-
tions in being with this man I
like?”

I _f1nd'it is totally destructive to
go in that direction, so I go the

Cinema Papers, January — 215

other. I don’t know where I’ll be
in the future, but right now I feel
that it’s better t[...]’t. I feel much better that
way.

Everybody has the right not to
have relationships; this is what
women tend to forget because this
sexual liberation thing was a male
idea to begin[...]ely imitated male themes,

Above: Muriel. Centre: the enigmatic
“A" in Resnais’ La derniere anee dans
Marienbad. Top right: Seyrig in Dura’s
first film, La Musica. Right: India Song[...]models. I don’t
want that.

Would you say that the women’s
movement in France is strong?

I don’t know; I know much
more about British women —
even the suffragette movement in
England during the past 100 years.
There is nothing written about
women in France, whereas there
has been a great deal written in

England.
Anyway, there’s not another

feminist in the French theatre or
film industry — I am the only one.

Is being alone in the movement
difficult?

It is lonely in the sense that I
wish there were other actresses in
France who would understand -
although I think th[...]n
are feminists and they just have
different ways of working at it.

It’s very difficult to reconcile,
and I am in a very dangerous
position. I am working less and
less in France because they don’t
like me, because I st[...]When you say “they”, does that

include other women in the

industry?

Other women are okay — it’s
the producers, the directors. They
don’t like a woman taking space[...]play any more because they
can see that I am not the quiet,
sophisticated lady they see on the
screen and which they
automatically thought I was in life.

If that’s thethe nice thing
about ageing and maturing and
getting[...]n
pretend as an actress, but they
can’t keep me in a midget poodle

box.

What led you to work on the
British stage?

Frank Dunlop, who directs at
the Young Vic, has been a friend
of mine for some years and we
have often thought of doing
something together here, but we
couldn‘t find the right thing. Then
this idea of Antony and Cleopatra
came up which seemed suitable to
both of us. Actually, very few
people realize I speak English.

Do you like working in Britain?

I love it. I have been working a
great deal in France and it’s great

to get out and work some[...]en have become.
They are very pretentious, behind
the times, crystallized in their
culture; in a culture that was great

I

at one time, but which they have
been unable to step out of or
beyond.

Will you continue to work in
Britain?

I feel very much at home here,
at least its new to me, and I find
the directors I have worked with
very pleasant. I hav[...]Presently you are working with
video. . .

It’s the most important thing in
my life right now. I have done
tapes, either alone, or with two or
three other women who have
wanted to express themselves
about the same things.

We have done a tape about the
French ex-minister of women’s
affairs, Francoise Giraud. She did
a television program on the last
day of International Women’s
Year — which we did not
particularly advocate, hated it in
fact — but she closed the show by
claiming that while women could
cook at h[...]ficult
for them to do great cooking, and
how that the famous cooks of the
world were men because it was
very hard wo[...]

Based on the novel by Elizabeth O’Conner,
The Irishman is set in the logging country of
Queensland and “is the story of one man who
would not accept the changing times and who
decided to exit at the same moment as the
times he had known and loved.”

During the location shooting, Tony Buckley
issued weekly progress reports for the
investors and from these has been culled the
following story by Barry Tucker. (The report
extracts have been italicized.)

The early gold mining towns of
Queensland’s Gulf country -— the setting for
The Irishman — have virtually disappeared.
Director[...]ie,
and production manager Ross Mathews,
surveyed the Gulf towns during June/July
1976, returning for another look at Ravens-
wood and Charters Towers in November. They
decided on the latter.

The location was ideal for the purposes of
filming: one of Australia's best preserved gold
towns of the turn of the century, countryside
faithful to the book and not seen before on film. It
had reasonable facilities to house a crew and cast
of about 60 people.

On return from the location survey, Donald
Crombie revised the screenplay and the search for
the team of 20 Clydesdales began. We didn ’t have
to search for. In Brisbane we found Don Ross,
horsemaster, and 20 Clydesdales, eight of which
were already working as a team. Don didn’t even
blanch when we said we wanted to film at
Charters Towers.

The production office opened in Sydney on
April 4, 1977, and construction manager Bill
Howe left by road on the 3000 km journey to
Charters Towers the same day. While
production designer Owen Williams, location
manager Beverley Davidson, and director of
photography Peter James went to Brisbane to
check out the horse team, costume designer
Judith Dorsman went to Charters Towers to
get the feel of the place, and to find old
costumes and bits for extr[...]usband, Phil.

218 — Cinema Papers, January

By the end of the second week the art
department had set up an office above the
Collins Pharmacy in Gill St., the main street in
Charters Towers. The staff included Robyn
Coombes, the only student from the Film and
Television School studying production design.

Casting began in Sydney in late April and,
based on screen tests, the lead role of Paddy
Doolan went to Michael Craig; his wife Jenn[...]on Burke had already been selected from
a preview of Fred Schepisi’s DeviI’s
Playground for the part of Michael, Paddy’s
youngest son. The part of his eldest son, Will,
was left uncast by Buckley[...]s finally
chosen.

Twenty-six Queenslanders, most of them
locals, were given speaking parts. There wer[...]Granny Doolan was played
by Tui Bow, step-mother of “It” girl Clara
Bow, and Andrew Maguire, breeder of Bern-
borough, played Grandpa Doolan.

Everything[...]to fly to location —
but they were grounded by the Air
Controllers’ strike. Buckley didn’t want to
start behind schedule, so he chartered a plane
which took eight and a half hours to get to
Charters Towers. The strike continued for
another week, finishing onl[...]el Craig’s plane from London was due to
leave.

The color stock used in The Irishman was
another decision Buckley felt to be of major
importance. And it was in this area that there
had been a break with tradition.

The look of the film is under the control of the
production designer, Owen Williams, who co-
ordinates the feel, mood and color of every scene
with the art director Graham Walker, costume
designer Judith Dorsman, director of photography
Peter James, ACS, and director Donald Crombie.
The scenes are discussed weeks before production
begins and the result is a well planned and
organized scheme between those departments to
give the film thatspecial something. Our team had
done this on our previous film, Caddie, and it
worked very well.

However, The Irishman is an outdoors period

film,‘ in story totally different from other Aust-
ralian films and, therefore, should look visually
different from any of the current batch of films.
Previous competition is quite keen. Picnic at

Hanging Rock, Break of Day and Caddie are

all visually superb. So after[...]film on Gevacolor 680 with prints by
Agfacolor.

The Agfa-Gevaert company produces these
compatible film stocks in Germany and Belgium.
Most films are shot on Eastmancolor; however,
the Agfa-Gevaert color has given our cameraman
that extra dimension we were looking for.

The color in one aspect is rich in greens, browns
and beautiful flesh tones, but not as bright as
Eastman. In some ways that wonderful Tom

Director Donald Crombie with Simon Burke who has the role of Michael Doolan.

Roberts look of the Australian country-side.

weeks shooting had been completed of the

Our laboratory in Sydney, Colorfilm, was well total S6Ven Week SCh€d1l1€-

equipped to handle the change and are in fact
quite excited about the challenge of handling the
new stock. In fact, it isn't so new because Agfa-
Geva is used[...]latest film has received
high praise for its use of Ag/"a-Geva.

We are now keeping our fingers crossed for
good weather. June should be (by the records)
ideal. However, two weekends ago Charters
Towers had six inches of rain in three days, the
first time ever in May!

The town's set dressing looks marvellous, a
superb job by the art department.

On June 10, Buckley reported that The
Irishman was now 11 days old. Nearly two

Our fir[...]drive from Charters Towers. A
considerable amount of night shooting took place
at the Downs, which at first caught us a little ill-
prepared.

The days are hot and sunny, but the nights are
freezing. At one stage in the first week our rushes
boxes carried more sweaters than film.

Zane Grey visited BluffD0wns in the early ’30s
seeking permission to use the property for a film.
He was then making White Death on the Barrier
Reef with the Cinesound team. The owners at the
time, the Bassingth waites, refused. This time,
however, we were welcomed and given every[...]riding a pushbike at
a goat race picnic staged by the towns people for

the crew, Michael Craig lost his hat in a gust of

wind. He tried to stop the bike quickly and fell off
It was obvious he was badly hurt and after a tense
two hours in Charters Towers hospital the verdict
was a dislocated shoulder. An immediate
e[...]d. At least 40 extras had been
cancelled and most of them were not on the
_’phone. The Council, which planned to begin
covering the main street with dirt at 5 a.m. had
been notified.

The art department of any film is perhaps the
busiest, managing to keep one jump ahead of the
schedule. To completely reschedule at less than 24
hours notice is taxing the department to the hilt.
However, art director Graham Walker and his
team were ready for the new scenes next morning,
and by 7.30 a.m. the crew was on the road and
the film back on the rails.

On Monday, Michael and [flew to Townsville
where an orthopaedic surgeon said the injury
would be painful, but recommended against[...]eased
and pinning, if necessary, will be done at the end
of shooting.

In the meantime, Michael will “bite the bullet".

He resumes back on the set next day and
performs as if nothing is wrong. The accident
causes a major reschedule to vary the work-load
and by Friday afternoon it’s finalized.

We are completely disorganizing the life of the
towns people and they are loving every minute of
it. They are happy and only want to know “when[...]n).

Gerard casually walks on set during shooting of
major street scenes and is besieged by 500 towns
people and truckloads of children.

Fortunately for all concerned, his first scenes at

Logan’s camp were shot the previous day, 25km
from town, at 4am.

The Miles Franklin Award winning auth-
oress of The Irishman, Elizabeth O’C0nner
(Steak for Breakfa[...]nd Phil, were invited to Charters
Towers to watch the filming. The Irishman is
reminiscent of Phil’s childhood.

The Irishman crew on the blocked Gill St., Charters Towers, during the eight days of

location filming there.

Director of Photography, Peter James, and Simon Burke.[...]

Elizabeth was interested to meet face to face the
actors playing her characters. Would they
measure up? She was thrilled to see Michael
Craig as the Paddy Doolan she had imagined, but
more surprised[...]ou Brown as Will.
To Elizabeth, he had walked off the page.

Monday dawned bright and sunny for our
maj[...]Tuesday was slightly overcast, then on
Wednesday the sky was clear for some quite
spectacular street scenes.

Saturday night saw the results of that shoot,
and despite the weather our dialogue scenes don ’t
need to be re-shot — thanks to lighting
cameraman Peter James.

The November location survey selected the
Mingala race-course — a half—hour drive along
the main road from Charters Towers. It wasn’t
what was really wanted, but the production
designer felt his department could “do ajob on
it”. When the advance party arrived in April a
new stand had been built at Mingala.

As for answering the questions of where the
original race-course was located and how
people dressed for country race meetings in
the ’20s, an advertisement for photographs
and information was placed in the Northern
Miner. Three great discoveries resulted: Mrs.
Bassingthwaite had an invaluable album of
photographs from a meeting held by the Basalt
Hack Club in the early ’20s; Graham Walker
found the original course on Dr. Allingham’s
Fletchervale[...]nutes from
town -— and on inspection discovered the
straight, finishing post, grandstand frame, rail[...]rails, bough sheds and bar frames,
and six metres of wire hanging from a gum tree
which was used as an aerial to receive the race
broadcast from Sydney in 1927', one of the
townspeople had a box of crockery “that might
be of interest”. It contained cups, saucers and

plates carrying the insignia of the Basalt Hack
Club.

Michael Craig spent his Sunday[...]damage his injured shoulder.

Charters Towers has the only remaining ore-
crushing battery in Queensland, and when it
turned over for the first time in 50 years its
steady “crump, crump, crump” brought the
rest of the town to a standstill.

In one of his weekly letters to investors
Buckley mentions that his previous film,
Caddie, had helped to bring the Venus battery
back to life. Proceeds from a charity
performance of Caddie in Charters Towers
were given to the local branch of the National
Trust. This money and a government grant
was used to restore the battery.

Composer Charles Marawood spent some
time on location to get the “feel” of the
Clydesdales, walking beside them and
watching the[...]together some guide themes and these were
used on the sets to provide a mood for the
actors and crew.

On the second day of the river crossing
scenes the sky blacked over. Mark Egerton and
Donald Crombie conferred on whether they
would move to another location or wait and
see what happened to the weather. Returning
on another day would have cost another
$10,000. They decided to sit and wait.

At 3 p.m. the sun burst through. Mark
Egerton yelled “turn over!” Three cameras
rolled, the horse team lunged forward and
completed the crossing of the B_urdekin. At 4
p.m. the sky was dark again, but it was all in
the can, and Egerton’s decision had paid off.

The bad weather continued after the river
crossing. Donald Crombie began improvising
locations, revising the script and transferring
exterior scenes indoors. Scenes that were to be
shot in a leather shop and a hotel on the coast
were done in Charters Towers.

The weather was so uncertain that on the
eve of the last scheduled shooting day in
Charters Towers two call sheets were devised
—[...]l and an alternative 7.30 a.m.
call. Buckley said the call sheet was the most
complex for the entire shoot and he included a
copy in that week’s newsletter.

The crew moved to location in a rain forest,
near Cardwell, to shoot the logging camp
scenes. It was decided to shoot some night
scenes as day-for-night, to pick up lost time.

The weather was awful. Rain and wind. It was
decided to go for broke and shoot a scene in a
cemetery the arts department had constructed on
the edge of a swamp. Within 30 minutes of the
shooting having been completed, the sun
disappeared and heavy cloud and light drizzle set
in

Tuesday, and Townsville weather bureau issued[...]week ofhea vy coastal cloud
and rain conditions. The locals agreed that the
weather was going to be bad. We needed one fine
d[...]rn to Charters Towers
made it seem we were losing the battle.

Wednesday, 6 a.m. No one could believe their
eyes. A clear sky. By 9 a.m. the first main scene
of the day was in the can. The rain forest looked
spectacular, with long shafts of sunshine reaching
down through the trees and vines and hitting the
clearing. The varieties of palms caused the wry
comments from the crew that the set looked over-
dressed!

One lesson so far learnt from this exercise is not
to take any notice of weather bureau or the locals.

A few days later, a T model Ford truck,vital
to a scene in the rain forest hit a displaced
board on a bridge and[...]badly damaging a mudguard and
headlamp and, worst of all, breaking the
Ford’s steering rod. The rest of the day was
abandoned.

Crombie began revising the next day’s
storyboard so shooting could continue, but the
Ford would still be required by 11.30 a.m. The
repaired vehicle arrived on time. Standby
propsman Ken James had found a retired
toolmaker in Cardwell who knew all about T
model Fords. He had the parts and the
equipment.

It took the toolmaker 90 minutes to put the
parts together and install a new steering rod.
The mudguard and headlamp had been
straightened out.

Saturday was a big move and the “luck of the
Irish’’ struck once again. An electric ’s vehicle
broke down on the road to Charters Towers. The

heavy arcs and equipment were needed for that
afternoon ’s filming.

Filming proceeded, but without arcs the light
beat us again.

The crew support was absolutely marvellous.
Realizing our predicament, they offered to work
on Sunday if the weather was fine, enabling the
film to be completed and the crew to return home
on Monday.

It was another of those 4 a.m. calls to shoot the
dawn scenes we had not been able to get the
previous week. A clear starry sky, followed by a
golden sun, greeted us at 6.30 a.m. *

The crossing of the Burdekin River.

220 - Cinema Papers, January

Catching the right effect: Julian Mcswiney with the baffled mike.

The basis of the film was four
letters and a note that were found
in a drawer ofa flat I had rented in
1972. They were written by a man
living in Newcastle in 1959', he
was asking forgiveness of his wife
in Sydney whom he had beaten
up. The note was clearly written
some time before the letters; in it
he threatened to beat her up again
if she‘ c[...]me
if I could write a half-hour script
about life in the city. It was going
to be part of a series and they
wanted it set in Fairfield.

I suggested the letters, or
excerpts from them, as the basis
of a script and I wrote out a
storyline which they accepted.
Moya Wood and I then wrote the
script — Moya was the script-
editor for the series, and was
tremendously helpful.

The series was shelved, but you
decided to make it yo[...]n and he agreed to produce
it. We then approached the
Creative Development Branch of
the Australian Film Commission.

Why did you think the letters
would make a good script?

It wasn’t a question of that
really; it was more the character of
the man behind the letters. That
was the inspiration — the germ of
the film.

Here was a man under pressure
who was unable to cope with life.
He wrote foolish letters in a
language that wasn’t his own, and
he used Hollywood concepts of
love and relationships. They were
like letters I had written myself,
like a lot of people have. But
behind them were very powerful
emotions; descriptions of a life
that was difficult and tragic.

How did you construct the
character of the wife when you
had no information about her?

I based her on people I had
known in Newcastle and
elsewhere, and from the way he
wrote about her. She seemed
weak in his presence, but strong
and independent by herself. After
all, she had run away, though in
real life she didn’t go to her father
but to an[...]allowed him to see her, so she still
felt for him in some way.

The real woman wasn’t like Kris
McQuade; she was mu[...]‘lines
and

SIEPIIEN
Wlllllllil

During the past year several low-budget, short features
have[...]’s “Love Letters From Teralba Road”,
winner of a Gold Award in the fiction section of the 1977
Australian Film Awards, stands out. Its look[...]ragic, and very moving.

Wallace has directed two other shorts — “Break Up”
and “Brittle Weather[...]stralia under Richard Mason, and is presently
one of the four writing students at the Australian Film
School. “Love Letters From Teralba Road” is his first
short feature.

In the following interview, Wallace talks about “Love[...]lm School student, Danny Torsh.

You have now met the woman
whom the letters belong to . . .

I met her under pretty awkward
circumstances and I felt a mixture
of guilt, curiosity and intimacy.
You are probably aware that a
reporter from The Australian
found her in Northern NSW.

He phoned me the night he
made contact and told me she was
very upset about the film and was
going to sue us. Curtis Levy (from
the AFC) and I had to rush there
to see her. The reporter, with a
photographer, had arranged a
meeting in a restaurant. He
wanted a story, of course.

So, my initial meeting with her
was under the scrutiny of the
press, and all I could say was,
“Look, I would like to get away
from the reporters and talk. I feel
very embarrassed.” S[...].

Could she have sued you?

Yes. We did not have the rights
to the letters and they were used
verbatim in the film. The Aust-
ralian was quick to point this out
and seemed to regard us as
exploiters.

What happened finally ?

She came to Sydney and in a
highly emotional state — like
everyone else — saw the film. But
she liked it and said Len was very
much[...]nd. We
signed a contract paying her for
rights to the letters and giving her
a percentage of the film. Her
mother came to Sydney for the
opening night and also liked it. So,
I felt quite relieved.

Did the publicity help the film?

Yes, the reporter wrote his story
in The Australian and it caused a
lot of interest. But it wasn’t
planned that way; it had got very
much out of hand and was a strain
at the time.

“Love Letters” has been
regarded as a very realistic film.
Does this realistic style relate
solely to the letters or also to your
own experiences and cinematic
background?

I did try to make the film in a
very realistic way. It wasn't a
deeply personal[...]or Film Australia, for
a director unknown to me.

The film was related to
experiences and people that
existed, and my background in
documentary, however slight, was
also influential. But mostly it was
an attempt to make believable the
characters that had grown out of
the letters.

A lot of contemporary Australian

Cinema Papers, Ja[...]

Again, I wasn’t overly
concerned with social comment in
the film, though it certainly was a
conscious effort at making some
comment. Len is typical of a
certain type ofin
Newcastle.

He is cut off from a background
which would give him more
understanding of his situation. His
difficulties are grounded in social
conditions and not purely in his
nature, or in his heredity.

I went to school with many
people[...]etters From
Teralba Road.

had very little chance of coping
well in this society.

The film was shot simply, with
no lavish sets or tricky
camerawork. How much was
that planned?

I had always wanted to shoot the
film without fancy cutting from
scene to scene, or technical feats
for their own sake. In this sense,
the style was very much part of
the content. The actors were to act
as simply as possible; the camera
was merely a sympathetic
onlooker.

The aim was to get the emotion
ofthe situation into the texture of
the images, not to leave it as a
mental suggestion.[...]filmmaking; I was very
arrogant. I then saw some of the
filmmakers at the British Film
Institute working and I realized
tha[...]drama films, and he
seemed to me to get down to the
core of things in a pure way I had
never seen before. His style came
out of his nature and out of his
subject matter, and it all fused in a
subtle and intense way.

Its a big fight to avoid stereo-
typed ways of doing things when
you have been trained in an
institution like Film Australia or
the ABC. The difficulty is to be
aware of the conditioning which
you have accepted. A lot of
filmmakers in Australia have this
problem.

Was this the first film you made
after leaving Film Australia?[...]about 20 minutes long. Break Up
was made as part of a film actors’
workshop, run with a group of
actors at the Sydney Filmmakers
Co-op. We had been trying to
explore problems of ‘simple’
acting in films; of being able to
relax and concentrate for short
periods, as is required in films.

You workshopped “Teralba
Road.” Was that successful?

The workshop part, as distinct
from the rehearsals, wasn’t really
successful as none of us knew
each other well and the exercises
seemed awkward.

Brian, Kris, Gia and J[...]nt and
ridiculous things, to make a
complete fool of oneself. It takes
time to get people to do that.

Would you use the workshop
technique again?

Yes. It is, I suppose, only one
technique, but its particularly
useful in dealing with
inexperienced actors. It is also a
way of getting to know the
experienced actors but they tend
to resist them unless convinced
they are necessary, or are paid for
them, which is a pity.

How did you go about casting?

Richard Brennan and I made a
pre-selection of possible actors
and actresses and asked them to
c[...]ally
given a script to read some days
before.

At the video session, they did
one or two scenes from the film,
and some improvizations, and
were matched with various other
actors. Kris McQuade came back
two or three times, and to find the
mother, actresses were coming
back three or more times to do
tests.

One of the things that seems to
characterize you as a filmma[...]isjust another alienating
device to have a group of strangers
making a film with you, and it
always shows in the finished film.

Are you happy with the film?

Not totally. There is a major
construction fault in the second
half and a lot of the dialogue
seems a little contrived. Some
scenes aren‘t acted well either,
especially at the beginning.

There have been criticisms of
the lighting and the sound quality,
and to some extent I agree these
areas are awkward. But theor two scenes work
well for me, and with the others
there is always some nagging
fault, often[...]mpletely satisfied with one’s
own films.

Was the relatively small budget
of $25,000 sufficient?

I always thought it was more
than enough to make the film.
Richard handled the money well
and we could pay all our bills

though we couldn’t hire a lot of
extras or use expensive equip-
ment or a large crew.

The most difficult thing for me
was that we only had two weeks in
which to shoot it. It always felt
rushed; in fact, a couple ofscenes
had to be dropped because[...]them
properly, and they looked awful
on screen.

The AFC eventually helped
promote the launching of the
film. Did you approach them?

There happened to be about six
50 to 60 minute dramas made
around the same time: Love
Letters,Backroads, Singer and
the Dancer, Out of It,
Queensland and Listen to the
Lion. Curtis Levy had the idea
that the AFC should spend money
promoting these films, or they
might remain unseen like so many
before them. The AFC put up
some money to launch them at
the Union Theatre for one week as
a series of double bills.

Lachie Shaw asked me, as soon
as Teralba Road was finished, ifl
would be interested in a double
bill and I said I would; it went
from there. We had to pay back
the promotion money if we made
it at the Union, but we were free
to keep the money the films then
made at the Co-op and other
cinemas.

Have they helped since with
promotion?

Yes, Curtis arranged for the film
to go on at the Dendy in a double
bill with The Singer and The
Dancer. They have also offered to
finance someone to promote the
films independently, but Richard
didn’t like the idea of having more
money to pay back to the AFC.
The Co-op is now distributing the
film, both theatrically and non-
theatrically, except in Melbourne,
where it’s going on at the
Longford.

Do you have any plans for future
produ[...]concrete that I
can talk about. I have been busy
this year writing scripts at the Film
and Television School, so all my
plans were put to one side. But
this year I would hope to make a
film of some sort, either an
original idea or from a script by
someone else. ~k

FILMOGRAPHY

S[...]estwood Retarded Girls’ Home
1972 Eric Hiaiveta in Canberra

Cinema Papers, January — 223

Scott Murray

_ The scheduling of a film festival is
important to its value in the world market.
If it IS held before the Cannes Festival, it
finds little new product to c[...]s most filmmakers tend to premiere
their films at this festival, whenever
possible.

However, a festival's late position,
while limiting its possible number of new
films, does give it the chance to show the
best of the year's films. And at Tehran
this year, the selection was of a very high
standard.

Under new director Houshang Shafti,
the festival has become more film
orientated, and this policy is evident in
the improved organization. The traffic in
Tehran is no less hectic, but the
festival's attempts to combat it proved
successful.

Of the films shown, my favorites were
Bresson’s Le diable probablement (The
Devil, Probably), Pollack’s Bobby
Deerfield, Shindo's The Life of
Chikuzan, Zanussi’s Camouflage,
Saless' Diary of a Lover and Weir's The
Last Wave (winner of the Grand Prix).

"Bresson is a loner in this frightful
profession. He expresses himself in film
like a poet with his pen."

— Jean Cocteau[...]mage from
Quatre nuits d’un reveur (Four Nights
of a Dreamer) — a barge floats down
the river Seine at night, its lights trans-
forming it into some kind of incandescent
insect. But where Quatre nuits found in
its grave portrayal of frustrated platonic
love a suggestion of hope, Le diable
probablement finds only despair.

Charles is a 22 year-old Parisian
disillusioned by the failure of man to
cleanse himself of his neurotic insis-
tence on doom. Religion has l[...]tion that will never
come.

Bresson’s vision is of a people who
are “cruel by laziness, by indiffe[...]d.“

And because Charles can see no
possibility of man's downward path
being averted, he is trapped in a spiritual
cul-de-sac. The much quoted line of
Charles accurately defines it: “Any
useful act in a corrupt world only serves
to re’-inforce that corruption."

The choice for Charles then is
complicity or death: he chooses the
latter but cannot do it himself and tosses
the revolver he has stolen into the Seine.

Two of his women, in attempting to
help him, arrange a meeting with a[...]ion,
Charles decides he must find someone
to pull the trigger for him. With the
promise of money, he lures Valentin, a
drug-addict into doing it.

They walk slowly to the Pere Lachaise
cemetery, stopping only at an open
window, where in one inexplicable
moment they pause to catch a few
seconds of a Mozart sonata‘. A sense of
absence, of a beautiful presence now
lost, weighs heavily.

At the graveside of Thorez (a French
politician), Charles stands puzz[...]1977.
pp. 26-30.

224 — Cinema Papers, January

The graveyard ‘suicide’: Charles and Valentin. Le diable probablement.

like this. But what I'm actually thinking
about. . The gun fires. it is tossed to
the ground_and much as in Un condame
a mort s’est echappe (A Man Escaped),
which ends abruptly with figures running
into darkness, the assassin disappears
into the night.

The hallmark of Bresson’s style is his
austerity, his purist’s sense of detail —
the flashing red light on the lift no one
takes, the rows of cathedral chairs
pushed slightly out of line, the eerie
wilderness of the Hotel Meridian in Paris.
But what is astounding about Le diable
probablement is that Bresson has been
able to refine ever more the_style he
seemingly perfected in Quatre nuits and
tentatively lost in Lancelot du lac.

Unquestionably Le diable is his[...]t gripping Journal d’un
cure de campagne (Diary of a Country
Priest), but one more painful. For while a
void overtakes the audience during that
final image of a cross in Journal, here
one is left adrift from the start. All the
traditional foundations of religion,
science and intellect are destroyed at
the outset and man's perverted progress
only presses[...]films
invoke a gentle presence quite at odds
with the desperateness of his story and
into which one is absorbed. It is as if one
is sitting in a peaceful church exper-
iencing a sense of calm. As well, Bresson
communicates with us invisibly, without
talking or visualizing, like the Latin mass
must have done for many, even for those
unversed in Latin.

In an intriguing discussion with Paul
Schrader‘ Br[...]th a poetic allusion: ‘‘I don't think so
much of what I do when I work, but i try to
feel somethin[...]our intuition."

It is, therefore, not a question of calcu-
lation (as many see it) but of capturing
the essence of a moment with gentle-
ness, with a submission of self in the
pursuit of an emotional purity.

Thus Bresson gives his audience an
experience no director, except Dreyer in
Ordet, has ever given. But then, Bresson
is probably the primary creative force of
our age.

Sydney Pollack’s Bobby Deerfield is
a love story that in eschewing sentiment
for emotion offers significant insights
into the reasons behind one man's fear
of life.

Deerfield (Al Pacino) is a champion
formula 1 driver on the European circuit.
He lives in Paris with his charming girl-
friend (Anny Dupere[...]s
brother Leonard (Walter McGinn) cannot
approach or re-ignite buried memories of
the past. And when in the touching scene
Leonard reminds his brother of a Mae
West imitation he did as a child, Deerfield
asks, “What did we do Leonard; did we
live in different houses?"

Deerfield, like many introver[...]hide a sensi-
tivity that wishes to be released. The way
in which this release occurs is the story

of Bobby Deerfield. And in making this
positive statement, the film transcends
the romantic genre it is based on and
creates a work commanding in its own
ri ht.

9A fellow driver is badly injured[...]and Deerfield visits him at a
mountain sanatorium in the hope of
finding some explanation for the crash.
Everyone is convinced it was the result
of bad luck, but Deerfield’s wilfully
ordered life[...]a rationalist
explanation: a mechanical failure, the
distraction of a lady's mirror reflecting
sunlight, a rabbit crossing the track. In
looking for these "rabbits", Deerfield
clearly av[...]he Keller); it is her values, her
spontaneous way of wresting from every
moment some meaning, that slowly helps
Deerfield recognize his limitations.

They meet in the sanitorium
restaurant in a scene destined to be

remembered with any from Casablanca.

In a matter of seconds, Pollack
humorously establishes the vast
differences in their attitudes. Mostly
Lillian talks with her ba[...]ollows is how they come face
to face.

They leave the next morning, and
travel down the mountain to Bellagio
where they plan to stop. Then over
dinner, Lillian confronts Deerfield who
has become withdrawn at a mention of
his family: “You watch people eat, but
you don'[...]morning, Lillian sees a hot-air
balloon floating over the lake. She
implores Deerfield to follow, but he
re[...]don't know where it is going?" They drive
on, but the remark has instantly cooled
any chance of their already awkward
relationship developing.

D[...]she leaves him, handing him
a parting note. Being in Italian, Deerfield
enlists the less than expert help of a
garage proprietress who translates the
message: “Life is made sweeter by
taking a chan[...]llian and his firm
refusal to change himself into the person
she could love. If his fears are mostly
over the uncertainty of where one’s
actions can lead, here before him i[...]n he is
asked by Lillian to join her and a friend in
the balloon he refuses, saying that he
has no desire to be at the mercy of the
wind.

it is a beautifully handled scene and
the overhead shot of Deerfield as he
walks away with a stooped gait, i[...]ested for
that long. And as a shot it reminds one of
Raintree County where similarly
Montgomery Clift used his stooped back
to convey an inexpressible sorrow.

The scene where Deerfield finally
abandons his fearfulness and recog-
nizes the lesson Lillian has effectively
been teaching him,[...]eld lets his guard
drop; he attempts an imitation of Mae
West. It is terrible: cramped and nervous.
He[...]he
lets go. “|t‘s beginning," she whispers.

This transformation is superbly
handled. A seem[...]

delicate shift of mood. And by the end of
his "act", the audience fully understands
its significance to bo[...]near her and from his
pocket removes an envelope of family
snapshots. They pause over a photo of a
boy with his bicycle: "That's my brother
Leonard. He's kind of a god-damned fool,
’cept he tries.”

The echo back to the earlier meeting
and the way we now re—evalute Leonard.
is very effective — it is if the lesson is
now complete. And so when Lillian in the
penultimate scene asks: "Bobby, what
will you do[...]se. It
first appears when Deerfield is driving to
the sanatorium; he takes off his glasses
and for the first time examines the
photos. On the journey back with Lillian,
she tries to coax Deer[...]he doesn't, but it is
a beginning.

And finally, the last, silent, sequence
where Deerfield‘s car approaches the
tunne|'s end and the dark screen breaks
into brilliant sunshine which then
dissolves into white.

_EClUal|y effective is Pollack's paral-
le_ling_ of Dee'rfield's transformation with
his increasing femininity. The first
references are humorous: "Are there
homos in Newark?” Then serious: "l
think all the best men have feminine
qualities.” It is handled by implication,
but effectively so.

This careful underplaying has become
typical of Pollack's direction. Notice the
way he cuts from a coffin being loaded
into an am[...]ath on my own
terms.”

That is all that is said of Lillian’s illness
until the wonderfully handled and very
funny scene where Deerfield strokes her
hair, only to find it come away in his
hand. There must have been a temp-
tation to sentimentalize the film with
more references to Lillian’s approach[...]ir quarrels,
hesitancies and shared joys are, for the

Bobby Deerfield is a wonderful film to
watch and one that rewards all those
who allow themselves to be drawn in by
its captivating charm.

The Last Wave is reviewed on page
259 in this issue, so rather than double
up I will only say i[...]eter
Weir's position as Australia's top
director. The tension is unrelenting, and
though it perhaps becomes a little
monotone, it is totally involving.

The ending has caused much debate,
but I find it perfectly in tune with the low-
key nature of the film. Wishing a
Hollywood-type cataclysm at the end of
a film which has so well established its
own frame of reference (and exploited
brilliantly), is just inconsistent.

Krzysztof Zanussi’s Camouflage is, in
a sense, an argument between prag-
matism and ide[...]uilds between Janoslaw, a
liberal-minded lecturer in linguistics, and
Jakub, an old vice-rector. Jakub takes
the line of least resistance, judging
decisions only on how they will effect his
position.

Janoslaw is the reverse, often
charging into difficult situations with a
complete disregard for himself — only
the ideal is important, or so he thinks.

Much of the film is verbal sparring
between the two, and as is usual in a
Zanussi film, it is rivetting. And despite a
tendency to frame things in the language
of a philosophy tutorial, Camouflage is
suprisingly accessible. Perhaps it is the
energy with which these verbal games
are played that makes them interesting;
more likely, it is the ease by which one
can recognize oneself in Janoslaw and
Jakub.

Zanussi plays on this identification
and in his usual, slightly impish way, he
leads us down many cul-de-sacs before
finally upending most of our pre-
conceptions. At the start, one sides
quickly with the idealistic Janoslaw, but
his liberalism is soon s[...]ntellectual refusal to dirty
ones hands — hence the fight on the
muddy river bank in the climax.
inversely, Jakub’s conservative refusal[...]nussi has made many brilliant films
— Structure of Crystals, Family Life,
Behind the Wall — and while Thein the sky.”
Pacino and Keller in Bobby Deerfield.

indicated a personal cul-de-sac[...]ilm from
a director at his peak.

Reifezeit (Time of Maturity) was a
major highlight of the 1977 Melbourne
and Sydney festivals. Sohrab Sahid
Saless’ Tagebuch eines iiebended
(Diary of a Lover) is even better.

An unremittingly bleak and despairing
film, Diary of a Lover tells of a lonely 30
year-old man awaiting the arrival of his
girlfriend to dinner. She does not arrive
for[...]is him.
Stunted by a sensitivity unable to absorb
the harshness of a modern world, he
retreats inward.

One day his[...]s, like Bresson, builds his films
through detail: the precision of the
orange-painted windows set in a wall of
grey concrete; the plastic neon-lit horror
of the supermarket where he works; the
attempted colorulness in the decor of his
flat which he begins to paint out with
white, mirroring the encroaching
limitedness of his outlook.

Diary of a Lover is perhaps too bleak
in its vision to function dramatically over
its entire length, and nearing the end the
tension is momentarily lost by, i believe,
unnecessary repetition. The climax,
however, is devastating, and the anguish
one feels for this man born without
possibility is intense. Like a glimpse into
a void, Diary of a Lover has to be
endured, but it is a masterpiece.

Kaneto Shindo‘s The Life of
Chikuzan is a dramatic recreation of the
life of Chikuzan Takahashi, master
player of Tsugaru shamisen. This type of
regional folk music is played on a
distinctive kind of shamisen, a traditional
Japanese stringed instrument.

The film opens with Chikuzan playing
at a recent conc[...]nce to maps,
charts his wanderings across Japan.

The only way for shamisen players to
mature as artists on completion of their
apprenticeships, is to earn their living
solely from the playing for food. Thus,
through the changing seasons, Chikuzan
travels the islands of Japan, playing
wherever he has an audience. Partially
blind since birth, his journeying becomes
an act of devout pilgrimage.

Shindo’s film is extremely moving, and
in Chikuzan one senses a nobility of
spirit that must have come from a
hardship deliberately endured. And in
returning to see the real Chikuzan play at
the end, one acknowledges a greater
depth of emotion and strength in his
music that one might have felt at the
beginning.

Despite a large reputation for his
ea[...]es
him as its theme, it rather tiresomely
details the man's encroaching madness.

Gerard Depardieu is q[...]rdinary as David — as is Miou
Miou as Juliette, the one girl who loves
him -- but he cannot overcome the
predictability of Miller's screenplay. On
occassions the film sparks to life, but
mostly one watches with a kind of
academic fascination.

Pierre Lhomme, however, proves once
again why he is the best of today's
cameramen. The sureness of his touch,
and his clever balancing of exteriors with
interiors is wonderful to watch. And the
stunning last scene where time warps in
front of us, is as perfect a piece of effects
work as one could wish to see.

Silvio Narizzano‘s Why Shoot The
Teacher is a gentle comedy of a young
schoolteacher's appointment to a

ghostly Saskatchewan town in the
1930s. As the teacher Max Brown, Bud
Cort (Bernice Bobs Her Hai[...]e, cookish young man to one whose
ideals are well in tune with the practica-
bilities of teaching kids more interested
in catching goffers.

Samantha Egger plays Alice Field, a
woman on the brink of leaving her dull-
witted and insensitive husband. There is
a nice scene where, in flight, she shelters
at the schoolhouse with Max. Forgetting
momentarily her distress, they throw
themselves into a humorous rendition of
a play. inevitably the awkwardness of
their situation dawns, and the hopeful
abandonment of the moment is borne
down by the rules of the society outside.
it introduces a feeling of despair into an
otherwise delightful film.

Ken lchikawa's The lnugamis was
perhaps the festival's most entertaining
film. Very light-hearted, it spoofs its way
through a convoluted tale of relatives
contriving to deprive each other of an
inheritance. The acting is larger than life,
with the detectives forever scratching
their heads in blank amazement as
another corpse lands before them.

Only in the last half hour of this 2‘/2
hour film does the pace falter. Here,
despite everyone's ready grasp of the
plot, the two detectives laboriously
recount every devious twist. Still, it is a
minor flaw in a very amusing film.

Salvatore Samperi's Nene is a virtual
remake of his earlier Malizia , only this
time the cast is younger. Beguiling
photography by Pasquallno de Santis
covers most of the lapses in pace: but
this tale of adolescent sexuality has an
annoying simplicity about it.

Only in the closing moments when
Samperi links the disillusionment of a
communist supporter on the day of the
party's crushing defeat in 1945 with
Nene's betrayal by her would—be lover,
does the film approach significance.
Certainly the gentle eroticism is handled
well, and as Nene, Le[...]ach from Samperi's first
and greatest film, Fists in the Pocket.

Best of the shorter films was Gianni
Amelio’s Bertolucci Shoots 1900. This
documentary on the filming of 1900 is
rewarding in its own right, and
unquestionably the best of its type.

it opens with an evocation of the
sequence in 1900 where the peasants
are dancing in the forest. The mood of
Bertoiucci's film is beautifully captured,
and Am[...]from
actors to crew are quite fascinating.

it is the visuals of Ame|io’s film that
distinguish it. For example,[...]exterior scene a large
diffusion screen is pulled in front of the
camera. Then as Bertolucci and his crew
move about during a take, they are
silhouetted on the screen. it is very
effective.

Another excellent sequence is the
tracking shot that begins on Dominique
Sanda and Robert de Niro in a small cafe
and pulls back to reveal the cafe as a set
in a studio, with fake snow falling from
the rafters.

There are also several interviews:
Bertolucci in Italian; Sterling Hayden in
English; Sanda in French; etc. This in
fact highlights what must have been a
terrible strain on Bertolucci, with all the
actors speaking in different languages.

In one scene we have Gerard
Depardieu fighting de Niro with
Depardieu screaming in French and de
Niro in English; in another, Sanda
agonizing over her English as she
speaks to -de Niro. It would certainly
frighten most directors off a co-
production.

Other films shown but missed were
Padre Padrone, L'homm[...]bene e del
male (Beyond Good and Evil),
Meszaros' The Two of Them and Annie
Hall. All in all, an excellent festival. at

Cinema Pap[...]

This year the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival
was won by a low-budget film[...]Padre Padrone” (“My Father,
My Master”), is the seventh feature made by Paolo and
Vittorio Taviani -— the first to win international acclaim.

The Taviani brothers are engaged men of the Left; they
are also passionately engaged cineastes. They make no
simple conflation of politics and film, and the material
they choose to film, though influenced b[...]mething new, for “film is
a very particular way of dealing with reality.”

What is probably most impressive about their work is
the way it mobilizes all the resources of cinema, not
merely those of narrative, or character, in the service of a
genuinely cinematic discussion of ideology and ideological
argument. They forego the shorthand of agitprop and
propaganda for a lucid and emotionally bracing handling
of complex issues.

All their films tend to concern themselves with the
struggle of individuals to enter into a constructive
relation[...]a bruciare” (“A Man Burning”— 1961)
shows the attempts of a man who returns to his native
Sicilian village to rouse the peasants against the Mafia.
“I fuorilegge del matrimonio” (“The Marriage
Outlaws”— 1964) dealt with ItaIy’s[...]y controversial
reception. “I souversivi” (“The Subversives” — 1967)
framed a group of individuals, each at a crisis of
conscience, against the backdrop of the funeral of
communist leader Togliatti.

With “Sotto il segno dello scorpione” (“Under the Sign
of Scorpio” — 1969), the Taviani brothers’ political
arguments become more specific. “Scorpio” boldly
discusses the struggle between the middle Left and the
revolutionary Left in the ambience of the peplum fantasy.
“San Michele aveva un gallo”[...]l Had A
Rooster” — 1971), freely adapted from the short story
‘The Divine and the Human’, by Tolstoy, discusses
anarchism and the birth of scientific socialism.
“Allonsanfan”, set in 19th century Italy, explores the
tensions experienced by a bourgeois intellectual[...]ven revolutionary leanings.

“Padre Padrone”, in one sense, returns to the theme of
their first feature as it too is about a peasant who gains an

eeducation and returnsdto his village (in Sardinia, this
time), but it goes much further.

In this interview, conducted in Italian and through an
interpreter, Vittorio took the lead and Paolo added
succinct comments and examples.

226 — Cinema Papers, January

How do you define the
relationship between your films
and Italian neo-r[...]oberto Rossellini‘s
Paisa. As children we lived the
experience of the war. We saw

that an immobile situation, such

as existed under fascism, could be
broken up — in this instance by
the war and resistance.

When we saw Paisa we saw this
traumatic experience of ours
proposed on the screen as a film:
an experience we thought was
pr[...]d commun-
icable. We were about 15 years-
old, at the time, and we decided
that cinema would be our lif[...]ourgeois and Rossellini and
Luchino Visconti took other
roads.

In fact, when we made our first
film in I96I, we had already
begun to embark on a differe[...]we decided
to detach ourselves from neo-
realism in the narrow sense and
concentrate on the wider strand of
neo—realism that runs from
Shakespeare through[...]began to read

Vittorio and Paolo Taviani during the
filming of Padre Padrone.

Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Goethe.

Le[...]ho came
before me was a giant. But by
climbing on the shoulders ofthese
giants, I can see further.
Othe[...]ee past their boots.”

You made your first film in 1961,
but you had made a number of
short films during the 1950s —
the film on Moravia, one about
stoneworkers, another on the
southern town of Volterra, and,
of course, your film ‘with Joris
Ivens. . . .

We made those to survive. Our
documentaries are totally
misconceived. We would have 10
minutes and try to cram
everything in. When we
collaborated with Ivens on
L’ItaIia no[...]cumentary.”

You would say, then, that your

The young Gavino (Fabrizio Forte) is left on the mountain where he is to become a
shepherd.

Opposite: Gavino (Saverio Marconi) and one of his flock.

The father (Omero Antonutti) with the young Gavino after he has beaten him.

early experience working in the
theatre was more relevant to your
development in filmmaking . . .

Yes. We began working in
theatre when we were 18. We
started the Theatre of the Masses
in Livorno, writing and directing a
play about the 10-year period up
to the resistance. As a tribute to
neo-realism the actors were all
workers from the port. We had
been writing scripts that inevitably
landed in the bottom drawer:
theatre was a way to write some-
t[...]then an unknown stage
actor, into film. He played the lead
in our first feature, A Man For
Burning, and in his performance
we pushed him deliberately
towards the theatrical.

We had a deep hatred for the
conventional naturalistic cinema
of the period. As far as we are
concerned, the audience must
always understand that they are
wat[...]their own by reflecting
on it.

We work towards the delicate
balance of maximum emotional
involvement and intellectual
detachment: the opposite to
Brecht. There is a danger in
constructing a film that is totally
rational, tha[...]wo
complementary neurotics. There
is no division. of roles, but
constant exchange. No one finds
this unusual when one discusses
scriptwriting partnerships. We
simply extend it to the shooting
process, alternating each other
shot by a shot behind the camera.

In New York, Marcello
Mastroianni explained how
initially he hadn’t known which of

228 — Cinema Papers, January

us to turn to fo[...]rmance when we worked
together on Allonsanfan. By the
end of the film he had practically
forgotten that there are two of us.
Of course, it is difficult for the
director of photography because
we are always ready for the next
shot.

How about the actual process of
filmmaking, from the initial
conception through to final
realization . . .

When we have the first ideas for
a film we are already thinking of
the image. When we write the
script we write because we already
know the image and the music
that we will use. We do not see a
division[...]ight change things.
We believe that before a foot of
film is shot the film is already
complete. But then reality always
screws us up. Like Giulio in Saint
Michael Had A Rooster, who
understands everything while he
is imprisoned in his cell, but when
he emerges he finds his
understanding at odds with reality.

During the making of a film we
struggle with the actors, with the
location, with the people that are
round about, and with ourselves,
because we are working in a new
situation. This is what makes
cinema so beautiful: the fact that it
is always in movement. When a
film is finished we are not
interested in seeing it all over
again: it is really over.

Do you find that the final result

accords with your initial vision
of the film?

Strangely enough, yes. If the
film has gone well everthing
returns - perhaps in a different
way — to the original concept. We
decide to make a film because it
seems like the only possible thing
to do. This sensation is enormous,
as if the world is waiting for us to

"$%

Reflections of age: the young shepherd (above) and as a young man.

make[...]it is finished
everything goes back to normal
and the film becomes a film like
many others.

You discovered the subject of
“Padre Padrone” through a
newspaper report. .[...]rised to read that a
shepherd, Gavino Ledda, from
the mountains of Sardinia, a

virtual mute, who had been left
alone until he was 20, became a
professor of language. We asked
ourselves why this man, who lived
in silence, decided to study the
science of communication, of
sound. He could have become a
lawyer, an engineer[...]wanted to. Instead he chose a
discipline that was in direct
opposition to his life.

Concluded on P. 281

:4-
:1»
It
~hIr

Andrew Phillips

The annual National Association of Theatre
Owners (NATO) convention was held in
Miami, Florida during October 24-28. As
several Australian organizations and
individuals were at the conference, it was one
of great relevance to an Australian industry
battling to break into the U. S. market.
Andrew ‘Phillips, who was there as a freelancer
with the Four Corners team, sent this report.

For the first time Australia has mounted a
concerted campaign to break into the difficult
American market. Independent attempts have
been made in the past by producers and the
Australian Film Commission, but this is the
largest and most important exercise attempted
so[...]rector Alan
Wardrope, and assisted by James Henry of the
North American office of the AFC, the
Australians faced more than 2000
representatives of the American film industry.

The National Association of Theatre Owners
is the largest local exhibitor meeting held in
the U.S.; it reaches more than 6000 of the
15,000 screens in the U. S. It is also the closest
the Australians could expect to get to the large
and lucrative American market in one hit.

The Australians hosted the ‘new product’
evening and showed a 17-minute product reel
consisting of sequences from The Last Wave,
Raw Deal, Eliza Frazer, FJ Holden,
Sum[...]ey Among Women,
Deathcheaters, Storm Boy, Dot and the
Kangaroo, The Irishman and Mango Tree. It
was a highly professional presentation — it
utilized an American voice-over — though
nothing like viewing the real thing. It received
a warm response.

Later in the week, Summerfield was shown
to about 50 delegates and made an impression
on the audience with the quality of acting and
the standard of its production.

Summerfield is a very beautiful film to look
at, though many said it was too slow in
developing; that its pace was unusual for the
American market and, therefore, more

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suitable for the art circuit. A similar complaint
was levelled aga[...]can exhibitors
are hungry for exploitable films. The local
industry in the U.S. is in a state of crisis
because the large distributors have a
stranglehold on exhibitors; they claim they
need more product, but the deals offered by
most distributors leave very lit[...]up-front
money for advance film rentals, prints, the
extensive and expensive advertising this
country needs to get a film rolling, is very
difficult.

Earlier Australian films like the Alvin and
Alvin Rides Again have done well in Canada
and the most recent success story, Oz (retitled
Twentieth Century Oz) has managed to break
through. The distributor for Oz is Max Keller.
He has reworked the film with the AFC and
the producers, and it has so far grossed more
than $1[...]r, to win an audience.
Perhaps that formula works in the Australian
context, but the Americans are generally not
interested.

Few foreign films, including so-called
success stories as the French Cousin Cousine,
do well in the U. S. Very few crack the million
dollar barrier and almost none are shown
outside New York, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Chicago. The money does not
lie in these specified markets; it is the middle
American screens that need the product and
will pay and yield profits. These areas do not
want the ‘art film’ or the period piece; they
want entertainment films and the distributors
and exhibitors know it.

Only seven foreign films topped the million
dollar mark in the U.S. last year. Cousin
Cousine is approaching the $2 million mark,
but Black and White in Color, the French
film which won the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Film in 1977, is by no means a smash

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hit in American money terms.

Marvin Goldman, national president of
NATO says:

“Actually, I think the market is ripe for
the introduction and inclusion of films from
any source. I don’t think it makes any
significant difference as to the country of
origin.

A“I think the most important thing Aust-
ralians should realize[...]o everybody, and one
that just happens to be shot in Australia. A
good example was Fiddler on the Roof
which concerned the adventures of a little
Jewish man in the Soviet Union.

“It played in Japan, Germany, Ireland
and Africa, and everyone of those cultures
could recognize themselves in it; they felt a
sense of kinship and warmth to it because it
mirrored thei[...]any difference if they were Australian,
American or Japanese.

“The universality was there and that is
what any film hoping to attract wider
audiences must have. The Australian film
doesn’t need kangaroos or koalas.

“The Australian film industry and its
representation are basically an unknown
quantity in the U.S. They have not made
any noise and they are now calling attention
to themselves at the convention.

“I think they will have to adopt a very
broad program —- it may go in three or four
different directions — for introducing Aust-
ralian films into the U.S. Certainly you have
made some films of merit and which should
be in the American market. I think it is the
merchandising and marketing which you
have not done to this point.”

Mike Thornhill, representing the New South
Wales Film Commission, probably best
summed up the Australian presence at this
very American convention.

“What we are doing is attempting to
bypass the structure to get the film industry
going in Australia. We would have no
industry, no production, if we had not
bypassed the American distributors in
Australia for instance. So we are virtually
doing what we did in Australia.”

I WARDROPE on MIAMI I]

What is the AFC’s strategy
here?

Literally to sell films, which of
necessity we are playing by ear.
Some of our films are suitable for
American cinema releas[...]return by going
straight to television. They are the
two prongs we adopt, but carrying
that out is, of course, not easy.

For example, in the past 18
months five Australian films went

into this very important market.
Three of them are being released
and two are in the contract stage.
That sounds good; perhaps in no
similar period have five
Australian films been aimed at
this territory, but with an
inventory of some 50 films, and a
production output of 15 to 17
films a year, obviously it is not
good enough.