Cinema Papers no. 32 May-June 1981 (2025)

OCR

9 ’ Then with the movie ‘Z001’

of ;:ia(§nHett1ha<:i€it1;sO[...]to graphic computers.
With it, you can reproduce the same
camera movement over and over. Building
up an image as you go, with the computer
ensuring the repetition happens with
complete accuracy.

So fa[...]on cameras have continued to be
developed to meet the needs of movies
like ‘Close Encounters’, ‘S[...]Superman’.

Animators continually have to
learn the new technology, but with that
knowledge, there is no limit to creativity.

That’s why the whole field of
motion.graphics excites me. lt’s[...]ings to learn. And it’s an area
we’re only on the fringe of exploring. It
also excites me that at FILM GRAPHICS
we’re the only ones in the Southern
Hemisphere with a computerised mo[...]

25 years and you’ve never seen athing he’s done.

Les, what led you into the
sound side of what is, after all,

a visual medium?

In fact I did start in the

visual side of the business — as
an assistant projectionist at the
Hoyts 6 Ways Theatre, Bondi!
Very glamorous. And I guess,
just by sitting through so many
movies I was intrigued by the
realism of the tracks; how the
director used sound to create
the illusion and build the right
atmosphere, and I wanted to
find out more.[...]ost
everybody who worked in this
industry through the 50s and
60s worked at Supreme. It was
our Film and TV school in
those days, our studio system.
And I was lucky enough to train
for four years under the finest
technician this country has
produced, Arthur Smith — A.C.
Smith. From there I went to
“Skippy” for three years. I did
every episode — 91 of them and
one feature. Then to the States
for a while: then back to Aust-
ralia as s[...]on a track?

Well, you know I really
believe that the good tracks are
the ones where everything is put
together so well tha[...]s phone it in later. And
you can. But I feel that the
performance the artist gives on
the floor 1S so important you
should do your best to get it
on the day. It also saves the
producer money. A couple of
minutes on the set getting the
right atmosphere, effects and

performance can sa[...]know you've worked on
many features, but what is the
film you’re most proud of, as
far as your own contribution
is concerned?

Oh, I think ‘Tim’ which
was shot in 1978, just after I
came to Colorfilm in f[...]‘Tim’ because
there is not one looped line in
the picture. We had locations in
the surf, at Mascot Airport, in
and out of cars, and its all
original material on the day.

I was also sound supervisor,
supervised the music score and
made the optical neg when it
was all over.

Any others?
Yes. I really think my best

achievement in the optical
transfer side of the business is
thewas nominated for a
British Academy Award for
sound.[...]ly
impressed you because of its

sound?

Vx/hen I was at Universal
they were dubbing the movie
‘Earthquake,’ and I enjoyed
going over to the theatre and
sitting with Ronny Pierce when
they were doing the earthquake
sequences. There were 59 cut
elements[...]eels in those
sequences. And to sit there and
see the Sensurround system
working, it was one of the most
spectacular things I can
remember. It stands out.

I understand Colorfilm
did all the release prints for
‘Elephant Man’ in this
cou[...]nt Man carried
a Dolby variable area sound
track, the first that has been

printed in this country. So we
had to do the research on the
configuration of the negative as
far as density, fog levels, cross
can[...]hing. Then print it and process
it and hold it to the control
parameters we’d set.

Do you expect to do more
of these?

Yes I do. I don’t really see us
in the near future producing
Dolby stereo negs in this
country, but well certainly print
more from overseas, At the
moment there are only three
Dolby cameras in the world:
one in Los Angeles, one in
London and one in Munich.
The one in l\/Iuriich is I
understand producing Dolby[...]rly
love to go and see that!

VVhat can you offer the

film maker here at Colorfilm
that he won’t get[...]ia?
Our optical transfer system.
I believe it’s the finest mono-

optical system in the world.
And so do RCA in America.

VVhy is that?

Because the cameras were
hand fitted by the man who
created the system in the first
place — Art Blayney. Vx/hen
I first went to APA I had the
opportunity to train with Art
for 6 months. He’s 80 years old
now and he really is the doyen

of optical recording. In fact, hes
just been awarded the Sl\/IPTE

Samuel L. Warner Award for
outstanding[...]a thing. And now
RCA are using our parameters
for the cameras they’re making
today.

And what does that mean
to the film maker?

It means we can produce a
track for him at least as good as
any he’d get anywhere else in the
world. We tend to look upon

Hollywood and London as
being the centre of the industry,
but our negatives out of here
print as[...]y for
printing now, and coming up
we’ve got: ‘The Best of Friends ,’
‘Partners,’ ‘Heat Wave[...]few My personal aim here at
Colorfilm is to build the best
sound department in the
southern hemisphere. I think
our sound negs are f[...]n
35mm and 16mm projection,
full stereo sound — the lot.

Now Les, you’ve worked
in the States, at Universal.

Yes.

For Disney's, United[...]f it. Look, I don’t want to work
anywhere else. The Australian
film industry is as old and
respected as any in the world.
And today its producing some
of the best films in the world.

And Colorfilm?

Well, of course, the people
make this company. My sound
crew is the finest I’ve ever had
and you don’t often get the
chance to work with technicians
like Arthu[...]

[}[]ll1l3lJIFIllIFIIl}ll

. . . engages the latest computer science to facilitate the conforming of ori inal camera
negative with your[...]print to enable high speed hard copy prin out on the
teletypewriter console ready to commence matching[...]IFIll1FII[}H

. . . enhances your production with the fastest, most professional and economical service[...]otape facilities and announces electronic editing data conversion to allow
negative matching to proceed[...]UTHWIHIGH

. . . starts with an amazing hand held data entry terminal on the matching bench and finishes
as the world's most advanced negative matching service, thanks to our newly installed
DATA GENERAL computer system and our portable m[...]

99”“ Arnhem Land

DARWIN

urning the film wor
upside down.

The Australian film industry is Contact Ray Atkinson
on top of the world. (UK/ European representative)
There are te[...]at OUF OIIICG at
another 20 in pre production for The new Le ReDh8eI-
release Wiihifl '81- Australian Film Commission,
Australia Film have the Le Raphael, 2nd Floor,
goods on these new[...]

In February, two executives from the
Public Broadcasting Service station in
the U.S., WNET-13 New York, visited
Australia. Robert[...]acquisitions and co-
productions, were invited by the Aus-
tralian Film Commission to speak to
filmmake[...]s.

There are 286 public television sta-
tions in the U.S. which are all members
of the PBS. The service was es-
tablished by the stations and the Cor-
poration for Public Broadcasting to
provide program distribution and
related services. The CPB is a semi-
government authority channelling
f[...]S are in-
dependent, it is accepted practice that
the stations in major cities originate
most of the programming seen on the
national network. PBS has its own
satellite to di[...]formed regional networks.

WNET-13, like most of the PBS sta-
tions, gets its funding from three major
sources: direct grants from CPB, cor-
porate sponsorship and subscriptions.
It also has production facilities which it
is able to hire. The cost of program
purchase and production are spread
over the number of stations in the
network which pick up the programs,
but WNET-13 is more adventurous in
its[...]than many stations
and often bears costs alone.

The station is known for its public af-
fairs documentaries and arts
programs. From Australia, it has
purchased films like Frontline, Lalai
Dreamtime and The Human Face of
China. It has a long-standing
relat[...]ilm-
makers or with other broadcasting
networks.

The potential audience to which
WNET—13 broadcasts[...]ts average rating is
between five and 10 million. The
audience covers a wide cross-section
of the New York population, and has
many public service[...].

Kotlowicz and Gidney were ap-
prehensive about the future of PBS un-
der the Reagan administration. Since
PBS tends to be more[...]airs programs,
it has never been well received by the
Republican party.

Also, the improved ratings in recent
years have lost PBS the tacit support of

the commercial networks which feel
threatened by the fragmentation of its
audience by cable, cassettes and PBS.

Censorship

The main censorship issue of the
December—February period was the
banning of The Exterminator. An in-
dependent American production, The
Exterminator was refused registration
by the Commonwealth Censor in
December 1980, for excessive
violence. An appeal was lodged by its
distributor, Roadshow, and the Films
Board of Review registered the film
uncut in January.

A few days before its Adelaide
release, however, President Reagan
was shot with an exploding bullet. As
the film showed the making of a similar
type of bullet, various groups in South
Australia asked the Attorney General,
K. T. Griffith, to ban the film; this he did.

Then. Western Australia joined the
fray and banned the film, followed by

Queensland which took the unusual
step of banning itfrom drive-ins but not
hard-tops.

The film is now in release in New
South Wales and Vic[...]ation
were Angel Death, Britt Blazer, Death
Trap, The Harder They Fall, l Do
Voodoo, The Sex Extortionist, Eyes of
a Stranger, The Salesgirls, Window of
Passion and woman of Vengeance.

Of those films that went to the Films
Board of Review, Faces of Death and
Angel Death were unsuccessful, but
Eyes of a Stranger was registered “R"
uncut and The Howling “M” instead of
Clearly, the Film Board of Review
views violence in films more leniently
than does the Commonwealth Censor.

New AFI Directors

At the annual general meeting of the
Australian Film Institute, on March 28,
three new[...]Michael Pate, actor-producer; and
Glenys Rowe, of the Australian Film
Commission. Each will serve a two[...]ming eligible for re-
election.

T op Figures

In the last issue, Cinema Papers
reprinted from Variety its list of ‘‘All-
Time Champs”. in[...]ad-
justing film rentals into 1980 dollars.
Thus, the 1939 Gone With the Wind has
its actual rental of $74.1 million re-
evaluated at $283.5 million. The "new”
top 12 is:

$ million
1. Gone with the Wind (1939) $283.5
2. Star Wars (1977) . . . . . . ..'.$220
3. The Sound of Music
(1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[...]Jaws (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . .. $186.1
5. The Godfather (1972) ..... $153.1
6. The Exorcist (1973) . . . . . .. $148.4
7. The Sting (1973) . . . . . . . .. $132.4
8. The Empire Strikes Back
(1980) . . . . . . . . . . .[...]. . . . . . . . .. $112.4
10. Close Encounters of the
Third Kind (1977) . . . . . . .. $103.5
11. Super[...]. . . . . . . .. $ 92.8

Represented in decades, the figures
are:

19305 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[...]1

So, even though rentals have been
re-adjusted, the 1970s remain the great
boom period — or, at least, the time of
the most runaway successes. It could
well be the average 1930 rental was
greater than the average 1970 one.
Cinema attendance figures suggest
that would be so.

Scene from /he controversial" The
Exterminator.

A ustralian Screen

Legends on the Screen, the first title
in “Australian Screen", the new series
of books on the Australian film and
television industries, will be published
by the Australian Film Institute and
Currency Press in May.

Written by John Tulloch, lecturer in
film in the School of General Studies at
the University of New South Wales, it is
a 448-page study of the silent narrative
film, 1919-29. Tulloch examines,
through the trade journals of the
period, the professional, economic and
ideological constraints on production
and the complex operation of the Aus-
tralian bush legend.

In the work of film directors like Ray-
mond Longford, F[...], Beaumont Smith and
others, Tulloch demonstrates how the
legend of country productivity and
moral worth was promoted on the
screen at a time when economic power
was rapidly concentrating in the cities.

The gullibility of the Australian film
trade is captured in a presentati[...]ick (see illustration), Aus-
tralasian manager of the Fox Film Cor-
poration before his departure for the
U.S. It shows the exhibitors as puppets
in the hands of the U.S. giant.

The book has 115 pages of such evo-
cative ill[...]

Reproducing the rare material
proved a huge task for the author and
publishers — and among the hardest
was obtaining copyright clearance from
the owners of long-closed journals. At
first regarded by some state libraries as
a grey area of right in the matter of
typography, this has now largely
been cleared by the Copyright Council.
But if any reader has information about
the present owners of the magazines
Film Weekly, Everyones and Picture
Show, the publishers and the National
Film Archive would like to hear from
them.

The second book in the series,
Government and Film in Australia, by
Ina[...]s, will be
published later this year. It examines
the effects of government intervention
— or lack of it — on the film industry
since the 19205.

National Library of A ustralia
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

International Film Conference

The director of the Film Section of
the National Library of Australia, Ray
Edmondson, left Canberra on April 30
to represent Australia at the 1981 con-
ference of the International Federation
of Film Archives in Rapallo, Italy.

After the conference, Edmondson
will go to East Berlin to see the new
acetate color film preservation vault
which has been built for the State Film
Archive of the German Democratic
Republic. He will also visit the West
German Film Archive Foundation in
West Berli[...]ding copies of
historic art films whose screening was
forbidden by Hitler's regime.

Ed mondson will al[...]eo preservation and film
laboratory facilities at the British
National Film Archive.

Melbourne Viewing Centre

The National Library of Australia,
with the co-operation of the Victorian
State Film Centre, opened a National
Film Archive viewing centre in
Melbourne on May 1. The viewing
centre, the Library’s first outside
Canberra, is at the State Film Centre's
premises in Macarthur St, East
Melbourne. it is equipped with the first
flat-bed viewing machine, for 16mm
and 35mm films, to be available for
public use in Victoria.

The centre will be small, but it will
enable filmmake[...]archers to
study films normally available only at
the National Film Archive in Canberra.

New Film Oflicers

The National Library of Australia has
appointed a Dan[...]Schou, 32, as its new film
preservation officer.

The restoration of silent films, a field
in which he has worked at the Danish
Film Museum, will be one of his main
tasks at the National Library. He will
restore early Australian productions for

the National Film Archive.
The Library has also appointed

Bruce Hodsdon, 41, of Glebe, Sydney,
a former program director of the
National Film Theatre of Australia, as
its first[...]sociated with a
number of film organizations over the
past 15 years, among them the Sydney
University Film Group and the Sydney
Filmmakers Co-operative, and has
wide experience in the distribution and
exhibition of films.

Hodsdon will be responsible for the
selection and purchase of films for the
Library’s film study section, which
provides a[...]d in Centrespread.

Addenda and Corrigenda

in the last issue of Cinema Papers
(No.31, p. 46) a photograph of Russell
Boyd was inadvertently printed in place
of one of Henry Crawford. Cinema
Papers apologizes to Crawford and
Boyd for the error.

The caption on the front cover of
Cinema Papers (No. 31) incorrectly
identified actor Paul Trahair as Peter
Trahair. The same mistake occurred on
the contents page. Cinema Papers
apologizes to Trahair for the error.

Permission for frame enlargements
to be taken from Dressed to Kill for use
in Tom Ryan's “Looking in on Dressed
to Kill” (Cinema Papers, No.31, pp 20-
25) was granted by Roadshow
Distributors. Cinema Papers t[...]III---I--III-II---II

Colin James, formerly of the Vic-
torian Film Corporation, has, in as-
sociati[...]ain-

tenance (and, if required, produc-
tion) of the sales/servicing items
such as stills, posters, M[...]and
reporting of marketing expenditure,
including the issuing of quarterly
reports, and, if required, l[...]in,
negotiating sales and distribution
contracts; the development of
marketing strategies and budgets;[...]s, including comparative
evaluation of offersjrom the same
territories. It will also offer regular
repo[...]nformation,
which will include price movements
in the various world territories and
movements in the theatrical, free

television, pay television,
the[...]exist-
ing people or companies in each
territory. The aim is a more orderly
presentation of Australian[...]HOD-

There are two full-time AFTS courses
at the Australian Film and Television
School, one of whi[...]scriptwriting/research for film and
television.

The other course is in scriptwriting,
offering terms of up to 12 months to
reasonably well established writers.

The scriptwriting course gives a
chance to writers with some experience
to work as writers-in-residence in the
AFTS Writing Workshop. They receive
intensive gui[...]ideas. They un-
dertake an introductory course in the
other craft areas of film and television,
and write scripts with and for students
on the diploma course, as well as
developing their own i[...]and course in-
formation brochures are available from
the Recruitments Office, Full-time
Program, Australia[...]6, North
Ryde, NSW 2113 —— (02) 887 1666, and
from the AFTS Melbourne office, GPO
Box 373, North Melbour[...]Film Festival director,
Geoff Gardner, reports on the 1981
Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin in February is probably the
greatest place in the world to induce
moans of discontent. And moans there
were, about the weather (bleak and
snowing), the films and the Festival
director. But one should really put in a[...]totally
computerized, is smoothly impeccable
and the avenues the Festival explored
were adventurous, unusual and, in the
sense of good work discovered, totally
justified. The South-East Asian section
in particular drew packe[...]and Son and Ann Hui’s delight-
ful ghost comedy The Spooky Bunch.
The 38-film tribute to Sir Michael
Balcon was also a wonder of depth,
organization and document[...]o big enough and un-
wieldy enough for one to see the
phenomenon of “The Book”: i.e., a
carefully-planned timetable of e[...]urs of arrival. John Gillett‘s is un-
doubtedly the most sought after Book,
one American festival dir[...]moved to ask early on, “Where is John
Gillett? How do I know what to see until
I've read his Book?"[...]d trouble con-
vincing many/any people to take up the
cause of viewing the entire output of the
Portuguese director Manuel de
Oliveira, the Festival's major re-
discovery. No doubt London N[...]an start get-
ting ready for a similar showcase.

The Competition has to be the blight
for a Festival director. Unfortunately, it
is too easy to judge performance simp-

THE QUARTER

ly on what turns up in this section.

By its nature, the Competition must
be international, yet so many countries
for whom the Berlin Festival is the
natural place to present their films, par-
ticula[...]ern
Europe, came up with a range of
mediocre work from which a selection
must be made. The Scandinavians in
particular disappointed in this respect.
And the East Germans did not show up
at all when they were knocked back for
the Competition and the Forum.

The three major European festivals
in Cannes, Venice[...]competitive, they are in earnest
competition for the increasingly smaller
number of good films.

The international mutters about the
quality of the Competition were
nothing, however, compared to the
local abuse from the German press and
German filmmakers. “Krise in der Film
Fest” was the front-cover headline of
the fortnightly news magazine Zitty and
copies were being left lying around all
the Festival clubrooms.

The trade also tended to take a dim
view, apparently because in the past
too many German films have been
critically m[...]apfel‘s Malou both opened com-
mercially before the Festival and it is
thought that both directors wo[...]n. Their distributors said no.

More importantly, the German film-
makers decided to take a dim view of
proceedings and issued a statement
about the "grave crisis”, attacking the
Festival for alleged dilettantism and
finishing with a threat not to participate
in future.

The strangest of all Festival
phenomenon is the Word — that body
of instant opinion formulated in the lob-
by, which must contribute to a film's
fate.[...]Goretta’s low-key but striking
La provinciale. The packed audience
was gripped. They clapped and
cheered at the end. But the word was
"downer” and that settled that. The of-
ficial formulations will come later. I will
only say i loved it.

The official highlights were provided
by Goretta, by[...]tierrez
Aragon for Marakvillas and, of course,
by the towering American out-of-
Competition entries Rag[...]report on pp 347-48.)

Australian Writers Guild

The National Guild Conference of the
Australian Writers Guild will be held
from August 10-11, and notJune 22-26,
as printed in the last issue.

Alex Ezard Retires
IIIIIIIIII-IIIIII[...]m-
making has lasted nearly 50 years, has
retired from Film Australia.

Ezard began, at 14, as an assist[...]placed by Robert
Helpmann) to study wig-making in the
U.S., from where he returned to work
as an assistant make-up artist on Ken
Hall’s it lsn’t Done.

He was in charge of make-up on Tall
Timbers, the first of 30-odd features he
did for Ken Hall, inc[...]reel cutting room, Ezard became
an editor on Into the Straight, Always
Another Dawn and Jedda. He also cut
Long John Silver and the award-
winning Anzac for television.

Ezard was an editor of Artransa for
many years and t[...]

My statement is simply a recognition
that films emerge from a culture and a
social structure, not from a vacuum.
Ten years of Australian films will have
done some of the kinds of things i
suggest — like “showing us[...]t or by in-
advertence. They will have done so in
the same way that, say, three decades
of the American Western will have said
something about the U.S. where those
Westerns were made.

I wouldn't[...]straw man, charge at it, demolish it and
jump on the pieces.

Who the hell wants “respectable",
“noble" films with “Oh so sincere Aus-
tralian themes"? How am I declared —
horror of horrors — a moral h[...]ning and feeling in films entails an
addiction to the crudest kind of
thematics; perhaps it is necessar[...]rned with a
narrow aestheticism. Here they are in
the pages of the same issue bestowing
critical favors in these terms:

“They offer us an insight into the

deception that is practised in the

name of fiction . . Tom Ryan, p. 25.

. . it compounds the generic trans-

gression by immediately destroying

the drama and returning to a play
with narrative form[...]res. But it is just possible
that it might not be the most important
thing for Australian filmmakers, or
critics, to concern themselves with.

Jack Clancy

The Curious Reply

Dear Sir,

We approach the task of writing to
you with some diffidence, havi[...]o. 31,
p. 101). But we earnestlytry to live upto

The Editor reserves the right to cor-
rect for style, abbreviate and invi[...]urious to know
whether Martin even went to one of the
lectures he swipes at. For good or ill,
Peter Jef[...]on cartoons made
no reference to linguistics, so the
“linguistics-based analytic abyss” of
Martin’s “nightmare” was perhaps
dreamed in another place, at another
time[...]y through. Other-
wise he would have noticed that the
“results indefinitely postponed” were
delayed[...]than lec-
tures - don't we all) since he himself
was making precisely the point of Mar-
tin’s article: “positing real o[...]them". (Incidentally, we didn't notice
anyone at the conference asking for in-
adequate theories. Who were these
miscreants?) In fact, Bob was insistent-
ly empirical, giving at tedious length an
analysis of the particular reception of a
particular film (The Empire Strikes
Back) and the opening of a particular
cartoon (Fanglace). He was critical of
“clnesemiology" for the same reason
as Martin, that it has failed to deve[...]no inadequacy in his own
readings, it seems).

Or was Bob’s crime his drawing on
linguistic theory? S[...]nce
Saussure has always taken it for
granted that the study of language has
much to offer the study of other sign-
systems, even if the relation of film to
language is a problematic one. The
attempt to apply certain Chomskyan
notions is not[...]l him, and put him out of his misery.

Looking at the two reviews of the
conference in Cinema Papers, it is
paradoxical that Brian McFar|ane,
who claimed to find the theoretical
debates unfamiliar and difficult, still
gave a more judicious account of the 11
papers discussed, versus four by
Martin. Marti[...]there is more to being an empiricist
than giving the prospectus for an un-
written paper on The Blue Lagoon.

As two people closely involved in the
planning and organization of this con-
ference, o[...]tu|a-
tory doubts about it all notwithstand-
ing, the conference above all showed
thewas not without real issues, but
was characterized by a generosity that
augurs well fo[...]ssure Hodge and Jeffery that I
remained awake for the entirety of their
papers and that I stand by my opinion
of their work and the conference as a
whole. I consider it symptomatic[...]n
theory (Jeffery) — that they cannot
recognize the methodological and
political rifts that marked the Perth con-
ference and Australian film education[...]tor of Cinema
Papers and just-retired director of the
Australian Film Institute, writing in the
previous issue of Cinema Papers (No.
31, p. 8), accuses the Sydney Film-
makers Co-operative of practising
"vertical integration", which he defines
in this case as the “linking of exhibition
and distribution on an e[...]isn’t any old chickenfeed ac-
cusation. It puts the Co-op up there in
the big league, with Paramount (not to
mention BHP an[...]d
Bradbury, cited by Murray as dis-
advantaged by the proposal, voted in
favor of it at the Co-op’s annual general
meeting last year.

Vertical Integration means control by
one commercial body of the means of
production, distribution and, in the
case of film, exhibition (e.g., Para-
mount) to ensure a monopoly of the
market.

It is quite absurd to liken the Co-op
to Paramount in this way; first, because
we[...]t commercial exhibitors. In
fact, exhibition land the Co-op as a
whole) is heavily subsidized, not a
pr[...]e are any number of small dis-
tributors, besides the Co-op and the
AFI, which operate now and will con-

tinue to operate successfully in the
future.

Finally, our stated aims and objec-
tive[...]Paramount that com-
parison defies credibility. (The aims
and objectives of the Co-op are stated
at the end of this letter.)

Just before I explain the details of the
new policy I want to correct one factual
inaccuracy of the letter. Murray says
that the new resolutions mean that, ‘‘In
effect, the Co-op will only exhibit the
films is distributes." This is true, and
with our[...]ould be un-
wise to spend them on anything except
the films of its members. However, this
has been policy since being decided at
an AGM at least four years ago.

The New Policy

1. Filmmakers do not have to exhibit
their films at the Co-op in order to
have them distributed there non[...]uld obviously
be served better by exhibition with
the AFI. If they want national release,
and access to the more prestigious
cinemas the AFI has, this should be
their choice. The Co-op encourages
filmmakers to do what is best for
their film and exhibiting with the AFI
presents no conflict of interest.
There is, however, a definite limit to
how many short Australian films the
AFI can or will exhibit. There are
many that are[...]in terms of general
commercial appeal to justify the
larger overheads of the Opera
House or the Longford, but that still
deserve exhibition. The Co-op
cinema serves these films. Co-op
seasons co[...]ations of entertain-
ment.

. If you exhibit with the Co-op we do
ask for exclusive non-theatric[...]

In a period when Stardust Memories,
The Elephant Man and Raging Bull
have, with no ill ef[...]cinema audiences what
should, I think, be called the miracle of
black and white (and which, in times
past, I have named amid general deri-
sion “the medium of the future”), it
might be a good idea, at last, to analyze
the differences between that eloquent
medium and its[...]lmagine Casablanca in color — or,
Citizen Kane, The Best Years of our
Lives, Modern Times, In which We
Serve, The Pumpkin Eater.

The mind revolts against it with good
reason. The fact is that black and white
as a medium seems to[...]confers a
kind of royalty, too, as is seen in all the
radiations of the meaning of the phrase
"The Silver Screen”.

In your mind's eye, imagine The Last
Picture Show in color, and play it
through.[...]serving something else,
something not so very far from three
episodes of The Restless Years. Why is
this?

In your mind’s eye, imagine The
Hustler in color: the felt on the pool
tables green, Paul Newman's eyes a
piercing blue, the balls a variety of
clashing colors in sudden moti[...]rospect so much more daunting
than what we absorb from the film as it
IS.

In your mind's eye, imagine Wild
Strawberries in color: the old man's
parchment skin, the green hills rolling
by, the gay colors of the children's
clothes in the flashbacks to the summer
house. Why does the mind revolt?

Michelangelo Antonioni, when he
mad[...], seemed to
be making sufficient statements about
the sterility and hollowness of 20th
Century Man; whe[...]he seemed to be
trivializing with visual glibness the im-
portance of the questions he raised.
Was his art in decline, as has been
charged, or was there another reason?

Federico Fellini made film[...]La dolcs vita
and 81/2, which are regarded with

The Medium of the Future

PERSPECTIVE is a new column where prominent members of the
Australian film community will express their views on a range of areas.
For the first column Bob Ellis discusses the merits of black and white
cinematography. (Ellis[...]ore full-hearted years.
It is to be doubted. that the selfsame
people even saw Casanova, a work by
any rational criterion the equal of any of
the above. The simple fact is that
Fellini’s color films, thou[...]ividually with considerable praise,
have been, on the whole, adjudged as a
body of work as diminishing[...]imensions by his
work in color. Merely to mention the
names of his black and white films —
Summer wit[...], Afternoon of a
Clown, Smiles of a summer Night, The
Seventh Seal, The Magician, wild
Strawberries, The Virgin Spring,
Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light,
The Silence, Persona, The Hour of the
wolf, and Shame‘ — and then to men-
tion the names of his color films —- Now
About All These Women, A Passion,
Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a
Marriage, The Serpent’s Egg and
Autumn Sonata‘ — would suffice to
make the point.

It seems then (though, of course, it
cannot be proved) that the use of color
makes films more vulnerable to
criti[...]they
are easy game, Why are these things
so’?

The answers, I think, none of them
easily provable, a[...]in a mere two hours,
because it is at one remove from
observed reality. Moreover, it permits,
within it[...]ammatic and
melodramatic ways of telling a story.
The dark, sardonic theatricality of
Casablanca, a film in which the sup-
posedly Italian Sidney Greenstreet and
the supposedly French Claude Rains
both have English accents, is accep-
table at one remove from life in black
and white, whereas I suggest it would
not be in Panavlsion and color.

In the same way, films with unlikely
supernatural events in them, like The
Innocents and Repulsion, Rashomon
and Frankenstei[...]hat's up Doc might be
instructive here or, to put the com-
parison more precisely, between A
Hard Day's[...]ilm
in color. Made today, they would have
to be.

The fact is, though once again it can-
not be proved,[...]e of a visual
medium, too. It permits you to vary the

frame size more dramatically (as
Woody Allen does for instance in the
shot in Stardust Memories of the dis-
tant, diminutive elephant on the beach)
and to dissolve between almost any im-
age[...]y other, no color con-
sonance being necessary in the simpler
and harsher medium.

It follows, therefor[...]s more sexy,
too. A simple demonstration might be
the defloration scenes in One Summer
of Happiness and The Blue Lagoon.

Is there any use for color then, ex[...]ms
where costumes are an important com-
ponent of the effect, like MGM musicals
and Biblical spectacles? The answer,
even here, is in some doubt, when one
remembers the easy success of the
Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers black and
white musicals of the 1930s and the
overpowering effect of those black and
white cost[...]Caesar and Throne of Blood, which
seemed to show the distant past more
truly in black and white, perha[...]statues
and old engravings.

One way to deal with the question is
to look at some films whose effect was,
without argument, enhanced by the use
of color. One such film in recent times
is ce[...]im is
moral confusion, and whose aim suc-
ceeded. The over-information inherent
in color worked in its[...]lor,
which trivializes and confuses, in this
case was of help.

Another more interesting case was
The Graduate. Although a part of its
theme was the bleakest possible view
of the prosperous priorities of capitalist
America, it c[...]This, i suggest, is
because in this case color is used cor-
rectly, in lengthy lingering shots in
which one has time to grow ac-
customed to the image on the screen: a
little red car crossing the Golden Gate
Bridge, a girl observed through leave[...]om encompassing a
whole post-coital conversation. The eye
has time to drink in all the information
before the shot is changed.

This same lingering over the image is
used as well, with considerable suc-
cess, in the later films of David Lean
(the endless sand dunes of Arabia, the
creamy beaches of Galway) and the
later films of Stanley Kubrick (inter-
minable bu[...]001 and Barry Lyndon, of almost
anything at all). The commercial suc-
cess of such films leads me to believe
that this is the way to make the distrac-
tion of color acceptable to an audience[...]e
costumes down white corridors, white
gunfire in the utter black and white of
starry space — or, closer to home, like
Stir, where the color component is
negligible.

The idea that color in itself attracts
an audience is[...]doubt. Cinema attendances plum-
meted throughout the 19605 when rival
television was in black and white.
Casablanca, recently on telev[...]garish rivals. On any night,
in any city cinema, the curiously loyal
are seeing for the fifth time the same
old Marx Brothers comedies and the
same stark Bergman tragedies in

the unendurable tedium of black and
white.
Merely bec[...]ob-

‘viously true doesn't mean it finally is;

the evidence has to be looked at. Of the
black and white or partly black and
white features released in the English
language in the past 12 years — If, A
Man and a Woman, The Last Picture
Show, Paper Moon, Lenny, Newsfront,[...]st money. This is
a record eight times as good as the
color films brought out in the same
period. In 1963, Twentieth Century-Fox
was saved by a black and white film,
The Longest Day, from a financial dis-
aster by a color one, Cleopatra.[...]gainst this that, in
these cases, black and white was well
used. My argument is it always is. It is
foolish not to use it all the time, so that
the silver screen may be revived, and
the cinema as an art form continue.

The loss forever of the special worlds
of Smiles of a Summer Night, Last[...]t but of interior decoration,
whose proper use is the television com-
mercial.

The time has come when we should
get back to what we value; the means of
expression that is more dramatic, more
s[...]re impelling
and, statistically, more successful; the
medium in which all our fondest

memories are etched, the medium of
the future, black and white. *

Modern-day bla[...]

Initially it was because I felt
there was something I could
explore. I didn’t quite know what it
was, so I started acting. That pro-
cess still goes o[...]e selfish and
self-engrossed and not reach out in
the community. I can become a bit
closed. What acting[...]d to
addicts. Suddenly, I felt involve-
ment with the community, and for
me that is a great thing.

Act[...]would be uncom-
fortable if I felt my self image was
that of a self-engrossed creature
who was disinterested with other
people. I know I have the potential
for being that, and acting constant-
ly[...]d and perceive.

Choosing Projects

Judy Davis as the prostitute, Lou, In John Dutgan s Wmter of our Dreams.

How do you select projects? Do you
get scripts sent t[...]n my
life — director or otherwise. But if
there was a director I really wanted
to work with, and I kn[...]en quite fortunate in
that everything I have done was
offered to me. I haven’t had to
search for work[...]are you
usually approached?

It varies: sometimes the script is
finished, sometimes it isjust an idea
and they don’t have a writer. Then
again, the script can be partially

ll8 — Cinema Papers, M[...]ten and they want to work on it
with me in mind.

How do you decide on a particular
role?

I look to see if I like the script.
Do I sympathize with the char-
acter? Is there some point in mak-
ing it? Do I agree with it from my
moral viewpoint? Do I think it is
worth making? Do I trust the dir-
ector?

The director is important . . .

Yes, though I don’[...]erficial analysis, I guess. I
would tell a lot by the sort of film
he wants to make and the films he
likes.

So, I check him out and then
tak[...]tween two
projects of equal standard, shooting
at the same time? Would it ever
come down to money?

It[...]scripts that are perfectly bal-
anced in terms of how much one
wanted to do them. So you are
really asking me how importantly I
value money on a project. It is not[...]ot talking
about huge amounts. If, however,
there was a choice between
$500,000 and $10,000, then there[...]n “Winter of our Dreams” for
$5000?

What’s the point of doing some-
thing that is shit for $50,0[...]ned down a big salary, because
you didn’t think the project worth-
while, it is easy to do so again.[...]se between two
equally-good scripts, one of which
was Australian, which would you
take?

If one was in New York and the
other here, I might be tempted to
take the one in New York. That
would simply be beca[...]

Rehearsals
'

Y[...]a luxury to be able to
have, like some actors in the U.S.,
about 18 months to prepare for ,a
role. One[...]on Heatwave, I had
a week. Mind you, I knew about the
project for a couple of years.

John Duigan’s f[...]o
me about a month before I went
into rehearsal.

How long was the rehearsal period?

Three weeks, which was wonder-
ful. We didn’t need any longer,
because by the finish we were ready
to start shooting.

Some fi[...]eriods, because people may not be
able to utilize the time correctly. It
is very difficult to use rehearsal
time, especially if you come from
the stage, where you have a certain
concept of how you use the time.
The changeover is very tricky and l
haven’t mastere[...]different, because it is
quite wordy.

Actually, the first film I ever did,
I couldn’t believe. The rehearsals
consisted of us sitting in a Noah’s[...]play
a lay preacher’s wife. I did it
because it was so different to any-
thing I had done. I knew I would
find it difficult. But the director
[Claude Whatham] helped me
through it; he was great.

If, halfway through a project, I
realized the director was wrong, I
couldn’t help but blame him
slightly,[...]ings weren’t right. I would
remedy it.

What if the script is good, and your
intuition says go, but during rehear-
sals you find the director going
against what you feel about the
character. What do you do?

You have a fight on y[...]One of my problems is that I am

Judy Davis, as the hitch-hiker Lynn, in IgorAuzins’ High Rolling,[...]le are crazy. Who do they
think we are?” And it was quite de-
structive for me; it threw me.

Some directors seem to have less
grasp on character than do the
actors. Have you found that?

No. I have been str[...]ore calculating — but I can’t.

At Work
T’

How conscious are you of technical
considerations during a scene?

Ideally, one’s relationship with
the technical apparatus of film-
making eventually be[...]gh it is very enjoy-
able sorting oneself through the
various technical disciplines.

I often look through the lens,
because I don’t know lenses prop-
erly, yet. It is also really important
for me to know how close a close-
up is, because I often do too much
with my face. Suddenly I am out of

frame and the cameraman has to
tell me. I feel foolish because[...]which print
directors decide to use. I know
there was a scene in My Brilliant
Career where, from a performance
point of view, a take was good, but
the camera was not as good as in
another take, where the perform-
ance was much down. I was really
concerned about which take they
were going to use, because I be-
lieve that the most important thing
is the performance. The public, by
and large, is more affected by this
than the technical expertise.

Do you like to check the editing?

If you trust the director, then you
will trust the editor he has chosen.
Editors are artists, and it[...]rt of right of edit. He would
resent interference from me, as
much as I would from him.

But I would be fascinated to
watch some edi[...]a couple of
days on Winter of our Dreams,
because the more I learn about the
editing process, the more it will
help me become a better film act-
ress. Equally, the more I know
about camera movements and the
technical aspects like lighting, the
more I can help the lighting guys.
Without them constantly having to
say, “Look, can you move a little to
the right”, because it is better, I will
know what to do and avoid wast-
ing time.

How are actors educated?

It is an actor’s responsi[...]e than eager to

Below: Marzin (John Hargreaves), the "blind”
prisoner, and the sexua11y—repre.rsed Sarah
(Judy Davis):[...]

T ypecasting and Abuse
m

Would you ever u[...]ct in a
scene?

No. I know that a lot ofactors in
the US. take cocaine to give them
whatever cocaine does, but I don’t
think that’s right.

I guess the question is: Do you
get drunk to do a scene where[...]d his art. I don’t want to
see someone drunk on the screen; I
want to see an actor who is in
control.[...]d have done that for Winter of
our Dreams. My job was to reach a
point of understanding, and then
try to reproduce it.

Did you research the drug experi-

ence to the point where you were
satisfied?

Oh, I am never s[...]t up, I wouldn’t
have been satisfied.

You see, the important thing
about shooting up is not the shoot-
ing up itself, but what is at work —-
the fundamental principles behind
the shooting up, which is the addic-
tive personality. And you can get
the same thing with other experi-
ences, like sexual orgasms, drug
orgasms, emotional orgasms. It all
Comes from the same seed. And, for
me as an actress, that is wha[...]actor, or do you want
someone who is suitable for the
role? Do you want to use the actor
as a potential artist, but certainly as
a g[...]lic, or do you
get a good actor?

Now, if you get the actor who is
the alcoholic, what you are doing is
encouraging the thing that is going
to destroy him. You are encou[...]ong.

On one film, they actually got an
actor who was an alcoholic. It was
dreadful to see this man shaking at
midday, tryin[...]errible people simply
employed him because he had the
shakes. And, apart from making it
an unbearable experience, it didn’t
h[...]ult job
more difficult.

I have also suspected in the past
that there has been a tendency
among some cr[...]a couple of
country towns I have worked in
where the film unit has not left
many friends behind. It seems to be
the nature of the industry and it
gives me the shits. I usedthe reverse. I have grown to
understand better some of the enor-
mous problems involved in making
a film; and consequently developed
far more respect for all the effort,
dedication and sweat people put
into it. I believe that some of the
most creative minds are now

Power
m’

Apparently[...]rew on “My Brilliant
Career”, particularly in the ward-
robe department . . .

I would say that I was difficult on
Career, but only because I didn’t[...]all out of their minds. I
couldn’t believe what was going on
around me. I wasn’t difficult in that[...]to do
things, I just walked around like a
pain in the arse all the time and that
made me difficult. Maybe they are
used to actors who joke and so on.

Aunt Helen ( Wendy Hughes) attends to
Sybylla in My Brilliant Career. Despite the
acclaim, Davis considers her p_e_rformance
"inhib[...]ionship with Crew
T

New actors often don’t use the crew
as their audience . . .

Oh, you should never do that. It
was Jim Sharman wh_o gave_me
that tip long before I did anything.
He said, “Never use the crew as
your audience, because if you do, it
means you are projecting too far.

Even if you project to the camera-
man behind the lens, you are pro-
jecting too far.” This is how I
understand it.

Do you believe in developing a[...]a central char-
acter to be a pillar around which
the crew can become involved and
excited. This is ano[...]since My
Brilliant Career is to stop pretend-
ing the crew isn’t there. On My
Brilliant Career, I wouldn’t include
them in my reality. It was me and
the camera and the other actor.
That was the area of concentra-
tion. I didn’t trust the crew; I was

frightened of them. I also thought
that they weren’t part of the reality

of my creation. _ .
Well, it caused a lo[...]our perform-
ance is so strong?

No, that’s why the performance
is inhibited. It is not a strong per-[...]form-
ance, and rather neurotic. But it
does have the sort of edge the char-
acter needed — gritting of teeth and
so o[...]so introverted. On
Winter of our Dreams everybody
was involved. The crew was very
sympathetic, warm and generous. I
didn’t a[...]re.
They didn’t intrude on my concen-
tration.

The crew felt this, too. At no
point would they have[...]on those aspects that
make it important to you?

The actors I most admire have
made definite decisions. They have
decided on the objective in a scene
and then played it. That’s[...]ues it again. You can view

JUDY DAVIS

Lou on the streets of Kings Cross, Sydney.
Winter of our Dre[...]of actor. He
brings all levels and dimensions to
the character he is playing. You
understand there is an artist at
work.

It is nice to see the artist in the per-
formance . .

Yes, and it is very rare. Who[...]find an actor
who has actually tried to find out
the reality of an emotion. Take, for
instance, the performance by Meryl
Streep in Kramer vs Kramer. There
is a moment in the court scene when
her character is talking[...]

.j__.?.

illiamson has written 10 plays

and eight screenplays in the past

10 years. His early plays were

among those[...]d at

Betty Burstall’s Cafe La Mama
Theatre and the Australian Performing Group’s
Pram Factory in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
Along with such cont[...]lays
that were distinctly local in a challenge to the es-
tablished but foreign theatre of the day. In fact,
Williamson attributes his success to the demand
created for Australian drama by the Carlton
theatres.

The Coming 0fStork was his first play profes-
sionally performed in September 1970 at the
Cafe La Mama. This was followed in July 1971
by The Removalists, and Don's Party at the
Pram Factory in August 1971. By the end of that
year, Williamson had written the screenplay of
Stork for direction by Tim Burstall[...]s first financially-successful
film produced with the aid of Australian Film
Development Corporation funds.

The AFDC was founded by the Gorton
Government in 1970 to boost the Australian film
industry. Williamson has ridden the crest of thethe performing conditions of the
Carlton theatres. He is distinguished by a par-
t[...]d an abundance of swearing.
Four-letter words are used in displays of aggres-
sion and as terms of endea[...]ing of that
style. Of Jugglers Three he says:

“The verbal violence is more polished, the

rationalizations more verbose and there is

contact with the fine arts and music.”

His latest plays were wr[...]staging Australian
plays, probably as a result of the recognition of
Australian playwrights forged by the Carlton
successes. Jugglers Three was written for the
Melbourne Theatre Company in 1972, followed[...]oned by Sydney’s Old Tote Theatre Com-
pany for the opening of the Opera House. The
Department (1974) was written for the South
Australian Theatre Company at its new Festi[...]of Friends also
premiered there in 1976. In 1977, The Club was
first performed at the Melbourne Theatre Com-
pany. Williamson’s most[...]eatre in 1979, and Celluloid Heroes,
a play about the Australian film industry, writ-
ten for Nimrod’s 10th anniversary celebrations
at the beginning of 1981.

Williamson’s plays do not extensively pursue
the motivations of single characters, but explore
their behaviour in given social or sexual situa-
tions. The attention shifts from character to
character, and group to group, as th[...]lished. Characters do not undergo great
change in the course of a play because
Williamson believes that[...].

ssential to Williamson’s style is his
humor. The crispness of his dialogue
gives the plays the fast pace necessary
to comedy, and his plays are[...]with his thin
portrayal of female characters, to the criticism
of his works as sexist). But Williamson[...]raying his characters with enough af-
fection for the audience to identify with each,
but making such a[...]hurt. Williamson describes his style
as occupying the borderline between naturalism
and satire (naturalism in the broad sense).
Williamson claims to make a[...]

Meanwhi[...]Stork to a screen-
play in 1972, Williamson wrote the script for
The Family Man (1973), directed by David
Baker as part of the Libido portmanteau. In
1974, he adapted The Removalists for direction
by Tom Jeffrey. In that year, he also wrote the
screenplay for Petersen and in 1976 the script for
Eliza Fraser, both directed by Tim Bur[...]ty, directed by Bruce
Beresford who also directed The Club, released
in October 1980. This is Williamso[...]d’s latest feature.
Williamson has also written the screenplay for
Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, which is[...]rector and it is
he who has creative control over the final
product. When adapting his play to a screen-
play, the playwright-cum-scriptwriter may be
asked by the director to alter his plot. When
shooting and editing the film, the director may
misinterpret or ignore the playwright’s style. ,

The directors, Tim Burstall, Tom Jeffrey and
Bruce Be[...]of
locales and exterior shots. In his filming of The
Removalists, Jeffrey did not include many ex-
ter[...]le that clashed
with Williamson’s conception of the film. The
result was a piece of filmed theatre.

Beresford managed to[...]eriors, by using an extremely
mobile camera. This was again used in The Club,
which includes a large number of exteriors
without loss of plot. It is in cinematic technique
that the differences in styles of thethe pivoml rharacrer in Tim BursIaII's_/7/m. Stork.

Stork

The Coming of Stork is a nine-scene play set in
two locales: the bedroom of Anna’s flat and an
inner city Melbourne flat occupied by Tony,
West and Clyde. The play opens with Stork’s
arrival to live with the boys and, during its
course, he is revealed to be[...]an encounter with
Stork, announces her pregnancy, the father be-
ing any of the boys or Anna’s middle-aged boss,
Alan. After an argument involving all
characters, the play ends with Stork and West,
now groomsmen, absenting themselves from the
weddings of Tony to a socialite and Clyde to
Anna.

In the process of adapting the play,
Williamson learned how to write a screenplay.
As producer and director,[...]ing what should be
excluded. Williamson developed the basic struc-
ture of the plot but did not specify visuals. At
Burstall’s[...](Bruce Spence)
a psychological depth not shown in the play. His
character is extended and Stork becomes a more
central figure to the film’s action. His is the only
subconscious to be explored as he is placed in a
variety of situations.

The situational aspect is true to Williamson’s
style and Stork has Williamson character traits,
but the extension of character is part of Bur-
stall’s[...]revolves
about one central character and, seeing the
world from his perspective, the film follows that
character on his exploits. In Stork, because the
action revolves more heavily around Stork,
Willia[...]all gives Stork a different visual treat-
ment to the other characters ofthe film. Stork is
present in[...]ly or by im-
plication; either he is just outside the frame or
the camera represents him subjectively observ-
ing the reactions of others to him. The camera
often travels with Stork but holds on othe[...]him apart.

Although Stork is now more central to the ac-
tion, he is still a practical joker and a
hyp[...]that Tony (Sean McEuan) is hosting and
here plays the smoked oyster routine of the play,
in which he stuffs an oyster up his nose an[...], Stork
plays football with a sock, as he does in the play,
feels ill and believes he is dying.

When the other boys have a party, Stork
cowers as he does in the play, and after an unsuc-
cessful attempt to sedu[...]r wedding to Clyde (Helmut
Bakaitis).

Throughout the film Anna has been openly in-
volved with both Clyde and Tony. The film ends
with Anna, Clyde and Stork-the-Stowaway driv-
ing into the sunset as he wonders at the inability
of modern science to produce an anti-toxin for
tetanus.

All the actions of the film are intercut with
Stork’s eight fantasy s[...]ia on a
machine”; when searching for ajob he is the as-
sistant secretary to the ACTU and then an
engineer in Antarctica; before d[...]w, he fantasizes of himself with Anna
showing her how to make “chunderscapes”;
when he plays football with a sock, he is a
professional on the field; when he worries that he
will die, he imagi[...]ms
of a relationship with Anna; and when cowering
from the party, he sees himself as a soybean
farmer.

Thus Stork’s psyche is explored. The fantasy
sequences take place over 24 locales, 11 of which
are exterior. This is how Williamson opened his
play for Burstall, involving the writing of new
plot material.

The film is stamped with Williamson’s humor.
The comic environment is set in the credit se-
quence when Stork is sacked from GMH. He
strips to his underwear and is chased around the
factory by l'11S boss. This is played in fast mot[...]cause it is slapstick, it
immediately establishes the film as a comedy.

Clyde:[...]Anna, a death blow — It may never rise

again!

The jokes are typical of those flowing
throughout the film; Williamson uses a play on
words with sexual overtones. They are the type
that always raise a laugh from the audience and
serve to break the tension of serious scenes.

Edward McQueen-Mason[...]and some scenes were
deleted because they slowed the film. The cutting
can therefore be exhausting for the viewer,
especially as Burstall has used one-shots rather
than longer two-shots to emphasize the separ-
ateness of Stork’s characterization.

The film shows its timing in the Australian
film revival. In parts, it is crudely[...]continuity mistakes and it
seems to be over-cut. The acting is “big” or
overplayed for laughs. And while Stork cannot
be described as theatrical, the impression is that
a large number of locales were jammed into the
film to make the original play into a film.

The Remo valists
'

The Removalists, designed and produced by
Margaret Fink, was released in 1975. Fink saw
John Bell’s production of the play at the Nimrod
Theatre in 1971 and chose it for her firs[...]tion. After approaching David
Williamson to write the screenplay, she sought a
director. Because she wanted the film to be inter-
national in appeal, Fink unsucc[...]Kotcheff. Tom Jeffrey
then showed an interest and The Removalists

(Martin Harris).

I

became his first feature as director. For the
previous 14 years, Jeffrey had worked for the
ABC, where he directed Pastures of the Blue
Crane and episodes of Delta and Dynasty.

Williamson wrote the early drafts of the script
before Jeffrey was contracted. These show an in-
tention to open the play by extending the plot, as
he had done with Stork, and to include e[...]s were
deleted for Fink because she believed that the
original play needed little alteration to become a
film.

Once Jeffrey was chosen, he went through the
drafts with Williamson and made suggestions
for re-writing. Some of these suggestions were
adopted in the script. Williamson also included
the equivalent of stage directions for the actors,
but did not specify visuals or camera angles.

The final cut is much closer to the play than
the early script drafts and differences in plot
from playtext to film are minor. Fiona’s name
has been changed to Marilyn and the action is
set in Sydney rather than Melbourne. In Act
One of the play, Fiona and Kate make one visit
to the police station and in the film they make
two. In the film, Ross and Simmonds make a
trip to the local milk bar (the surviving
Williamson extension), but their dialogue may
be found in the play so that the plot is not altered
by this.

The Removalists opens with Constable Ross
(John Hargr[...]ds contracts a
removalist (Chris Haywood) to help the
policemen empty her flat.

As Marilyn prepares to move, Kenny arrives
home unexpectedly and, just before the
removalist, Kate and the policemen join her.
Kenny is handcuffed to a partition and, while the
flat is emptied, makes loud protest. His verbal
abuses of the women, removalist and policeman
provokes Simmonds[...]Kenny until
he thinks him dead. Kenny revives and the three
(Marilyn and Kate have already left with the
removalist) settle their differences over a beer.
Kenny then drops dead and the play ends with

DAVID WILLIAMSON

Constable Ross[...]eating each other to
mitigate their guilt.

While the play was a commercial and popular
success, the film was not. By September 1980, it
had not recovered all its production costs. Why
is this when the adaptation was so close? The
answer lies in the fact that the film is theatrical.
Not only are the plots of play and film close, Jef-
frey overuses mid-shots and most of the action is
contained within the frame, creating the effect of
the proscenium arch. There are few exterior
shots and sets were used instead of real loca-
tions. As well, the actors’ movements are at
times theatrical. The film is virtually a filmed
play.

Perhaps this fa[...]ous experience only in television
directing or by the fact that Margaret Fink, as
producer and designer, was so unwilling to allow
changes to the original play for the film. But this
is not the only failing ofthe film. IfWilliamson’s
traits[...]ries
they would be “realism” and “humor”. The first
is retained in the film, but the second is denied.

Williamson describes his play as a “black
satiric comedy”. His use of humor makes the
play a comedy that turns black with the use of
violence and the death of Kenny. In the film the
dialogue is often funny, but there are no visual
cues to comedy. The blackness of the credits, ac-
companied by the music of Galapagos Duck,
create a symbol of menace which recurs
throughout the film. Because Jeffrey emphasizes
the dark moods of the characters without
providing a balance in the visuals for their
lighter moods, the mixture of moods necessary
to dark comedy is not created.

The style of the film, according to
Williamson, is “lyrical”.[...]royed by Jeffrey’s use of pauses, so that
while the plot ofthe play is not altered the action
is slowed. In these pauses the camera focuses on
shots of realistic detail. In the first scene, such
shots indicate tension (the film may be divided
into two long scenes coinciding with the acts of
the play). For example, Ross plays with an
empty pencil sharpener at the station and at the
milk bar fiddles with a salt shaker until he spills
the contents.

In the second scene, the pauses no longer in-
dicate tension because the atmosphere is so
openly violent. Instead,[...]

Barrett) and Cooley (Harold Hopkins) throw the stripped Susan ( Claire Birmey) [mo the pool.

Bruce Beresford '5 Don ’s Party.

ing packed and the marital bed being dis-
mantled. Pauses are also used to imply violence.
During these, the reaction shots of the women
convey its ugliness. When Kenny is beaten to
death, the camera shows Simmonds tying his
shoe laces.

The attention to domestic detail in pauses
renders the film a suburban tragedy rather than

a black come[...]t becomes poignant
rather than funny. As a result the film is not a
comedy that turns black and the first shots begin
a slow crescendo of violence.[...]y productions of
Don’; Party, Jack Lee obtained the screen rights
and, in 1974, he approached Phillip Adams to
produce the film. Lee was to be its director and
with Adams he met Williamson, who began
work adapting the play to a screenplay. Lee then
withdrew from the project (retaining his finan-
cial interest) and Bruce Beresford became the
director.

In Williamson’s first drafts the drama was ex-
tended so that the film would not be confined to
the one stage set of the play. These extensions
were discarded because they did not work. Once
Beresford was chosen, he went through the script
and suggested the re-inclusion of some segments
deleted by Adams and Lee.

Some of Williamson’s changes do survive.
While the play has one locale — the interior of a
house — the film has several, including ex-
teriors. Of these, the earlier exterior shots are
farthest from the house so that the confined at-
mosphere of the play is not destroyed as the
films action continues. As well, action only im-
plied in the play is explicit in the film, the main
examples being the screening of the characters’
sexual encounters and the credits showing Don
and Kath Henderson (John Hargreaves and

Jeanie Drynan) voting. V
The play’s 1969 setting is kept, but the location
is Sydney’s Westleigh instead of Melbourne’s
Lower Plenty. Since these suburbs are similar,
the suburban, middle-class milieu of the play

survives. ' _ .
Slight changes in character[...]Barrett plays Mal, but because he is
too old for the part he becomes Don's ex-
university lecturer rat[...]tially by these changes. Don’s Party opens
with the Hendersons voting, followed by their
preparations for the arrival of nine guests to
their election party: S[...]ns) and Susan (Claire Binney). All but
two expect the Labor Party to win the elections.

As the party progresses, the group tellsjokes,
swaps partners and makes sexual advances.
Meanwhile the election results are telecast.
While the party is still genial, the results favor
the Labor Party. But as Don’s party deterior-
ates into aggression and violence, polling begins
to favor the Liberal-Country Party.

During the evening the individual and collec-
tive failures of the group are revealed. The film
ends with the disbandment of the party and the
announcement of a win to the coalition.

Once again, in the writing of the screenplay,
Williamson made no specifications for the con-
struction of visuals, although he did provide at-
mospherics, and he did not participate in the
editing of the film.

In the film, Beresford uses a mobile camera to
capture the equal contribution to the action of
all the characters, the changes in atmosphere
and variety of moods. The fast pace necessary to
Williamson’s humor is thus retained.

Despite the closeness in plot of the film and
play, the film is not theatrical like The
Removalists and Beresford’s method for opening
the play is not as crude as Burstall’s in Stork.
Early in Don’s Party, Beresford breaks the
audience’s association with the single perspec-
tive of the proscenium arch: the line of action is
crossed as Don watches television and mirror
shots are also used to give opposite perspectives.
These erode the audience’s sense of the theatre.

Beresford uses a wide variety ofcamera angles
and a number of point-of-view shots to show the
guests’ interactions. For example, when Mack,
Mal and Don tell Jody the duckhunterjoke, the
camera is subjectively the joke teller and atten-
tion is on the reactions to the joke. In this way
the audience identifies with the teller and the
result is raucous laughter from the audience and
party guests.

conservative Simon ([...]’s Party.

Such shots are mixed throughout the film with
long-shots, medium-shots and close-ups, and
edited into quickly-paced sequences. The camera
weaves among the guests, travels with the
characters one minute and holds on them the
next, and the depth offield is frequently altered.

A world beyond the frame is implied as some
action takes place off c[...]o Jody and Simon’s request for dry ginger
comes from a bedroom at a different end of the
house. This happens early in the film and later,
when Mal argues with Jody about status, the dis-
cussion begins in the background before the
camera focuses on them. In this way, a feeling of
real space is built into the film. Additionally, it
was shot in a house in Westleigh as Beresford
believes that films shot on sets are too theatrical.

The Club
'

The Club was produced by Matt Carroll for
the South Australian Film Corporation and
released in October 1980. It is the second of
Williamson’s adaptations to be direct[...]se-ups and wide-angle lenses in his quest
to open the play.

The main dissimilarity to Don’s Party is the
large number of exterior shots found in The
Club, probably more than Burstall usedthe
narrative structure of the play so that all the ac-
tion of the film is founded in the play. The
dialogue is similar but what began as a one-and-
a-halfhour confrontation in the play becomes in
the film a battle continuing over weeks.

Wil1iamson’s two-act play is set in one locale:
the boardroom of an anonymous Melbourne
football club. It features six characters: Gerry

Cooper, the club’s administrator; Ted Parker,
the club president; Laurie Holden, the team

Bringing exterior action into a pla y: the recruit (John Howard) tests out his strength at training.
The coach (Jack Thompson) watches on. Bruce Beresfordk The Club.

coach; Danny Rowe, a long-standing player;[...]mber, former player
and coach; and Geoff Hayward, the team’s
newest player. The action is the confrontation
between the six before the club committee
meeting. Laurie has threatened his resignation
and taken his grievances to the press, Ted is in
an uproar because he has been de[...]players’ strike in sympathy
for Laurie.

One of the main disputes is the extravagant
$80,000 paid for Geoff, who is playin[...]oing bankrupt. Geoffis playing bad-
ly because of the hostility he has received from
the other players, who are “put out” by his price[...]lusioned with football
and plays while stoned and the club is losing the
premiership. _

As the group argues, it is revealed that Laurie,
Danny and Ted are to be dismissed from the
club because Jock and Gerry are dispensing with
club tradition and adopting the business ap-
proach instigated by Ted. Ted’s resignation is
eventually forced because the club will not see
him through an assault charge laid by a stripper,
arising from an incident at a social evening. In
fact, it is Gerry and Jock who have leaked the
story to the press in a bid to remove Ted.

Finally, Geoff rea[...]rather be
coached by Laurie than anyone else and the
team, represented by Danny, agrees to aim for

the finals so that the committee will be forced to
renew Laurie’s contract.

For Beresford’s film, Williamson altered the

narrative structure of the play so that its ex-.

positionary passages are treated in the film (ex-
positionary as distinct from implied). The film
opens with a team-training session followed by
Geoffs signing up. It shows his hostile reception
by the team, the game in which Ted goes to the
coach’s box to instruct Laurie (Jack Thompson)
and Laurie’s subsequent encounter with the
press.

The confrontation of the play begins in the
club carpark. The backstabbing continues at the
club’s social night, where Ted (Graham Ken-
nedy) is provoked by the stripper. The actual
assault is the one event of the play which is only
implied in the film.

The various interactions of the group continue
in the locker rooms, bathrooms, recreation
rooms, offices and football field of the club. The
action is taken outside its bounds to Jock’s
(F[...]Ted’s homes in suburban
Melbourne. It includes the fantasy sequences in
which Geoff tells the yarn of his sexual en-
counters with his legless sister and mother. In
all, the film includes 28 scenes, 20 of which are
exterior.

Because the action spans the entire football
season, ending with the club’s win in the grand
final, the film features a number of football
games. In these, the key movements of the

The back-room boys: Gerry (Alan Casse/I), Ted and Jack
(Frank Wilson). The Club.

Gerry bids goodbye to the ousted Ted in front of an astonished
coach. The Club.

DAVID WILLIAMSON

Before the camera cuts: Ted (Graham Kennedy) begins to undress the stripper. The Club.

players are screened in slow motion. The as-
sociation with the action replay of television is
strong. As well, a large number of extras appear
in the film as the crowds are shown in the
grandstands enjoying the game (they include
Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser). The main ex-
tras are the football players comprising the
team.

The players and club premises are those of the
Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne.
While the anonymity of the club is destroyed,
the realism necessary to Williamson’s style is
created. In fact, the film relies largely on the
football games for authenticity and interest, and
their inclusion is logical.

But the film is not just Williamson’s play in-
tercut with the occasional football game. Once
again, Beresford uses a mobile camera, and
many of the exterior shorts of the film are wide-
angled. Inside the clubrooms, a variety of angles
similar to those of Don’s Party are used as the
camera follows the characters up the stairs or
views a couple in argument over the pool table.
Beresford is free with his use of close-ups and
profile shots. The camera moves so freely that,
at one point, it makes two 360° turns about
Geoff and Laurie on the field. In this way the
series of confrontations embracing the film are
relieved in the visuals and the situational aspect
of Williamson’s style is retained.

In the film’s course, the absurdities of
character are brought out. Ted is the football
club president who has never played a ga[...]good enough for his team; Gerry (Alan Cassell)
is the best club administrator, but does not like
the game and is ruthless with his members;
Laurie is[...]traditions. Each is exposed for
what he is during the battle.

Thus Williamson makes his comment on male
competitive behaviour and the degeneracies of
the club. His distaste for boardroom politics ex-
tends beyond the club in question as he criticizes
a modern trend away from tradition to pure
economics. It is Beresford who presents the is-
sues with intensity in his filming ofThe Club. Es-
sential is the thrill of the game. Beresford cap-
tures a mentality that is popular and familiar,
and in this way he attracts the audience to whom
the messages will apply. 1:

Cinema Papers, Ma[...]

Tom Ryan interviews the director of The Stunt Man and Getting Straight.

1.I

redients[...]a love story; a
satire about illusion-making (“How tall is King

Kong? ”); a comedy; an adventure;[...]dle, an end (preferably happy).

In what ways are the Academy
Award nominations for “The Stunt
Man” important to you?

Unashamedly I confess that,
along with the childhood dream of
becoming a director; there is a
fantasy of winning Academy
Awards and the recognition ofyour
peers that goes with it. So, t[...]ere is a very significant
reward which is part of the
unwritten contract that comes with
Academy nomina[...]es easier to finance and
execute your material in the future.
You are a more prestigious
commodity.

Yo[...]t
your pre-I970 career in filmmaking
made you “the best of the two-dollar
hookers”. And you describe your
expe[...]y
believe that about your early work?

No, though the metaphor about
the two—dollar hooker is, in a sense,
true. If ther[...]cant
director would have been hired. But
as there was only two dollars
around. I had the premium. This
gave me the chance to make trades
with the producers who hired me. to
say, “HI give you all the exploit-
able thrills you want, if you keep
your[...]and developing new
techniques for telling them.

The Editor would like to thank Village-
Roadshow and[...]or their
generous co-operation in helping conduct
the above phone interview.

l28 — Cinema Papers, May-June

What were the important influences
on you during this time?

There was Laszlo Kovaks, who
made his first film for me. He was a
young Hungarian refugee, who had
gone to film school in Hungary,
and I was an un—notorious director.
I hired him to do A Man Called
Dagger, and he did the next six or
seven for me.

We developed a marvellous
working rapport, the short-cuts
that shared experience teaches you.
We[...]ome interesting
techniques. Later, I got him into
the union, for his first union film,
which was Getting Straight, also
my first major studio film[...]would say films like
George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun
and Elia Kazan’s East of Eden.
Kazan‘s film was an important
experience in the way it reached in
new directions, showing me how the
rules could be bent on the edges of
style and reality.

One of the recurring visual elements
in your films is the use of the
“critical focus”, or the “rack
focus”, style of shooting. What do
you see as the aesthetic advantages
of shooting that way?

The whole style of critical focus,
that Laszlo and I developed, seems
to be much closer to the way the
human eye and mind perceive the
reality around us. I look at you,
then my attenti[...]someone passing,
without shifting my gaze at all. The
focus changes and returns to you,
all in one cont[...]n a continuously moving master,
hopefully without the viewer ever
becoming aware of it. And you do

the coverage according to the way
the master is played.

This is a style that was born
around my swimming pool one
summer, with an 8mm camera. I
showed the result to Laszlo and we
started to develop it, incorporating
it onto 35mm on my next feature,
which was a motor-cycle film called
Hell’s Angels on Wheels. It has
developed from there.

Are you troubled that it is also so

2. D[...]ble ” films in I 970 with Getting Straight
(“the bestAmericanfilm of the past I 0 years ”.'
Ingmar Bergman). Freebie and the Bean, 1 9 74
(“the best film of the year”: Stanley Kubrick).
Spent I 0 years on The StuntMan. Nominated for
Academy A ward as best director for The Stunt
Man, J 98].

often used in television drama?

No, because all technique is a
pool from which we drain. The
close-up, which is now part of any
film drama, is an unlikely technique
which we have borrowed and used
ubiquitously.

Another reason I don’t mind its
proliferation is that anything in
filmology, in the collaboration
between the audience and the film-
maker, eventually becomes

acceptable. Familiarity tends to
make a technique invisible and less
distancing for the audience. It
becomes a part of the syntax of
cinema. And for any film stylist,
part of the challenge, part of the
adventure, is to extend the syntax a
bit with every film, so that the
vocabulary of the film, the phras-
ing, becomes more exciting and
interesting[...]rough
films like “Hells Angels on
Wheels”, “The Savage Seven”,
“Psych-Out”, “Getting Straight”,
and now “The Stunt Man”, with a
group of people who cut themselves
off from society, rejecting its values
and trying to disco[...]t I can’t really get
involved with a film, with the
structure and making of it, until the
sub-text, the thematics, is clear to
me. Then it becomes equall[...]piracy of
events that ends up saying
something to the audience.

You have probably become
aware of my t[...]ve. Only recently did I realize
that I keep doing the same thematic
material, although the surface
always changes. And this basic
material is a fascination with our
token morality, the kind of slogan-
ized, bumper-sticker morality
which is expedient and arbitrary.

What comes out of The Stunt
Man, I think, is that because we
don’t know the truth, we are
constantly inventing it; inventing[...]enting enemies to test our

strength against. And the film’s
study of illusion and reality is a
development of the same ideas that
were buried in the other films about
the relationship between rebel
heroes and the arbitrary morality of
the society from which they retreat.

The American involvement in
Vietnam seems to be a rec[...]ilms,
explicitly in “Getting Straight” and
“The Stunt Man”, implicitly, I
think, in “Freebie and the Bean”
and “The Savage Seven”. What do
you see as its function,[...]atic contexts?

I think there is no escaping that
the Vietnam war was the major
focal event of the last generation.
Its implications need to be seen in
the light of this question of an
arbitrary morality, in the way we
invent right and wrong,
expediently, for the moment. We
fought a war, calling up the echoes
of patriotism and all the things we
had been trained to since infancy,
without ever being forced to
examine the morality against the
context.

The shock to our collective
system, and to our individual way
of looking at the world, that comes
from this kind of examination
seems inescapable materi[...]ind of social
commentary in your films.

Much of the writing about your
films is oblivious to any soc[...]example, while it seems to me that
“Freebie and the Bean” takes a
critical distance from its two
buffoon cops, the reviews saw it as a
celebration of the chaos of their
violent behaviour . . .

This is part of the danger that
comes with the conviction that one

shouldn’t talk about thematic
material in the film itself, that it
really has to speak within the rules
and structure of good enter-
tainment, that you can only find the
thematic statement by recognizing
what is going on behind the violence
or the humor.

In the case of Freebie and the
Bean, there were only about 15
critics in the U.S. who really
tumbled to what the gymnastics of
doing the film were about, who
made the Herculean effort to
identify the statement in the films
dramatic structure, which plays in
Tom and Jerry style and then
switches to reality to alter the
audience’s perception of what it has
been cheer[...]ing a war, calling it an
“insane commitment”. Was the war
background an element in Paul
Brodeur’s book that initially
attracted you to “The Stunt Man”?

The attraction in Brodeur’s book
was the idea of a fugitive hiding his
identity by posing as a stunt man on
a film, and then falling under the
dominance of the director. This
seemed a marvellous context in
which to examine the universal
paranoia we have about controlling
our own destinies and lives.

The story offered all the spice for
a giant action film, and so fulfilled[...]c laundry.

You spent almost a decade getting

“The Stunt Man” made and
distributed. What were the kinds of
problems you faced, and why didn’t
you give up and do something else?

I must confess that the nobility
isn’t as great as it sounds, be[...]

Nina (Barbara Hershey), in the guise 0,/‘an old woman, setting in motion the illusion of rescue, The Stunt Man.

all those years ago somebody had
said[...]e walked away.
However. on a day-to-day basis, it
was impossible to let go.

It was a rave review novel.
written in I970 by Paul Brod[...]they offered it to me. I
hired Larry Marcus to do the
screenplay with me, and we spent
nine months on it. When we were
through I was hopelessly in love
with it. It had turned out exactly

the way I wanted.

Unfortunately. the rest of the
industry didn’t share my enthus-
iasm. Columbia had just run across
hard times. and was unable to
finance the film. The other studios
in town were scared to death of it.
They all gave a variety of reasons,
such as the references to the
Vietnam War, which were taboo
because the war was still on, or the
references to Hollywood, which
made it a risky subject.

But what it really added up to, as
it turned out. was that the film was
very hard to pin down. It was multi-
levelled. The question was: What is
it? Is it a comedy? Is it an action-
adventure’? Is it social comment?
And the answer was. “Yes, it is all
of those things.” But it cou[...]ed me a
film. I would say. “Come on, let’s
do The Stunt Man.” And they’d
say. “Hey! Will you[...]I had to make
another film, so I did Freebie and
the Bean, and when it was
commercially successful, I went

I30 — Cinema Papers, May-June

back to saying, “Let’s do The Stunt
Man.”

Finally, an independent
financier, Melvin Simon, agreed to
make the film, and to my ideal cast:
Peter O‘Toole, Stev[...]Barbara Hershey. With every-
one involved, there was a kind of
commando-like dedication to
making the film. We would go out
and “capture” the footage every
day, rather than shoot it.

When we finished the film, which
we all liked a lot, we offered it for
distribution. And, to my surprise,
the studios had not changed their
view. They thought it was too risky
commercially and that they
wouldn’t be able to sell it. So we
took the film out and previewed it
in Seattle. I broke one of the rules
and allowed it to be reviewed at the
previews. This is usually a taboo,
because if you[...]ews in Seattle and
tremendous statistical results from
the preview.

I brought this back to Holly-
wood but[...]some more.” So
we went to Phoenix and repeated
the performance, with reviews and
with statistics.

Charles Champlin, who is the
film critic for the Los Angeles

3. Thernatics and Stylistics: “Rea[...]where nothing is what it seems . . . lyrics of the song, “Bits and Pieces”,
from The StuntMan, whose narrative construction revolves a[...]?

Its movement transports its central character, the fugitive, Cameron (Steve

Railsback), and its ins[...]illusions are transformed into “reality”. As the director, Eli Cross (Peter
0’T0ole), lea ves in his helicopter and the actress, Nina (Barbara Hershey),
comes to Cameron ’s side, the solidity of the fictional world is finally fixed. The
narrative has come to its end, stripping away the facade which has concealed the
site of reality.

Yet, in challenge to this synoptic reduction, a further moment, as the voice of Eli
Cross is raised in a teasing threat beyond the final credits: “Cut the boy out of
the picture. ”

Of whom does he speak .7 Not of Cameron who, as a stunt man, fills in the gaps
of risk left by the star actor, and thus has no part in the film. 0fRailsback, the
star actor? Impossible, for a defining characteristic of a narrative realism is to
erase the marks of its production.‘ Eli Cross cannot cross the border of fiction to
address Railsback. O'Toole to Railsback? Again impossible, for the voices of
actors cannot speak within the film, except in the disguise of role. So the logic of
the form is denied — “no one”speaks to “no one”.

Earlier, there are two sequences — of Cameron, the outsider, an observer of the
action sequence being shot by Cross and his crew on the beach; then of
Cameron, the participant, in the action sequence moving from the tower to the
brothel. In both there is a continuity: no settin[...]cealed by skilful editing.

But here a difference from the construction of classical narrative as thematics

and Stylistics meet at a point of confrontation, where the solidity of the fictional
world is simultaneously asserted and denied. In a film whose thematics speak of
the process of producing cinema, to offer, through it[...]of that process, is to disavow itself, again, of the logic of the form.
Belief and disbelief in a sustained flow o[...]ion, whose meeting-point
coincides precisely with the creation of T he StuntMan within and against “the
syntax of (a narrative) cinema”.

Times, liked the film and sponsored
it at the Dallas Festival. It is a non-
competitive festival, but the papers
there voted it best film. We sent this
accumulated material back to the
industry, but it hadn’t changed its
view. People said, “Okay, appar-
ently it pleases the critics, it pleases
the public, but there is nothing that
indicates it wi[...]that same theatre,
36 weeks later. We set records the
first week.

Well, the effect of this tremen-
dous success on the industry was
that it declared Seattle a non-
market. If Seattle liked The Stunt
Man, there must be something
wrong with Sea[...]picked
Westwood in Los Angeles, which is
probably the most competitive
cinema market in the world. We
were able to get a theatre for six
week[...]atres around Los Angeles.

During its first week, the film
became the box-office champion in
Los Angeles, running about 50 per
cent over every other film. Also in
that week, the film won the Grand
Prix at the Montreal Film Festival
and Fox picked it up for worldwide
distribution. It was a great week
after nine years of messing around.

How dangerous is the sort of energy
that you seem to expend on film-
making? You are reported as having
collapsed in the cutting room on
“The Savage Seven”, and as having
had a heart attack during the pre-
release period on “The Stunt Man”

On The Savage Seven, I only had
in my contract three weeks of
cutting time, and I collapsed with a
bad case of the flu while we were
working on the last reel. The result
is that the last reel has never been
quite satisfactory because they
never let me back into the cutting
room.

On The Stunt Man, I am afraid it
was a heart attack. It was a classic
textbook case of stress. I had very
clearly lost a round of the battle to
get distribution, after all those
successful previews and the acclaim
at the Dallas Film Festival. I came
back to town and nobody would
move forward with the film. It was
very disheartening, if you’ll pardon
the pun, and I could see some
moves being made that would be
very destructive to the film. The
heart-attack was perhaps an
unconscious way of trying to
prevent t[...]most of your films
seems to be a tension between the
emotional flow of the narratives and
the play with the intellectual issues.
“The Stunt Man” seems to bring
this right into focus, setting the
dramatic development of the

/nm the bro/hel. The Stunt Man.

characters’ relationship as a foil for
the manipulation of point of view
which underlies the way in which
those relationships are constructed

That’s a very good description of
the syntax games we were trying to
play. I had a special advantage in
The Stunt Man, and that is the
structure ofthe film within the film.

The Stunt Man is a contem-
porary story, placed in the present,
in a time—lock of perhaps three
days. However, the film within the
film, Eli Cross’ film, is a period

A.

piece,[...]ar epic
that spans 50 years. But,
coincidentally, the themes of both
films, mine and Eli Cross’, are the
same. Therefore, Eli can talk about
them and I ne[...]Eli should
express his concerns. because he is
on the last three frantic days, trying
to make a film that will come out
the way he wants. That gives me
more hook in terms of[...]/i C ross and slim! man Cameron in preparation on the so! of (/1? World War / film.

The Sum! Man.

posts for the audience as it works at
the emotional flow of my film.
Part of the fun on The Stunt
Man, and part of the self-imposed
rules of the game, was not to nail
everything down too tightly. I
wanted to leave a certain amount
open for the audience, to let it
invent some answers for itself.

There seems to me an underlying
Oedipal structure in the relation-
ship between Eli, Nina and Cam-
eron. How conscious were you of
that in preparing the film, and now,
in looking at it?

I think any fil[...]central
character of so many of our
fantasies in the Western World: the
dream—girl image. She is the
creature across the crowded room
for whom we are constantly
searching[...]ry
corner. She is certainly a composite
of images from early infancy. I
remember picking out a girl at
kindergarten to fall in love with.
How far is that from Oedipal
orientation?

Nina is that dream—girl i[...]ost every film star I
know can be tempted to play the
fantasy in her audience’s mind. It is
almost a[...]d there seems to be something
about it carried in the very idea of
star quality. I think there a[...]

I The taskof evaluating the films screened at
the 12th Annual Swinburne Premiere Screening
has been[...]d form a part of a dialogue and
not become simply the musings of a critic from a
darkened theatre. What it involves in this special
case, from the point of view of a critical
methodology, occupied my mind for some time;
the rest of my time was taken up with repeated
viewings of the 27 films (excluding videotapes).

By and large, I[...]responded to most strongly because,
blended with the attempt at critical rigor, there
is a mass of per[...]ingredients are essential
to a vigorous dialogue. The few omissions
reflect the limits to my eclecticism.

Scripting was generally one of the strong
points in all the films. This obviously reflects
careful and detail[...]ntegrated scripts with
cleverly-handled ideas. On the other hand, I am
disappointed that this obvious care has not
resulted in a stronger ideological component in
the finished films. I am, of course, not
promoting a narrow political line; rather, I am
using the term “ideology” in the broader sense
defined by Althusser in For Marx a[...]en-
tations (images, myths, ideas or concepts, as the
case may be) existing and having a historical rol[...]es a challenge; yet
I am prepared to defend it on the grounds that to
argue contrawise would be to reduce the
signification of the term ideology to triviality.

Perhaps, sometimes, the very cleverness
shown in manipulating the script militates
against the ideological openness of the text. On
purely practical grounds as well, I am surprised
that the open-ended script was not used more
often. This would seem to be a solution ideally
suited to short films, and one which would avoid
the feeling that the ending is contrived merely to
close the text, rather than arising naturally from
the central situation. Points related to this issue
will become clearer in the discussion of in-
dividual films.

Looking at the group of films as a whole, I
feel that the ones which work best are those
where the filmmaker could operate with a degree
of expressive exaggeration. Obviously, the
animated films fall wholly into this category.

I. “Realism and the Cinema", Christopher Williams (ed.),
BFI Readers[...]ms using live-
action shooting and working within the mode of
satire.

I would like to draw attention mainly to the
success of the soundtracks of these films and
contrast it with the frequent failure ofthe sound-
tracks of the films working within a much more
conventional dra[...]must be
some valid conclusions that can be drawn from
this contrast of success and failure.

On the technical side, I am surprised at the
demise of the dolly shot. There are very few at-
tempts at moving camera apart from travelling
shots from vehicles. There may be obvious tech-
nical reason[...]tirely,
because here it seems to have resulted in the
atrophying of a feeling for what can be achieved
with the moving camera.

In the few examples where a zoom lens is used
to achieve a change in field size during a shot
(excluding the crash zooms for dramatic
emphasis), the movement seems to be so ten-
tative and lacking i[...]ity may have killed an important
filmic nerve. On the other hand, the occasional
use of the high-speed camera for slow-motion ef-
fects needs[...]d, to
decide what its real potential might be and how
it might be used for full effect. Simply to follow
the prevailing pattern that prescribes the man-
datory use of slow motion for explosive or
v[...]jection that needs to be
expressed with regard to the way the publicity
handout for these films has been presented. The
printed program gives the impression of mis-
takenly propagating the cult of the director, by
selectively displaying the photographs of those
who have been designated as directors in each of
the productions.

My objection is that this results in the obscur-
ing of a pattern of co—operative work that seems
to be apparent from the credits. The names of
certain individuals crop up regularly in[...]o be related thematically. With
regard to some of the films, I would quite
seriously argue that this pr[...]nating a
director has led to serious distortions. The
ramifications may be quite serious, yet they do
n[...]ten described
as a collaborative activity. Should the contribu-
tion of some people (in this instance R[...]mphasized as a result of established practices in
the industry?

For the want of an alternative, in this article I

will continue to refer to the names designated in
the publicity handout; but this whole question
needs serious consideration.

I Of the films included in the program, some of
the most notable successes operated, either
wholly or partially, within the mode of satire.
For instance Zok, by Norval Watso[...]show “what happens to drunk surfers in debt
to the Mafia” (according to the publicity blurb).
The film stars, among other people and things, a
dog named Bruno, which also turns out to be the
narrator. The script is a clever send-up of the
surfing lifestyle and has some memorable lines.
But the film also develops creditably on the
visual level, notably in its use of the main loca-
tion, the derelict hectares on the lower Yarra
beneath the arch of the Westgate Bridge.

In the film, this structure takes on a symbolic
significance as a high-flying ramp propped up
over the rotting swampland that marks the
entrance of the river into Melbourne’s non-
descript bay. The low mounds of weed set
against stagnant water, where Zok sits wrapped
in a blanket drinking, link with the dereliction of
the heap of abandoned car bodies where he
works out his frustrations. The vistas from this
point establish the particular visual stamp of our
city from the south-west: a high-rise central sec-
tion struggling to protrude into a polluted sky,
through the dcspoiled wasteland and factory ef-
fluvia of a crescent of industrial suburbs.

Visually, the film remains consistent to this
emphasis throughout. The chase scene, which
picks up one of the well-established dramatic se-
quences of the television crime-thrillers (the
gunman chasing his victim up the staircase of a
fire-escape), is carried out in locations well
chosen to fit into the general visual pattern. The
editing becomes a positive factor because the
film manages to keep all of these elements
together. The soundtrack, often technically one
of the most difficult components to control suc-
cessful[...]ulation of voice (which is easier
to control than the so-called normal intonations
of everyday speech), but it also eliminates the
necessity for lip-sync and allows the filmmaker
to get into the dubbing studio where he can re-
record at minimum[...]ween this device and
tl_ie_satirical intention of the script. In fact,
similar techniques. are used to cut double-system
recording to a minimum. Fat Alex, the sleazy
Malia type, wears sticking plaster[...]

In all these ways, retrograde forces are ob-
viated and the film can achieve full expressive
potential within[...]de.

Split, by David Reyne, works almost as well.
The film uses satirical elements, although there
are[...]territory that could be
described as surrealist. The script is clever and
has an enigmatic curl in its tail. The visuals are
good and perhaps could be considered[...].

But insofar that this film relies much more on
the skill of actors in controllingperformance
and voice, it is less successful than Zok. The se-
quence where the main character, after swim-
ming to shore, enters[...]ng girlfriends, it works
well. Radic uses many of the same devices men-
tioned earlier to cut himself free from an en-
slavement to a difficult soundtrack. Yet the
device of using a chorus singing a ballad which
incorporates the dialogue does not work well for
me, especially since the singing style seems con-
fused, hovering between an outback Australian
bush idiom and the manner of a medieval chorus
singing church music.

Director David Reyne (right) and crew during the production
0/ Split.

2 Two films stand out in the whole batch: the
first, In Search of the Japanese, by Solrun
Hoaas, is notable for its ric[...]n a sense, it represents a further
development in the satirical mode. The film is a
strange conglomerate of clips from Japanese
samurai films, interviews which are sub-[...]o has discovered five different ways
of splitting the chopstick.

Satirical though this touch may be, and the
professor is certainly presented as a figure to tilt
at, as the satire develops, a degree of credibility
builds up until one can come to accept that the
method of splitting chopsticks might become a
ritualized action that reflects the whole culture.

The businessman, on the other hand, always
remains a figure of comedy as he pursues, in a
serious yet uncomprehending way, the secret of
the Japanese mentality. He remains the
archetypal pupil who is condemned to ignorance
by the intensity of his search. The sequence
where he asks his questions of a bunch of
seagulls and then waits for a reply makes the
point very succintly. Yet, in the process of
searching for answers, he undergoes a process of
aculturation.

The last sequence shows him dressed in
traditional Ja[...]anese in
Western jeans and jacket. Framed through the
legs of the youth, he halts; then with stylized
gestures, grimaces and shouts, he pulls out five
chopsticks from his belt, one after another, and
dramatically splits them.

The film remains enigmatic (or inscrutable) to
the end, yet manages to retain a feeling ofhaving
taken a committed stance on the great cultural
and economic partnership of our time.

The second film, To the Memory of Pedro
Alonso Lopez by Martin Wilson, is perhaps the
most outstanding film stylistically. The script is
simple and open—ended: it does not attempt to
explain the background to the events that are
shown on the screen, neither is there any attempt
to indicate what happens to the central character
after he gets into a car at the end of the film and
disappears from the screen.

The surface structure of the plot is rendered
enigmatic by a number of strange incidents
following the rather bizarre murder that opens
the film. The bus that Pedro boards early in the
morning, after committing the murder, breaks
down just after he finds his seat. The driver, who
seems to be a local, goes across the river to the

house of the murdered woman to seek assistance
and, of course, finds the corpse. While he is
gone, Pedro becomes very anxious to regain his
suitcase which has been locked in the luggage
compartment of the bus, something which seems
strange under the circumstances. He commits
the second murder to get the keys from the
driver to reclaim his bag, while the other pas-
sengers sleep on.

The last shot, perfectly controlled and show-
ing assurance and confidence, is a long-shot
looking down towards the road from a small
rise, with strong black shadows of trees cast by
the early morning sun stretching across the
grass. A car comes into shot and stops. Pedro
runs to it, opens the door and gets in. Then the
car drives off.

The filmmaker displays the confidence not to
break the shot and go closer to the action, bring-
ing this film, which is effectivel[...]to a natural and well-conceived ending.

Whatever the reason for the choice of this

Scene from S0/run Hoaas’ “enigmatic (or inscrutable)" In
Search of the Japanese.

Cinema Papers, May-June -- I33

On the level of the visual expression, form
matches content in well-balanced equilibrium.
The opening shots, showing Pedro with his face
in the dark and the middle-aged woman whom
we assume to be his landlady with her face on the
pillow lit by the bedside lamp that has just been
turned on, are slow and measured like the
murder itself. After killing her, the man care-
fully rolls down the bedclothes and lays his head
near her heart, presumably to listen for any
heartbeat; but the gesture is charged with so
much feeling, and even tenderness, that it is im-
possible not to wonder at the deeper significance
of the act.

Three shots, all from the other side of the
river, get Pedro across to the bus—stop and here,
as he sits on his trunk, two[...]e
in shot configuration or camera angle establish
the time lapse as he waits for the bus to arrive.
Such carefully-planned set-ups and[...]efully-controlled
editing and music, characterize the whole film.
The directorial control over script and visual ex-
pression does not falter. This film gives the
strongest feeling of positive and intelligent dir[...]me
merely a formal exercise in film technique.

- The next group of films which attempt a
much more con[...]heir quality and produce a lack of
consistency in the surface structure.

A to B and Back, by Don Margan, is cleverly
scripted: a stolen car goes from hand to hand un-
til it eventually returns to the original thief.
There are some engaging character sketches,
such as the one at a telephone box when a greasy
bikie, roused by the rear view sight of a girl in
tight denims, turns back to harass her. His lewd,
suggestive propositions from outside the tele-
phone box confuse her conversation with a
jeweller, a diversionary tactic while a girlfriend
robs the store. The bikic is neatly kneed in the
groin by the girl and left in agony on the ground,
where he finds the 10 cents he needed for a tele-
phone call.

Robin Eumming as the terminally-ill docror in [an Lang’s
Radium.[...]Hubel (left) and Chris Alp in Andrew Wiseman’s The
Other Olympians.

The film, for all its appeal, is sometimes
spoiled because of poor acting by the girls and
bad voice production in some of the sequences.
There are some curiously awkward moments in
the editing which, most of the time, is well paced
and competently handled.

Tot[...]melodrama. Yet,
curiously, it throws away one of the strongest
factors in favor of melodrama: the emotional
involvement that it is possible to generate. Here
we are distanced from the characters and the
situation, because the story is placed within the
framework of a cor0ner’s inquiry into the death
of the girl. Certainly, this works as a dramatic
device to give away the ending of the film and it
is a legitimate strategy. But there a[...]o be worked out suc-
cessfully: having given away the ending of the
story, the interest of the viewer must be effec-
tively drawn to the characters and the way the
situation is developed, filmically and
dramatical[...]only achieved to a limited extent. For
instance, the disco sequence falters, whereas it
should have been the highlight of the film. It is
here that the girl, wavering in her choice be-
tween two boyfriends, precipitates the bloody
fight in the male toilet, bringing to the surface
the violence that ultimately leads to her death.
Apart from shots that establish the disco as an
environment, the dramatic interplay between the
characters should have been given much fuller
development.

My other misgiving about the plot is that very
little attempt is made to work out the wider
political implications of the basic situation. The
plot revolves around a love relationship between
two people working on the trams: the girl is Aus-
tralian, while the boy is described as a “wog”.

The complications come with the group of
Australian youths, one of whom is also trying to
become closely involved with the girl. They all
work at an abattoir and turn up in their blood-
stained overalls at the tram depot. This device
succinctly suggests a richness of association in a
well-handled metonymy. The theme of racial in-
tolerance mixed with violence is explicitly stated
in the film; yet despite this, the possibility for
making a melodramatic situation i[...]his medical research. This
role is well cast and the acting performance is
well sustained. His wife is perhaps less success-
ful in getting across the emotion she would ap-

pear to feel at the inevitable death facing her
husband.

Despite its 24-minute length, well above the
average for this group, the film seems to rush
through events because it squ[...]curity guard who seems to be over-
indifferent to the human situation confronting
him.

More seriously, the film fails to find an
acceptable way of amplifying those moments
where the drama should vibrate with greatest in-
tensity. As the terminally-ill doctor claws his
way up the stairs towards his office because the
lifts have been switched off (the security man
will not make them available to the suffering
man), the whole momentum of the film seems to
falter.

His suicide from the top of the high-rise office
block seems to be gratuitous and serves no par-
ticular purpose within the dramatic structure as
it is presented, other than to simply close it with
the inevitability of the death that is expected
anyway. Also, it is rather disappointing that
having got the camera on to the rooftop, the
filmmaker does not make full use of the
abstracted and empty cityscape in its power as a
metonymy representing the mental and physical
state of the dying man.

- In one of the documentaries during the
program, The Other Olympians by Andrew
Wiseman, which is about[...]an illustra-
tion of a horse.

One wonders about the possible reading of
this shot. What are the codes which emanate
from this picture of a horse, seemingly placed in
that position so as to become a prominent ele-
ment in the frame? But then, when the inter-
viewer asks the question, “Do you blame anyone
for the accident?”, it becomes immediately
necessary to ask whether the documentarist is
aware of what is happening in the film.

The most important task would surely be to
establish the phenomenological importance of
that picture, for the attendant question either
becomes redundant (and[...]liminary reduction of this particular element in
the frame. To ignore the reduction is to deny the
discourse.

In the sense that this film and the other docu-
mentaries deny the discourse essential to their
status, I find them all unsatisfactory. The films
are reduced to a level of banality.[...]

The Other Olympians starts from the security
and respectability of a commentary by Ph[...]oceeds to tell us that paraplegics
who compete in the “wheelchair Olympics” have
strong arms. It also shows us that riding a wheel-
chair can be fun. The films cops out on nearly all
of the potentially real documentary situations.

Coping with Deafness, by Richard Dobson,
looks at the crisis suffered by people who
become deaf after being accustomed to normal
unimpaired hearing. The film looks at three peo-
ple and the drawings they made at the moment
of crisis to illustrate their mental and e[...]re a denial of discourse. It
becomes obvious that the illustrations chosen to
be discussed are no more[...]that take us nowhere in an attempt
to understand the depth psychology of the crisis
situation, or the traumatic re-adjustments that
are necessary with such a tremendous change in
the sense spectrum.

But what is the value of using graphic
representations in a thera[...]ould it not be more direct to
simply proceed with the therapy on a verbal
level? These questions (or related ones) would
surely probe beneath the rather smug surface
veneer of the therapist, seen in the film leading
her patients through a number of pre[...]son,
becomes needlessly attenuated as a result of the
cross-cutting between two interviews, one with
the female vocalist of a punk band, the other
with an ordinary girl who just wants to get[...]a dialectical clash

between these two positions was intended, then it
does not come off because once more there is a
denial of discourse.

Towards the end of the film, a rather in-
teresting technique is used: the girls and their
monologues are interchanged so that the voice of
one is juxtaposed over the image of the other.
Yet the technique remains only interesting,
because there[...]it to any
ideological position. Could it be that the audi-
ence is being told that there is no rebelli[...]narchic frenzy? That these kids are
just like all the rest? If this is the case, one has a
rather provocative assertion which ought to be
clearly established and argued. As it stands, the
juxtaposition is simply unacceptable, because it
is unclear what is intended by it.

I With animation (or the cartoons), one enters
a world of imagination and[...]few and choose
a few outstanding examples, though the stan-
dard is generally high.

One of the best is Bushed, by Stephen French.
This film looks at the position of Aboriginals in
our society and the question of land rights in
particular. It ends on a militant statement of
defiance, with the central character dedicating
himself to the fight that will re-establish the
Aboriginal claim to this land.

Why is it that on[...]ing statement on
such an important issue? Surely, the subject
matter does not belong exclusively to the anima-
tion bench, and it is not necessary to sho[...]over live-action shooting?

There is, of course, the tradition of caricature
that is built into this mode of tilmmaking. But I
would assume that caricature is at the heart of
typecasting in live-action films, and anyone who
sneers at the typecast actor is shutting his eyes to
important and pervasive codes that are at the
very basis of film.

There is also the tradition of expressive
emphasis in voice. Perhap[...]lish to
suggest that a possible revitalization of the live-
action films might come by way of the work

Geoff Clifton, writer-animator of The Eye of the Glasses,
applies palm to the glass.

NEW SWINBURNE FILMS

Director Mathew L0 vering (centre) with lead actress Marnie
Randall. The Homecoming.

done by the animator. Forms like satire and
melodrama obviously allow for degrees of ex-
aggeration. Perhaps the task is to find the para-
meters delimiting usage.

I enjoyed The Eye of the Glasses, by Geoffrey
Clifton, for its unusual graphic qualities and sur-
realist emphasis. The shorter, gimmicky car-
toons like Flush, Shortnin[...]hing
Cultural, were all enjoyable, including even the
one that taught me how I ought to clean my
teeth.

I Last of all, a particularly Australian aber-
ration — the adaptation from a short story by
Henry Lawson.

It is about time[...]fines a large
part of our national ethos.

Lawson was an alcoholic, he was fixated on
his mother, and he created the great myth of
mateship, that exclusively male bond that oozed
like sap from the trees in the outback and made
the grass—seeds stick to your socks.

Whether from the point of view of psycho-
analysis, or politics, o[...]point, but never
more than that. So why doesn’t the long-
suffering wife in The Homecoming, by Matthew
Lovering, having discovered the decomposed
body of her husband beside a half-empt[...]e rotgut liquor, drag him home and prop
him up in the shack, then roll herself a nice fat
joint from a homegrown marijuana patch and
trip on the vision of her long-awaited spouse,
now a grinning skull?

Or perhaps, a little more soberly, after the
death of the father in Don’t Let the Sun Go
Down, by Michael Wennrich, the mother might
reveal herself as the real agent of exploitation
and domination. Surely, one can view the past
from a position that defines contemporary
understanding of the political and social institu-
tions of Lawson’s time. If not, the first film
becomes largely an exercise in manufacturing
and photographing props, and the second, a pro-
motional film for Sovereign[...]

everything the know about the Australian film industry interested in the local
Australian film seems to be contained in t[...]k no one seeking
National Times information about the film industry Down
Under can afford to be without[...]/81

Cinema Papers is pleased to announce that the 1981/82 edition of the Australian Motion Picture
Yearbook will be published at the end of June.
The enlarged, updated 1981/82 edition will contain ma[...]ers, editors and sound recordists
0 Monographs on the work of director Bruce Beresford, producer Matt C[...]view F11"! FeS,f|V3'S

Exhibition; Government and the Film personnei Theaires_ Recording and Mixing Leg[...]ters. Matching,Edge—numbering, Film Statistics

The Media. Directors of Photography, Editors, Product[...]und Caterers. Insurance, Customs and Feature Film Checklist: 1 970-
l"tr°du°t'°”' Sales and Relea[...]

Cars That Ate Paris.

Number 12
April 1977

K[...]t Deling_ Piero
Tosi. John Scott. John
Dankworth. The Getting
of Wisdom. Journey
Among Women.

Numbe[...]— :2/},2.<’/'3/1'

Number 26
April-May 1980

The Films 01 Peter Weir.
Charles Joffe. Harlequin.
Nationalism in Australian
Cinema. The Little Con-
vict.

Index: Volume 6[...]ACK ISSUES SALE

Number 2
April 1974

Violence in the Cinema
Alvin Purple. Frank Moor-
house. Sandy Har[...]arman.
My Brilliant Career. Film
Study Resources. The
Night the Prowler.

n-uumu——u-Ir
pu-

Number 27
June-July 1980

The New Zealand Film
Industry. The Z Men.
Peter Yeldham. Maybe
This Time. Donald Ric[...]r 3
July 1974

John Papadopolous.
Willis O'Brien. The Mc-
Donagh Sisters. Richard
Brennan. Luis Bunuel.
The True Story at Eskimo
Nell.

v -.
.,.v....~.. .. -[...]lm. Grendel. Grendel,
Grendel. David Hem»
mings. The Odd Angry
Shot. Box—Otlice Grosses.
Snapshot.[...]8

Tom Cowan, Francois
Truffaut. Delphine Seyrig.
The Irishman. The Chant
oi Jimmie Blacksmith. Sri
Lankan Cinema. The Last
Wave.

Number 22
July-August 1979

Bruce Pet[...]ont. Film Study
Resources. Kostas.

Money Movers. The Aus-
tralian Film and Tele-
vision School.

Index[...]mber-October
1979

Australian Television.
Last of the Knucklemen.
Women Filmmakers.
Japanese Cinema. My[...]per copy)

To order your copies place a cross in the box next to your

missing issues. and fill out the form below. if you would like
multiple copies ofany one issue. indicate the number you require
in the appropriate box.

EIEIDEIDDDEIEJCI

9

13 14

101[...]Bill Bain. Isabelle Hup—
pert. Polish Cinema. The
Night the Prowler. Pierre
Flissient. Newsfronl. Film
Study[...]>

_/J//I

Number 28
August-September
1 980

The Films of Bruce Bares-
ford. Stir. Melbourne and
S[...]lian Film Censorship.
Sam Arkott. Roman
Polanski. The Picture
Show Man. Don’s Party.
Storm Boy.

N[...]inema. Sonia
Borg. Alain Tanner.
Cathy‘: child. The Last
Tasmanian.

.......-m-.;vu.fl.—: ‘

Num[...]Ellis. Actors Equity
Debate. Uri Windt.
Cruising. The Last
Outlaw. Philippine Cin—
ema. The Club

Martha Ansara

In recent years, the annual Cuban offerings at
the Sydney Film Festival have given an impres-
sion of Seriousness and Art (Cantata de Chile,
The Last Supper, The Survivors —-— better forget
El Rancheador). T[...]films, but
somehow rather polished compared with the
crackling energy of earlier exports, such as
Lucia, Memories of Underdevelopment, Death of
a Bureaucrat, or the fiery polemics and raw emo-
tions of shorts like[...]etly, I had
begun to wonder about Cuban Cinema of the
1970s: after the first flush of success, had it all
become tame?

I can confess to these doubts now, however,
after the week of Cuban films held in Sydney in
January. The Cuban films that have been shown
at the Sydney Film Festival are but one aspect of
a wide range of films, and to see the whole is to
be convinced that Cuban Cinema lives. And so,
obviously, does the revolutionary process. For
the films shown during the week are nothing if
not part of a thorough-going process of the
radical transformation of a whole society and its[...]onsciousness.

Those viewers who were able to see the eight
films offered would agree, I think, that while
formally they range from the most analytical of
compilation documentaries (Viva la republica) to
the classical dramatic structures and character
types known as “Hollywood” (El brigadista),
the films are bound together as a distinctive film

s[...]nternational and highly per-
sonal, reaching into the most intimate
relationships. At their best, Cuban[...]lm can be analytical,
emotional and funny, all at the same time.

The films in the Cuban Film Week were
selected for the individual interest, but also to
give a more comp[...]ole. One old favorite, already
seen in Australia, was included: Death of a
Bureaucrat. Its director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea,
spoke with the film. The other seven, released
between 1972 and 1979, were new to Australia.

Manuel Perez’ The Man from Maisinicu
(1972) was perhaps the slightest film offered: a
spy adventure film of pure entertainment value.
It is based quite accurately on the period of
counter—revolutionary activity when dedicated
cadres were sent by the secret service to infiltrate
terrorist groups. A[...]opportunity
for a film to explore character. But The Man
from Maisinicu, despite the casting of Sergio
Corrieri (known for his very co[...]pment), keeps its
under-cover hero moving through the plot at a
rapid and unreflective pace.

Pure entertainment, if drawn from acceptable
values, has its place in Cuban cinema; and in this
and other films, one finds the necessity of engag-
ing the audience leading to appreciative re-
workings of the same Hollywood conventions
which once dominated Cuba’s screens. The
result in The Man from Maisinicu would be en-

movement by their revolut[...]cinema is not just one
of those vogues that keep the critics in business
(the “discovery” of Canadian, Algerian or
Australi[...]enduring impact on world cinema, particularly
in the Third World. Its inspirational effect is
similar in magnitude to Italian neo-realism or
the French New Wave.

Rather than any particular formal contribu-
tion, it is the way in which Cuban cinema reflects
a revolutionar[...]porary importance. To see Cuban
films is to learn how artists can function with a
high degree of expressiveness and creative
freedom within the sharply-focused demands of
an underdeveloped country in rapid transition.
The films are produced by the government film
unit, ICAIC. Each film draws its subject from
the collective reality (history/imagination) ofits
na[...]lues; it praises and/or
criticises some aspect of the revolutionary
process. There is nothing else; there does not
need to be anything else. In Cuba, clearly, the
notion of “revolution” is political, economic[...]adista.

penchant for gunfights. In this respect, the men
who make the films in Cuba seem frozen in the
consciousness of the 19505. Even the best of
films can burst into Boys Own heroics, with the
implication, of course, that the audience to be
thus entertained is thoroughly man[...]f Pigs (1973) also
deals with counter-revolution. The film is a
fascinating document consisting of newsreels
taken at the time, interviews with participants
and re-enactme[...]e three-fold: to explain clearly
what happened in the battle; to show the
character of the Cuban people through their
reactions to the invasion; and to entertain an
audience with a dramatic epic.

Again, the treatment of war and violence is
marred by some of those same Hollywood-type
heroics aimed at the socialization and pleasure
of an assumed male viewer. But Bay of Pigs does
also have a deeper perception of the subject, par-
ticularly in the nightmarish sequences of the
napalmed troops. While it is true that Cuban
viewers come to the screen with all the heritage
of machismo, and while it is only too true that
Cuba is always under threat from an aggressive

and powerful neighbor only 140km from its
shore, there are other cultural examples (e.g.,
the Vietnamese) which suggest that heroic
resistance[...]y of Pigs is quite inspiring, flow-
ing naturally from actuality to re-enactment, to
penetrate more deeply into events and human
responses. It is interesting that the director used
techniques of psycho-drama in working with
participants on the re-enactments. A more in-
timate camera, however,[...]de bet-
ter use of this opportunity for emotion.

The creation of the films epic qualities is also
interesting: an enti[...]en, three
tanks and no aeroplanes. By implication from
this and other Cuban documentaries, one can see
some of the limits of Australia’s more obser-
vational documentary approaches which make it
difficult for the filmmakers to do more than
reflect a surface actu[...]not substituted for reality, and reality includes
the interpreting mind of its creator.

The two other feature documentaries were
more convent[...]headed by Pastor Vega, is an
energetic history of the period in Cuban history
known as the “pseudo” republic — the time of
U.S. expansion and occupation between the
Spanish-Cuban-American War at the turn of the
century and the overthrow of the Batista dic-
tatorship.

Compilation films such a[...]depends on words (usually
narration) but upon all the riches of visual
material and sound. They are usu[...]amatic structure
designed to keep moving and keep the audience
engaged. The result often is that there is too
much factual material to be digested at the given
pace and, as with Viva la republica, one retains
only vague generalities. Perhaps the answer is to
have a picture book for the audience to.take_
away for further study.

An entirely different approach was seen
with two early Santiago Alvarez shorts
LBJ and 79 Springs. Both are bio-
graphical films made at the height
of the war in Vietnam — of
President Johnson and Ho Chi
Minh respectively. But they
give only the minimum[...]ther than in

narration. Sel- ®
ected events

in the lives é

of each man are developed for their social and
political implications in the most emotional and
inflammatory visual manner pos[...]ding
classical recordings and American rock. With
the facts thus incorporated emotionally into
visual evidence, the audience is able to retain far
more of what it sees and hears.

The other feature documentary, The New
School (Jorge Fraga, 1973), examines an in-
novative aspect of Cuban education: the system
of high schools located throughout the
countryside where students from different
regions and backgrounds study and work in the
fields together as weekly boarders. The film
follows a very rational structure, being divided
into five sections, each dealing with one aspect of
the educational process. And the film successful-
ly conveys a great quantity of information about
the schools through narration and actuality film-
ing. However, the manner in which the filming
was done appears to have been so set up that the
children often have that little edge of stiffness
which makes us wonder what it is that we are not
seeing.

The exceptions to this problem are so utterly
glorious that one regrets the lack of material
resources (e.g., film stock) and[...]ted in a more spontaneous and
demonstrative film. The sequence ofa girl in the
field talking about her previous attitude to
manual labor and the appearances of Fidel
Castro convey their lessons in the subtext,
requiring no comment. Castro’s interactions
with the students, as he competes ostentatiously
with them[...], display
such a shared warmth — although he is the
country’s leader and they are young students —
that no one has to tell us in words what the revo-
lution is really all about.

‘-9.5.

The Teacher, the story of the attempt to wipe out adult illiteracy in 1961.

The Teacher (1977) deals with young people
and education in a very different manner. The
films director, Octavio Cortazar, who attended
the Film Week, clearly has a vocation for clas-
sical[...]s show it. Two of them, On a First Combat
and For the First Time, were shown during the
Week.

The Teacher is a well-made film, based in
large part on actual events and follows the ex-
periences of one of the 100,000 teenage
volunteers who went into the countryside in 1961
to wipe out adult illiteracy.[...]ments and themes are skilfully worked
together in the script: the differences between the
city kid and the peasant farmers whom he must
teach; the activities of the counter-
revolutionaries operating in the area; the quiet
heroism of the young teachers (several were as-
sassinated); the way in which a young person can
learn through experience and sympathetic sup-
port to overcome weaknesses; the interesting ac-
tivities of the peasant charcoal burners/alliga-
tor hunters; and a number of changing personal
relationships. Even the Battle of the Bay of Pigs
is included.

By the end of the film, when Cortazar bursts

into documentary footage of the real brigadistas
returning to a gigantic Havana rally and home
to their families, even the Australian audience
burst into cheers. And in Cuba the film has been
seen by more than two million of its 10 million
people.

If the film does not, however, reach the
profound depths of other Cuban works, such as
Lucia, it is perhaps because it is cast too much in
the old Hollywood conventions. All the
characters are quite familiar: the clean-cut
young hero who learns to be a man, his hen-
peeked father and over-anxious mother, the
Warner Bros bad-guy, the peasant who hides his
earthy wisdom and kindness underneath a rough
exterior, the sweet young girl who falls in love,
and the wicked temptress who, like all the bad-
dies, must die in the end. And yet, of course,
these stereotypes have archetypal qualities and
the film its mythic ones, albeit on the level of
revolutionary fairy-tale.

A much less successful film cinematically, but
the hit of the Film Week, was Pastor Vega’s
Portrait of Teresa (1979). “We[...]a
bomb inside every home”, said Pastor Vega and
the film seems to have done just that. Within a

Three scenes from Jorge F raga’: La nueva escuela (The New School), a documentary about innovativ[...]

unresolved.

year, one-fifth of the Cuban population had seen
the film and arguments raged. While the Cuban
Revolution has clearly transformed its peop[...]cultural changes have been
profound, questions of the position of women,
the family and sexual relations are painfully un-
res[...]ive activities. Moreover, she is under pres-
sure from her conscience and the men in the
trade union to do so. The marriage deteriorates
from this point, but Teresa learns to stand on her
own feet.

Portrait of Teresa, down to the tiniest detail,
is one of the most thorough-going indictments of
sexism to appear on the screen. The script is ex-
cellent and Daisy Granados, the lead actress, ap-
parently contributed actively to it. The spirit of
the film is positive and realistic, with no false
resolution to the problem. As a discussion piece
and subversive manifesto, the film has proved its
effectiveness. If it is not as emotionally cathartic

"One Way or Another delves into the problem of marginalism in the suspicions and conflicts of former slum dwellers, now re-settled in a housing development, facing the challenges of a new life.”

as the script would have allowed, it is the fault of
very clumsy shot construction, although ob-
viously audiences don’t particularly mind.

The critical honors of the Week should go to
another contemporary feminist film, directed by
a woman. One Way or Another (1974) is the first
feature of the late Sara Gomez, whose early
death has deprived I[...]ocial sensitivity. One Way or Another
delves into the problem of marginalism in the
suspicions and conflicts of former slum dwellers,
now re-settled in a housing development, facing
the challenges of a new way of life.

The personal turbulence of a period of
revolutionary change is eloquently drawn in the
behaviour of the two leading characters:
Yolanda, an idealistic sc[...]al with her problem students, and Mario, a
worker from the slums who is finding it difficult
to shake off the attitudes of machismo and the
“male code of honor”. A third character,
Humberto, is the prototype of the alienated in-
dividual who stubbornly resists co-[...]through these characters an essay is
developed on thethe film is uniquely Cuban. It mixes
fiction, re-enac[...]non-linear structure, as it more or less follows
the situation of the main characters, with side es-
says to illuminate[...]ey arise. Sara Gomez solicits good perfor-
mances from actors and “real people” playing
themselves, a notoriously difficult mixture. She
retains much of the spontaneity and “truth” of a
documentary while having at her command the
force of a controlled script. The insertion of
analytical passages into the main body of the
film creates a remarkably authentic sense of the
many layers of Cuban reality.

One Way or Another is perhaps the most
developed example of Cuban film as an active
part of the process of social change, as its aims
are obvious[...]who have never been to Cuba, seeing this film in
the context of the Film Week gives the most ac-
curate sense of Cuban society and spirit possible
short of going there.

It is clear from the films in the Week thatjust
as a revolution is a dynamic proces[...]eriment, so also is a revolutionary cinema.
While the main impulse is a forward one, the
revolution drags with it all its baggage from the
past, some to be kept and incorporated, some to
b[...]ama; there are films assuming a male
audience and the most ideologically advanced
feminist cinema; ther[...]nd serious, rarely
minimizing or over-simplifying the processes of
life. In this respect, it is[...]

I come from a family which is
very petit-bourgeois but liberal. My
father was a revolutionary who had

become sceptical after the failure of

the revolution in the 1950s. But he
always had a very revolutionary
poi[...]a comrade in a similar
situation. We studied for the two
years when neo-realism was at its
height. The experience was very
good, not so much because of the
school — it could have been a good
school, but it was academic and not
very well organized — but from the
things I learned on the streets.

While we had been studying in
Italy, there had been the Batista
coup in Cuba. And when we went
back, Batista was still in power; But
we had already had a revolu-[...]udent congress in Bucharest in
l95l or ‘$2, and the next year Julio
went to a youth festival in Buch-
arest. We were very close to the
communists and began to work
with them.

Actually[...]going to Italy when I
made two documentaries for the
party — one about May Day and
the other about the peace
movement.

But you weren’t a member . . .[...]society called Neustro Tiempo
(Our Times), which was directed by
the party. That was the centre
of our activities.

At that time, we could
not make any kind of
films. The only poss-
ibility was to work
on a sort of a
newsreel for an
organization
which was
into
black-
mail.

Tana

$1 tiezze

3 9/24

FILM DIRECTOR

Tomas Gutierrez Alea is one of the most
widely-known of the Cuban filmmakers outside
Cuba. Many of his film[...]Memories of Underdevelopment) and La
ultima cena (The Last Supper).

The following interview, by Martha Ansara,
was conducted during the Cuban Film Week, in

January I 981.

Tomas Gutierrez Alea at the Cuban Film Week in Sydney.

Because it could influence a lot of
people through the newsreels in the
cinemas, the organization sold
screen time to politicians and com-
mercial firms under the appear-
ance of news. For example, if there
was a conflict in a big company,
let’s say the Cuban Telephone
Company (it had an English name
because it was not really Cuban but
American), which had a conflict
over their attempts to raise rates,
then the newsreel knew they had a
good opportunity to sell screen
time. If the company refused to pay
what they wanted, they would show
news slanted against the company.
That was their main business.

Was there any filmmaking apart
from the newsreel?

No. There were attempts but the
people who tried to make the films
were of a low cultural level and had
the illusion that cinema was big
business. They tried to imitate films
which they had seen make a lot of
money. For them it was more or
less a failure because they could not
compete on the same level as
American films.

So, it was very difficult for us to
make films in that conte[...]al”
films. But I couldn’t do that.
Finally, I was lucky to get a job
with a Mexican producer, who was
a clever and cultured businessman.
He was in Cuba running a pub-
licity business that gave him a lot of

money. He had a 10-minute weekly
reel in the cinema which was
divided between reportage, docu-
mentary, 20-seco[...]or seven jokes
with actors. These jokes could be
from 10 seconds to a minute, each
very light.

I start[...].
But in a few months, when they
began to produce the reel in Cuba, I
became the director. That was a
great experience because I could
make lots of d[...]I could practise with actors.

Gradually, I left the com-
mercials to other teams and did
only the entertainment material. I
worked on this for about three
years before the revolution. By the
end I was fed up with jokes; I
couldn’t laugh at them when I had
to make seven a week. It was
terrible.

The actor in Death of a Bureau-
crat worked a lot with me at that
time, as did many good actors. It
was a good experience for me,
particularly since I was working
while many other comrades were
not.

We t[...]mething that
we wanted to express.

We made it in the swamps in the
south of Havana where there were
workers who made charcoal out of
the old trees in the swamp. The con-
ditions of life were very bad. We
had contac[...]eir stories and, with their collab-
oration, made the film. Julio
directed it; I was his collaborator.
The money came from all of us.

The film was shown only once in
Cuba because the police con-
fiscated it the day after it was
screened. They did not just censor
the print, they took it — negatives
and all. They then called all of us in
to be interrogated. Yet, that film
was not a communist film; it was a
neo-realistic film about the condi-
tions of these workers.

Immediately after the revolu-
tion, we became people who could
make films. That was what we were
fighting for before the revolution,
and we gained it. Then an organiza-
tion was created [ICAIC]. I parti-
cipated in the direction of the
organization in the first years, after

How difficult is it for a film direc-
tor to work in[...]derstand
what constitutes a socialist society.
In the case of a film industry in a
society like ours, where all the films
are produced by the state, perhaps
one might think that this could lead
to bureaucratic or repressive rela-
tions between the state and the
filmmakers regarding what to do.
Equally, some might think that
since the state is so abstract nobody
knows who the state is, with the
result that nobody takes respons-
ibility and the whole thing becomes
a big mess.

In our case, at least, we are integ-
rated into the state and the state is
ourselves. So we do not suffer from
the situation where there is
someone who puts up the money
and tells us what to do, simply
because he has the money. We are
the power; we decide what we want
to do.

In all these years we have not felt
there was anyone telling us what to
do. We propose films and gen-
erally, if we have the material basis
to make the film and we are
capable of carrying out the project,
we make them. We do what we
think is best according to our ideas
of the cinema and our society —
that is, a society which is in the
midst of a very particular situa-
tion: a revolut[...]crat”, “Mem-
ories of Underdevelopment”, “The
Last Supper” and “The Survivors”
— all seem to touch on the question
of the bourgeoisie, or the petit-
bourgeois mentality . . .

Yes. I find that I have to fight
with myself, because I come from a
petit-bourgeois family. I come from
a world that I rejected. But inside, I
have many of those values because
I was formed in that context. I
know how difficult it is to make

A riot in Death of a Bureaucrat.

The funeral procession in Tomas Gufierrez Alea’s L[...]n revolution, so I am parti-
cularly sensitive to the survival of
these values in the midst of the
revolution.

In the case of Memories of
Underdevelopment or The Sur-
vivors, this is a concern because the
characters are from the bour-
geoisie and represent those values
which I[...]ay or Another, is also related
to this problem of the survival of
the old mentality; in this case, the
survival of the values of mar-
ginalism.

One of the big tasks of our
revolution is to be conscious of the
presence of these ideologies which
were dominant until recently. We
are aware that all the people in our
society are permeated with this
ide[...]not conscious of it, you
cannot fight against it. The first
step is to be conscious of your
enemy.

Som[...]Death of a
Bureaucrat” you are very critical of
the way in which government is
administered . . .

Firstly, Death of a Bureaucrat is
not the only film to have a critical

Sara Gomez’ One W[...]her. They too are
criticising our reality — not the
administration, but a mentality that
is in ourselves from the top to
bottom of society. The administra-
tion, of course, has been criticized[...]. although we recognize that
television gives you the up-to—date
news. Our newsreel is more like a
ma[...]approach to reality. This is
something that is in the law that
created the ICAIC.

The law says that the cinema is
an art; that it recognizes its cultural[...], in that sense, it
implies that cinema is also a tool
that operates on the level of con-

CLIBAN CINEMA: PARTI

sciousness of the people. We have
to know how to use that tool. It is
an industry for entertainment, but
it is a[...]We are at a time where we have
radically changed the entire
economic basis and social struc-
ture of o[...]it, because one also has to
transform oneself in the process.
We are, therefore, enemies of
ourselves.[...]selves, we also
have more powerful enemies 140
km from our shores. They don’t
want us to be transforme[...]as we were before. So we
have to defend ourselves from that
enemy.

In that sense, our contradiction
as[...]evolutionary sympathy — our
reality — and, at the same time,
criticize it so as to improve and
tran[...]ot like music, which
operates with sound and with the
abstract. The cinema is related
directly to reality: it takes a[...]s deepest
significance. I think we have to
choose the second alternative.

Cinema is not only a tool for the
transformation of reality, but an
entertainment industry. It must
have an appeal to the audience. So,
we have some films that are related
only to this aspect of the cinema.
We find that they are also honest
films and good.

The tributes to Hollywood in
“Death of a Bureaucrat[...]e. All Western people have
grown up influenced by the

Concluded on p. 209

La ultinla can (The Last Supper), Alea’.r most recentfilm t[...]

;\‘ui/mliv Bun: rlc/H at the mm-/.~ .wr-ii/mi: /i(‘l'i)IIh' m (‘lam/9 Gnimuk La pravinciale.

From the first day of snow, ice and
press releases, two questions kept crop-
ping up at the 31st Berlinale: where are
the_ good films? and where are the
Australian films?

Only a small team of independents
came from Australia this year. With the
standard of the Competition entries be-
ing an all-time low, buyers and critics
prowling the corridors of the Market Sec-
tion homed in with delight at the half-
hidden Australian offerings. Word-of-
mouth[...]walk out f.rom
elsewhere) brought a full house to the
small studio which screened Public
Enemy Number O[...]ilfred Burchett’s early days are kept
short. as the Nazi rallies which scared
him into being the first doom-merchant
of the London press are familiar enough,
but the reconstruction of Burchett‘s trip
to Hiroshima in August 1945 is turned
into the tensest drama of any film this
year. By the time Burchett came to dis-
cussing his friendship with Ho Chi Minh,
and then how his left-wing faith was shat-
tered by the Khmer Rouge. there was
neither a dry eye nor standing room left.
The only work to compare was in the
Forum of Young Films, John Lowenthal’s
somewhat similarly constructed (and
motivated) The Trials of Alger Hiss.

Then. even towards the end of the
Festival. when the general level began to
pick up. there was an even bigger crowd
for Tim Burns‘ Against the Grain. In a
room seating about 30, at least 80 were
still there when the lights went up.

it seems a pity that even the informa-
tion Section had only short films from
Australia. even though Morris Loves
Jack is attractive. It is difficult to under-
stand why the Australian Film Commis-
sion blew all its films a[...]and means should
be kept aside for what is still the second
most important festival in Europe? And,
pe[...]d
television have more leisure to look and
buy at the German festivals.

Films In Competition

It would be specious to grumble about
no Australian films in the Competition in
a year when the selections were nearly
disastrous. The West German and Italian
entries were unspeakable;[...]tion, Claude Goretta’s La provin-
ciale (A Girl from Lorraine). It has a soft-
core feminist gloss reminiscent of La
dentelliere (The Lacemaker) but the
heroine (Nathalie Baye) has too much
poise to match the pathos of lsabelle
Huppert. Baye plays a country girl who
tries to find work in Paris but lacks the
right contacts and. after a soulful if dull

affa[...]call-girl. she goes home again.

Disenchanting as the Competition had
been. the choice of Carlos Saura's
Deprisa, deprisa! (Quick!) for the Golden
Bear still caused an anti-climax. Perhaps[...]Bonnie and Clyde with a pop-
flamenco soundtrack was gripping while
it lasted. and flawless in execution.

However. unlike the star casts of his
earlier. more complex films, hi[...]ir own little cliques,
with only a slight overlap from one to the
other; though my own triple nationality
(Hungaria[...]d thought
that Mrinal Sen‘s In Search of Famine
was the likeliest winner, with the second
Swiss entry, Markus lmhoof’s The Boat
Is Full, ranking second. In fact, both
these received only a Silver Bear, and a
clutch of prizes from the lesser (Catholic.
Protestant, etc.) juries. On the other
hand. several of the less-successful films
still deserved marks for trying.

-",1

.1:

The Swedish entry, Kay Pollack’s
Barnens o (A Child’s Island), shows how
a rebellious 11 year-old outwits his
mother and,[...]their lives better
without grown-ups. Only during the last
quarter of the film, when he starts getting
into trouble, do the melodramatic plati-
tudes begin to pile up, leavi[...]puritanism super-
imposed on violence.

Then, in the strongly political climate
of Berlin, ther[...]

Fever is a costume drama about the
movements of a home-made bomb
which the insurrectionists intend to throw
at the governor when he opens a charity
bazaar; but like some ill-omened
talisman, the bomb brings bad luck as it
passes from hand to hand. The governor
becomes ill and the girl (Barbara
Grabowska) who had been persuaded by
her lover to carry and throw the bomb
goes spectacularly mad. Grabowska was
given the prize for the best actress for a
piece of over-acting which recreates
faithfully the stage-style of the 1900s.

The Hungarian director, Laszlo Lugos-
sy, described h[...]ike to complete his
house, and raises chickens on the side
for extra cash, he needs a helper, and
persuades the girl to move in. Withdraw-
ing from the tough but communal life of
hostel and factory, she enters into the
private hell which ill-suited, isolated cou-
ples[...]ling, but it
needs something else in addition. in the
Japanese Zigeunerweisen (the allusive
title refers to a piece by the Spanish
violinist Sarasate), this added quality is
the surrealistic beauty of the camera-
work and the mise-en-scene.

Seijun Suzuki's film is a kind of ghost
story, Japan's most popular form. But
here, the tension is between two men,
one a quiet Westerniz[...]dwho seems to start
haunting even before he dies. From the
opening sequence, when an old-
fashioned gramophone plays the same
passage again and again, one is made
aware of the German-Romantic influence
on traditional Japanese sensibility and
on the traditional visual language familiar
from other Japanese films.

The inexplicable chemistry works in

Mrinal Sen’s A[...]of Famine), which is another step in his
progress from agitprop art-cinema to
popular films. it is the first Indian con-
tribution to the 81/2 genre, which includes
Andrej Wajda's Everyth[...]y for Night and,
more recently, Richard Flush’s The
Stunt Man. The young director-hero
(played with attractive thoug[...]43, not unlike
Satyajit Ray’s Distant Thunder.

The film crew arrive at a village where
a crumbling temple and palace provide
superb sets; and they can use the local
people as extras. When the rain in-
terrupts shooting, the crew settle down to
a parlor-game: a collection of photos are
shown, for anyone to guess the date of
each. There are pictures of starving
children, cadaverous beggars, skeletal
figures dying in the streets. Dates flash
around: the famine of 1943 . . . no, 1959
. . no, Bangladesh in 1967 and so
on, until there is no doubt that the famine
of 1943 was not just an instance of British
ineptitude, but a condition of lndian
history, a threat never far from reality. A
young woman, who comes as a servant
to the crew as her husband has lost his
working arm, and her child is in hospital,
links the past with the present and even
to her forebodings of the future.

Meanwhile, the director's search for a
local girl to play the part of a prostitute
offends the rural establishment and,
eventually, the crew are forced to leave.

When Mrinal Sen was asked whether
he ever had similar difficulties he[...]only because he always tried to
be more tactful: the filmmakers he
portrays are inexperienced. Yet, it is their
youth, high spirits, their dashes around
the tree-lined dusty roads in their old cars
which keeps the film on the edge of a
happy ending: even the servant girl may
do a screen test and turn into a star over-
night. Making a film is a jolly game; and
the aesthetic question remains: is it pos-
sible for the unbearable to be shown in
this framework of lighthearted fun? I
think it is.

The Dark Ages

Of the short films in Competition,
History of the World in Three Minutes
Flat by Englishman Michael Mills, who
lives and works in Canada, deserved and
did win the first prize. It is funny, its
delightful visual gags are drawn with the
simplest graphics, there is no text, and
the audience is left with the reassurance
that anything left out of those three
minutes ought never to have happened
anyway.

The rebellious boy in Kay Pollock's A Child ’s Isla[...]eisen.

BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

This includes the dark ages portrayed
in quite a few of the major films, like the
partition of Poland, the effect of
colonialism which destroyed the best
aspects of native cultures and left a
dreadf[...]ppression and

violence, and, last but not least, the Nazi
persecution of the Jews.

The Festival's second Silver Bear for
screenplay and direction went to Markus
lmhoof for Das boot ist voll (The Boat is
Full). it is an authentic and, therefore, ef-
fective description of how a small group
of Jewish refugees in the 1940s secretly
cross the border from Germany to
Switzerland, only to be caught by the
Swiss and deported again. lmhoof‘s
quality lies[...]nder-
statement, and his charity towards those
on the borderline between selfishness
and decency, those[...]new
talent.

Dieter Hildebrandts Der gelbe stem
(The Yellow Star) is a compilation of
documentary photos and newsreels,

aimed at the whole story of "the persecu-
tion of the Jews from 1933 to 1944'’. it
treats the subject from a German point of
view, as if the Nazis had been the first
and last to persecute Jews, and it con-
centrates on the extreme atrocities in
Germany and Eastern Europe. However,
even this is too large a subject for the one
film. it is impossible to respond
emotionally to the suffering of six million
people, or even to think of the hundreds
on the screen as individuals, for more
than 90 minutes.

The total effect on those who already
knew the. story, and had seen much of
the footage before, was a tired sadness.
To a younger generation, it may perhaps
mean more. But it is unlikely that anyone
emerges from it with quite as clear a
sense of what it was all about, as from
lmhoof’s carefully chosen, discrete frag-
ment of the Europe-wide horror.

The Forum of Young
Films

Abstract experiments in fil[...]rcus Imhoofs study of a Jewish group ’s flight from Germany, This Boat is Full.

Cinema Pap[...]

KEM the sophisticated German
editing system has proved itself as a
vital tool in Hollywood film pro-
duction.

KEM now introduces versatility and
economy to the Australian film

industry.

FILMWEST, the sole import agents
in Australia and Asia can supp[...]35mm picture
and sound editing as you need them.

The KEM RS8-16 8-plate twin pic
editing table is avai[...]a free demonstration and
trial.

KEM & FILMWEST, the state of the
art.

For information and appointments contact:[...]and.

COMPLETE RANGE OF 35% EXCLUSIVE AGENTS FOR

the Pert"Fix”SyStel'n I PORTABLES INCLUDING[...]

The Jazz Singer: EMI, U.S., 3317m GUO Film Dist.
Litt[...]Mr Natwarlal: Tony. India, 4556rn, SKD Film Dist.
The New School [La nueva escuela): Orlando de la
Huer[...]vid Bradbury,
Australia, 636.26m, David Bradbury

The Rutles (16mm): G. Weis, Britain, 757m, Total
Concept Aust. -r

Viva la republicaz Cuban inst. ol the Arts, Cuba,
2539.82m. Aust. Film Institute

We Are the Guinea Pigs (16mm): Parallel Films, U.S..
987.30m[...]akers Co-op.

Not Recommended tor children (NRC)

The Apple: Cannon. West Germany, 2398.40m, Seven
Keys[...]63m, Sydney
Filmmakers Co-op, 0 (adult concepts)

The Choice oi Love (a): David (Hong Kong) Film Co..
H[...]lnt'l Film Co.. 0 (adult themes)

El brigadista (The Teacher): Sergio San Pedro. Cuba.
3074.52m. Aust.[...]erta, Cuba,
1097.00m. Le Clezio Films, V (t-I-/)

How Could I Stop Loving You‘): Not shown. Hong
Kong[...]0.03m, Ararad Import Export Co.. 0 (adult themes)
The Mirror Crack'd: EMI, Britain, 2872.46m. GUO Film[...]ist.

For Mature Audiences (M)

Afternoon oi War (The Mouse and the Woman): Alvlcar
Films. Britain, 3011.90m. Brighto[...]2816.69m, Warner
Bros (Aust.), O (sci-fl/horror)

The Big Boss (a): Golden Harvest. Hong Kong,
2816.69m[...]ico,
2459.62m. Roadshow Dist., V (i-m-g)

Clan oi the White Lotus: Shaw Bros., Hong Kong.
262D.03m, Joe[...]Cuba, 3262.90m.
Aust. Film Institute, V (I-m-/')

The Flash Legs: K. Shaw. Hong Kong, 2681.32m, Hong
(Aust.) Corp., V (I-m-)')

The Kings oi Flats and Dollars: Chen Ming Hue. Hong
Kong. 2844.58m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (I-m-g)
The Levenger: Yen Shaw Film Co.. Hong Kong.
2908.5-lm[...],
2928.2-1m, Comfort Film Enterprises, V (I-m-1)

The New South Hand Blows and North Kick Blows:
Hsiao[...]in a reconstructed version on

April 1974 List as The Chinese Connection.

For Restricted Exhibition (R[...]Italy/Spain. 2063.71m, Apoilon Films, 5 (i-m-g) _
The Boogey Man: U. Lommel, U.S., 2314.70m, Film-
ways[...]S (l'-m-g), L (I-m-g)

Films examined in terms of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations and Sta[...]O (Other) . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . ..

The Exterminator (b): M. Buntzman, U.S., 2787.40m,
Wa[...]3m, G.L. Film Enterprises S (l-m-
l). L ll-In-i)

The Saviour: Pearl City Films, Hong Kong, 2566.56m.
Golden Reel Films, V (f-rn-/')

sex Playmates ol the Zodiac: Jezshaw Film, Britain,
2537.81m, G.L. Film Enterprises, S (l—m-g)

Take Time to Smell the Flowers (videotape): First
Decameron, Britain/U.S[...]With Eliminations

For Restricted Exhibition (R)

The Fugitives (16mm): Not shown, U.S., 487m, 14th
Man[...]Mars Prods, U.S., 82 mins,
Videolinlt, V (i-h-g)

The Harder They Fall (16mm): Scorpio Prods, U.S.,
640[...]ar, US, 50 mins, Hollywood House Video, S (I-h-g)
The Sex Extortlonlst (16mm): AM Films International.[...]14th Mandolin, S (i-ti-g)

Films Board of Review

The Exterminator (a): M. Buntzman, U.S., 27B7.40m,
Wa[...]Aust.)

Decision Reviewed: Refusal to register by the Film
Censorship Board.

Decision of the Board: Register

Faces ol Death (b): R. Scott, U[...]Dist.

Decision Reviewed: Refusal to register by the Film
Censorship Board.

Decision of the Board: Uphold the decision of the Film
Censorship Board.

(a) Previously shown on D[...]Without Eiiminations

For General Exhibition (6)

The Devil and Max Devlin: Walt Disney Prods (Buena
Vi[...]Worker: P. Aaron, U.S., 2677m, Hoyts

ist.

Raise the Titanic: ITC, Britain, 3123.46m, Hoyts Dist.
A Sa[...]Enterprises

Not Recommended for Children (NRC)

The Alternative Miss World: James Street Prods, Bri-[...]halla Films, 0 (sexual innuendo)
Charlie Chan and the Curse oi the Dragon Queen:
American Cinema Prods, U.S., 2593.58m, United Ar-
tists (A‘asia), V (i-I-/)

The Competition: Columbia, U.S., 3430.22m, Fox
Columb[...]02m, SKD Film Dist., V
(i-I-)'), 0 (adult theme)

The Great Justice (16mm): Ming Chi, Hong Kong,
987.30[...].63m. Joe Siu lnt'l Film Co., 0 (adult concepts)

The Human Factor (videotape): O. Preminger, Britain,
111 mins, EVS Australia, L (i-rn-i), 0 (sexual allusion)
The Kung Fu Warrior : Goldig Films (HK), Hong Kong,
2[...]5.14m, Brighton
Film Dist., V (i-/-/), S (I-I-/)

The Last Chase: Canadian Film, Canada/U.S.,
2872.46m, Roadshow Dist., V (i-l—/), S (I-I—g)

Love on the Big Country: Cheri Wen, Hong Kong.
2537.81m, Eupo Film Co., V(l-l-i), O {emoliona/stress)
Marilyn — The Untold story: Time-Lite Films, U.S.,
3235.Cl1m, R[...]China, 246Bm, Hong
Australia, V (l-l-/)

To Kill the Big Villain: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2599m,
Golden[...]so, 0
(adult concepts)

As noites do delicadinho (The Days of Cabirio): Jose
Frade P.C.. Portugal, 2800m. F. Barroso, 0 (adult con-
cepts)

As panteras (The Panthers Eat the Wealthy): Atlantida
Films. Portugal. 24D0m, F. Barroso, 0 (adult concepts)
A outra mulher (The Other Woman): Not shown, Por-
tugal. 2800m, F. Ba[...]2765m,
Mandarin Cinema, S (i-m-g), V (l—m—g)

The Brothers: Europa, W. Germany, 2733.02m, Film-
ways A'asian Dist.. 0 (incest)

The Challenger: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co., Hong
Kong. 2509.92m. Golden Reel Films, V (l—m-g)

Fort Apache, The Bronx: Time-Lite, U.S., 3346.56m,
Roadshow Dist., V (i-m-I). L (I-m-/3

The Gloomy Tower: L. Ming/C. Hop, Hong Kong.
2875m. M[...], Hong Kong, 2593m,
Comtort Film Ent., V (l-m-i)

The Howling (a): Avco Embassy. U.S., 2454.14m,
Hoyts[...]2605.90m, Apoilon
Films. V(i—m-/')

Reunion in the Rain: Elegent Films Co.. Hong Kong,
3437m. Hong A[...]Barroso. V (l-m-i), O (emotional stress)

Two on the Road: Goldig Films (HK), Hong Kong.
2311m. Comtor[...]Almost Human: Dania Film Prods. U.S., 2537.51m. The
House ol Dare, V (t-m-g)

The Beasts: W. Cheung. Hong Kong, 245-1.14m,
Golden R[...]Picts, U.S.,
2007m. Cinerama Films, 8 (l—m-g)

The Howling (c): Avco Embassy, U.S., 2454.1-Sm, Hoyts[...]0.74m. A.Z. Associated Theatres, 3 (t-m-g)

There was a Little Girl: G. Graver. U.S., 2272.47m,
Cinerama Films. S (i-m-g), V (i-m-

The Thundering Mantis (e): East Asia (HK) Film Co.,
H[...]Deletions: S (i-h-g)

Army at Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts (16mm): R.
_Von Praunheim, W. GermanylU.[...]1 min. 11 secs)

Reason for Deletions: S (i-h-g)

The Girl in Room 2A: W. Rose, Italy. 2286.82m, The
House of Dare, V (i-m-g)

Deletions: 11.6 metres[...], U.S.,
2312.50m, Warner Bros (Aust.), V (i-h-g)

The Harder They Fall (pre-censor cut) (16mm): Scor-
p[...].S., 661m, 14th Mandolin. S (l-m-g), V (I-
"7-9}

The Salesgirls (16mm): Not shown, U.S., 624.30m.
14th[...]ations

Decision Reviewed: Refusal to register by the Film
Censorship Board.

Decision of the Board: Uphold the decision of the Film
Censorship Board.

Eyes of a Stranger (b): G[...]ust.).

Decision Reviewed: Refusal to register by the Film
Censorship Board.

Decision oi the Board: Register

The Howling (cl: Avco Embassy, U.S., 2454.14m. Hoyts[...]ion Reviewed: "R”
Censorship Board.
Decision of the Board: Register

(a) Previously shown on January[...]tricted Exhibition".

Note: Title of film altered from The Great Santini to The
Gift of Fury (May 1980 list) has reverted to The Great
Sanfini

Title of film shown as Vice Squad[...]en altered to Naked Playgirls. *

registration by the Film

Cinema Papers, May-June — 145

All caused by hair, dust or dirt
landing on the neg.

Our new Telecine Clean Room
sees to that.

We filter the air before it goes

into the room.
We filter the air circulating

L -.. '-

over the film during video transfer.

We keep the air pressure
slightly higher inside the room so no
dust can blow in.

We even ionically filter the
air to equalise the ions produced by
air conditioning that can cause
magnetic attraction of dust onto the
film surface.

We built our Clean Room
because we know that once its on the
neg, it's on for good.

And that means a poorer result
for you. Come and see for yourself:
the dust never settles at

Videolab.
Vlfiunflli

A division of the Colorfilm group of companies.
Leo Burnett 4.2877

Television has been blamed for the
decline of newspaper reading since
1956. This theory was put forward by
Tom Farrell, assistant general manager
of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd, at the
Norris Inquiry into newspaper owner-
ship and control in Victoria.

In fact, the only Melbourne news-
paper to suffer a fall in circulation since
1956 is The Herald, which now sells
55,000 copies less than it did in 1956.
The Herald organization owns HSV-7.

Sara Dane

The $1.5 million series, Sara Dane,
based on the novel by Catherine
Gaskin, is well into productio[...]lair expects
filming to be completed in June, and
the series ready for screening later this
year.

The Network Ten-South Australian
Film Corporation co-production stars
little-known actress Juliet Jordan in the
title role. Location work is being done
at a reco[...]es south of
Adelaide. Interiors are being shot at the
SAFC’s Hendon studios.

Industrial Action

The threat of industrial action, which
could have disrupted production of
series such as The Sullivans, Cop
Shop and Prisoner, has been averte[...]called off planned
meetings to review a new offer from the
Federation of Australian Commercial
Television St[...]payments.

Meanwhile, a dispute which
threatened the future of the children’s
favorite, Humphrey B. Bear, has been
settled. Adelaide's Channel Nine,
makers of the Here's Humphrey pre-
schoolers program, was at logger-
heads with the South Australian branch
of the Writers‘ Guild over a pay claim by
scriptwriters.

The writers, who walked off in
November, claimed an i[...]a
$20-$30 pay rise, but didn't resume
work until the writers’ claim was

Humphrey B. Bea/'.

industrial dispute.

star of Here ’s
Humphrey, which was at the centre o_/‘an

Ratbags

Hal McElroy, co-producer of Peter
Weir's The Last Wave and Picnic at
Hanging Rock, has teamed[...]how) to make a new comedy series
for Network Ten. The series will be
called Ratbags and features Mel-
bourne comedian Rod Quantock.

A network executive described the
series as “a spoof on virtually anything
that's[...]ney, in mid-May.

Gil Gerard in Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, recently named the most violent
prime—time show on U.S. television.

Violence on Television

The National Coalition of Television
Violence has named the series Buck
Rogers in the 25th Century as the most
violent prime-time show on U.S. tele-
lsion. (it is being screened locally on
the Nine Network.)

The NCTV claims research proves
there is a link betwe[...]on and
real-life violence. It also claims that by
the time a child is 14, it has witnessed
something like 11,000 murders on tele-
vision.

Public Access

The Public Broadcasting Associa-
tion is seeking publ[...]radio and television groups in Aus-
tralia, says the Government had
already agreed to call for public access
station licences later this year. And the
Independent and Multicultural Broad-
casting Corp[...]ped this will lead to a licence
being granted for the operation of a
public access television station in the
two cities — on Channel 0 or a separate
channel. The chairman of the PBA's
television sub-committee, Brian Walsh,
says[...]ed to $15 for multi-
cultural television, $25 for the ABC and
$80 for commercial stations.

lf legislation allowing channel shar-
ing is not introduced in the autumn ses-
sion of parliament, the PBA believes it
could be 1982 before the question is
again considered.

////////

/[...]Richard Neville, outspoken “angry
young man" of the 1960s and former
editor of the controversial London
magazine 02, is having talks with the
Nine Network about compering his own
talk show. Neville‘s appearances on the
Mike Walsh Show have been well-
received, and he[...]his
plans.

A ustralian Broadcasting
Tribunal

The Australian Broadcasting
Tribunal could force comm[...]ations to screen more child-
ren’s drama. Since the introduction of
the ABT’s “C" classification two years
ago, none of the commercial stations
has made a television drama for
children.

The ABT’s children's programs com-
mittee, headed b[...]east six hours of children’s
drama each week in the first year of a
quota system — then 10 hours in the
second. Naturally, the stations aren't
too keen. The economics of children’s
viewing times would mak[...]uction of drama for children a
financial burden.

The ABT has introduced a new clas-
sification for chi[...]h stands for “Parental
Guidance Recommended”. The new
classification follows a survey by the
ABT which found that the previous “A"
(short for “Not Recommended for
Children”) was confusing. Programs
classified “PRG" must not b[...], or be-
tween 6 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. on
weekends.

The Tribunal is also believed to be
considering a new[...]cial
television.

Dr Patricia Edgar, /zeacl of the ABTE
c/tiltlrenk programs committee.

Cable Television

Submissions to the Australian
Broadcasting Tribunal on cable tele-
v[...]d
equipment suppliers. There are also
submissions from overseas groups —
the US, Japan, Canada and Britain.

The ABT will make its recommenda-
tions to the Government and make
public details of submissions[...]roduction on Holiday Island, its first
series for the Ten Network since The

(jincrnzi l’:ir-crx. .\i'la,\-June[...]

//////////////

TELEVISION NEWS

Box. The family-adventure series will
be filmed on locatio[...]ill return to
Australia to take a leading role in the
series. British actor Steven Grives, who
is working on Sara Dane and appearing
in the series The Flambards, will also
join the cast, which includes award-
winning young actress[...]derman and Marilyn Mayo.

New Children ’s Show

The ABC has taken the unusual step
of obtaining first option on a television
series produced outside the Commis-
sion. The proposed 13-part children's
show is to be made in Perth by Barron
Films, which is run by the former direc-
tor of the Perth Institute of Film and
Television, Paul Barron. Titled Penalty
Kick, it is the story of three young boys
— Australian, Italian[...]of children's

and young people's programs, says the
ABC will have first option to screen the’
series in Australia, while Barron Films
retains the series for overseas sale.

In General Practice

James Davern, formerly of the ABC's
drama department (Flush being among
his achievements), is working on a 26-
part series for the Seven Network.

Produced by JNP Productions and
tentatively titled In General Practice, it
concerns the work, in a small country
town, of two doctors and[...]Shane Porteous and
Grant Dodwell.

Scene,/rom the ABC's Levkas Man.

Levkas Man

The ABC's six-part adaptation of the
Hammond lnnes thriller Levkas Man
made its debut on March 15. A co-
production between the ABC, Studio
Hamburg and Britain's Portman
Productions, it was filmed on location
in Greece last year. The series stars
Robert Coleby, Marius Goring and
Ferdy Mayne.

Cricket Rights Resolved

The ABC has won the right to tele-
vise test cricket in opposition to the
Nine Network. This follows an out-of-
court settlement between the ABC, the
Australian Cricket Board and three
companies in the Kerry Packer group:
PBL Marketing Pty Ltd, World[...]and
Broadcasting Ltd.

in a Federal Court action, the ABC
had alleged that an agreement be-
tween the ACB and Packer's com-
panies — which gave the Nine Net-
work exclusive rights to televise major
cricket matches for three years from
the 1979-80 season — was in breach of
the Trade Practices Act.

The out-of-court settlement means
that, for a fee bel[...]n:

//////////////////////////////// /

$500,000, the ABC will be able to tele-
vise all test cricket to country areas and
the last sessions of play to all capital
cities. Packer's Nine Network will retain
exclusive rights to the Benson and
Hedges Cup series, the McDonald's
Cup series and the limited-over com-
petition between the states.

The settlement applies only to the
end of the 1981-82 season, after which
the ACB will invite bids from all com-
mercial networks and the ABC.

Jeff Thomson bowling, which will soon be
to vered by A BC cameras as well as the Nine
Network ‘s.

New TalentShow

Channel 10's[...]s first few weeks on air.
Hosted by Jimmy Hannan, the program
aims for a polished product and stages
fu[...]earsals, unlike Nine‘s
long-running New Faces.

The producer of Search for a Star is
Garry Jones, and[...]e orchestra
conducted by Johnny Hawker. Judges
on the program include Ian “Molly"
Meldrum, compere of the ABC rock
show Countdown, retired entre-
preneur K[...]Production

Bruce Gyngell, chairman designate
of the Independent and Multicultural
Broadcasting Corpor[...]s to set up a film production com-
pany.

Gyngell was contracted for 12
months as a consultant to the Special
Broadcasting Service, under which the
IMBC has been operating while
awaiting legislatio[...]an association
with multicultural television, but was
“looking at other options". He told the
Financial Review that he had never in-
tended being with the IMBC forever.

After working for Lew Grade in Bri[...]turned to Australia in
1976 to become chairman of the Aus-
tralian Broadcasting Tribunal. He left
the ABT last year to launch multi-
cultural television.

ABC Successes

The ABC is considering a second
series of Patrol Boat, following
overseas interest in the program. The
ABC has also sold its 1979 children’s
series, T[...]-
pearance, with a role in Leonski.
Production of the Melbourne-made film
is scheduled to start in August. Lane
will play a U.S. army major.

From Bathurst to Daytona

An Australian television crew from
Sydney's Channel Seven was called in
by one of the largest television net-
works in the U.S., to assist in a three-
hour national telecast of the Daytona
500 motor race. The CBS network
engaged the team, led by engineering
director Geoff Healy, to install and
operate a system similar to the one
used in Seven’s telecast of the Hardie
Ferodo. Accompanying Healy were
developmen[...]ndy
Epstein (Arthur Sherman) in Punishment.
which was recently "shelved" due to low
ratings.

Ratings 1981

The first victim of poor ratings in
1981 was Dlgby Wolfe's Oz '81, based
on the U.S. magazine program Real
People. It suffered problems from the
start, particularly in Melbourne where
ATV-10 censored some of the seg-
merits.

After two episodes of the proposed
13-part series, the Ten Network
brought down the boom. Wolfe is now
working on plans for a daytime[...]to collapse under a hail of poor
ratings figures was Punishment, the
prison drama which was a spin-off of
Ten’s successful Prisoner series.[...]t
a rating figure of eight after four
screenings. The 26-part series, which
cost more than $2 million,[...]e-launched
later this year.

At Channel Seven, the sun has set on
the comedy series Daily at Dawn, pack-
aged for the network by RS Produc-

tions, makers of Kingswood Country.
By the end of the first ratings survey, it

was clear the series, set in a news-
paper office, was not working.

Mike Willesee continues to battle for
survival in his 7 p.m. timeslot. The
failure of his light entertainment format
to attr[...]a harder line, with Willesee
shouldering much of the responsibility
for interviews. At the time of writing, it
appeared he was back on the road to
safe ratings.

Any program with a similar[...]is contracted to Seven for another two
years and the contract stipulates that
the program will be seen at 7 p.m.
Rather than pay out Willesee. Seven is
determined to persevere — for the
time being at least.

The first ratings survey for 1981 gave
Channel'Nine a clear lead in Mel-
bourne and Sydney, with Channel 10
the big improver coming in second.
Channel Seven rated third in each
market, followed by the ABC, hovering
around a figure of 10, while Channe[...]Multicultural television channel 0/28
is planning the introduction of advertis-
ing — in blocks rather than spots, as is
the practice on commercial stations.

Bruce Gyngell, chief executive of the
channel, is hopeful that legislation will
be pass[...]ufficient within three years.

NY Pans Lane Show

The Don Lane Show, now screening
in Lane's hometown of New York on
cable television in a 1 a.m. timeslot,
was recently reviewed by the Murdoch-
owned Village Voice. The writer, James
Wolcott, said it was.

"one of the tackiest shows of all time.

If you're in the right groggy mood,

The Don Lane Show seems like a

grotesque parody of s[...]rs on sets that look like

they've been left over from a small

town beauty pageant."

Bert Newton was described as “a
smooth pixie who enjoys playing[...]“His questions aren't textured with

brush-ups from the real world -— he

seems to have spent hi[...]

television network was launched. Under the
direction of Bruce Gyngell, formerly a leading
co[...]utive in Australia and
Britain, and most recently the embattled
chairman of the Australian Broadcasting
Tribunal, multicultural t[...]nel 0/28 in
Sydney and Melbourne.

Brushing aside the serious transmission
problems in Sydney and the ambiguous in-
stitutional status of the Independent Multi-
cultural Broadcasting Corporation (the pro-
jected government-funded body that is to run the
network), the enabling legislation for which was
blocked in the Senate and has still to be passed,
Gyngell enthusiastically marked the opening of
the service as “the most significant event in Aus-
tralian broadcasting history”.

In reporting the opening, mostjournalists and
television critics did not fail to mention the
negative reactions of a few, but, in the main,
they also warmly praised the “opening up of the
Australian airwaves” to a wide range of Euro-
p[...]y
these had had no chance of finding their way to
the Australian viewer, given the established
policy of the local networks of importing, almost
exclusively,[...]t would be narrow-minded
ethnocentrism to condemn the potential
broadening of the Australian television viewer’s
experience to in[...]pean directors, lavishly produced costume
dramas from Eastern Europe and other kinds of
fascinating pro[...]ry lives, and perspectives of people in
societies from which a sizeable proportion of the
Australian population originates.

It is certainl[...]er Werner Fassbinder, or to ‘a
situation comedy from France or Greece that is
not necessarily constrained by the tired cliches
and formulae that typify the endless stream of
mediocre fare that has dominated Australian
airwaves for the past 25 years.

Yet, it seems pertinent to critically examine
the broader social and political implications of
the establishment of multicultural television in
Australia. From the composition ofits program-
ming content and struc[...]t ofthe
broader phenomenon of television, exactly how
different is this “innovative” multicultural form
from the commercial or ABC variety?

\\ \\

Packaging Multiculturalism

The most vocal criticism of Channel 0/28 has
come from executives of the commercial and

\\\

//////////////

The ' ‘faces’ ’ of the family of man: images from the 0/28 channel
promotion.

Channel 0/28

John La[...]pear to be
motives of self-interest — a fear of the potential
decline in the proportion of the television
audience they draw — and from spokespersons
from the ethnic communities. The latter have
concentrated on the discrepancies between the
linguistic breakdown of Channel O-28’s
programming and the numerical distribution of
particular ethno-linguistic groups in the
Australian population.

To counter these sorts of objections, Gyngell
has presented two arguments. Firstly, the pool
from which Channel 0/28 can draw its programs
is limit[...]able, and
this does not necessarily correspond to the
relative numerical strength of particular ethnic[...]ustralia. Secondly, and
perhaps more importantly, the over-arching
policy aims of the IMBC is not specifically
directed towards providing television programs
that will satisfy the linguistic and cultural long-
ings of each immigrant group separately.
Rather, if one examines the public statements
made by Gyngell, and the published reports of
the advisory body set up by the Federal Govern-
ment to present guidelines for op[...]levision, one finds a consistent reitera-
tion to the effect that the new service should: