Cinema Papers no. 58 July 1986 (2025)

OCR

The Australian magazine of film and television

I

‘ Best picture of the year /-
Best achievement in direction[...]

Pitre, Indian director Mrinal Sen
and legend of the British cinema
Michael Powell ...................................... ..12

ON LOCATION: Two pages of

pictures from Great Expectations —
The Untold[...].................................... ..19
Reviews of Crocodile Dundee, A

Room with a View, Hannah and her

Sisters, Shout! The Story of Johnny _ _ _ _
o'Keere, The Last wamorsey The Car[...]uide to the ‘real Holly-
wood’, two histories of Yugoslav
cinema and a look at film and TV
in WA .................................................[...]61

FESTIVALS AND MARKETS:
The best and the worst of Cannes
’86, plus reports from Hong Kong
and the[...]............................... ..69

A round-up of

what's being shot where in Aus-
tralia, plus the[...]n survey .................... ..73 ,

Fifty years of film: The lirst hallceniury of the Cinématnéqt.-e Francaise ...........[...]

FILM ROBOTS OF THE FUTURE
HAVE ARRIVED AT FILMWEST!

With[...]B°a°" R°“"

. . ' - ' Singapore 0718 -
Penn, WA. 6000 Gladesvtlle. N.S.W. 2111 32 B 5 1 203 Rocky[...]1 1021815 3371 EaStaR’g‘s’gvi1:;?‘19\1_\S_WA 2069 Ramsgam N_5_w_ 2217 Te|(03)428 333614[...]

Signed articles represent the views of their
author, and not necessarily those of the
editor. While every care is taken with
manusc[...]n whole or in part
without the express permission of the
copyright owner. Cinema Papers is
published e[...]ng, and for
Australian distributors to bring bits of it back home.

From the perspective of Oz, it is sometimes easy to forget that the world[...]g films doesn’t have to be an expensive
version of plumbing. Hundreds of films — and dozens of very good ones — are
made elsewhere than in Hollywood. They’re made in foreign languages, of
course, which means they have to be subtitled. An[...]alian audiences have a lot to learn
from the kind of films they make in France and Germany, Spain and[...]her
matter, even without the obscene intervention of those who, as now with
Godard’s Hail Mary, want[...]not really the
word. It is also unfair: producers of foreign films are as greedy as anyone else in
thi[...]ets mentioned on TV, it is
worth opening a bottle of wine to celebrate. If it gets more than a passing[...]ill the film’s chances for ever.

It is easiest of all to blame the punter, traditionally unwilling[...]y
five minutes.

But, without endorsing the views of Mr Georgatos (see the Letters page), who
seems to be inventing a new version of the cultural cringe, Australian filmmakers
and Australian audiences need the jam of non—mainstream films, from Europe
and America, to supplement the bread and butter of Hollywood. It is the basis
for a healthier indust[...]n the only places the jam gets spread, nearly 50% of this issue of Cinema
Papers is about non-Australian films — a[...]n a lesson in how not to compromise.

Compromise, of course, is always going to be a part of any film industry.
What counts is the info[...]

For your Free copy
of our Talent Directory

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Tit|e(s):
s as

I was delighted that your review of
Eureka in the March issue (Cinema
Papers 56) did the film some justice,
but you perhaps ought to know of its
presentation at the Valhalla, Glebe,
over the[...]was
the local flea-pit or surprised if it was
one of the big chains. But the
Valhalla pretends to be a[...]rry Georgatos, Homebush,
NSW.

I am sick to death of filmmakers and
people within the industry blaming
10BA for the quality of the films
churned out.

The quality is not determined by
1OBA, but by the knowledge and
creativity of the director, actors and
crew members. Apart from[...](Mad Max) Miller,
who can comprehend the language
of film, the majority of the industry
cannot.

The only manner to progress[...]m overseas.
Then the industry might learn the art
of cinema. Learning one's craft is a
greater dilemma[...]ur May 1986
issue (Cinema Papers 57), quite a lot
of which was devoted to Australian
films at the Cannes festival.

To the best of our knowledge you
never made any enquiries with us,
one of the most active international
sales agents for Au[...]must therefore assume that the com-
plete absence of any reference to
our involvement in a number of films
mentioned in your issue was due to
inadequa[...]ink about For
Love Alone, but there is no mention
of the fact that we handled My
Brilliant Career and[...]n pages 48 and 49,
setting out details in respect of For
Love Alone, House Broken and

Spirit Chaser,[...]our fault, given
the comparatively loose phrasing of
the question: "Who will be repre-
senting the fil[...]Ms
Fink cannot be expected to cover
every aspect of the operation. Our
apologies all the same to Sidn[...]for Australian films for a con-
siderable period of time. Ed.)

From Phil Moltram, Administrator,
Lon[...]ters column, I may be able to
contact ex-students of the London
International Film School (and its
predecessor schools, the London
School of Film Technique and the
London Film School) who are
readers of Cinema Papers.

In September 1986, the School
will be inaugurating a complete
academic year of celebrations and
fundraising, to mark 30 years of its
existence.

At time of writing this letter, our
plans are in the earlies[...]al reunion for all ex-students
and former members of staff, For
this to be possible, it will be neces-[...]e, as soon as possible. I hope
that all graduates of the LFST, LFS
and LIFS who read this letter will[...], Wattle Park, SA.

I beg you to print a portrait of the
beautiful Linda Kozlowski, of Croco-
dile Dundee fame, in your next
issue.

Fro[...]nd, Vic.

We were disappointed by the inclu-
sion of Marauders in the ‘Television’
section of the Production Survey in
your May issue (Cinema P[...]to you? We were
all set to give away five copies of
Robert Hilburn’s Bruce Springsteen:
Born in the USA, but only two ofof Day. (It used to be
called Around the Corner to the
Light of Day.)

The director making a film with a
title ta[...]st feature film
in Melbourne is Michael Hutchence
of INXS, and the film is Dogs in
Space.

The two win[...]oks
still to give away. So here is a
second round of three (easier)
questions about rock ‘n roll cin[...]erved.

Meanwhile, on page 56, you can
win a copy of The Color Purple and a
double pass to see[...]

Deals, debuts and an air of delight

Lots of sales and an excellent critical
response make Can[...]omething to
do with the delight expressed by
most of the Australians there. But
business was probably[...]rketing Australian
films,” said Jim Henry, head of Aus-
tralian World Marketing and con-
sultant to[...]uch a ‘market film’ which, he
claims was "one of the un-
applauded stars of Cannes. I could
have sold it three times over in[...]dollars less than they

.paid for Rambo”.

One of the things Australian pro-
ducers were able to cash in on this
year was the shortage of middle-
budget American films, now that most
of the latter are made with advance
video deals. Say[...]ecord deal for an
Australian film: well in excess of
50,000 Pounds". Opening the Mel-
bourne festival[...]fyingly, to have been to its quality,
not because of its national origin. This
was a point echoed by Bob Rehme,
co-chairman and CEO of New World
Pictures who, early in the festival,
an[...]it doesn't help."

The deal, which marked the end
of negotiations begun at the AFM in
February, was fo[...]Australia

Christmas.

The New World deal is pan ofof
TV and video rights."

This year, apart from the[...]producers seem to
have been much happier because
of the two offices," said Film Vic-
toria’s Greg T[...]h which producers
could be contacted, where tapes of
the films could (generally) be
viewed, and where deals could be
done. It also had the effect of freeing
the AFC‘s penthouse suite for other
pur[...]an industry
where mateship is more often a
theme of the films than a feature of
intra-industry relations, the dividing-
up of functions seems to have been
universally approved[...]he AFC's other office
was the signing, on 15 May, of a co-
production agreement between
France and Aus[...]irector general,
Jerome Clément, the termination of
“a very pleasant and easy discus-
sion". "Our f[...]r was NSW premier
Neville Wran, an official guest of the
festival. He seemed to need little
convincing ofof this to go to her
head — “Jane has one of the clear-
est visions of what she wants to do of
anyone I've met," says 2 Friends
producer Jan Cha[...]ps — it
was collected by Nadia Tass, direc-
tor of Malcolm which, with Kanga-
roo, was the most warmly received
of the films in the market. It had
British distribut[...]leasure to Tass,
who was born within five minutes of
the Yugoslav border.

The other Australian direct[...]wo packed screenings.
Bennett, too, was the focus of a
great deal of European media atten-
tion, and found the whole a[...]films like Jim Jarmusch’s
Down By Law and some of the films
in the Director's Fortnight made me
fee[...]omments seem to sum
up Cannes '86. After a couple ofof Campion, Bennett and Scott
Murray (whose Devil in[...]he Critics‘ Week).

With the indefatigable help of
publicist Pierre Rissient, apparently
undaunted b[...]ralia, as for any film-
making country, that sort of split
identity is a blessing rather than a[...]

Bill's first job was at the end of a
black-and-white processing
machine, locked away[...]ame Colorfiim, and he remained
there for the rest of his career. In the
late sixties, Bill oversaw the[...]ing, remarkably, They're a
Weird Mob).

The Hands of Cormac Joyce, pro-
duced by Crawford Productions for
the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1972,
was the first colour 35mm feature
e[...]what's happening”.

Bill created his own style of lab
liaison to service the emerging film
industry. He considered himself one
of the crew. He insisted on reading
the script, talk[...]ng pre-production,
so as to have an understanding of
the look the cameraman was trying
to achieve.

He had a remarkable sense of
drama and, even though he viewed
rushes mute, wou[...]erring to the artistes by name and
in the context of the action which
was taking place in the scene. H[...]eir eyes and their mentor when
they were hundreds of miles away
on a shoot. i doubt that there is one
of our famous cameramen of today
who hasn't sidled up to the first
assistant[...]and ring Bill Gooley."

Bill trained a generation of clapper
loaders and production secretaries.
immen[...]a cruel or nasty
bone in his body, the recipients of
his ire would simply do as they were
told, withou[...]e make-up to the ladies’
hats. This was his way of staying
alert and involved through millions of
feet of one-light workprint. if you were
in Broken Hill o[...]had
munched its way through five thou-
sand feet of your major stunt
sequence, Bill would tell you st[...]rt redressing the problem.

Bill worked the hours of all the pro-

ductions going through the lab. He
was always there when you needed
him. Somehow, amongst all of this,
he managed to have a fulfilled and
loving f[...]but Bill's many
friends saw to it that something of
what he had given the industry was
given back, ho[...]d Award.

Bill's last production was the
delivery of the answer print of The
Fringe Dwellers. in April, too ill to
work, h[...]Fund. The project was insti-
gated in recognition of a problem in
Melbourne, which has less of an
established women’s film network
than Sydney, and almost none of the
women who were employed on the
project had ev[...]ithin-a-film looked at the problems
(and rewards) of motherhood, par-
ticularly for single women. it also
examined the moral issues involved
in cinema vérité. Of particular note
was the performance given by the
actor at the centre of the fi|m-within-
a-film: a documentary about moth[...]s the ‘star’, and her anger
with — and envy of — the well-
meaning young woman director
who in[...]chasm which forms the generation
gap. The choice of dialogue be-
tween a working-class couple, their[...]nd his odious wife and
child, have a painful ring of truth.
Mike Leigh, look to your laurelsl

Blood T[...]by Danae
Gunn, records three episodes in the
life of a female who lives on a farm
with her father and[...]confused little girl, trying to win
the approval of her insensitive, tyran-
nical father. The next part of the
trilogy, directed by Jane Stevenson,
has May trying to break free from his
dominance and make a life of her
own — an attempt which ends as
tragically a[...]erly dependent
on each other, like characters out of
Beckett.

Tango De/fa deals with the prob-
lems w[...]r your help", not
“Thanks for your work".

Each of the films is fresh, engross-
ing and well made. A[...]g
period. And it is encouraging to hear
that many of the women have since

At the opening of the graduate
screenings in May, director Anne
Dev[...]ructure and curriculum at
AFTS, and the expansion of the
Open Programme in other capital
cities. But w[...]Skipping
Girl.

politics and romance were some of
the dominant themes. Michael
Webb’s Family Bond[...]laying by metaphoric-
ally aligning the spectacle of a tennis
match with the scenes of an opera.
Taking Away, by Chris Roache,
drew a fe[...]little solid-
arity has done wonders for a group
of experimentalfilm and video artists
in Melbourne.[...]they have already pre-
sented their first season of films at
the Glasshouse Theatre.

The May exhibit[...]Jazz and Phillipe Mora’s Aberrations
were some of the films from the
sixties that provided a fascin[...]zation for film and
video artists is a direct way of over-
coming a rigid distribution system

empty, longwinded account of a
loser who runs a hamburger store.
Events just become more and more
improbable.

The most successful of the pre-
view screenings was Anna Grieve's
Skippi[...]m and television pro-
ductions. What is more, one of the
films has been singled out for a
Greater Unio[...]ar fashion in women's shoes.
Although the linking of men’s fond-
ness for women sporting this kind of
footwear with the Chinese custom of
foot-binding may seem obvious to
readers of feminist theory, it is good
to see such ideas exp[...]c,
High Heels is nevertheless refresh-
ingly free of the tyranny of ideo-
logical soundness, with its theme
song (written by Jan Cornall) speak-
ing in favour of a woman's right to
wear what she pleases, without[...]at having
about 200 titles registered by the
end of 1986. We will have details on
the format of the work, where prints
and copies are held, where[...]ual Arts Board;
to get further funding for a tour of
works in regional galleries. “We?
think it is a[...]n (03) 663 1953.

N,S.B. Parson's The Portrait of
Wendy's Father examined ideas
about confrontation[...]Stephen Best’s So Pale, however,
was indicative of a problem that
characterized many of the films. He
takes a fascinating idea — a girl[...]ra-
tion stops there. With Best’s, as with
many of the films, there is no lack of

I Presentation of the Australian
Writers’ Guild annual awards wil[...]her awards, the documentary,
Koori, was co-winner of the Prix
Nanook at the fifth Ethnographic
Film Fe[...]l
Cinema, the City Art Institute, the Art
Gallery of NSW, the Australian
Centre for Photography and the
NSW institute of Technology. There
will be a competiton, an exhibi[...]n activity in
Western Australia is often left out of
the picture. The WA Film and Tele-
vision Institute aim to put it bac[...]t it from the FTl, 92
Adelaide Street, Fremantle, WA
6160.

okol Abe and Georgina Bone
need the ?Foli<'-yo-based Goanna
Films.

Sasléia aron is film editor of Gary
magazine in London

axter is a film reviewer for
7'. e Australian and author of
erous books on the cinema.
Marcus Breeri is a M<e[...]EMA PAPERS

I David Ruda and Steve Gordon,
owners of the Moviola Movie
Memorabilia bookshop in Mel-
bo[...]Australia,
America and Europe, and a selec-
tion of new and out-of-print books.
Their new shop is in the Midcity
Arc[...]al della Rovere
(Rossellini); 4 November, Destiny of
a Man (Bondarchuk); 11 November,
Lotna (Wajda); 18 November, Death
of a Cyclist (Bardem); 25 November,
The Executioner[...]December, Eve Wants to Sleep;
30 December, Smiles of a Summer
Night (Bergman); 6 January, Death
of a Bureaucrat (Alea).

I On 27 May, the Australian[...]ree major projects:
Kaboodle, thirteen half-hours of
drama for five-to-nine-year-olds;
Touch the Sun, the Foundation's
Bicentennial project, with a budget
of $8 million and funding support
from the Bicentenn[...]Joan ®o.l.‘-ien works in the film
department of the ties Atngeles
Bounty Museum.

Mary Golféiert[...]classical guitar.

Berek Elley is associate altar of the
international Film Guide

Michael Ereedmairi is a freelance
film viniter and editor of /tustrarian
Horlfculture.

Saran Guest is a director of Aus-
tralian Gouneil for Idrens Eilm

For those of you who thought
Winners had been around for some[...]er
than as one-off telefeatures, which is
how two of the series have already
been screened.

Writers a[...]Michael Carson. Touch the Sun,
says ABA Director of Special Events
Jan Edwards, is “very relevant to
the objectives of 1988”, with its
national spread and its focus o[...]tive Development

Branch, now under the direction of
Megan McMurchy, has finalized pro-
duction grants[...]ch),
Along the Border (Robert Burns),
Arrangement of Youth (Jane Steven-
son and Mick Bell), Courageou[...]ce writer oni:
film. ,
avid Stratton ‘is nest of Morris at? I
the Week on and rexiiews ,.[...]

Sen is 63 now: he celebrated his
60th birthday at Cannes three years
ago, with one of the nicest parties
ever held in a town where part[...], Belgium and Switzer-
land; and it involved lots of travel.
“There were certain conditions,” he
e[...]pent
outside its territory. France allowed a
part of the money to be spent out-
side its territory. Bu[...]ssels and Paris. You know, we in
India are scared of this freezing cold
herein Europe, and last winter[...]to be able to work on a
large canvas, with a lot of people
having diverse national identities. I
foun[...]in a big family."

Genesis came about as a result of
a lunch Sen had in Calcutta in 1983
with (then) F[...]ime
(and which was responsible for the
completion of Yilmaz Guney’s Yo/).

Genesis, which is a parable of
civilization‘s collapse, rebirth, decay,
furthe[...]ess,
ageless and can happen any time, in
any part of the world, in any
language, I was making this fil[...]n becomes more
youthful in his love forthe medium of
cinema and his need to play with it.”
Twenty ye[...]with
Genesis, is youthfully discovering
the joys of the soundtrack, thanks to
having been able to do[...]achieve it because, in
India, we always run short of funds
at the end, so we have hurriedly to
complete the mixing. But here, the
quality of the sound has been so
good, it has lent tremendous dimen-
sions to the film, which I was never
aware of before. So, what did I do’?
Even though Ravi Sh[...]o strong. I
made a little whisper, a little sound of
the wind. I have been very cor-

rupted by this w[...]sistence
society built by the two men and a
woman of the regenerated world.
But, for Sen, this carries a hint of yet
another genesis. “On the surface, it
is not: I know that. Several of my mili-
tant friends, they say: ‘How is is that
your films end on a note of despair
all the time?‘ I say: ‘Yes, but this[...]my spectators to see
something outside the frame of the
camera. There will be another con-
frontation[...]ise in the
last ten to fifteen years, as the grip of
realism and moralistic cinema has
finally loosene[...]years ago, the
quirky, sometimes fantastic films of
the Powell and Pressburger team
were still being[...]frivolous.

But, as TV’s sponge-like soaking
up of ‘true stories‘ continues, a
space is being cl[...]ruth?" And, to those critics who
disliked his use of caricatures and
fantasy, accusing him of showy sur-
realism, he responded: “AlI films ar[...]like the real world
but isn't."

Powell was part of the ‘British
presence‘ at Cannes this year ~
though, in an era of simultaneous
British national pride and xeno-
pho[...]lian features, They're a Weird
Mob (1966) and Age of Consent
(1969), have come to nothing except
a cre[...]e is there accompanying
an old favourite: as part of British

Film Year's final fling, the festival is
screening Powell and Pressburger‘s
A Matter of Life and Death (1946),
and presenting them with a[...]Francis Ford Coppola
repaid their childhood debts of grati-
tude from TV matinees. Scorsese
financed a 1979 American re-issue
of Peeping Tom (1960). And, in
1982, Coppola invited[...]ing a silent horror comedy.

There was an example of Powell's

mixture of modesty, shrewdness
and charm when, at a London
lecture to celebrate the relaunch of
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
(1943), Powell and Pressburger
toge[...]adoring
fan, Martin Scorsese, with a signed
copy of the script for The Red Shoes
(1948). Then,[...]

It was that ‘morbid’ element in[...]film-
making career for a long time and, in
terms of major features, possibly for
ever. The critical scandal surround-
ing the film's sympathetic portrait of
a disturbed young photographerl
filmmaker who kil[...]hey watch themselves die in a
mirror on the front of his camera, has
become something of a myth now,
with various still-working critics
cr[...]in what Peeping

Tom implied about the voyeurism of
cinema, and the capacity of the
director/spectator for evil, it severely
dama[...]ow,"
he says. “First, it was treated as a
piece of pornography, then as a
great work of art. I don't think it is
either. I never understo[...]ed lives."

Today, he is more than a little tired
of the subject, and doesn't take at all
kindly to th[...]1968
interview with Kevin Gough-Yates,
the sense of waste he must feel can
be guessed at: ‘‘I cho[...]n my
memories virtually coincide with the
history of cinema. I have worked
actively in cinema for the[...]ema."

In the past year in Britain, more
and more of Powell and Press-
burger's work has been held up for
wider viewing than that afforded by
dark corners of repertory cinemas
and chopped-up afternoon TV
schedules. The creative work of ‘The
Archers’, their nom d'écran, has
been removed, not always without
complaint, from the sole care of film
butts and students. The National
Film Archiv[...]-
tives lingering in the vaults; and, in
the case of The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp, pieced together the
original versi[...]3.

Churchill was not amused by its
wry portrayal of the British army as
gallant old duffers, nor by i[...]had originally
been commissioned by the Ministry
of Information; but, when Churchill
saw the script,[...]as a success as a
cause cé/ébre, but a shortage of the
materials needed to make Techni-
color prints[...]l to grant
it an export licence, made it a victim
of the scissors. The relaunch in
London last year wa[...]ontretemps.

Now, Powell enjoys telling the
story of Churchillian censorship, but
he wasn't so happy a[...]Bayou boy

Glen Pitre,
Cajun filmmaker

A couple of years ago, Glen Pltre
was spending his evenings t[...]ly surprising, then, that at last
year's premiere of Belizaire the
Cajun, he should look somewhat out
of place in a dinner jacket, and seem
less than comf[...]Be/izaire the Cajun is a landmark in
the history of the American cinema:
the first film about Cajuns,[...]itre, a 29-year-old Harvard
graduate and a native of Cut Off,
Louisiana, is single-handedly creat-
ing[...]t demiet ($8.50 a
Barrel!) were both straight out of the
bayou: strong on action and local
colour, fea[...]ding his own parents) as
actors, and with budgets of less than
$30,000 a piece. Unlike Be/izaire,
howe[...]For the uninitiated, the Cajuns — a
deformation of 'Acadians' ~ were
originally French people who we[...]to put up with conventional
Hollywood caricatures of their
culture if they wanted to see stories
about[...]1946 release, Thunder Bay,
Cajuns got in the way of oil man
Jimmy Stewart and were swiftly
removed. I[...]swamp-dwellers, a main-
land dramatic equivalent of the Viet
Cong.

Glen Pitre on the set of Belizaire the
Cajun, with Nancy Barrett and
Steph[...]language, film is the best medium.”

The story of Be/izaire the Cajun is
a romantic adventure tale[...]aiteur or healer, played by
Armande Assante, star of Unfaith-
fu/ly Yours and Private Benjamin.
Ultima[...]ns and the Cajuns which
provides the real tension of the film.

The whole project came to fruition
under the tutelage of Robert Red-
ford's Sundance Institute in Utah,
wh[...]nsti-
tute brings together experts from all
areas of the motion picture industry
to help polish the work of promising
independent filmmakers. Among the
exper[...]husband), Sydney
Pollack, Karl Maiden and a host of
other specialists, ranging from film
editors via[...]ing me pointers, letting
me peek inside their bag of tricks.
People kept coming up and saying:
‘Hey,[...]should have been the other way
round!"-As a mark of their confid-
ence in him, Sundance also put up
t[...]Pitre's story-telling gifts, and the
combination of amateur and profes-
sional actors gels nicely in, for
instance. the scenes of collusion
between the sheriff (Loulan Pltr[...]

The Fringe Dwellers is, however, being
unavoidably pushed into the same arenas of

debate as its purple-coloured American
counterpart, and it looks like Beresford
may well end up with some of the same
problems.
Spielberg’s
rendition of Alice Walker’s more subtle
and radical novel has touched the heart

glossy and extravagant

strings of middle America. The Fringe
Dwellers, based on Nen[...]al reception. It was, above all, the
performances of the lead actors, Kristina
Nehm, Justine Saunders[...]tralian Aboriginals
was a prominent manifestation of the views
of some of those who are passionately ques-
tioning the representation of blacks in the
film, and decrying its lack of analysis of
Aboriginal history, culture and politics.
Playwri[...]boriginal people aren’t”. After a screen-
ing of the film, he exclaimed: “lt’s a fig-
ment of a non-Aboriginal’s imagination.

It’s[...]

changed since The Chant of Jimmie Black-
smith?” Offended by the misrepres[...]d that what
Beresford was showing was “the lack of
communication between two races . . . He
gives a[...]ture.
I think Aboriginal people will identify all of
the characters, but there is also a message
there[...]round both overt political issues and ques-
tions of representation — a film which
attempts to tell[...]ry Australia, The
Fringe Dwellers traces the life of the Come-
away family. Trilby (Kristina Nehm), th[...]ughter, is intent on
escaping the poor conditions of the fringe
camp in which her family lives. She an[...]by the whites, they
miss the bonding and support of their own
community, cannot pay the rent and
even[...]— and
refuses to let her family’s acceptance of
their position prevent her from breaking
away from the Aboriginal way of life. But
her dreams of this sort of independence are
threatened when she becomes preg[...]animal. As a result, Kristina Nehm’s
portrayal of Trilby often lacks the spirit
and anger that events demand.

For some, anger impels — it is a source
of strength or courage. But, for Kristina
Nehm, the role of Trilby was not imbued
with any intense symbolic p[...]about what The
Fringe Dwellers signifies in terms of the
Australian film industry: the fact that the
film was even produced is enough of a
statement. “This film is a breakthrough,”
she says. “It shows a group of black actors
performing really well, doing someth[...]l.
Eventually it was Virgin Films, the cinema
arm of London’s Virgin Records, that
agreed to a pre-s[...]ry,
appearing in Women ofthe Son, Rush, The
Chant ofof the words
of Whoopi Goldberg, lead actress of The
Color Purple, who seems to be copping the
same kind of flak. Goldberg has said she is
blazing a trail, n[...]le
. . . I mean I’m blazing a trail for the art of
acting”.

To Justine Saunders, it seems particu[...]to talk about the acting
experience. For the part of Mollie, she had
to age dramatically, adding layers of
padding, layers of make-up, and streaks of
grey. Her performance, on this level, is
quite ex[...]itive black film
practice that subverts the forms of the
dominant culture. Merritt’s pleas are about
the relationship of Aboriginal culture to the
hegemonic WASP establis[...]rgument for apartheid: “Keep the
blacks quarter of a mile out of town. Leave
them there. Leave them to their own
d[...]people that
time’s forgotten.”

Disputing any of the film’s claims to
accuracy, he goes on to sa[...]t was framed to deliber-
ately ward off the hopes of Aboriginal kids
wanting to come to terms with the[...]s that
it is not for the film to bring forth rays of

Thus, from the point of view of the
actors in The Fringe Dwellers, there has
been a dramatic shift from the stereotypical
characters of early Australian films like
Jedda (1955), and even The Chant of
Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) and Storm Boy
(1976).

B[...]n a sensationalist
approach to the representation of Abori-
ginals. Deriding the film‘s often blatan[...]than
a written one. Sure, we see things in terms
ofof hygiene; juxtaposed is the
clinical, sterilized image of the hospital.
The father, Joe (Bob Maza), is easi[...]solidarity is ex-
pressed in a scene reminiscent of Uncle
Tom’s Cabin: it shows the family painting[...]equence in the hospital, which
leads to the death of the child. It is pre-
ceded by a scene where Eva[...]knows from Eva’s words
that, if it was a matter of survival, the child
should be killed. I suppose T[...]ce,” she says.

But it is the way these aspects of Abori-
ginal culture are dealt with (aside from t[...]ashamed
watching The Fringe Dwellers was the loss
of a life and the fact that, from a black
point of view, there was no grieving.”

The script for T[...]things up”. For example, they cor-
rected some of the terms of address; they
inserted a scene where Bartie choos[...]Davis poem in the classroom;
and, towards the end of the film, they felt it
was important for Trilby t[...]ng that she just disappear.

For the actors, many of the changes were
obvious, if only because they id[...]predominantly white
family in the western suburbs of Sydney
after her mother remarried, she felt the
burden of cultural schizophrenia. “I could
identify with[...]st leaves home: she can’t see any
other way out of it. I wouldn’t say she’s
exactly a feminist o[...]lm were like still
people — they were incapable of

dreaming.”
The Color Purple is set in a now-mythical

time of slavery and oppression earlier this
century, and people have fallen in love with
the soulful character of Celie and her com-
panion, Shug, just as Justine[...]ere the regres-
sion on land rights is one marker of a
politically sensitive climate — and a time
wh[...]ry tales.

By not speaking directly to the issues of
black representation — that is, by believing
th[...]resilience. And they have assembled a
large cast of mainly Aboriginal actors — a
first for the Aust[...]e Color Purple may signify a shift in
the content of Spielberg’s blockbuster films
— from romance[...]story
which deals, in the glossiest and sweetest of
ways, with very real social issues — but[...]

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In New York, by the late spring of this
year, the one solidly-established new film in
town, taking in money from the bawdy
lights of Times Square to the sedater
reaches of the East Side, was Woody
Allen’s Hannah and her[...]that
popular nerve which receives the vibrations
of New York life and turns them into a
representative pattern of people.

In this case, the people are all members
of one Manhattan family. Hence the un-
usually large[...]driac TV director, who has no
sooner been cleared of the brain tumour he
suspects he’s got, than he[...]ters is not a
comedy, so much as a group-portrait of
people trying to shake a meaning out of
their busy—busy lives. It opens at one
Thanksgi[...]another. In between, we follow the
ups and downs of three daughters from a
showbusiness family, their[...]backdrop which Allen presents
like a photo album of his favourite places
and seasons.

Besides Allen[...]the late Lloyd Nolan as Hannah’s parents.

Part of the success of Hannah and her
Sisters, I suspect, is the feeling[...]sents, if not a happy ending, then a
happier view of existence than is
customarily offered by Allen’s comedies of
urban desperation. In this instance, the
group se[...]n therapy.
Whether or not this is intentional is, of
course, something Woody Allen himself is
best pla[...]dentally, towards the
Central Park West apartment of Mia
Farrow, who is Woody’s closest off-s[...]

This time, my meeting with W[...]so houses the
screening theatre and cutting rooms of the
Manhattan Filmmakers’ Cooperative. The
Beek[...]ch gives anyone passing through it the
impression of entering an Anglican church.
The monastic feel is[...]next week, because I’m not happy
with a couple of scenes in it and we’re going
to do them over.[...]that I didn’t do extensive
re-shooting on. Most of them are made in
the re-shooting.

Is it that ext[...]But there’s no other way to do it.

So how much of thefilm is in the shooting
script?

Well, I try a[...]s it an ‘idea’ or a ‘character’, or a set of
characters?

Actually what happened was, I was re[...]ting to do a
story where you go from small groups of
people to other groups of people and back
to the first group.” I thought[...]has to go in for X—rays and tests and that
sort of thing? Because I see it around me so
often. I’ve been guilty of it myself! When
the doctor says: ‘‘I just wan[...]eparate film.

Right. You could elaborate on some of
those and do them separately. But, to me,
the fun[...]annah and her
Sisters, without my having any idea of what
the story was, was really the very first thi[...]king
on some names or something — and the
title of Hannah and her Sisters came to me.
I had no idea of the story or anything. Ijust
thought: That’s an[...]ow, Hannah and her two sisters: are they
examples of womankind in general, or
specific New York womank[...]h-huh.

. as indeed Mia Farrow was in Purple
Rose of Cairo. And her two sisters
represent other aspects of women, and
perhaps New York women?

They’re thr[...]eath. So, you know she’s less than perfect.
But of those three sisters, she’s the one able
to keep[...]a
Hershey, is the pretty younger sister, and
kind of lost. She was an alcoholic for a
while — I mean[...]falling-
down-in-the-street alcoholic, but enough of
a problem to be sent to Alcoholics Anony-
mous. A[...]eacher from
college. So she’s obviously in need of that
kind of dependent relationship. It works
for a while with[...]like Annie Hall and Man-
hattan. It’s a feeling of mellowness, even of
happiness, at the end of it.

It’s deceptive. I think that people are
re[...]wife’s sister in the film that
causes him a lot of pain, that causes his
wife some pain, because she[...]aves the artist
she’s living with and is in one of those rela-
tionships where the guy loves[...]

In The Purple Rose of Cairo, Mia Farrow
finds that the movies are the[...]d Ginger dance
on the screen . . .

. . . because of the way she played it.

Of course . . ., and the way it was directed.
And, i[...]you realise that, well, maybe
laughter is a sort of consolation that you ’re
bringing to people, with the sense of
contentment or resignation that accom-
panies it — do you see this as the male
equivalent of the female character in Purple
Rose?

In one resp[...]ed to choose between reality and
fantasy — and, of course, you can’t choose
fantasy, because there[...]And
then, at the end, the best she can do is kind
of go back to these little distractions,

“I want[...]movie stars. She’s just got an hour
and a half of forgetfulness from the pain of
everyday living. The same in Hannah and
her Siste[...]nd
you say to yourself, “Well, not every
second of life is torture”. I mean, there are
some moment[...]’re the best you get. But I never found a
sense of optimism in Hannah and her
Sisters — just a sense of reasonably healthy
resignation . . . that, you kn[...]Woody Allen film.

Michael was originally an idea of mine,
because I've always been a great fan of his.
He’s one of the few people around who can
play serious and comedy. There’s not a lot
of us around! There are some great actors
aro[...]

Like eight million dollars, which is not a lot
of money by American standards. Annie
Hall, for exam[...]now, with no
improvements at all — just because of the
huge inflationary rise over the years. The
unions and the cost of shooting in New
York has gone up, up, up. I was t[...]people and
used better. But he’s certainly one of the
innovators of cinema.

There are scenes in Hannah and her Siste[...]f you said to yourself: “I must
get this aspect of life — or this particular
event I ’ve seen ha[...]width and breadth to decorate
his new home.

Both of those things I’m familiar with in
real life: ex[...]and was
buying paintings to fit in with the decor of
the home. Those are true-life incidents, yes.

Co[...]at the
beginning: how you have a built—in part of
the budget for the re-shooting and, in fact,
how quite a lot of the creative things
happen during the re-shooting[...]ig examples.
In Hannah and her Sisters, the whole of the
second Thanksgiving party — there are
three[...]hanksgiving party, which is a big
climactic chunk of the picture, was never in
my original script and[...]I
bring in the casting director, who’s a friend
of mine, or one of the players in the
picture, like Dianne Wiest. An[...]producer: “Well, we’ve
solved eighty percent of the problem, but
we’re still missing a scene”[...]You figure: “well, it’s a
great week: one out of 24 is nothing”. You
can live with that, and you[...]t the
film together and you’re sitting in front of
the editing table, you’re stuck with twelve
scenes that don't work. Let’s say it’s two out
of 25: then you’ve got two dozen scenes
that don’t work. The cost is huge in terms
of the effectiveness of the film.

So, you really have to be nasty about[...]s come up imperfect. Even at
that meticulous rate of shooting them over
and over again, they still come out flawed.
None of them is close to being perfect.
Some are b[...]

It’s possible that that kind of thing
happens. Bergman once told me that he’d[...]t’s a big, colourful,
comic cartoon, with a lot of music in it —
almost a musical. But it isn’t[...]it’s
a nostalgic comedy about a plot, just sort
of a part—documentary, part-plot account
of certain years of my childhood — un-
related little incidents tha[...]iest, and Jeff Daniels and
Tony Roberts and a lot of people I’ve

FF

Allen
and (above) in Broa[...]o start to clear the decks
before the next series of films I make. I
want the next few films to be of quite a
serious nature. Yes, as serious as Interi[...]have improved since then.

Have you ever thought of making a film in
a foreign country?

I have thought of it. It would not bother me
at all. Of course, right now, the world is in
such a mess. I[...]it’s not a bad idea
to make a film abroad. Many of the great
cameramen are abroad. They’re all abroad,
with the exception of Gordon Willis — all
the great ones are e[...]

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0
comments. “It was not really a good idea to
l e 0 S ask her to be president ofof people feel about this type of
film, and she gave it more media coverage

. than[...]if she had remained
Even with this first glimmer of major

tree or 0 t e
international recognition,[...]till remains

O O

sceptical about the usefulness of festivals

l m and the value of their awards, however. “I
have found competitiv[...]I had
9 time to prepare properly. We spent a lot of

time speaking to political correspondents[...]y few people knew
anything about the inside story of the

u 1 Baader-Meinhof trial, so we paved the way

with lots of background material. Really,

though, I th[...]

“I just wanted to get an idea of what TV
work was like,” he says, “and they as[...]ime. I wanted to do
theatre — it was the heyday of Camus and
Sartre — but I couldn’t really turn down
the chance of making TV programmes. It
also gave me the chance[...]n
Trotta, in a piece about failure in the
context of the big cities, where survival is
only possible t[...]nce.

“I want to use emotion to reach
some kind of understanding, to
reach the head through the
hear[...]is also insistent about how this
must be done. “Of course, I have nothing
against a message,” he says, “but I think
you must first of all entertain an audience. I
want to use emotion to reach some kind of
understanding, to reach the head through
the hear[...]ave those
obsessions and then not lose the thread of
the main concept. Take Rossellini in Roma
citta a[...]reality that was to provide Hauff
with the centre of his next film. In 1966,
Burkhard Driest, an ex-classmate of
Hauff’s, was jailed for five years for a bank
r[...], Die Verrohung des
Franz Blum (The Brutalization of Franz
Blum), which was turned into a screenplay
a[...]riest didn’t
produce an autobiographical report of his
experiences, but used his personal suffering
to tell an objective story of great
authenticity, about the brutalization of a
human being in a brutal environment.
Driest’s[...]ndschnfirre (Fuses) in 1975,
which was the first of a series of three films
dealing with the problems of young people.
“Fuses was about the resistance by the
children ofof
ideas. Sometimes, though, their reactions
are mor[...]ered the old film-
maker’s dictum from the days of the
silents: that the most penetrating narrator
p[...]amera itself. Paule
Paulander portrays the misery of contem-
porary rustic life, ultimately exploding[...]in Hauff’s Munich office — without a
glimmer of hope, the film displays a great
love of the countryside and its inhabitants.

“It was P[...]non-
professional actors. But it’s not so much of

a moral issue with him.”

Hauff found a young boy, barefoot and
ragged, on the streets of a small town in
Bavaria, who was ideal for the le[...]d they were on their
own again, with a whole mass of problems
having being raised.”

The sheer joy of finding a readymade
cast was soon to become a cau[...]en the teenager in question left home as
a result of his interaction with the director,
actors and cre[...]illed,” recalls Hauff, “and
the circumstances of his death were a kind
of parable of what I wanted my film to be
about. He was fascinated all his life by
working people, by the power of the young
people of the streets, by their fantasy and
culture, music,[...]haven’t been
killed or attacked, but the story of the actor
and the fictional director is similar.[...]m new ideas and,
perhaps, a greater understanding of their
situation —— situations they maybe never
analyzed before.”

“Ofof The
Main Actor is seen as reflecting some of
Hauff’s own attitudes, they are hardly
compatib[...]rested in making films and not
correcting faults. Of course, I am a

bourgeois and not a country prole[...]ilt feelings run fairly
deep — perhaps a result of his strongly
Protestant upbringing during and just after

No sign of the middle way: above, Ulrich Pleitzer
as[...]

Even in the context of the plethora of
films about urban terrorists which have
been made[...]Erwachen der
Christa Klages (The Second Awakening of
Christa Klages), and the compilation film
Deutsch[...]so sheltered from
the true facts and revelations of the trial,
that it was a matter of duty to bring the
story to the screen.

“Some of their dialogue in prison
was pure poetry: a scrip[...]it”

“The real conflicts and the inside story
of the prison — how they actually talked
with each[...]eve that this
happened for real in a German court of
law. Some of their dialogue in prison was
pure poetry: a scrip[...]But what I wanted to show was
the extreme points of view held by both left
and right — a dialogue of the deaf: no one
listening to anyone except thems[...]ing a
general concept. Here, we have the
question of finding an alternative to
terrorism and the state[...]ven
with translation, they get only about a third
of the subtlety of the dialogue. But the
people from Cork and San Se[...]d up by reason, logic and
motivation? But, as one of the prosecutors
in the trial said: ‘I-Iow can w[...]nd right. At their (briefly united)
hands, copies of the film have been
destroyed, cinemas set on fire[...]poverty line, in some cases well below it. A
lot of people have no hope, especially at my
age. I have friends who know that they
have little chance of ever finding work
again. No wonder terrori[...]

control. >
O Onloff switching[...]udio;
preview theatres (16 and 35mm); and a staff of
experienced professional camera and sound[...]

On each of my last two films, Can She
Bake a Cherry Pie? and[...]strong temptation
on each occasion to look at any ofof the movies he had made: their virtues,
their fla[...]ey are
going to show up to haunt you for the rest
of your life,” he told me on the set of my
first film. He had watched me for a few
days,[...]ver make a movie for
anyone else, or on some idea of what other
people will like. Make it yours, and h[...]l their ‘Industry’, if
you have any intention of being an artist.
Co-existence cannot occur[...]

Ten years on, the Cinématheque
Francaise, one of the world’s richest and
most prestigious film a[...]away; and the French government has
taken charge of its affairs, offering it a
luxurious new home and a generous
pension to ensure its survival. The old lady
of French cinema, however, shows all the
signs of passing through a crisis. The recent
change of government in France is only the
latest cloud on[...]ght alone at
the Chaillot theatre; double payment of
accounts was a frequent occurrence; and
insurance[...]ic reasons’,
enabling them to claim high levels of un-
employment benefit. The Cour des
Comptes report also mentioned several
cases of alleged extravagance. For instance,
5,000 seats were specially manufactured for
the marathon projection of the complete
version of Abel Gance’s Napoléon. The
cost: 2 million fra[...]and the seats were put in store
at a further cost of 40,000 francs ($8,000) a
year.

The Cinémathéqu[...]ené
Clair’s contribution to the silent cinema. Of
the 200 made, only four were sold. Also
criticize[...]avras, and
the generous annuity paid to the widow of
film historian Georges Sadoul, in return for
the donation of his library.

All this came as little surprise to[...]ently been
plagued by controversy and accusations of
mismanagement. And the Cour des
Comptes should ha[...]t a
lifetime’s work devoted to the preservation
of world cinema cannot easily be expressed
in terms of profit and loss. Founded in 1936
by a 20-year-old[...]es Franju,
the Cinématheque originally consisted of a
small cine-club, the ‘Cercle du Ciném[...]

This year, one of the world’s ’
most famous film institutions
c[...]looks back
over the 50 sometimes

turbulent years of the
Cinémathéque Francaise, and
examines the shake—up of the
past twelve months.

“What concerns me i[...]hat cinema moves ahead. For
me, the cultural role of the
Cinémathéque lies in creating
the future, since it is the
museum of a living art. A
museum dedicated not only to
the past, but also to the future.
For me, the glory of the
Cinémathéque is to have made
possible Les 4[...]nais and
Rouch; to have contributed in
the heyday of Milan and Rome
_ to the genesis of neo-realism. ”
Henri Langlois

Henri Langlois:[...]ing movies:
to him, they were all priceless works of art.
Above all, he would show his films.

By the end ofof the sixties
literally learned their trade: the ‘children of
the Cinématheque’ would later become the
‘enfants terribles’ of French cinema. A
Cahiers du cinéma editorial in[...]elt that it deserved a
greater say in the running of the institution.
lt appointed eight state-chosen[...]very critical Heilbronner report on the
operation of the Cinématheque and the
acknowledged attempt by[...]France
— something which went against the idea
of the Cinémathéque’s independence —
Langlois[...]Francois Truffaut, normally the
most unpolitical of men, at the Palais de
Chaillot. The police were c[...]his prints.
When American producers and a number
of foreign archives joined the boycott,
Malraux was[...]ks after he had been
dismissed.

While the affair of ’68 was a resounding
victory for Langlois and t[...]hat year), it also meant that, with the
departure of the government, the funding
disappeared. For more[...]inématheque survived only by the deter-
mination of Langlois and the waning
enthusiasm of its supporters.

“After Langlois,” says the n[...]1984. We weren’t prepared for such an
injection of funds: there was no real
management team. The new[...]Cinématheque into action and, on the

admission of Costa Gavras, helped it put its.

house in order.[...]t back from shooting Hanna
K in Israel at the end of 1983, I carried out
a shake-up: four of the top people left, and
I ran the Cinématheque[...]exclusively to two
main projects: reorganization of the
archives (warehousing, cataloguing and
restor[...]tained 17,000 films, or
130,000 cans, 50,000 cans of which were
still on nitrate stock. Used almost ex[...]que’s Pontel ware-
house and, with it, hundreds of cans of
priceless film footage.

Typically, Langlois had[...]ehow protect
them. Certainly, this had the effect of
dissipating the noxious gases given off by[...]

The high proportion of nitrate films was
not the only problem: even before the
events of 1968, Langlois evinced a mistrust
of government interference bordering on
paranoia. Convinced that the state would
somehow find a way of getting its hands on
his films, he refused to keep them all in one
place, or even to prepare an inventory of
what the archive possessed. And he would
never disclose the origin of many of his
films. This, coupled with a lack of funds,
particularly during the seventies, meant
that many of the films that arrived at the
Cinématheque could[...]to Letarjet. With the
modernization and extension of the ware-
house facilities at Saint—Cyr and the[...]ar,
and has commenced the gradual establish-
ment of a completely computerized
inventory. “We’re c[...]s for each film to be stored on the
index. A team of ten people is working full-
time on the inventory[...]ion and conservation
work. Among the most notable of this
year’s restorations are Abel Gance’s La[...]anova.

In some cases, restoration becomes a case
of almost total reconstruction. An extreme
case has[...]d
had its ‘premiere’ as the opening screening
of this year’s birthday celebrations.

What has ma[...]rted by Langlois and
continued by his successors, of devoting as
much effort to screening films as it[...]eyer, Ernst Lubitsch and
Georges Franju; a repeat of the entire 1936
Cercle du Cinema programme; and a[...]in
three separate locations). There was some
talk of the Grand Palais but that, in the
end, was put to another use; and the
planned Grand Louvre on the outskirts of
Paris apparently proved too expensive. The
Palais[...]al announcement was
made by Jack Lang in February of this
year. The Cinematheque is expected to
begin[...]poor condition, and restoring it will cost a
lot of money. But, at long last, the cinema’s
collecti[...]r devoted to a cinema
museum, and three theatres. Of the latter,
one would show 300 films a year from the
archive; one would be devoted to the
classics of world cinema; and the third
would be reserved for[...]the plan. Cahiers
du cinéma, longtime supporter of Langlois
and the Cinématheque, and never one to[...]t 1986 should mark a turning
point in the history of the Cinémathéque:
Cahiers senses a new directio[...]particular
bother Cahiers: the planned extension of
the cinema museum, and whether or not the
Cinématheque will stick to its role of
encouraging and developing new talent. “It
is n[...]nématheque the mission inscribed in the
thoughts of its founder, but abandoned
over the last 20 years, due to lack of both
means and enthusiasm,” thunders Ca/tiers.[...]lies in caps, collecting dust. Is
this the future of our Cinématheque?”
Despite Cahiers’ objections, however, the
museum had been one of Langlois’ dreams:
for over 30 years, he collect[...]r a museum was
inscribed in the original statutes of the
Cinématheque, signed in 1936. In 1972,
Langl[...]covering the period from pre-
history to the end of the silent era. Even
then, it polarized his suppo[...]ut) who saw it as a useless

indulgence and waste of much-needed
funds, and those who considered it an in-
valuable and ingenious record of the
history of cinema.

Pending completion of the Palais de
Tokyo, the Cinématheque currently[...]00 cameras, and over two million stills.
A number of famous sets have been com-
pletely rebuilt, inclu[...]um gets 35,000 visitors every year.

“The place of cinema in modern culture
is even more fragile now[...], which as yet doesn’t exist,
would be a symbol of the incarnation of
cinema as an art. The role ofof management with seeking new
partners and sponsors[...]that such decisions need looking at
again. “One of the first things that needs to
be done is to start showing the films of
young French directors — to help them find
work[...]ne hand, there
is the Cinématheque as the centre of a
practising film culture: the pure and funda-
me[...]d. But
we must also open ourselves to new
methods of propagating film culture, hence
the need for new[...]audience. We will have to show ourselves
capable of reconciling two qualities: the
eccentricities of the true collector, and the
seriousness of the curator. I just hope the
balance will be tipp[...]ward
eccentricity! ”

Despite the recent change of government
in France, the Cinématheque’s admin[...]ture (see the regular French
column near the back of this issue), has
been quick to declare his suppor[...]proceeding according
to schedule.

But questions of long-term funding have
still to be thrashed out. And so does the
question of future identity. If Cahiers is
right — if the C[...]and the Cinématheque
will have resumed its role of cradle and
catalyst to French film culture[...]

of the

Australian Film, Television
ond Rodio School[...]Connes

Film Australia

The Production Division of the
AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION

Australia’s Lea[...]ylU8‘l'R.4L~IAN @1‘RAIN3

A compilation Video of 7 best films about
Australian trains. Whet[...]

if it's all part of the show. Already
used as a location for the ABC'[...]The story untold in Dickens's
door—stop novel of young orphan Pip
and his progress towards his ‘great
expectations’ of inherited wealth is,
of course, that of Abel Magwitch. Pip
befriends the convict on the
m[...]on him the
pleasures, guilts and responsibilities
of money.

Given director/writer Tim Bursta||’s
agile imagination, there is no
shortage of incident to fill the six
hours of this ABC miniseries, from
which a piggyback featu[...]with whom he escapes
from the hulks at the start of the
story, now has links with both Miss
Havisham[...]atch,
the weather is changing from the
blue skies of the last week. Tom
Burstali keeps one eye on the[...]ect back at least a
year“. The improbable angel of its
resurrection was Antony Ginnane

who. in this as in a number of other
projects this year, made the crucial
introd[...]l handle the film outside
Australia. In the light of John
Stanton’s appearance in the up-
coming int[...]s, says Burstall, given them
the unexpected bonus of technical
expertise, particularly in costume
and[...]s as a gaudy benison after a
day on both channels of undiluted
footy, Great Expectations: The
U[...]

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks
later that l realised I'd written that
lett[...]y.

l mention this not to indicate
amazing powers of foresight (though
the film did take over $2 milli[...]istory, E. T.
and Rambo included), but rather out
of a dawning realisation that, after
the preview —[...]atic, proud, delighted,
in tune with every nuance of
Hogan’s performance and the not
inconsiderable talents ofof crown
prince of Australian television to
saviour of the Australian film industry
(which, god knows, n[...]hillip Adams in The Australian (in
itself, a kind of accolade), Hogan
has otherwise acceded to the
position of national treasure.

For the benefit of overseas
readers — and the three Australians
an[...]seen Crocodile
Dundee -— the film is the story of an
outback larrikin called Michael J.
‘Crocodil[...]n encounter with a
crocodile which has, like most of
Mick Dundee’s life, been magnified
from event to legend, he attracts the
attention of a New York reporter
called Sue Charlton (Linda Ko[...]ecides to turn him into a
brief, Ha||ey‘s Comet of a celebrity.
Mick, however, so overwhelms Sue
—[...]he neutralizes the exploiters and
wins the heart of the girl.

it is a carefully calculated, skilfully
executed piece of mainstream enter-
tainment — so skilfully executed, in
fact, that the sheer bravado of the

1.

A face in the crowd: Michael J.
‘Croc[...]inarily clever film, exploiting the
rough anarchy of Hogan’s identity
and turning it into something[...]Mick facing up to
the pimps, muggers and yuppies of
the Big Apple is not the hick too
stupid to see the threats through
which he bulldozesz he is more of a
holy innocent, floating through an
urban nightm[...]ates and dismantles.

Crucial to this is a degree of self-
awareness built into Dundee’s
larrikin im[...]elf feeds on the more
authentic Australian staple of baked
beans. Carefully shaving with a
safety razo[...]dest hick-in—the-
big-city joke, but the timing of
Hogan’s reactions and the delayed
punchline, via a triumphant shout to
Sue out of the window, delivered just
after the joke had bee[...]most inevitable
boomerang joke. Mick is in danger
of being badly beaten up by two
pimps he had earlier[...]pping the crescent-
shaped TV aerial off the back of the
limo, sends it scything after the
fleeing hoo[...]n transforms the joke (on
several levels, not all of them
palatable).

It is not just in the timing of its jokes
that Crocodile Dundee impresses,
though[...]her publicly at a large
dinner party: the series of looks and
angles through which Mick and Sue
just[...]isunderstand the others
feelings, is a fine piece of film-
making.

And the finale, in which they
rest[...]anything Blake Edwards
has ever done.

There are, of course, bits of
Crocodile Dundee which are gross
and predictable:[...]lowski‘s scoop-clad burn, for
instance, or most of the brief but em-
barrassing sequence with David[...]. Screenplay: Paul
Hogan and Ken Shadie. Director of
photography: Russell Boyd. Produc-
tion de[...]

An English-
woman
abroad

The difficulties of expressing “the
holiness of direct desire" (EM.
Forster's phrase) may seem
mi[...]exually uninhibited
eighties; but it is a measure of the
success of James lvory’s film
version of Forster‘s 1908 novel, A
Room with a View, that he is able to
make them seem urgent.

The slender story of Lucy Honey-
church (Helena Bonham Carter), an
Eng[...]Daniel Day Lewis),
provides the basis for a study of the
conflicting claims of the senses and
the social niceties.

For those who know nothing of
either Forster or lvory, A Room with
a View offers a touching and witty
examination of its central opposition
of repression and expression.
Repression is most str[...]companion
in Florence, aghast at the open
display of feeling, whether it is that of
old Mr Emerson (Denholm Elliott),
insisting that[...]to the epony-
mous view; or, more crucially, that of
George, suddenly kissing Lucy on a
Florentine hil[...]d kind-
ness, and can only cope with the
lushness of the ltalian countryside by
allowing it to remind her of a place in

Shropshire where she once spent a
hol[...]hrough Cecil's bookish
removal from the realities of experi-
ence. Fastidiously censorious of
most people, he at last (some time
after their en[...]sly around,
the film boldly cuts to Lucy's
memory of George’s passionate
embrace in Florence.

Back in the decorums of English
life, Lucy has suppressed this
memory, co[...]sults’ her in England. After a com-
plex series of deceptions and self-
deceptions, Lucy breaks with[...]m's last scene shows them
kissing in the casement of the
Pension Bertolini with a view of
Florence behind them, symmetric-
ally recalling the opening shot of
Lucy (discontented) and Charlotte
(disapproving)[...]e outspoken (Mr Emerson) to the
conventionalities of tea-drinking,
polite soirees and churchgoing for[...]ingly to rest in that final
shot. The “holiness of direct desire“
has won the day, without senti-
mentality or melodramatics.

A good deal of the film’s narrative
pleasure derives directly from
Forster, as does its pattern of subtly

Maggie Smith and Helena Bonham
Carter in[...]eir own distinctive
flavour. This is perhaps more of an
achievement in the new film, since it
chooses to foreground so boldly the
cultural status of the precursor text.
That is, it repeatedly draws attention
to Forster by using many of his
chapter headings (‘In Santa Croce
with no B[...]roduce suc-
cessive episodes in a way
reminiscent of silent-screen titles.

The acting, as is almost a[...]ty for giving and taking
offence, without a trace of the
mannerisms that sometimes
threatened her earl[...]Mr Emerson is a finely and
touchingly drawn study of openly
expressed affection and startling
honesty.[...]quite equalling,
the restless emotional questing of
another ivory heroine, Lisa Eichhorn
as Gertrude[...]he distinction between
England and ltaly (matters of light

and architecture and behaviour)
recalls hi[...]road, whether the
latter are expressing criticism of
dubious foreign arrangements or
(like Judi Dench'[...]e lingers just long enough on the
exotic beauties of Florence or the
domesticated prettiness of Southern
England. And he knows — he has
always[...]his films —— that people
are the key element of mise en
scene.

Brian McFarIane

A Room with a[...]ala,
based on the novel by E.M. Forster.
Director of photography: Tony Pierce-
Roberts. Product[...]

REVI

not only acutely aware of their own
little aches and pains and mood
shifts,[...]depressed’? You seem
so distant?” at the drop of a yawn or
a blink from the accused. Like the
char[...]d them.

Farrow, Wiest and Waterston are
veterans of other Allen movies, as
are many of Hannah's characters
and circumstances. Allen’s females
are invariably descendants of Annie
Hall, stuttering and strutting their
insecurities about town. And the
structure of the three-sister family in
Hannah repeats the interiors
precedent (where the husband of
the older sister also makes a pass at
his wife’[...]Wiest in

Woody Allen ’s new Chekhovian
comedy of New York mores.

success and driving convertibles in
Hollywood. And, of course, Allen
himself experiences yet another
existential crisis covering his fear of
death, the meaninglessness of life,
the absence of god, etc., dealt with
more than adequately in many of his
films to date.

Love and Death said it best;[...]len mould:
they are all like personified elements
of his personality. One need not
look too closely at[...]ll
as restricting. For, although the tiny
context of his Manhattan becomes
repetitive and insular, he[...]acy.

Woody Allen’s New York is an
elitist city of bookstores, classical
music, art galleries, long,[...]z clubs.
He is a spokesman for a particular
brand of New Yorker, making him
an anthropological dramatist of
sorts.

Allen describes himself most
accurately through the voice of his
character's ex-wife in Manhattan,
who publishes a frank and
embarrassing portrayal of their failed
marriage: “He was given to fits of
rage, Jewish liberal paranoia, male
chauvinism, self-righteous mis-
anthropy and nihilistic moods of
despair. He had complaints about
life but never a[...]sacrifices. In his most
private moments, he spoke of his
fear of death which he elevated to
tragic heights when, i[...]ism."

The same comments could apply
to the maker of Hannah and her
Sisters. But, even in criticism of
Woody Allen, the man says it best
himself.

Dorre[...]Joffe.
Associate producer: Gail Sicilia.
Director of photography: Carlo Di
Palma. Production de[...]

sHouTiTHEsToRv
OFJOHNNY

popular cul[...]decline. Perhaps
it's inappropriate to the nature of the
story itself: after all, it is a slow, hard
c[...]ble reconciling his faith
with the immoral payola of rock ‘n
roll, but didnt like his wife on the pi[...]id all three and more, suffering the
consequences of the lifestyle of rock

a

‘n roll and the disapproval of the
Australian establishment. in Shout!
he repres[...]poppy, as well as being an old
rocker whose kind of music went out
of vogue.

Terry Serio, much better looking
than JOK[...]e. He manages to do
justice to O'l<eefe’s style of perform-
ance and the incongruities of the
character, while maintaining con-
siderable c[...]don, so fascinating
that he deserves a miniseries of his
own.

indeed, Shout! is such classy
entertain[...]hich carries the story, reflecting the
exuberance of an age that saw the
beginning of youth Culture. A big
part of the enjoyment of Shout!
comes from hearing the music
again, in context and in stereo.

In fact, it is the excellence of both
music and production which makes
some of the more blatant mytho-
logizing of this new perspective of
the fifties and sixties tolerable. It is
obvious[...]manages to get away
with it, not just in the name of good
entertainment, but because Shout!
finally attempts to do some kind of
justice to the huge contribution that
Johnny O’Keefe made to the
musical development of this country.

Susan Bridekirk

Shout! The Story of Johnny
O‘Keete: Directed by Ted Robinson.
Producer: Ben Gannon. Screenplay:
Robert Caswell. Director of photo-
graphy: Dan Burstall. Editor: Rober[...]

The storyline follows the well-worn
tracks of goodies versus baddies.
Except that, in modern dr[...]and the
goodies can be identified by their
habit of fumbling through their lines
and their lives.

In[...]raham Dow) and a cart-
horse called Sam. All five of them, it
is assumed, lead an idyllic life in the[...]The
baddie. whose body language
seems to consist of endlessly
straightening his clothes, claims to
re[...]sorbed by the
cultural differences (the swordplay of
the Japanese grandfather [Kazue
Matsumoto] is quite beautiful), we
are also made aware of the similari-
ties in the lives of the two old men:
they are both somewhat cut-off a[...]ying to bring
up their grandchildren.

The action of The Last Warhorse is
built around the attempts of the
baddie to acquire the junkyard. He
uses threa[...]life diffi-
cult. And the story ends with a scene
of slapstick farce as traditional to
children's film[...]cars, car tyres are rolled down-
hill, huge piles of pipes are upset
and, finally, the baddie in h s
s[...]hich leaves the horse, who pro-
vides the element of fantasy gener-
ally reckoned to be necessary to the
type of children’s story. Sam is the
slowest carthorse[...]es one look and sees ‘n
him the personification of a Samurai
warhorse. Or does he take one look
at t[...]ivia Martin) and see ‘n
her the personification of femae
beauty? Either way, as the credits
roll, th[...]n-
original, are tried and true in the
traditions of children’s filmmaking.
What is less successful[...]their characters are
stereotyped.

The direction of children is never
easy, but it is hard to remembe[...]is really aimed at. is it
intended for the child of today, who
has been reared on a daily dose of
fast-paced TV? Or is it better suited
to the more peaceful pace of the
sunset homes’?

The horse, though, makes a[...]Free. Story con-
sultant: Lynn Bayonas. Director of
photography: Peter Knevitt. Production
designer:[...]Australia. 1986.

Worlds away

The opening image of The Quiet
Earth reveals an enormous scarlet
sun,[...]above the telephoto horizon,
to the accompaniment of a powerful
base-Dolby rumble. For an instant, it[...]. However,
it IS not an atomic holocaust to which
research physicist Zac Hobson
(Bruno Lawrence) violently
a[...]y about the roadways and, in
one inspired display of the film's
authentic feel for the uncanny, Zac
pa[...]g, caused by a felled
Air New Zealand jet, devoid of

THE QUIET EARTH

passengers, yet with its seatbe[...]soriented, the scientist returns to
the high-tech research establish-
ment where he was employed, only
to le[...]life from the planet.
Revulsed by the implication of his
own destructive complicity, Zac
wrecks the co[...], until he eventually degener-
ates into a morass of alcohol and
depression.

. After a while, he relo[...]status, he assembles life-size
cardboard cut-outs of historical
‘celebrities’ —- Hitler, Stalin[...]d
sollloquy in which he proclaims him-
self ruler of the world.

From the pits of despair, however,
Zac is reborn to a more wholeso[...]his new realm, apparently
liberated by the sense of his new-
found existential ‘otherness‘.

Whil[...]his solitude abruptly
shattered by the appearance of
Joanne (Alison Routledge), who is
fortunate indee[...]s, the
pair settle down to a ‘normal‘ routine
ofof a nouveau-
Eden quickly dissolves with the sur-
prise addition of Api (Pete Smith).
introduced like a Maori version of
Schwarzenegger's Terminator
dressed as an IRA gun[...]ptions, lures Joanne
to the scene. The mere sight of the
woman is, however, enough to
dispel Api's hos[...]cultural dispossession/dislocation,
Api’s sense of indigenous spiritual-
ism gradually conflicts wit[...]he Effect due to their
death at the exact instant of Project
F|ash|ight’s energy flux —— Api the
victim of a murder, Joanne by acci-
dental electrocu[...]

mystical, out-of-body experience at
the time of death, oddly denied the
physicist because of his selfish pre-
determined act.

The narrative[...]however; and, after
deferring to several displays of Api's
bravado, he contrives a means of
heroically neutralizing their cosmic
displacement and preventing a
recurrence of The Effect. Or so he
hopes.

Superficially, The Quiet Earth is a
reworking (with some role reversals)
of The World, the Flesh and the Devil
(1958), in its examination of urban
alienation, monogamy and racial
tension. In[...]akin to the fecund B-grade
science fiction movies of the fifties.
The frequently irritating banalities[...]uch fare (wit-
ness Joanne’s laboured rejection of
the men's god-like aspirations) are
excusable within the context of
cosmic calamity because of the
mind-wrenching implications of the
situation.

in this sense, The Quiet Earth
exemplifies a primary feature of
good science and speculative
fiction: the creation of alien ter-
rains/scenarios, populated by
characte[...]ish to
obliterate the dehumanizing com-
plexities of urban society. It heralds
an apocalyptic fantasy,[...]ing a chance to
start civilization afresh, bereft of
multi-national corporate manipula-
tion and inher[...]dividual self
within the external, skeletal frame of
the western world. There may not be
a return to t[...]not one agrees with
the ideology, the end-imagery of the
film is unquestionably exalting as it
simulta[...]nd opens the
narrative by its cyclical suggestion of
rebirth and the infinite. Like the
poetic epilogu[...]redible
Shrinking Man (1957) and the revela-
tion of the Star Child in 2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968), T[...]y,
based on the novel by Craig Harrison.
Director of photography: James Bartle.
Art director: Rick Kof[...],
America's most seemingly ‘blessed’
director of the seventies, Martin
Scorsese has, over the past[...]to fruition,
thrust deeper and deeper into a kind
of commercial wilderness.

it is a curve to which the history of
Hollywood has accustomed us, par-
ticularly with[...]e
seemed to have tapped unerringly
into the pulse of a decade. The next,
with New York, New York (1977),
Raging Bull (1978) and The King of
Comedy (1983), he seemed to be
pursuing a series of personal visions
which, for all their compulsive[...]rded with a
public taste hooked on a gentler
view of the universe.

Then, too, there have been the
twi[...]ese's
career has progressed: the Catholic
agonies of Who ‘s That Knocking at

My Door? (1968) and Me[...]thematically
close, though: the massive taking-on
of guilt by Travis Bickle’s taxi driver
is, perhap[...]sm
which required, in Mean Streets, that
the sins of the world be washed
away in blood.

After Hours,[...]urder, it is a comedy.
It's tone, though, is that of Lubitsch,
not Capra or Blake Edwards e and
certainly not of the contemporary

Hollywood comedies of hip
blandness.

With Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, it
forms a kind of trilogy, not just in the
sense that it is one of Scorseses
three best films, but because it
manages to combine a consistent (it
limited) view of the world with a clear
dramatic structure.

Many[...]s brief respite in the moulded
plastic wonderland of Monkees fan
Julie (Teri Garr) in Martin Scor-
ses[...]ll hours
into which we all occasionally stray
out of choice or by mistake, and into
the hour of the wolf, when the world
seems dying or dead. As the pro-
prietor of a diner into which Paul
strays three times in the[...]is among
crazies,

Stranded and (through a quirk of
chance) broke, he wanders into the
magnifi[...]

The measure of the achieve-
ment of Scorsese and his writer,
Joseph Minion, is that t[...]rdose.

By now, Paul reacts according to
the hour of the night: he flees the
apartment, leaving helpfu[...]way’. And plunges back
into the farce.

It is, of course, only in the late
20th-century world of television
sitcom that we have come to expect
com[...]r and Raging
Bull, though, there is no real sense of
redemption. The bleakest thing
about After Hours[...]work cut
out reacting.

Paul's journey to the end of the
night is edifying to us, however,
Firstly, because it affords the satis-
faction of watching an integrated
system run its course —[...]escalating strangeness, the horrific
consistence of the world it portrays
and the unity of tone it maintains, it
reasserts something which S[...]ver and
Raging Bull: the uniquely troubling
power of cinema.

Nick Roddick
After Hours: Directed by Ma[...]ah Schindler. Screenplay:
Joseph Minion. Director of photo-
graphy: Michael Ballhaus. Production
desig[...]nd unsatisfying four-hour mini-
series, shown out of ratings in early
May by the Nine Network. The sho[...]ghttime serials, and combines
them with the world of fashion and
witchcraft against the backdrop of
Sydney Harbour.

The story centres around Victori[...]her son, Colin (Patrick
Fisher), to make a series of commer-
cials for Glamour Industries. This
high-c[...]stopher (Gary Day, in a
seemingly endless display of the
latest male fashion) and Cassie Fair-
child ([...]llins
superbitch role). Both want to take
control of Glamour, and worry that
Victoria will assume that[...]is not to be found
in the corridors or boardrooms of
power, but elsewhere. Elizabeth
(Trish Noble) is[...]a
child called Sun (Eli Faen).

Much ado is made of Sun,
because Elizabeth is convinced he's
the ‘p[...]Victoria has begun
her commercials. But, when one of
her models is killed (by Max Phipps,
proving yet[...]re you have it.

The opening credits — a series of
shots showing Sydney harbour, tall
city buildings[...]nsive cars — place
us squarely in the heartland of high-
class soap opera. Dynasty, Dallas
and our o[...]major failure — which is a shame,
because a lot of very talented
people have given their time on it.[...]lack the basic
glossiness necessary to this form of
drama (the clothes and cars look like
props and n[...]lso fail: they are all one-
dimensional, and most of them are
unbelievable.

Even the Joan Collins character of
Alexis Carrington in Dynasty has
some degree of depth. But what do
we learn of Cassie Fairohild, except
that she loves power and[...]ng, because there's
nothing to reveal — except, of
course, the final revelation of who’s
behind Victoria's death threats, the
murd[...]ver.
Always a difficult thing to sell at the
best of times, it goes way out of
control when the kidnapped Colin is
delivered to[...]at looks like a Fellini
advertisement for a brand of
toiletries, and Elizabeth with her
band of followers are rarely threaten-
ing. Predictably,[...]on the way so he can shoot Victoria
from the top of the Harbour Bridge.
Where else?

Despite some poo[...]ntire sequence
being totally gratuitous, it's one of
the few satisfying moments in the
four hours. Ang[...]diting are fabulous, providing
a fleeting glimpse of what could

have been.
Tony Cavanaugh

Body Busin[...]eenplay: Ted Roberts and Michael
Fisher. Director of photography: Ernest
Clark. Production desi[...]

There is almost the hint of a plot as
the film opens: a classic case of what
looks like violent death to be ex-
plained i[...]the
frozen ditch as she wanders the
wintery roads of southern France,
stealing, resisting contact and,[...]the literally physical disinte-
gration and loss of her clothes and
possessions.

The witnesses to her descent con-
stitute a fair cross-section of society.
There is Yolande (Yolande Moreau),
Aunt[...]she spends a few days
and nights. He expects more of her;
she disappoints him. There is
Sylvain and hi[...]ed shepherds. Mona steals
their cheese.

With all of these people, her un-
compromising attitude and r[...]Mona, receive even
fewer and still demand nothing of
her.

Her independence is almost her
only possession and, with the excep-
tion of these two characters, Mona
has to defend it bitte[...]rda’: Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond).

exploration of this emotional
exchange and barter is the only
th[...]ated with any
passion.

The predominating colours of
Vagabond are cold, the pace of
editing slow and the tracking shots
always begin[...]l aesthetic reflects
the single-minded loneliness of
Mona’s independence. However,
despite its centr[...]outside looking in — not dealing
with the cult of youth but rather, in
the tradition of European art cinema,

the cult of humanism.

The film is conceptual in intention
and form but nevertheless still closer
to a notion of reality than most of its
contemporaries. Perhaps Vaga-
bond, like its[...]y Agnes Varda.
Screenplay: Agnes Varda. DI'rector_of
photography: Patrick B/ossier. Music:
Joan[...]

It is not bland ‘family’ e[...]swish
consulting rooms and other slick
trappings of ‘success’, he looks
more like a boring local[...]s' title.

it doesn't work. Paul refuses the
role of patient, and starts drinking
again. For him, Sam[...]equal
terms.

In the intense, fast-paced opening
of the film (a sequence set six years
before these events), there are
suggestions of an affair between
Paul and Sam's wife, Edwina
(An[...]McGregor). The race
thus becomes a symbolic means of
resolving the tensions in the triangle.

The othe[...]its Paul (Chris
Haywood) in Double Sculls.

heart of gold), and the team's other
aide, Ellen Bayliss ([...]corny, though, against
the more complex workings of the
main characters.

Director Ian Gilmour resist[...]o tie up too many loose
ends, and the final scene of Double
Sou/ls in fact contains more twists
than a[...]is well-suited to her role,
though the depiction of Edwina and
Sam's marriage is often clumsy —
the[...]s clean camera-
work captures the brilliant light of a
Sydney summer day and misty

)§(<’-“";/./-[...]e, intimate scenes, with original-
ity. The sport of rowing (sculling) is
unusual subject matter for aesthetes
— but some of the rowing scenes do
look beautiful and are quite[...]chael Midlam.
Screenplay: Chris Peacock. Director of
photography: Vince Monton.
Production desi[...]

In the Yugoslavia of 1950, if we are
to believe Emir Kusturica’s 198[...]On Business (Otac
na sluzbenom putu), the menace of
oppression had familiar, slightly
comical overton[...]showing Karl Marx in his

' study, with a picture of Stalin on the

wall.

Ankica reports the comment[...]which he tries to assuage by a
constant drip-feed of slivovitz. He is
Mesha’s brother-in-law, but that
doesn't prevent him from recom-
mending a two-year spell of ‘re-
socialization' for the backslider.
Busines[...]province where the rain
streams incessantly, much of the
story is conveyed through the eyes
and ears of his small, chubby,
soccer-mad son, Malik (Moreno[...]gap-toothed
urchin is used by Kusturica as a sort
of Puck figure, who witnesses some
of his father's worst excesses, and
sleep~wa|ks on roofs and over
bridges by way of compensation.

In a late scene, Mesha, restored to
the bosom of his family, joins in a
bucolic but tension-ridden[...]a thesis, and all contribute to the
rounding-out of real, exuberant,
pleasure-loving people. A janitor
sings Spanish love songs with all the
finesse of a demented newspaper
seller; a barber steadily, m[...]pre-
paies to circumcize Mesha’s sons in
front of a circle of admiring neigh-
bours; Mesha plays footsy with an[...]ped to his shirt, will drop any-
thing for a game of chess.
Kusturica is looking back in tran-
quillit[...]t, how many apparatchiks
could dance on the point of a
needle. There is only one piece of
barbed political satire in the film: as
Mesha's s[...]ng.

When Father Was Away On
Business is the work of a poetic
realist, a visionary. But every foot of
its 144 minutes is planted firmly on
the soil of common humanity. it is
intelligent, perceptive, robust and
funny — the sort of film that makes a
strong, immediate impression an[...]Mirza Pasic.
Screenplay: Abdulah Sidran. Director
of photography: Vi/ko Fiiac. Music:
Zoran Sim[...]

50 — July CINEMA PAPERS

VREVI

Big of fly-blown Opal Ridge.

Wingate travels to Oz, pur[...]ridge — where else’?), makes the
acquaintance of the glamorous Kate
McQueen (Rebecca Gilling), eludes
various baddies, mobilizes the
militant Aboriginals of Opal Ridge.
and despatches Mclnally, winning
the[...]g intoned with
the most fervent intensity by most of
the cast. As early as the film's
prologue, the ar[...]t and Robert
Culp struggle to wring some life out
of their respective good guylbad
guy roles. At least[...]town doctor is (you've guessed
it) a drunk.

None of the characters has any
inner life — none of the quirks or
idiosyncracies which make even
arch[...]Saving graces?
Who knows. That's not the concern
of the film, anyway. The rule ofthumb
appears to be: shoot plenty of scenic
footage and keep things moving. If it
make[...]ll notice.

Thus, we have an endless succes-
sion of explosions, gunfights, fist-
flghts, car chases,[...]att Carroll. Screenplay:
William Kelley. Director of
photography: Geoff Simpson.
Production designer:[...]n been
marked by the gap between the
restrictions of the suburbs and the
endless vistas of the bush. The dis-
junction between these two aspects
of Australian life, however, has rarely
been adequately dealt with on tele-
vision or film.

Part of the explanation is that no
resolution of the problem has been
produced. Certainly, books a[...]result.

In a sense, the urban and rural
aspects of Australia are like
magnets. At one end, they are[...]said for the representation
and fictionalization of the bush-and
city relationship on the Australian
screen.

Ian ringle's The Plains of Heaven
(1982) incorporated some excellent
cameraw[...]y, in a field near the small
New South Wales town of Mirabee.
of a bdy. The dead man is farmer
and property-owner, Jim Marshall
lather of Caroline and Andy Marshall
(Kris McQuade and Jay[...]n Sacks) wants t kriw what
has happened t tonnes of
sorghum. It has élisapp area from a
govern ent s[...]-ierat and the plice warnt
t know why.

The death of Marshall is. l
eoizirse. linked to the shortage[...]iéi. is anther stry how-
ever, and Santana, the
university-ediaaateéi éieteetive. will
rat ive tag.

in ce[...]tiaal issi - eta eegger
it aggears, has e a mess of
his life eeieiiziiisig es in the
past. eteetixre[...]iew.
breed at ' we ’ ‘err: etlfiasis not
one of gassirrity, a ‘the bye‘ get on
wit lit[...]

All this IS revealed in the closing
stages of the film. Up until then, it
has been a well-kept[...]an no longer be
seen as removed from the concerns
of citv life: city business now runs
country life, and the mythology of
the innocence of the Australian bush
is being left behind.

Perhaps the best aspect of Stock
Squad is that it does not rely totally
on a[...]y-
telling. Instead, it attempts to identify
some of the larger issues involved in
modern Australian s[...]not overdramatizing
the material to the detriment of the
issues.

Not all reviewers seem to have
respe[...]is disturbing, but also
revealing: the mythology of the sinful
city and the pure bush, with its
secon[...]teledrama,
in the way in which it deals with
some of the bigger issues in Austra-
lian society and sti[...]visual “look” and have
made more dramatic use of the out-
back landscape, since it is here that
some of the secrets of the city/bush
conflict are to be found. The city
person's deepest fears may be of
the great ‘dead heart’ of this island
continent. But a mature Australian
film industry could take us to the
heart of this fear and reveal a living
world.

Marcus Bree[...]based on an original
idea by John Shaw. Director of photo-
graphy Ross Berryman. Art director
lan All[...]n shrinks —
only serves to remind this reviewer
of what a great story Lewis Carroll's
was. Nor does Dot and Keeto live up
to memories of my grandmother
reading Ethel Pedley’s classic,[...]seventh Dot film, and that this is the
tenth year of their production at the
Yoram Gross studio, sugge[...]Dot and Keeto is
not the most enchanting example of
the series.

The film's device of overlaying
animation on photography is tech-
nica[...]e footage to be
included, in which the activities of
insects and microscopic water
creatures are documented.

The plot is an episodic account of
Dot's experiences when she shrinks
and becomes part of the insect
world. First of all, cockroaches
threaten to eat her. Then, she_[...]kidnapped by some ants and made
a prisoner of war. After Butterwalk
and Keeto save her, she mee[...],
too", before beating each other up;

A Sting of a different colour: Dot
slties away from the embrace of the
loveable mosquito in Yoram Gross’s
D[...]

In fact, most of the insects want to
eat Dot (could this be a Freudian
exploration of infantile sexua|ity’?).
The cockroaches want to[...]loving maternal
figure, while the wasp is a kind of evil
stepmother. On an aesthetic level,
however,[...]ector Yoram
Gross to use some fascinating
footage of caterpillars, ants and
spiders laying their eggs.[...]episodic narrative structure, which
allows a lot of entertaining snippets
to be joined loosely togeth[...]However, characters in
the story rely on a range of complex
associations for their humour, like
the o[...]he private
sector. Children who enjoy these
sorts of references will probably be
bored by other aspects of the film.

Keith Scott commands an
impressive variety of voices and
accents, Robyn Moore also has a
fairly[...]also fluctuate.
Presumably, though, the thousands
of kids throughout the world who
have enjoyed the Do[...]Gross. Associate
producer: Sandra Gross. Director of
animation: Ray Nowland. Screenplay:
John Palmer. Director of photography:
Graham Sharp. Voices: Keith Scott,
R[...]hat is both
logical and courageous. In the
medium of film, every picture tells a
story; but it takes r[...]in which all the dialogue
is abandoned in favour of the
imagery (calling Garry McDonald an
idiot is i[...]anguage or linguistic
skills: Australian children of all back-
grounds, as well as children
throughout[...]cDonald
and Jone Winchester, are the only
members of the cast to come from
the South.

The local cast gives us glimpses of
the lives of hunters and gatherers in
paradise. But, in case w[...]ssion so frequently
given by the wide-eyed makers of
documentaries, the incursions of the
modern world are never denied —
and never c[...]who realise that the ‘friendly’ pro-
prietors of the local ice-cream truck
are in fact smuggling native animals
out of the country, including the red-
collared parakeet[...]people. The sub-plot
involves the children's love of music,
and their attempts to raise money to
finan[...]ble, but lacks tension and
cohesion. The sequence of events is
strongly episodic, leaving the im-
pression that the director, Di Drew,
while giving us some shots of life in
Arnhem Land, is frightened of
leaving the story line for fear of
losing the story altogether. The result
is a staccato production, lacking in
both pace and variety of pace.

The Aboriginal children give occa-
sional evidence of charm, but for the
most part drift through the story with
the air of those willing to play the
white man’s games but[...]y triumphantly up
into the sky, there is no sense of the

Happy tunes: the Marika kids with
their impr[...]is certainly a courageous
effort, and one worthy of examina-
tion by all those who think you
cannot t[...]nelope Spence. Screenplay:
James Badger. Director of photo-
graphy: Stephen Dobson. Art directo[...]

A cafe s[...]set, which the camera
probes, filling each corner of the
scope frame.

It could, in fact, have been a[...]narrative, but perhaps
to a more charismatic pair of central
performers. And the theme of racial
violence seems grafted on, almost
irrelevantly, to dominate the finale of
what began as a celebration of
youthful confidence.

Dissatisfactions aside, tho[...]an a dozen dull successes.

Mark Spratt

Teeth of crime: Patsy Kensit and
David Bowie in Absolute B[...]effort by
the studio to revitalize the tradition of
the great animation films, via
supposedly ‘appr[...]ca-
tions to bring them into line with the
tastes of a more sophisticated audi-
ence brought up on intergalactic
wars.

Adapted from the five books of
Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of
Prydain) and sketchily directed by
Ted Berman and[...]ystem.

All this, it seems, to scare the hell
out of children.

Narrowly confined within the
endemic Disney boundaries of
extreme good and extreme evil, The
Black Cauldron unfolds the plight of
a daydreaming farmboy trying to
prevent the Horne[...]the
and.

Winking incessantly in the direc-
tion of fantasies like Star Wars and
the sword-and-sorcer[...]succeeds in making us forget
the spirit and charm of the Disney of
yesteryear.

Teeming with gross violence and
ofte[...]rely entertains and never
enchants. And, in spite of amusing
characters like a psychic pig and
assorte[...]here everything is gloomy,
lugubrious and reeking of death.

Norbert Noyaux

Strung out: Gurgi and[...]iverting and touching play.

In this third rehash of a well and
truly exhausted idea, all wit and
ener[...]appeared, with the
characters showing heavy signs of
fatigue. This time, the story revolves
around a h[...]ed to
wear a three-piece suit, explaining
the use of lipstick and mascara to a
dumbfounded policeman).[...]he plot is established,
the film quickly runs out of breath,
revealing the flatness of Lautner’s
direction and a pervasive lack of
motivation and ingenuity.

Despite the immense talent of
Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi,
who really have[...]ux Fo//es 3 succeeds in
sustaining only a minimum of
interest.

Hopefully, the mediocrity of the
film will make it sufficiently un-

:AN A-

p[...]hadn’t
been so successful.

Adapted from a book of the same
name, Creator (creator, creator!) is a
p[...]ntric Nobel Laureate biologist
who has saved some of the tissue of
his dead wife and is determined to
bring her back[...]over-Up, New Vision) is a
disappointing reworking of the
policier genre, with its corrupt high
society[...]pointment.

The plot concerns the investiga-
tion of a prominent attorney's
murder by police chief Gri[...]acters are
all but non-existent, the real victims
of La Crime are its two female leads:
Dayle Haddon ([...]sregard for their
talent.

The one with the heart of gold but
a reproachable past is sadistically
burn[...]te-
bourgeoise journalist is taught the
realities of life (and seduced) by the
man she loves.

Riddled with these kinds of stereo-
types, La Crime makes the unforgiv-
able mistake of never for a moment
believing in its fiction and t[...]ts title suggests: a
bizarre and pointless parody-of-a-
parody, destined for some cinema
Hall of Infamy.

The opening sequence — a mock
neyvsree[...]grotesquely amusing,
suggesting a surreal send-up of
commercial wrest|ing’s abundant
excesses. When[...]di Curso,
one can't help smiling at the
absurdity of the notion. Alas, what
follows is a picaresque Cook's Tour
of sideshow alley, with heavy
emphasis on the freak display.

A plot of sorts (as a Z-grade Laurel

and Hardy stri[...]

identity of a masked newcomer to
the circuit, who may or may[...]more than breathing space
between prolonged bouts of Tom-
and-Jerry thuggery.

Grunt is an ill-conceived patch-
work of unfunny humour, un-
pleasant action and unendurab[...]or won't breathe
sense or life.

Tony Drouyn

One of the less demanding intellec-
tual exercises of late has been
reading the ideological tea-leaves[...]a ‘free-
dom’ flight over a disputed stretch of
territorial water. Young Doug,
despairing of official attempts to
rescue his dad or even negot[...]out again.

The place he rescues dad from is
not, of course, named — it is merely
described, with th[...]e odd clue: it is on
the Mediterranean, due south of
Italy; a lot of it is desert; and it is run
by a crazed fundamentalist Muslim
with the rank of colonel.

iron Eagle uses politics the way
Woody Allen uses sex: as a source
of reliable one-liners. Example: the
parallel with t[...]Iron Eagle, directed by Sidney J.
Furie with lots of close-ups of pilots’
helmets, don't take no shit either.
But[...]EWS

subsidiary, Touchstone Films), The
Journey of Natty Gann (Fox-
Columbia) uses the Depression as[...]film
visually resembles a big—budget ver-
sion of Strikebound or Emperor of
the North, with unforgettable images
of labour riots — in Chicago in 1935
— and of hobos riding the rails.
The break with the standa[...]hosen) soft-pedals the
romanticism, with the help of James
Horner‘s unobtrusive score and
Paul Sylbert’s exemplary production
design.
The Journey of Natty Gann is also
a film of unusually strong perform-
ances, in which special mention
should be made of the leads, Mere-
dith Salenger in the title role[...]nd: Ray Wise and Meredith
Salenger in The Journey of Natty Gann.

Poor Youth! How many crimes are
yet[...]n your name?
Standing trial this time is Just One
of the Guys (Fox-Columbia), the
latest teenage sex f[...]sa Gottlieb, it is
mostly noticeable for its lack of direc-
tion, and for almost destroying our
hope that a teenage film not directed
by one of the guys could at least
prove interesting and dif[...]behaviour and glorifying machismo.
in a travesty of Yenfl, a female high
school student (Joyce Hyser) denies
gender and long hair to become one
of the guys. Her point: becoming a
man will help her[...]e, surprise), she falls in

:AN A-

love with one of her fellow students
(Clayton Rohner), a real man[...]nnumerable
sexist jokes and a considerable
amount of ‘humour’ revolving
around locker rooms and male
toilets.

All possible undertones of homo-
sexuality are carefully avoided and,
at the[...]Sherilyn Fenn comes on to
Joyce Hyser in Just One of the Guys.

if newspapers have their ‘silly
seas[...]inced or
entertained by J. Lee Thompson's
version of the Rider Haggard story,
which muffs its frequent[...]top, a la Raiders or
Romancing the Stone, because of a
fatal uncertainty as to precisely
where the top[...]iing
on the rails after being kicked off the
back of a train is a promising try,
ruined only by poor blue-screen
work; but Herbert Lorn mowing
down half a dozen of his soldiers to
provide himself with stepping stones
through quicksand rather strains the
bounds of acceptable villainy.

One's objections to King So[...]ormal
moral criteria (as it does, moreover,
those of racism, sexism or environ-
mental concern).
it is an inept, non-stop action
movie, with stunts, thousands of
(black) extras and a very Jerry Gold-
smith score[...](who, at 50, is begin-
ning to take on something of a
Dorian Gray aura), and Sharon
Stone, whose skil[...]e progresses.
Nlck Roddick

Proposing the bargain of the
century, a real estate agent in The
Money Pit (UIP) glosses over the
question of the house‘s previous
occupant. “You get to ca[...]g‘s misfortune,"
he says. “That’s the basis of real
estate."

That line has an edge disastrously
missing from the rest of The Money
Pit, which is (one hopes) the worst
major American comedy of the year.

It is the story of a young couple
(Tom Hanks and Shelley Long), who
buy a rickety colonial mansion and
undergo a year of misery as they try
to have it restored, repaired[...]hich plays on the
fundamental middle—class fear of
being fooled by a tradesperson (in
The Money Pit,[...]Shelley Long and
Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.

of character development, devoid of
dramatic interest and almost entirely
lacking in timing.

Joke after joke fails for want of the
simplest attention to pacing, and an
almost i[...]slapstick is the hardest, not the
simplest, form of screen humour.

inevitably, The Money Pit recalls[...]d a similar belief that
comic effect was a matter of
accumulation. But at least some of
7941 worked. The Money Pit, with
somnambulist per[...]under Richard Benjamin's
leaden direction, is one of those
wastes of money and talent that the
‘new Hollywood[...]

The sequel takes th[...]sinister malice by Robert
Englund, giving us one of the great
cinema villains — actually takes over
the body of teenage hero Jesse,
and, in doing so, uses him to[...]ot yet in the same league
as Wes Craven, director of the
original. The narrative lapses into
repetitio[...]by John McTiernan with a
pleasingly ironic sense of humour
and some genuinely offbeat ideas,
Nomads ([...]tars Lesley-Anne
Down as a nurse placed in charge of
a seriously disturbed patient, a
Frenchman, who,[...]way, and now
starts to see life through the eyes of
the dead man.

He was, we discover, an anthro-
po[...]are no

ordinary punks: they are the
‘Nomads’ of the title — evil, wander-
ing spirits who exact[...]y can't be photographed, but can
assume a variety of human forms.
One of the film's most startling
moments comes when one of them
suddenly appears as an elderly nun.

As a ho[...]illing cameo from none other than
Adam Ant as one of the evil nomads.

David Sfratton

Tracked by t[...]Sebastian (Cleavon Little) — in
desperate need of three infusions of
virgin blood. She finds two of them in
Mark (Jim Carrey), a high school
student[...]rlfriend, Robin (Karen
Kopins), greedily robs him of his
main attraction.

Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutto[...]e is the
predator is the key to the limited
charm of Once Bitten, which scores
mainly by its knowing nods in the
direction of both genres, and the
relative complexity of its male central
character. Director Howard Storm
also makes the most, with a good
sense of timing, of the comic possi-
bilities of the screenplay (lines like
“Did you get up on the wrong side
of the coffin this morning?" are
mercifully few).

F[...]up being merely a
little hoot. The eclectic bunch of
mostly one-dimensional clowns
assembled in the mo[...]ne
must go. The nice Governor must
appoint a jury of elderly arch-con-
servatives of almost sinisterly serious
mien to decide which on[...]ndant Lassard‘s academy,
with its recent intake of kooks,
weirdos, maniacs and craven
wimps’? Or that of the sleazy,
scheming sycophant, Commandant
Mouser, and his platoon of un-
equivocally boring normals?

Police Academy 4[...]l
directed by Martha Coolidge, it tells
the story of Mitch (Gabe Jarret), a
fifteen-year-old scientifi[...]y
Hathaway (William Atherton), to join
him at the university where he
lectures and is conducting a series
of laser experiments.

There, Mitch meets up with Ch[...]lecture
theatre.

Perhapsthe most welcome aspects
of Real Genius, however, are the
gentle anti-authori[...]ave been un-
witting partners in this development
of military hardware, Mitch and Chris
work to destro[...]the movie is not for
death, but for the enjoyment of child-
ren in the community — and to get
back at Hathaway.

In these days of Rambo-inspired
teenage films, Fieal Genius gives[...]d Kiss, Sharmill)
invigorates a conventional tale of
adolescent turmoil by exploring a
girls political[...]sites, demoting the political
theme to the status of means to a
predictably romantic end.

The[...]

The depiction of family life is
engaging, and the mother/daughter[...]children’s
movie. Based on Joy Cow|ey’s story
of the South Seas, Yvonne Mackay’s
film (with a script by Ian l\/lune) tells
of a deaf-mute child, Jonasi (Telo
Malase), living o[...]riously
linked with a great white turtle, a
beast of awe and evil portent that
swims beyond the reef.[...]ther (Pat Evison) staring
fondly in the direction of the reef.

This ending, of course, also vali-
dates the priest’s claims, b[...]g is rather uneven (par-
ticularly so in the case of Anzac
Wallace, who was so impressive as
the venge[...]te turtle is both beautiful
and strange, the rest of the film pre-
fers the safer waters of charm and
the more familiar emotions.

Nick Roddi[...]end's
position in the Peace Corps. While
the rest of the bunch are intent on
demonstrating their altru[...]ed in a Thai village,
where he and the do-gooders of the
group get into strife with drug kings,
the CI[...]harmed.

From writers Ken Levine and
David lsaacs of M'A*S‘H, one
would expect sharp political satir[...]edious
plot, actors who waste the comic
potential of stereotypical roles, and
sloppy editing (particul[...]n]).

Volunteers makes you laugh at the
tackiness of the production — it was
filmed in Mexico and lo[...]The book and
the film!

Win a free pass to one of the most
talked-about films of 1986, Steven
Spielberg’s The Color Purple . . .
and a copy of the novel by Alice

Walker on which it is based.[...]sian Publishing Company
is giving away ten copies of the
book and ten double passes
to the film.
Just[...]y. The first ten correct
answers to be drawn out of the fabled Cinema Papers hat (actually, it’s an
old TDK tape box!) will each be sent a copy of the book and a double pass to

the film,[...]

EXPERIENCE by Daniel
J. Goulding (Indiana
University Press, 1985,
ISBN 0-253-14790-5,
US$25.00).

THE HISTORY OF
YUGOSLAV FILM,

1896-1982 by Petar Volk
(lnstitut[...]nous predictability
usually inherent in histories of

national cinemas. But then, there is
no national cinema in Yugoslavia: it
is an amalgam of the film industries
of six republics and two autonomous
provinces, which reflect the needs of
20 or more minorities speaking
almost as many different languages.

A classic of the Yugoslav ‘new
cinema’: Dragan Nikolié in[...]vl0vic"s When I am Dead and
White.

The structure of Petar Volk’s The
History of Yugoslav Film, 1896-1982
reflects this, dealing w[...]y, in
1945, became the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia. Vo|k's goal
is to present an encyclopaedic
history of cinema ofof liberation — yet his
intensity more than makes up for it.
He analyses his subject in terms of
genre and auteur, placing both in a
sharp politic[...]etimes wonders whether film is
actually the focus of his research.

This is Vo|k’s twelfth book on the

58 — Ju[...]compiled on the
subject.
in their useful analysis of Soviet
and Eastern European film, The
Most important Art (University of
California Press, 1977), Mira and
Antonin Liehm m[...]before
World War Two were purely com-
mercial and of no cultural interest
the industry was practicall[...]oulding and the
Liehms write off, Volk, professor of
film history at the University of Bel-
grade, former director of the festival
of Yugoslav films and founder of the
Belgrade international Film Festival,
devotes twelve of his 20-chapter
book to covering, from the projec-
tion of the inevitable programme of

Lumiere shorts to the inception of
the first socialist feature, Slavica, in
1947.

A[...]hly frag-
mentary evidence available, The
History of Yugoslav Film, 1896-1982
is the culmination of a life's work in
cinema research, and it reconstitutes
a vivid, dazzling, and often black
picture of Yugoslavia‘s cinematic
past, throwing light on[...]o
besmrtnog vozda Karadjordje (The
Life and Death of the immortal
Karadjordje), directed in 1911 by ll[...]well as the more
recent but equally obscure work of
the film section of the partisan
supreme command founded in

1944.

L[...]e is certainly the first com-
prehensive analysis of Yugoslav
feature films to be produced in
English.[...]ity, it provides cogent descriptions
and analyses of the most important

films produced in the last 40 years,
taking into account the establish-
ment of a national industry, postwar
‘Zhdanovism’, th[...]pen
cinema), and the ‘black film‘ move-
ments of the sixties and early
seventies, culminating in a rather
skimpy analysis of the newest major
force in Yugoslav cinema, the
Pr[...]ic.

Where Volk rather fails to provide
a picture of the vast political and
social upheavals going on[...]I, Goulding excels at
placing film in the context of debates
and struggles that have shaped this
small country of 22 million people,
throwing light on the masses of
contradictions that are presented by
the socialis[...]ast, where Goulding falls
to grasp the importance of the actor
in Yugoslav film — he doesn't even
na[...]s intimate acquaintance with
the major performers of this century
affords a broad understanding of
Yugoslavia’s repertory company of
film actors (who are usually per-
manent theatre employees). The
faces of Bata Zivojinovic, Danilo—
Bata Stojkovié, Miki[...]neous group who work for, with,
and often because of, each other.

The film industry in Yugoslavia
grew out of a theatrical tradition,
though neither Goulding nor Volk
picks up on this. Vjekoslav Afrié,
director of the first socialist feature,
Slavica, was a theat[...]ir
Own Ground, 1948) and Prica o fab-
rici (Story of a Factory, 1949) ~ are
the direct descendants of the scripts
used in the partisan theatre units.
A[...]nce that Yugo-
slavia‘s two leading playwrights of
today, Dusan Kovacevié and
Gordan Mihic, are als[...]into a
unique, indigenous artistic force,
capable of expressing the disparate
cultural and linguistic[...]ffers from the
worst as well as the best features
of cinema systems in both east
and west.
Volk, on the other hand, makes no
bones about the ‘value’ of Yugoslav
film. Yet both complement each
other nic[...]ting through the archaeology and
the architecture ofof motion pictures past.

The book is organized by neigh-
bourhood, with simple maps at the
beginning of each chapter to assist
the intrepid wanderer in finding the
places discussed, a good number of
surprisingly clear photographs and,
miracle of miracles, walking tours in
a city where walking t[...]t take the trouble to find out
where.

About half of the book is devoted
to the different sections of Holly-
wood itself, since what may be a
state of mind is also an actual place,
and movies were onc[...]Hollywood is decidedly
down-at-the-heels and most of its
dreams are drug induced.

But what former gra[...]the lesser-
known Lloyd Wright. At the other
end of the scale, he shows us the
former buildings of the ‘poverty row’
studios, all located in a section of
Hollywood affectionately known as
‘Gower Gulch’, because of its loca-
tion on Gower Street, and because
of the groups of cowboy-dress
extras who used to hang out there.

Alleman describes the lavish
picture palaces of Hollywood Boule-
vard: the garish Egyptian Theate[...]d
Mann's Chinese), and that outstand-
ing example of art deco. the
Pantages, recently renovated[...]

The other half of the book is
devoted to the rest of Los Angeles;
and, for this, you do need a car.
Al[...]rnando Valley, downtown
LA. and the golden ghetto of
Beverly Hills. In the latter, one can
still see the former homes of Charlie
Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Greta
Garbo, as well as the grandest of all,
Pickfair, where Douglas Fairbanks
and Mary Pickford reigned as king
and queen of Hollywood from 1920
until their divorce in 1936.[...]and
Marion Davies.

Alleman also ventures outside of
Los Angeles proper and features
some of the outdoor sites that were
used to make Western[...]ere to do your laundry or
where to get a good cup of coffee.
But if you already know all of this or
plan to wing it when you arrive, don't
le[...]Richard A|leman's
eyes will give it, in the words of
James Mason (from the 1954 A Star
is Born), "that[...]ding for
the coast

THE MOVING IMAGE:
THE HISTORY OF FILM
AND TELEVISION IN
WESTERN

AUSTRALIA

1896-1[...]and Brian
Shoesmith (History and
Film Association of
Australia [WA], 1985,
available from Brian
Shoesmith, Dept. of Media
Studies, WACAE, PO Box
217, Doubleview, WA 6018,
ISBN 0-7298-0033-3,
$13.00 incl. postage).

Tom

The subject of the first film produc-
tion in Western Australia[...]rmous financial backing integral

to the build-up of the 1987
America's Cup (needless to say, a
yacht[...]the miniseries,
The Challenge, a dramatized story of
the 1983 event, has been produced,
and rights to coverage of the next
‘challenge’ are being eagerly fought[...]prising to note that, even in
1905, the producers of the film were
thinking of the international stage, of
marketing it "for presentation in
England and Ame[...]e gets from reading The Moving
image: The History of Film and Tele-
vision in Western Australia — 18[...]e believe that, by
putting a very small component of
an international complex under the
microscope, more sense can be
made of that complex."

The text is an attempt to documen[...]g.
Described as a ‘dossier’, it is the
result of a collective group effort,
and was put together r[...]hy is very
slim —— perhaps another indication of
uncharted territory.

Eric Fisher's account of the intro-
duction of television into Western
Australia is a valuable contribution.
His analysis of the manoeuvrings of
the executives who controlled the
two commercial[...]back-
ground to any discussion about the
content of Australian programmes,
as well as ownership struc[...]evision After 1965'.
They give a clear exposition of the
strategies Robert Holmes a Court
(especially) is using in his home play-
ground to gain control of the third
commercial station. it is a pity, how-
ever, that the writers did not expand
the last section of the article which
looks at the implications of the
launching of the domestic satellite,
AUSSAT. Surely any argume[...]l location or
regionalism would alter in the face of
dramatic changes in programme
distribution? As it[...]ilities.

O'Regan also provides a detailed
survey of film festivals and societies.
It is disheartening to read of the
failure of the Indian Ocean Film
Festival — an event which[...]Asian region, pro-
vided a very constructive way of
tackling questions of regional history
and identity.

These articles fi[...]tural network, unlike more reduc-
tive histories, of interest only to those

immediately involved. ‘[...]ll
doesn't quite achieve this balance. It
is full of facts and figures, though
much of the geographical detail gets
lost on readers from[...]few attendants, let
alone a corps-de-ballet.

One of the most fascinating and
challenging cultural ana[...]t
Science but Sideboards: Television
in a New Way of Life’ by John
Hartley and Tom O'Regan. They
suggest that "the arrival of television
. . . can be looked at physically . .[...]ed in
the more relaxed family room. The
placement of the television deter-
mined the arrangement of furniture
in the room and often called for other[...]historical narrative is certainly not
specific to WA, but it is well worth
reading.

interviews with P[...]Barron Films) and Ann Macbeth,
departing director of the Film and
Television Institute, give a fair idea of
the (mainstream) state of the art, and
Macbeth touches on the position of
independent filmmakers and the
difficulty of operating outside an
industry based mainly on ins[...]obs.

However, in a text concerned with
questions of geographical margin-
ality, it is unforgivable to find such a
brief investigation of the
independent film sector, and little
mention of experimental film and
videomaking. It is important to docu-
ment the movements of corporations
e Perth is, after all, home to two of
Australia's main media entre-
preneurs —[...]

The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Original Broadway Cast
(Tony Award Wi[...]e are always interested in purchasing collections of recordings.

For hire Scorpion Dolly with[...]

02 media tycoon[...]the affair after all. Only a week after
the sale of the package had been
approved and Bond was effusi[...]he Cannon Group at the |ess-than-
knockdown price of £175 million
($365 million), Bond strolls to the[...]ect.
Dissenting voices have been tinged
by a note of xenophobia (some
might even say: anti-semitism),[...]inter, their offer was withdrawn
under the threat of reprisals from the
Monopolies Commission.

Howeve[...]vest in British productions
rather than put a lot of money into
American productions like Screen
Entertainment." Rumour presently
has it that Rank (owner of the other
major cinema circuit, now dwarfed
by Ca[...]real shot in the arm for the current
ailing state of the British cinema, hit
by the government's laissez-faire
policy, the withdrawal of the Eady
levy (a tax on cinema tickets which
was ploughed back into new pro-
ductions) and the weakness of the
US dollar against the pound. Screen
lnternati[...]-
claimed “S|ump!" which is, i
suppose, one way of. turning no
news into bad news.

Still, there is some news of note to
report, Personal Services, directed
by ex-Python Terry Jones and
described as ‘one woman's story of
sex, perversion and a nice cup of
tea’, is a comedy loosely based on
the life of ‘England's favourite
Madame’, Cynthia Payne ([...]ternationally successful TV mini-
series, A Woman of Substance. A
starry cast includes Deborah Kerr,
C[...]e-wise, the big hits have
been Jagged Edge, Jewel of the
Nile and (yawn) Out of Africa,
backed by some gratifying British
success[...]nd in America.

“Sex, perversion and a nice cup of
tea”: Julie Walters in Terry Jones ’s[...]

BEPO

HTS

France by Belinda Meares

A bit of a boost at the box office, a
spot of bother on the box

A wet spring and the daunting series
of crises that have hit Europe con-
spired to dampen[...]munity is nevertheless in a more
optimistic frame of mind than it has
been for a long time ~ and with[...]etition
this year, with a fifth film selected out
of competition, Claude Lelouch’s Un
Homme et une l[...]rand Blier‘s
Tenue de solrée (Evening Dress).

Of more significance than the
Cannes line-up, however. has been
the commercial success of two
recent local releases: the aforemen-
tioned T[...]rreau is
scheduled to direct a Walt Disney
remake of her film.

Other French films having reason-
able[...]ed to do well, despite the pres-
ence in its cast of the perennial
Johnny Halliday (whom a popular
rev[...]e espoir
du cinéma francais”).

The popularity of star Christophe
Lambert is reaching veritable cul[...]e French
box office have been the predictable
Out of Africa and Jewel of the Nile,
and the less predictable British pair,[...]from strength to strength,
Michel Boujenah, star of Trois
hommes ef un couffin, has_ opted
next for a[...]or TV, Godard has just finished
filming a version of a novel by James
Hadley Chase, starring maverick[...]rick actor Jean-Pierre
Léaud. “We are the last of the
Mohicans,” says Mocky of their

Trintignarit, Aimée and Lelouch
during the filming of Un homme et
une femme —— Vingt ans déja.

un[...]nothing more to
lose."

Following on the success of April's
MlP—TV market in Cannes — which,
in this era of independent television
in Europe and the expansion of
global communications technology,
saw 1 ,449 comp[...]t countries — matters audiovisual
represent one of the many points of
divergence between the present
government and the[...]n-
cois Léotard, has announced the
privatization of two of the three
public channels, triggering a partial
s[...]ew hours a day.

The European Consortium, made
up of Berlusconilseydoux, owners
of ‘La Cinq’, Robert Maxwell and
Leon Kirsch, is[...]repeat films! The Conseil d‘Etat,
given the job of reviewing the con-
troversially lenient regulations im-
posed on the channel, actually
upheld the legality of the con-
cession, but baulked at a textual
oversi[...]the Englishman who
took over as director general of Tele-
vision New Zealand earlier this year
(see m[...]more dangerously with
public opinon over coverage of the
rebel tour of South Africa by indivi-
dual New Zealand rugby players,
most of whom are ‘official’ All
Blacks.

Mounter was[...]ing pressure
groups. Patricia Bartlett, secretary of
the Society for the Promotion of
Community Standards, has wel-
comed the approach,[...]-
censorship group, the Society for
the Promotion of Individual
Responsibility, says he is disturbed
at the “paternalistic attitude” of
TVNZ in deciding what is good
viewing for New Zealanders.

On the question of rugby cover-
age of the South African tour,
Mounter has had his initiation into
the highly partisan nature of New
Zealand politics. His declaration that
there would be no television cover-
age of the ‘unofficial’ games was
deemed in conflict[...]d impartial coverage to
meet the varied interests of the NZ
community by John Banks, sports
spokesman[...]arty.

All the ructions resulted in some
refining of the original Mounter in-
structions, particularly in their poss-
ible application to straight news
coverage of the tour.

Meanwhile, an Auckland video
company,[...]ve rights to
the rugby tour, believes final sales of
videotapes of the matches will be
"bigger than Rambo". Claiming
five-figure sales for cassettes of the
rebels‘ early games, Russell Clarke,
managing director of Video Cor-
poration, says orders for each of the

This has resulted in TVNZ’s con-
troller of programming, Des
Monaghan, being appointed to a
new position as director of pro-
grammes and production. In this
new job, he[...]annels. He will be supported by
the new positions of controller of TV1
and controller of TV2, which have
been advertised, along with the posi-
tion of director of finance.

At the Wellington headquarters of
the Broadcasting Corporation of
New Zealand, which is the overall
governing body[...]or independent production;
and a five-year target of 400 hours of
programming from independent film
and television[...]Phonographic Performance (NZ)
Limited, on behalf of the recording
companies, also recently withdrew
rights for video music to be played
free of cost on the two networks. As
a consequence of these stymied
negotiations, two popular rock pro-[...]the
combined annual National Mutual
GOFTA (Guild of Film and Television
Arts) awards. These include B[...]reston's Mr Wrong also score
highly in the number of nominations.
Larry Parr is also a finalist as Bes[...]rgina Pope
and Naoko Abe

Gearing up for the
year of the kitten

The circus has left town, the summit[...]mas are halved. Zenkoren, the
Japanese federation of exhibitors,
has designated the first Mondays in
M[...]-long ‘Golden Week‘
holidays at the beginning of May.
These included biggies such as
Spies Like Us, The Jewel of the Nile
and 9’/2 Weeks, as well as an
interesting selection of ‘art-house’
films, including Picnic at Hangin[...]Stranger than
Paradise. There has also been Kimi
wa hadashi rio kami o mitaka (Have
You Seen the Bare[...]mplex in a suburban
department store. It consists of two
99-seat mini-theatres, using the new
Sony Cin[...]its. It opened
with Young Sherlock Holmes and
Out of/lfrica, to be followed by Back
to the Future and[...]ovated
last year to mark their 40th anni-
versary of operation.

Meanwhile, even in a metropolis
the size of Tokyo, it is hard to walk
more than a few blocks[...]Seen the Barefoot
God?

Yoriko Doguclzi,

remake of the 1956 French film, Des
gens sans importance. T[...]was
directed by Henri Verneuil; it told the
story of a middle-aged truck-driver
and his romance with a waitress at a
roadside cafe. The director of the
Japanese remake is Koreyoshi
Kurahara, who made Antarctica.

And, on the northern island of
Hokkaido, Schochiku-Fuji is shoot-
ing Winter Lul[...]on front, cult movies
are pretty much the flavour of the
month, with a number of small distri-
butors and video labels planning to[...]ospective section is being
replaced by screenings of early films
by John Waters, John Sayles, Spike
Le[...]adia Tass with Malcolm. Tass, with
the assistance of Film Victoria, will be
visiting Tokyo for the occ[...]mall,
downtown art cinema are further
indications of a strong distribution
trend toward small cinema releases
of art-house movies in anticipation of
a later, larger-scale release on video.

Currentl[...]. 1986 will also see a
dramatic cut in the number of films
released in Japan, particularly by
the American majors.

On the subject of big releases, the
Fuji Sankei group which include[...]led Koneko monogatari
(Kitten Story), with a cast of animals
only, and it tells of the adventures of
a cute kitten and her furry friends.
The dear lit[...]ss the country on Fuji’s
Channel 8, in a series of relentless
TV commercials. But the corporation
is not relying on this alone: all staff of
the Fuji Sankei group and affiliated
companies (which, at a conservative
estimate, run into hundreds of thou-
sands) must purchase a designated
number of tickets, depending on
their salaries. . .[...]

Grauman's Chinese Theater, one
of Hol|ywood’s last great picture
palaces, opened its doors in 1928
with the premiere of the silent biblical
epic, The King of Kings. 58 years
later, the Chinese has been touting
another kind of king.

Famed for its footprint forecourt,
the Chinese was the site of the West
Coast 'Cobrathon‘, which gave
Sylveste[...]and roam-
ing press photographers) and even
a bit of action. The latter occurred in
the forecourt when[...]atched
the opening screening from the
private box of Sid Grauman, the
showman who built the theatre.
"[...]od at the kerb;
and the films logo — a portrait of the
gun-toting Stallone against a blood-
red back[...]the theatre
entrance was a 32-foot-high portrait
of Stallone as Cobra. It will go to
Stallone after t[...]Part 2 proved
much more formidable, with grosses
of over $25 million.

As for the reviews . . . a sam[...]A. Weekly).

‘'If this guy tripped over a print of
Citizen Kane, he not only wouldn't
know what it w[...]been paring

64 — July CINEMA PAPERS

down each of his scripts, whittling at
them like soap bars. He[...]s Times).

There were also, however, a
smattering of admirers: “Cobra is a
very good bad movie,” w[...]lay dead like
Mike, the four-legged scene stealer
of Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
The senior mutt has gone back in
front of the cameras in Texas in Benji
the Hunted. Supervi[...]e: Benji
is actually to be played by the
daughter of the original Benji.

Susan Seidelman is also keep[...]Bob Rafelson‘s
first film since his 1981 remake of
The Postman Always Rings Twice,
Theresa Russell plays an evil woman
who has a habit of knocking off her
husbands; she is tracked down by[...]ipted by
Kenneth Anger, based on his lurid
expose of the grit beneath Tinsel-
town.

Finally, a box-of[...]win fans and influence the
box office, for atotal of$17.4 million.

m wt

REPORTS

A

Schlock horror: Kennetlz Anger

now making a movie of his classic,
Hollywood Babylon.

From an opening helicopter shot,
pannin[...]here
will be a programme called ‘Per-
spectives of the Young European
Cinema‘, and festival direct[...]his year went to a
Chilean film about the efforts of
women demonstrating against the
power of the state. The 70 or so films
in competition were[...]is a four-
page monthly tabloid, with a print
run of 1.2 million. It is also being
sponsored by the German
subsidiaries of the American distri-
butors, Warner-Columbia, UIP and
20th Century-Fox, and it is getting a
lot of support from the Kinoverband.

Doing well on Germ[...]being topped by Manner, Police
Academy 3 and Out of Africa. Two
Australian films, The Coca-Cola Kid
a[...]ked off widespread media
euphoria about the birth of the (new)
new German cinema.

Italy by Lorenzo[...]in Italy. Just before that, how-
ever, the bosses of ltaly’s tottering
film industry made the predic[...]the erratic and mostly_ un-
announced screenings of national
product. _
Forgettable efforts by new di[...]s . .' .
Christophe Lambert as the fetishist
hero of Ferreri's I Love You.

Week (La donne del trag[...]iller, directed
by Marco Colli).

Meanwhile, none of the promised
scandal was caused by Maruschka
Detm[...]French-
backed / Love You —- was a sad
reminder of the ltalian cinema’s past
— for its several r[...](Dillinger
is Dead, 1989); for the sincere sense
of lost identity afflicting the director
and his mai[...]gone to the
talking key-ring, which is the object
of the hero's affections).

ltalians working abroad[...]the best laughs
in Cannes, thanks to his playing of
the free-wheeling misfit in Jim Jar-
musch's Down By Law.

The ever—growing platoons of
young ltalian fans who invade the
Croisette each[...]hey are also
likely to buy more pirated cassettes
of (un)forthcoming films, and will
watch TV late shows of classics and
oddities which, in the absence of a
real one, constitute a kind of
impromptu ltalian cinematheque.

A new law relati[...]RAI 1, which
has had the guts to report the sort of
behind-the-scenes information that
the politician[...]was a well-researched and serious
reconstruction of the attempt to kill
the Pope by the Turkish terro[...]onvincingly played by Christo-
pher Buchholz, son of Horst.

Looking to the autumn, what will
Italy be[...]rround Luigi
Comencini's La Storia, the epic tale
of a schoolteacher during the war
years; Claudia Car[...]i's poker drama,
Rega/o di Natale, is also worthy of
honours on the Lido.

Over and above its value as[...]certainly cause a stir, with its
personal vision of the terrorist killing
of Aldo Moro.

Come autumn, Peter Del Monte
will dir[...]too, is going into television,
with a miniseries of sketchbooks and
personal notes. In the meantime, he
has published six instalments in
Corriere de/la Sera of ‘Viaggio a
Tulun', a fascinating treatment for a
film set in the eerie dreamland of
Aztec myths.

Elsewhere, however, the Ital[...]

As it was, there was a lot of extra
security, but no terrorism. And the
most st[...]six-hour
miniseries, quickly became the sub-
ject of endless nuclear jokes.

Variety, as usual, took t[...]r note, Polish colleagues
arrived bearing reports of an un-
accustomed glut of fresh vegetables
back home, now that Western
Euro[...]lent but in no
way comparable The Mission.

That, of course, was politics, too:
after awarding the prize to ‘art’ films
over the past three years (The Ballad
of Narayama in 1983, Paris, Texas in
1984 and When F[...]-
thing else. After the relative dis-
appointment of Nosta/gnia (1982), it
rejoins Andrei Rub/ev (1966[...]apparently
irredeemable pessimism against a
sense of life-enhancement. Set in
Sweden during what one assumes
to be the final conflict, The Sacrifice
has a group of people coming to
terms with the failed aspirations of
their lives.

Watching it, one realises that the
glib label so often applied to
Tarkovsky — a ‘poet of the cinema’
— fits perfectly. Tarkovsky lS not a
storyteller, nor a chronicler of
emotional change: he is a director
who deals in i[...]away, not scenes or
sequences, but single moments of

66 — July CINEMA PAPERS

VALS

AND

MARKETS

G[...]dant beauty. In Andrei
Rublev, it was the raising of the bell
and the final, affirmatory colour
sequences. in The Mirror, it was
(among others) the tiny detail of the
condensation from a hot tea-cup
evaporating o[...]ill forget.

Between these moments come
stretches of virtual cinematic silence
— the poet’s syntax. Running for
145 minutes, The Sacrifice has its
share of silence, but the film is more
than redeemed by the closing shots:
a twelve-minute take of the destruc-
tion of the family home by fire, and
the final scene wher[...]) returns to water a
dead tree planted in a cairn of
stones in the belief that, as his father
has told[...]taken, perhaps, five minutes to read,
the impact of that scene cannot be
accounted for. So, should Th[...]Tarkovsky's film,
though in other company several of
the films in competition might have
seemed even better than they did.
Some of these have already been
reviewed in Cinema Papers[...]on will be, Elsewhere, faced
with such a plethora of films. the
most one can do is record
enthusiasms[...]that does to
the political beliefs and commitment
of its eponymous heroine what von
Trotta's husband,[...]Stranger Than Paradise seem to
have loved. A sort of folie a trois with
a highly promising cast made up of
John Lurie (star of Stranger), singer
Tom Waits and Italian comedian[...]med to me
simply to reprise the zany minimal-
ism of Jarmusch's earlier film, with
greater means but l[...]to echo last year's Official
Story with its tale of a settled bour-
geoise (in this case, a radio
announcer) thrust into the undertow
of history (here, postwar Nazi power
in Buenos Aires[...]fter
it has broken down. In it, the surface
gloss of a soap opera is coupled
with the aspirations of mid-period
Rivette. The two do not mesh,
although[...]her shared Best Actress
award.

Selected, but out of competition,
Carlos Saura‘s L’amor brujo was[...]ng and Carmen, as
Saura moves closer to his dream of
a Hollywood musical, Spanish-style.
And the climax to the film contains a
sequence of close-ups which is the
most breathtakingly beautiful thing I
have seen on any screen.

Also out of competition, Roman
Po|anski’s Pirates, which he[...]adventure movie,
turned out to be just that. And, of

course, everyone —— or, at any rate,
the cri[...]iving Walter
Matthau the opportunity for the kind
of sustained, over-the-top perform-
ance that other[...]hly deserved his shared
Best Actor award, was one of the
oddest in the festival: a tale in which
sex,[...]tick jostle for
the viewer's attention. Like many of
Blier‘s films, it combines a strange
conservatism of form with an out-
rageous anarchy of content. Blanc’s
co-laureate, the magnificent B[...]s Le dec/in de /‘empire
arnericain (The Decline of the Ameri-
can Empire) looked at a group of
well-off French Canadian intellec-
tuals who befo[...]y, discuss relationships,
sex and the unravelling of the North
American social fabric. Serious
enough[...], funny
enough to be disconcerting, it was
a kind of post-modernist Rohmer
comedy, with all the same delights ofof
where to intensify reality that marks
Cox off as a filmmaker of vision and
power. To this, we shall return.

What[...]stival day dawned,
however, a rather larger piece of
naval hardware appeared off the
beaches: the USS ‘United States’,
the floating island of an aircraft
carrier which co-ordinated the raid
o[...]hdrawn dis-
creetly up the coast for the duration
of the festival, the carrier now
resumed its caution[...]l world was back.

Nickfloddick

NB: For details of how Australia's
movies fared at Cannes see[...]

De Niro as Mendoza leads a group
of Guarani Indians into slavery.

Special Jur[...]

VALS

AND

Seven days in May

The best of Russian cinema in this means

Soviet Film Week

T[...]Allison, “so the festival pro-
vides a sampling of the best
products from the last two years."

The outstanding film of the eight
on show this year was Elem Klimov’s
Come and See, a powerful war epic,
depicting the destruction of a Byelo-
russian village (one of 628) by the
Nazis. It is told from the perspective
of a boy partisan recreating his loss
of innocence, his journey and his pri-
vate hell in[...]ercial release here, with its popular
ingredients of drama, humour and
tragedy, and with its superb pe[...]tifully crafted story,
set in the provincial town of Brak-
hilov on the Volga (the backdrop for
the cl[...]bly
evokes the seasons, the period and
the values of a town blinded by
mercantilism, where women are r[...]ial terms.

Performances also provide the
essence of Success, a contem-
porary drama directed by Kon-[...]with a
fanatical devotion to his art in the
face of mediocrity, apathy, vanity
and intrigue. He succe[...]lishing house. The focus is on
the futile efforts of a writer to get his
manuscript published; but, de[...]ay be becoming a Soviet
social phenomenon.

Tango of our Childhood, from
Armenia, directed by Albert Mkrt-
chyan, displays the talents of Galya
Novents as the deserted wife whose
husband[...]incial
elements too alienating.

The most unusual of the films —
and one which evoked extreme
respon[...]Parad-

janov and Dodo Abashidze’s The.

Legend of Surnam Fortress, a ritual-
istic pageant of medieval mythology,
superstition and symbolism, c[...], failure to engage the
emotions and constant use of front
angles, make its transition from
stage to f[...]n, a showcase
for the singing and dancing talents
of Lyudmila Gurchenko — ironically,
for a film in which she plays an
actress who tries to break out of that
mouldl But it lacked a strong script
and ass[...]y in
the latter half, when the storyline and
some of the minor characters
become rather unconvincing.[...]Butur|in’s first film
as director, and its lack of appeal
may well be due to a theme — the

desper[...]ussian ambience which forms the
essential flavour of an event like this.

Marycolbert

MARKETS

Asian[...]cil launched the event back in
1977 with a couple of dozen new
international films, most Asian
industr[...]h the festival
calmly fielding some 150 films (60 of
them in the international section), all
the talk is of Chinese, Korean and
Indonesian new waves. Even di[...]d
learning some indelible lessons from
their lack of social and sexual
inhibitions.

Similarly strong on character
observation and the subtleties of
social behaviour was Yan Xueshu’s
Ye shan (Wild Mountains), a gently
satirical comedy of partner-
swapping set in a small Shaanxi
communit[...]t in its sexual
politics and almost entirely free of
didacticism, it was the major
Chinese revelation of the festival.

Of the five Hong Kong films, only
two were of any interest in a year of
cinematic drought. Lu Chien-ming’s
Cuodian yuan[...]g festival is a window on

Asian cinema

success of Chen Kaige’s Huang tudi
(Ye//ow Earth) last year, and much
talk of a new wave to parallel those
in Hong Kong and Tai[...]ned
for export, or simply banned out-
right, many of the works of the so-
called ‘Fifth Generation’ of directors.

Eagerly awaited titles like Chen
Kaig[...]rs.

The minor frisson surrounding the
screenings of Zhang Qi and Li
Ya|in‘s Bel aiqing yiwangde jia[...]soon
after the lights went down. This mish-
mash of sex and politics in a Sichuan
village during the Cultural Revolution
reeks of post-Gang-of-Four
righteousness and would be best
put back on[...]nt
works showed, mainland Chinese
cinema has come of age since 1981.

All three reflected the current[...]tion
which ditches the central character
and most of the atmospheric portrait
of backstreet Canton life, but it is still
an interesting first work.

Zhang Nuanxin's Qingchun ji
(Sacrifice of Youth) also stumbles
slightly at the winning-post, but is a
far more cohesive portrait of Cultural
Revolution traumas, here seen
through the story of a young Peking
woman sent to live among the Dal[...]ong
feature, Infatuation.

Despite the absence of anything
from the Philippines, both Indonesia
and[...]his
most substantial film since his debut,
Ballad of a Man, back in 1971.
Tracing the divisions and betrayals
(both emotional and political) among
a group of anti-colonial fighters
during the final years ofof simple character observa-
tion and rural ingenuou[...]t back in Thai-
land. An almost plotless portrait of
young adolescents smuggling rice
across the Malaysian border, it
manages the difficult task of being
sensitive rather than saccharine, and
charm[...]h a
likeable child cast and memorable
integration of landscape and nature.

Derek Elley

Chris Hutson at the grading console of one of AA V’s
two Rank Cinlels.

A waveform monitor[...]on the
Rank Cintel.

Telecine, the process of transferring
film to videotape, can make a major[...]vision miniseries. Above all, the
telecine is one of the chief trans-
formations through which the wide
range of natural brightness and
colours that we see in front of the
camera will go before they reach
the viewers television set, which has
a far more limited range of resolu-
tion, contrast and colour.

On film, the natural scene will be
represented by three layers of
colour dyes on a transparent base.
in a telecine,[...]eci-
sion needs to be made as to what
combination of film format, stock,
telecine process and individu[...]ook’. The decision is important,
as the quality of the transfer will carry
through the remaining stages of
post-production. Time and money
will have been bu[...]ndards. They can and do reject
programmes because of the telecine
grading. This is probably the area
t[...]tes.

In the telecine, the film is scanned
in one of three ways:
0 by a flying spot on a cathod[...]

Colour and image
correction

Most of these colour-grading
systems allow correction to be
applied to three zones of the image:
the highlight or white areas; the mid-[...]or
black areas. Extreme correction
applied to one of these zones will
affect the others.

In the telev[...]an to blue to
magenta and back to red. The
centre of the circle represents the
neutrals, black through[...]way from the
centre indicates an increasing level
of saturation. This principle is
echoed by the joyst[...]ctorscope display is an
electronic representation of this.

The waveform monitor is the other
display used by the grader: it shows
the levels of the three other controls
which vary the brightnes[...]e darkness (black-level) and
the contrast (gamma) of the scene.

The joysticks and level-controls
give[...]-
tion, which allows the six major
colour sectors of the circle to be
individually controlled by hue a[...]alred), by moving the red
hue control. The degree of red
saturation could also be varied. The
other co[...]ignal
processing allow for freeze frames
that are of the same quality as the
picture when running. Thi[...]ne during
the video editing stage, when some
loss of quality is generally involved.
0 Horizontal and vertical aperture
correction. This is an artificial way of
‘sharpening’ the picture to compen-
sate for resolution losses in the
system. Excessive use of this correc-
tion creates visible ‘noise’.

0[...]changes from frame to
frame, such as the pattern ofof ‘float and weave‘ in the image that
is inherent in the normal telecine
systems.

All of the above give the telecine
grader complex control over the film
image and, although some aspects
of this control are objective (pro-
ducing neutral b[...]ally a
subjective activity.

Thus, the same piece of film can
end up looking mediocre or brilliant,
depending on the person who
grades it, the type of telecine used,
and the state of repair it is in. Under-
standing the process is t[...]ed in isolation:
it will be viewed in the context of the
preceding and succeeding shots.
Two basic gra[...]e ‘auto-
shot detector‘, which senses the end
of a shot and automatically enters
the desired grade[...]akes a lot less time, since it
basically consists of set-up, reel
change and set-down time, plus the
a[...]g the telecine
session

Telecine graders are part of an
organization separate from the pro-
duction co[...]ly on
a single production. There are
various ways of approaching the
grader and determining how your
i[...]The discussion with the DOP will
also cover some of the subjective
aspects, i.e. what is warm, what is
cold, and so on. This is important,
because the schedule of the shoot
will obviously mean that the DOP will
n[...]rly if the grading takes place
over a long period of time. There
usually has to be some re-grading
and re-insertion of shots into the
master tape, which is the major dis-
advantage of this method of parallel

post-production.

As the flow-chart dia[...]thod
also reduces emphasis on judging
the results of the grading on
poor-quality monitors and off low-[...]eing graded as you shoot.

To sum up, the process of getting
film to videotape is a complex one,
despite the apparent ease of the
technology. And it is a process
where persona[...]rarely
recognized on the end credits. it is
also, of course — though not all tele-
cine operators ma[...]a process which can have problems.
Here are some of them:

Bad telecine grading may result
in:
0 poor[...]“There's
green in the blacks . . .");

0 misuse of the secondary colour
Corrector, producing selecti[...](“Sorry, that's as much yellow as I
can get out of it“);

0 shading errors in the telecine
(which[...]ducing
an image ‘jitter’ in one or more areas
ofof
‘Technicalities‘ in the last issue
(Cinema Papers 57, May 1986), a
photograph of the author of this
article, Chris Hutson, was wrongly
captioned as Brad Christiansen. Our
apologies to both of them.

‘Technicalities‘ is edited by F[...]

the State of Victoria, established to encourage, promote
and assist in the production and the exhibition of film
and television.

A vigorous film and television industry is of
considerable importance to this state. Film Victoria is
proud to be part of this industry, one which is an integral
part of Victoria's culture and which makes a significant[...]ved as an
investor in well over $50 million worth of production. The
following arejust a sample ofthe[...]s investment: THE LANCASTER MILLER
AFFA|R—SWORD OF HONOUR—KANGAROO—
MALCOLM—|N BETWEEN—POP M[...]THE UNTOLD STORY—CACTUS—DOGS IN
SPACE—TALE OF RUBY ROSE.

By virtue of its unique position in the industry and
the skill[...]Victoria is able to provide an invaluable source of
information for potential film investors, film ma[...]0 Film Victoria

“The best science
fiction film of the B033’

The en the world is
just the[...]

Jenny Trustrum
reports from the Alice
Springs location of
The Last Frontier

The old house glows in the dark of
the outback night. On the verandah,
a woman sits,[...]it, and a few
casual words, across the stillness of
the desert. and disappears into the
darkness.

An unlikely start, perhaps, to the
romantic climax of the TV miniseries,
The Last Frontier. But it look[...]For five weeks in May and June,
the cast and crew of The Last
Frontier descended on Alice, setting
the town agog with reports of who-
saw-what-star-where. Numerous
locations around the town itself were
used as settings for the story of an
American woman and her two child-
ren, struggl[...]ude the
McElroy’s Return to Eden. As direc-
tor of photography, lan Baker makes
a welcome return to[...]ling the American
deal was crucial to the success of

ON

Ready and racing: on the set of The
Last Frontier.

the project: pending it, Lind[...]ays McE|roy: "We've come to
believe that the cost of Australian
production has risen so dramatic-
ally[...]has been fraught with problems and
huge risks.” Of the twelve-week
shoot, five were spent in Los
Angeles, and most of the rest in
Alice Springs. A cast and crew of
over a hundred have been shuttled
across the worl[...]ll alone comes to over
$200,000 — and a caravan of\5O
Cars and semi-trailers had to make
its[...]

A round-up of what is
shooting, shot or
about to film across
Australia

74 —- July CINEMA PAPERS

ON

It is the time of the year when
producers are more likely to be
tal[...]ng the

winter skies . . .

The feature, The Tale of Ruby Rose
began production in the icy Walls of
Jerusalem area near the Cradle
Mountain National[...]ilm is set in the thirties and traces
the journey of a woman who has an
intense fear of the darkness.

In warmer climates, Ben
Gannon's T[...]ne in Cairns. It
stars Graham Kennedy (in another
of David Williamson’s plays) and Leo
McKern (best[...]enton, in Michael
Pattinson‘s Ground Zero (part ofof social
security fraud, compensation for
which was offered in June of this
year.

Due for release early in 1987, the
Bu[...]n's Farm, directed by Ron Way,
is nearing the end of post—produc-
tion. The production company,
Mavi[...]ernment is even turning away
film crews. Producer of Promises to
Keep, Jane Scott, was forced to shift
the location of the film from Bali to
the island of Phuket, in Thailand
(where the miniseries, Vietna[...]imes
article by Lyndall Crisp, it tells the
story of two women married to army
men and the restriction[...]other
venture, The Challenge, wrapped at
the end of May and is now in post-
production.

Seven Networ[...]ing from 7 June to 23
August, and a second series of the
ABCs The Fast Lane, produced by
Noel Price, w[...]oadcast on the
ABC, commenced in June. The
series of 20 episodes brings
together a range of independent
films from Australia and New
Zealand[...], John Baxter. It
follows Baxter’s other series of
independent films for the ABC, The
Cutting Room.

Shooting on the second series of
the family adventure show, Butterfly
Island, will finish at the end of July,
though this time around
independent Product[...]Network. it has the same
cast, with the addition of the now
obligatory import: Kerry Markwell
plays t[...]than life’ Nellie Melba, while the
latter tells of the exploits of an odd
business couple.

Three Crawford productio[...]h are Sale and Joe Wilson
both wrapped at the end of June.
Noni Hazlehurst has made her direc-
torial debut with the former, while the
crew of Joe Wilson, after the depar-

ture of Jack Thompson, settled
in with new director, Geof[...]tor)
and Matthew Fargher as Joe Wilson
on the set of Joe Wilson.

FEATURES

PRE-PRODUCTION

AVENGERS OF THE CHINA SEAS
Prod. company ..NiIsen Premiere[...]e
meets Reg. A love story set in the unreal world
of the brothel, where the emotional terrain is
readi[...]e Cinema Papers
Production Survey

A full listing of the features, telemovies,
documentaries and short[...]ot and Old Tom, the violin-maker,
find the spread of a big city threatens their
lifestyles.

8341: THE[...]94

Synopsis: The film is based on the true story of
the Pyjama Girl Murder. A girl's body was
found in Sydney in 1934 and kept in a formalin
bath at Sydney University, on view to
thousands of people, until the murder was
solved in 1944.

LES[...]A pagan passion play set under and
on the shores of Bondi beach, with bulk
ratbaggery and meaning.

T[...]Length. ...12O minutes

Synopsis: The true story of the trials and
triumphs of Australia's golden boy of boxing
who fell from grace as a result of World War I's

conscription hyster[...]emphis, lonely,
bewildered and reviled at the age of 21.

FEATURES

PRODUCTION

DOT IN CONCERT

Prod.[...]Synopsis: An aminated feature. The adven-
tures of Dog and Wal. and the characters of
Footror Flats.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Prod.[...]

Synopsis: A high adventure story of a boy's
initiation into manhood through trial and[...]hed and terrifying
relentless violence.

THE TALE OF RUBY ROSE

Prod. company ........................[...]cated among the haunting peaks
and brooding mists of Tasmania's Central
Highlands, The Tale of Ruby Rose is the story
of a woman overcoming an intense fear of the
dark.

TERRA AUSTRALIS

Prod company ........[...]or
in judgement that was revealed as a
conspiracy of a far larger order. Elements of
this are still under investigation.

FEATURES

PO[...]ma set
in Melbourne and New York. it is the story of a
female American singing star who has
ach[...]

Please help us keep this survey
accurate[...]..Mandy Walker
Key grip. Noel McDonald
Asst grip Wa ne Marshall
Gaffer.... .... ..Pau| O'Neill
Boom o[...]set
amid the comedy, chaos and crazy con-
fusion of a typical inner-city shared
household as the indulgent years of the
seventies give way to the harsher realities of
life in the eighties.

DOT AND THE LAKE MONSTER[...]t and Neptune the dolphin battle
to save the life of a beached whale.

FRENCHMAN’S FARM

.Ray Nowlan[...]Lynne Schofield (Madame
Cheveraux).

Synopsis: A university student is driving back
to Brisbane in the summer of 1984 when she

unfolds.[...](Mouth).

Synopsis: A love story based on a book of the
same name by Gabrielle Carey.

PETER K[...]

PROMISES T[...]gang rape and intimidation
breed in a conspiracy of silence.

SLATE 8: WYN AND BLANCHE
MCBRIDE
Prod.[...]artin Sacks (Slate).
Synopsis: A compelling drama of abduction
and obsession set along the Murray Rive[...]and Wyn,
kill a policeman while robbing the bank of a
small count town, A young school teacher,
Blanc[...]taken across
the state to a hideout.

SPIRITS OF THE AIFIIGREMLINS OF

THE CLOUDS

Prod. company ......................[...]ly
religious sister live in a shack in the middle of a
vast desert. The man dreams of leaving in a
flying machine of his own invention. A comedy
of the ironic.

THE STEAM DRIVEN ADVENTURES
OF RIVERBOAT BILL
Prod. company Phantascope Ltd

Pro[...]ted adventure set on the
Murray River at the turn of the century.
Riverboat Bill and his crew attempt to protect
an illegal bunyip from the long arm of the law.

DOCUMENTARIES

ALICE ALI[...]Gauge. .....Betacam
synopsis: An unusual Portrait of Alice Springs
and the red centre 0 Australia show[...]nd
South-West Tasmania (The Gliders). The
concept of the programmes is based on the
need to reach audiences not already aware of
the urgent need to preserve the relatively few
re[...]ayakers
led by Earle Bloomfield to the east coast of
Greenland retracing the 1200 km journey of
English explorer Gino Watkins.[...]rod. company .......... ..Electrica| Trades Union
of Western Australia
Director ....... .. ....Andrew[...]Researcher/consultant .. .PauI Roberts
Additional research . .Marion Benjamin
Prod. co~ordinator .Heather Wi[...].

Synopsis: How.tl_ie West Was Lost is the
story of the Aboriginal pastoral workers‘ strike
of 1946-49 told through a combination of

documentary and dramatic reconstruction. P

F RUSIIBS -V a fast and reliable[...]ability and speed you need Australia-

A DIVISION OF TNT MANAGEMENT PTY LIMITED Wide—Worldwide.

Cal[...]..r..

~ , I I I x A ',
THE CHOICE OF PROFESSIONALS. THE WORLD OVER

MILLER FLU[...]

LI[...]........... .. ...50 minutes
Synopsis: The origin of life and the

controversial suggestion that life did not begin
on earth but was seeded from the depths of
space.

MAKE WAY FOR THE MACHINES

Prod. company.[...]. ..5O minutes

Synopsis: Investigates the effect of new
technology on work and leisure in capitalist[...]tt (Mr Scobie).

Synopsis: A film about the world of Western
Australian novelist Elizabeth Jolley, sho[...]Synopsis: A video to de ons ra e the tech-
niques of and needs for Cardio Pulmonary
Resuscitation.

SA[...]ican dance
competitions. The film follows a group of
dancers who vary in age from eight years old to
60 years old.

SPARK OF CONCERN

Prod. company... Vid[...]op . tlining the

dangers and health hazards of modern welding
techniques in industry and the cur[...]at are available to reduce the risks.

A TRANSFER OF POWER

Prod. company ................. ..Australian Institute
of Aboriginal Studies

Producers ...................[...]s: Four men, with some confusion and
a great deal of good humour. remove the
engine from their Holden[...]ace it with another.

VINCENT, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
VINCENT VAN GOGH

Prod. company... .... ..lllumin[...]..Fuji

Synops s: A film about the life and work of
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).

WAR BRIDES
Prod. c[...]ge.. .....16 mm
Synopsis: War Brides is the story of some of
the 15,000 Australian women who married
American[...]ip’ to join their sweethearts
on the other side of the world. Forty years later,
they talk about their experiences.

WINGS OF THE STORM

Prod. com[...]ing bombers over Europe than in any other
theatre of World War 2. Through archival
foota e and interviews with survivors and rela-
tives ings of the Storm describes the unique
experience of bomber air crews. While
recounting their bravery,[...]amilton hold a
dinner-party to celebrate 25 years of marriage,
with disastrous results. A madcap comed[...]r young boys.
Then Alistair discovered the secret of ‘the lake’
. . . he came with three friends . . . he left with
three strangers. A film in the tradition of The
Twilight Zone.

NERVOUS PASSION

Producers ..[...].16 mm
Synopsis: The story looks at the existence of
multiple personalities. It is about a man[...]

FOR THE SUPPLY OF ALL

FILM PRODUCTION TRANSPORT

CONTACT DAVID SUT[...]ds abducted children to a
rotting, hungry denizen of the dead. Complica-
tions arise as human remains[...]ECN
Synops s: A positive look at the achievements
of Australian innovation, presenting an
analysis of how it works, how it has worked and
where it and[...]k, planned for use
in secondary schools, Colleges of Advanced
Education and tertiary institutions gene[...]eries is concerned with writers as inter-
preters of society. David Williamson is seen in
various activities, such as a rehearsal of his
play The Club, writing at home, and discussin[...]sis: Peope wit p
tual disabilities are moving out of institutions
and into the community. This film sh[...]Australian
Heritage Commission's series, Artisans of
Australia. It shows the work of Christine Cooke
and Elizabeth Stevens who work in[...]t the

journey through the rehabilitation process of
alcoholic Aboriginals at Bennalong’s Haven.

HE[...]is. Four short videos for the

international Year of Shelter for the homeless.

THE HUMAN FACE OF
HONG KONG

BETTER RICH THAN RED

Prod. company. .[...]. ..16 mm

. A film about the top atum of
commercial and social life in Hong Kong. it
centr[...]nopsis: A film set within the Chinese com-
munity of Hong Kong. Here, people know little
of the romantic social life generated by British
pre[...]ey struggle to
make a home and living in the face of a well-
organized bureaucracy.

LOOKING AFTER YOU[...]age their
diabetes by proper diet, exercise, care of the
feet, and consultation with their dieticians[...].. ..16 mm

Synopsis: The film is an inside story of life at
The Sydney Morning Herald. The film looks[...]athering, the meetings, to
the late night rolling of the presses.

DEMOCRACY

Prod. company... ...Film[...]didate
in a marginal seat through the seven weeks of

the campaign, to the numbers coming in and
the gathering of the faithful for the election-
night party[...]

through the aftermath of the Medicare dispute.
Shepherd is committed to the privatization of
health care, and the film explores the
personalities and the lifestyle of the surgeons
and their relationships with the com[...]s
Gaugem, .....16_mm
Synopsis. e im 0 ows a group of patients

from a drug and alcohol treatment cl[...]r last days in the clinic and the first few
weeks of their return to the community as they
struggle to[...]out criminal justice

system and its treatment of juvenile offenders.
The film includes. for the fi[...]ERS

Synopsis: The film is a foray into the world of
the unattached. Charles is recently divorced
and[...]h a relationship. At
the same time, a small group of women vie for
his attention.

THE VISIT

Prod. co[...]tnamese
refugee family and the visit to Australia of a son
they haven't seen for four years. A moving[...]re their
present with their son.

-m

REGARDLESS OF SEX

Prod. company.. ...Film Australia
Dist. comp[...]stock .. ....Kodak
Synopsis: Five women's stories of their

involvement in the continuing struggle for
equal pay. All of them are linked in the film by
the ACTU’s case for comparable worth.

THE SCIENCE OF WINNING
Prod. company... .. Film Australia[...]nt
has declined dramatically since the golden age
of the sixties. The debacle at the Montreal
Olympic[...]Australian
Heritage Commission's series, Artisans of
Australia. It shows the work of Larry Harrigan,
a third generation solid plasterer. He has been
working on the exterior of the Collingwood
Town Hall in Melbourne for the pa[...]estoration job. He demonstrates the various
kinds of plastering including running moulds.
making an ur[...]: Uluru — An Anangu Story is a
unique portrayal of Australian history. Rarely if
ever before has the opportunity been available
to present the entire history of an area. from
the times before the white man to the present
day through the perspective of Aboriginals
whose lives have spanned such a period. The
program is set against the backdrop of Uluru
(Ayers Rock) and is a personal, human story[...]Gauge...
Shootin stock ..ECN
Synops s: Today, one of the most positive
aspects of traditional Aboriginal Australia is the
outstatio[...]e. the film
goes to Baniyala, homeland settlement of the
Madarrpa clan. The picture that emerges is of
traditional Aboriginal people running their own
a[...]und a hundred Production survey forms.
About half of these are returned to us by the deadline. We unde[...]to take details down over the phone, the chances of our making mistakes —
leaving out key cr[...]

WOMEN'S STUDIES SERIES[...]onjunction with the
Curriculum Development Centre of the

Thanks
Kathy Bail
Cinema Papers

Schools Com[...]inutes
Gauge... ..... ..35 mm

Synopsis: A series of documentary films on
Australia's five world herit[...]onstrating women work-
ing in the technical areas of the media.

KIDS AND SPORT

Producer ............[...]A film to delve behind the bland
scientific walls of an herbarium, to reveal the
rich matrix of history, scholarship and common
unity found there[...]on and Julie discover the poten-
tial for the use of renewable energy resources.
A video for use in pr[...].

Synopsis: A short training video for the staff of
the Department of Youth and Community Ser-
vices. A child protectio[...]Synopsis: A drama ize ocumen ary on the
plight of the Afghan cameleers brought to
Australia to open[...]minutes
Gauge, .... ..16 mm

Synopsis: The story of a group of friends who
become involved in something over the top of
their heads. They find themselves drawn into a
vi[...]..1" video

Synopsis. In the near future, an out-of-work
theatre troupe inadvertently prevent the piracy
of Australia s underground power source by a
most de[...]es
Gauge. ....... ..35 mm

Synopsis. A recreation of the Battle of Long
Tan, when an Australian patrol of 108 men
fought ofl more than 1000 experienced Vi[...]es
Gauge. .......... ..16 mm

Synopsis: The story of Nancy Wake. Austra-
lian heroine of the French Resistance in World
War 2.

THE[...]

BUTTERFLY ISLAND 2

Prod. co[...]episodes depicting the
li estyle and experiences of a family-run
Queensland Barrier Reef resort islan[...]alia and
New Zealand feature in this third series of the
ABC showcase for independent cinema. This
ser[...]ns by critic John Baxter
and interviews with many of the filmmakers.

THE FAST LANE

Prod. company .
D[...]Hosking.

Synopsis: The events surrounding a pair of

down-at-heel private eyes.

THE FLYING DOCTORS[...]ing Doctor Service is
located in the outback town of Coopers
Crossing. The two doctors, Tom Callaghan[...]original idea by Gary Reilly
Executive-in-charge of

production ............ ..A|an Bateman
Studios .[...].Scotch

Synopsis: The L ng Border — a portrait of
the Murray River and its people — portrays the
past, present and possible future of Australia's
greatest river. The documentary depicts the
role of the river in the development of Australia
and its still enormous potential.

MELB[...]Cassie Valle

Synopsis: A miniseries on the life of Nellie
Melba.

MUSICAL MARINER[...]sis: After five years collecting over
1,500 hours of music and effects from Micro-
nesia, Melan[...]

UIJLI Llfl ULJLI ll ll

Expiry date of card .....................................[...]

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pub|ication(s) you want and the total amount in
the appropriate boxes (see page 96 for details
of available publications).

Tit|e(s):

3 i

PR[...]l Clark
Karan Peel
.Howard Neil
.C. Ewan Burnett

Research .... ..
Photography .
Sound recordist
Editor ....[...]y Jackson).
Synopsis: A powerful and unique story of
women in prison. it tells of the lives of women
in prison, the crimes they committed and th[...]relationship. But that was just the begin»
ning of the intrigue and drama!

WILLING AND ABEL

Cateri[...]e Australian outback. Alice to
Nowhere is a story of desperate men and
lonely people. It is an action-[...]ch the characters act under the awesome
influence of the vast emptiness that is the Aus-
tralian outba[...]y Wah).

Synopsis: A suspenseful and moving story of a
young country schoolgirl. Sexually attacked by[...]she runs away alone to
the raw ii is and pitfalls of the city streets.

THE CHALLENGE

Prod. company .[...]. .....Matt Carroll,

Greg Coote

Exec. in charge of
production ........... ..
Prod. co-ordinat[...]

story of the 1983 land and sea battle for the
America's Cu[...]t for the cup to the genius,
talent and endeavour of those involved, who
made an impossible dream beco[...]Mellon
Make-up..... Dawn Thompson

Neg. matching.
Research

Sound editor.
Editing assistant.
Mixer..

..Barr[...](Wala).

S nopsis: This is the second in a series of
sgort dramas based on Aboriginal Legend. It is
the tale of an Aboriginal boy, Wala, and Quork
Ouork, the fro[...]tangling ramifications —
much to the irritation of both.

FUNERAL GOING
Prod. company .. ....ABC-TV[...]alia ending up in a
brawling climax in the waters of tropical
Queensland.

THE HARP IN THE SOUTH[...]iniseries based on Ruth Park's
best-selling novel of the same name.

HUNGER

Prod. company ..........[...]nd).

Synopsis: Based on the Henry Lawson stories
of Joe Wilson.

THE JOURNEY
Prod. company ..[...]

Number 13 (July 1977): Louis Malle, Paul[...]well,
Peter Sykes, Bernardo Bertolucci, In
Search of Anna.

Number 14 (October 1977): Phil Noyce,
Matt[...]thers,
Sri Lankan cinema, The Irishman, The
Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

Number 16 (April-June 1978):[...]ldham, Donald Richie,
Richard Franklin's obituary of Alfred
Hitchcock, the New Zealand film industry,[...]nger, Norwegian
cinema, National Film Archive, We of the
Never Never.

Number 40 (October 1982): Henri[...]s, Ray Barrett, My Dinner

with Andre, The Return of Captain
invincible.
Number 41 (December 1982): Ig[...]r Tammer,
Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins, The Year of
Living Dangerously.

Number 42 (March 1983): Mel[...]r, Susan Lambert,
Street Kids, a personal history of Cinema
Papers.

Number 46 (July 1984): Paul Cox,[...]an Movies to the World: The International Success of
Australian Films since 1970 by David White[...]

WA

Unit 1. 106 Oxford Street
Leederville. W.[...]

Adapted from the World~fafmous Verses of C. Dennis
or

THE SOUTHERN CROSS EEATURE EILM CO[...]Sentimental Bloke’ in 1918. Shot on the streets of Woolloomooloo for around £2,000, it is on[...]

TXT

and legend of the British cinem a

M ichael P o w e ll.......[...].................... 12

ON LOCATION: Two pages of[...]..................................... 31
Reviews of Crocodile Dundee, A
Room with a View, Hannah and[...]e to the `real H olly

w o o d ', two histories of Yugoslav

cinem a and a look at film and TV[...]FESTIVALS AND MARKETS:

The best and the worst of Cannes

'86, plus reports from H ong Kong

an[...].......................

PRODUCTION: A round-up of

w h a t's being shot w h e re in A u s[...]

See over for details of overseas subscription rates, back issues and othe[...]Please debit my Bankcard/Mastercard to the amount of $

Expiry date of card......................................[...]

I hope you have the c[...]

Deals, debuts and an air of delight

Lots of sales and an excellent critical
response make Ca[...]m Festival, The New World deal is part of an[...]Malcolm; buyers were falling over
most of the Australians there. But sents a signi[...]" If offer the distributor the protection of ment, since it gives Campion an
anybody ever ha[...]arketing Australian
films," said Jim Henry, head of Aus This year, apart from the NSWFC,[...]been much happier because not allow any of this to go to her
very much a `market film' which, he of the two offices," said Film Vic head -- "Jane has one of the clear
claims was " one of the un toria's Greg Tepper who, along with est visions of what she wants to do of
applauded stars of Cannes. I could Jim Henry and the Austra[...]than they could be contacted, where tapes of tor of Malcolm which, with Kanga

For some, anger impels -- it is a source
of strength or courage. But, for Kristina
Nehm, the role of Trilby was not imbued
with any intense sy[...]

reaches of the East Side, was Woody[...]ons

of New York life and turns them into a

representative pattern of people.[...]ers

of one Manhattan family. Hence the un[...]sooner been cleared of the brain tumour he[...]comedy, so much as a group-portrait of

people trying to shake a meaning out of

the[...]ups and downs of three daughters from a[...]like a photo album of his favourite places

ALLEN[...]Part of the success of Hannah and her[...]happier view of existence than is

customarily offered by Allen's comedies of

urb[...]Whether or not this is intentional is, of

"W e're allforced to choose betweencourse, so[...]rfect and yo u get Central Park West apartment of Mia[...]

because of his hypochondria, and it causes
him to quit his job and realise how trivial
all the tension of his television show is, all
the fight for ratings. He goes off on a quest
to try and find answers to some of the
deeper questions of life and, floundering in
an amusing way, doesn't succeed in getting

at those answers. He even thinks of
shooting himself at one time -- and then,
final[...]ess to shoot
myself. I'm never going to know any of
this, I'm just going to have to hang on to
that slim reed of `maybe' -- maybe there's
more to life, maybe not[...]ence --
or at least, content within great limits of
resignation. The characters sort of resign
themselves at the end. But people see thi[...]and he could also get some laughs . . .
fall out of love with people or why we love and a half of forgetfulness from the pain of
them, and never understand if there's a g[...]

Hauff's notic[...]deal about Hauff, the unsung hero of the

New German Cinema movement -- which

is now, of course, both old and over -- and

director of the controversial Stammheim,[...]with the near hysteria

of the festival's jury president, Gina Lollo[...]owney meets by Hauff's affable understanding of her

comments. " It was[...]ask her to be president of the jury at this
festiva[...]e said what the
majority of people feel about this type of

director o f the film, and she gave it[...]Even with this first glimmer of major