In cinema history, the 1970s are most well known for the breakout of American independent filmmakers. By the end of the 1960s, Hollywood studios were at a loss as to how to get audiences into theatres, and so gave the green light to young filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Dennis Hopper and so on. This movement is now held in higher popular esteem than virtually any other, due in large part to the cultural dominance of America across the world.

But the 70s also saw the emergence of an Australian New Wave, with filmmakers like Philip Noyce (Newsfront), Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career), Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant) and Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock) all taking advantage of what were mostly Government funds to create distinctively Australian works to local and overseas acclaim. Though it’s worth noting the reception from overseas was usually more positive than our own shores.

“[The Australian new wave] has been extraordinary. It does hold great hope for the future. It has certainly taught the British film industry a thing or two. And as a whingeing Pom, may I say I’m damned jealous.“

- Derek Malcolm, film critic for The Guardian, 1980
From David Stratton’s “The Last New Wave“

Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to imagine that an overseas critic could actually be envious of our film industry. While a good film or two does come out of Australia every now and then, a great many of them are major disappointments and sink without a trace.

It’s important to remember that the greatest successes of the Australian renaissance were not produced in a Hollywood fashion of targeting the lowest common denominator of film audiences. While the 80s saw a surge in “Ozploitation” films and of course the success of the Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max franchises, the internationally lauded films that made of the core of this new wave (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Newsfront, My Brilliant Career) were decidedly arthouse films.

The key to a resurgence in Australian filmmaking lies in the courage to support unique, challenging films that defy conventional Hollywood film structure. It was the courage of writers, directors, actors and producers to create unconventional, unique films that led to the highlight in Australian cinema history.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be reviewing films that were a part of the Australian new wave, in the hope of showing why these films worked, to encourage others to seek out these kinds of films, and hopefully to encourage filmmakers, not to try duplicating these films, but gain the courage to express themselves in their own way.

Refused Classification reports that Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film Salo has been banned yet again by the wise masters at the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Having viewed the film myself (it’s freely available at a certain public library, shh…) I have to say there really is no reason this film could not be given an R18+ certificate.

The scenes I found most objectionable were in the “Circle of Shit” sequence, but you can’t ban a work of art purely based on whether or not the scenes depicted are really, really gross. While I wasn’t a fan of the film I don’t think anyone who has the intellectual fortitude to sit and watch a movie with subtitles would find themselves irreversibly damaged by the time the credits roll.

It’s been released in Britain by the prestigious British Film Institute, along with essays on its artistic merits and the censorship troubles it has faced across the world. It’s sad to see that Australia is still stuck in the 1950s when it comes to seeing censorship of art as acceptable, though it probably wasn’t the best idea to submit the film for classification this close to the Bill Henson episode.

If this is all too much for you to handle, it might be better to relax and play some pokies online.

Episode Two of Hollowmen is now available here at the ABC website. (Why is the first episode no longer available? Anyone who pays taxes in Australia paid for the show, why can’t we watch it on demand?) It details the teams reaction to a report that makes good on the Prime Minister’s election promise to not give diplomatic postings in foreign countries as rewards to those who have served the party. Unfortunately, the party has already planned to give such a position to an obnoxious senator (clearly a riff on the Nationals) who has virtually no qualifications whatsoever.

The episode dives straight into discussions of “The Selection Criteria for Overseas Diplomatic Postings”, and never gives any exposition to explain in layman’s terms the implications of such events or characters. While there are things that go over the viewer’s head throughout the show (there’s a sub-sub-plot about quarantine in this episode I still don’t get) this structure gives us a sense of realism that is needed for such a satire, and allows the show to grow on repeated viewings. It’s far preferable to programs that spend too much time explaining the events taking place to bring viewers up to speed. The usual trick is to have a character who is as clueless as the audience who can be brought up to speed along with the viewer, but thankfully the show’s writers allow the scenes to run at their own pace and let the audience do the work.

This episode was less successful than the first, mainly due to the central topic involved. While the first episode dealt with childhood obesity, a subject that we see and feel the effects of in everyday life, this episode’s subject of diplomatic postings does not resonate so well. Not just because it isn’t as simple a topic, but that it isn’t so much of a crime to give a favored employee a cushy job as it is to drive the nation into an obesity epidemic. The level of corruption involved isn’t as extreme and hence there isn’t as much for the satire to play off. (Though that’s not to say the events depicted don’t happen) The next episode, however, looks to bring a new weight to the way the characters bring their self-interest to wider issues.

There were a few occasions in this episode where the writers and cast appeared to  struggle to bring humour out of the scenes. The one-liners frequently dropped were at times funny, but brought the show out of its realistic atmosphere and into sitcom territory. This is especially true of the scenes involving the younger performers (especially Merrick Watts) who don’t seem as suited to this style of satire. Especially grating was the performance of the obnoxious senator, which delved into caricature in most scenes. Of course, we aren’t to know how close such a character comes to reality, but this performance undermined the near-documentary approach of the show.

Far better is Rob Sitch’s character of Tony, due both to Sitch’s performance and to the way his character has been written. He never appears to be telling “jokes” as the other characters do, instead the humour derives totally from Tony’s nature, who isn’t aware of how funny he is. The humour never seems to be forced, keeping the realism of the character and being all the better for it. Hopefully as the series continues and characters are allowed to grow the comedy from other characters will become more naturally developed.

The success of Hollowmen depends on our belief in the world that has been created. If some of the outright jokes are excised in order to boost the realism of the show, I think it’s a sacrifice worth making. Following the story and seeing the way power corrupts everyone involved is entertaining enough, the shows producers don’t need to strain to fit jokes in wherever they can.

I’ll post some original content soon, I promise!

Until then, have a watch of this: “The Story of Stuff”. It’s supremely interesting.

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If the Australian Government had made a different decision, Apocalypse Now would have been shot in far North Queensland. Undoubtedly this would have changed the entire film, as shooting in the Philippines famously turned out to be a total disaster. The ending also would have been different, as Francis Ford Coppola only decided on the ending to the film while in the Philippines he saw a cow being butchered. This is from David Stratton’s autobiography I Peed on Fellini.

…An altogether larger project which was nearly made in Australia was Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Sometime in 1974, the year I screened the world premiere of Coppola’s magnificent film, The Conversation, at the SFF [Sydney Film Festival], I received a visit from Dean Tavoularis, who was the director’s production designer, and Fred Roos, one of his producers. They told me that Coppola was planning to make a screen version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, updated to the conflict in Vietnam. They wanted to shoot the film in far north Queensland, and they were passing through Sydney touching base with local production companies that might be of assistance. It sounded like an enormously exciting project, but it hinged on the willingness of the Federal Government to make available to the production men and material, including helicopters, from the armed forces. This the Government was, as it turned out, unwilling to do, and so in the end Apocalypse Now was shot, with great difficulty, in the Philippines, where access to military hardware was easier but where the weather proved to be extremely treacherous. The film wasn’t completed until 1979. Over twenty years later, American director Terrence Malick was able to shoot The Thin Red Line, based on the James Jones book about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal, in North Queensland.

Is this clip culturally cringe worthy? Or does it make the eyes well up with pride? You decide.

It’s possible to make a comparison with American Psycho, also about a physically attractive, emotionally empty serial killer, and Michael C. Hall’s performance is as good as Christian Bale’s. But Mary Harron’s film (and the book by Bret Easton Ellis) made no question of showing Patrick Bateman’s actions as horrible, and instead focused on how such a disturbed perspective on life could be reached. Dexter was, we are led to believe, “born” a serial killer, and is incapable of having any moral qualms about what he is doing. Factors that have influenced his way of behaviour have as yet not been brought into question. Hopefully this changes as the show progresses (I know I’m way behind. The show only just came to mainstream Australian TV)

Is it okay for a serial killer to be let loose, so long as his serially killing other serial killers? What if he was found out and accepted by the public to be doing a good thing? Would we get copycat serial killers killing serial killers? What would happen if all serial killers decided to just kill serial killers? Who cares? Well, maybe universal life insurance companies.

Of course, it’s just a TV show, but Dexter is seen as “one of television’s most fiendishly intelligent new dramas”. I’ve yet to see much more substance than an episode of CSI.

For an examination of a murderer with real ambiguity, check out Jon Jost’s Last Chants For a Slow Dance.

Before I spoil it for you, you can watch the entire episode for free here at the ABC website. (Update: Unfortunately you can only watch the latest episode from the ABC site. You could probably find a torrent for earlier episodes if you search on Google, but that would be wrong.)

This episode centres around the people working behind the Prime Minister (who we never see) and their creation of a plan to tackle childhood obesity, which gradually succumbs to pressures of food industry lobbyists and other sectors of the Government to become a meaningless “awareness campaign” that disregards the real changes the original plan sought to make.

The character of Tony, played by Rob Sitch, is as good as his Mike Moore role from Frontline. His almost sexual attraction to words that don’t mean anything finds the exact point between exaggeration and sad reality that makes for great satire. The way he applauds the words used by those pitching him ideas rather than the ideas themselves is brilliant. This is a character that must exist in reality for phrases like “working families” and “going forward” to be repeated so endlessly. The difference between Tony’s enthusiasm for the original, substantial proposal and the latter more successful, superficial plan is so slight that it’s clear he doesn’t really mind either way. Hollowmen is a bitingly apt title.

The writers played a neat trick with our usual expectations of good guys and bad guys on television. The character of Murph (played by Lachy Hulme) is set up for the most part to be the moral centre of the show. That is, the guy audiences can identify with and get behind while the comically hypocritical character played by Sitch can be looked down upon and seen as unethical and immoral.

There’s a great moment at the end of the episode, however, when Murph realises that the plan will have to be changed and made insubstantial. Instead of becoming indignant and making a fuss, he gladly takes on a role equally as hypocritical as Tony, taking on his use of nice sounding words to express very little.

Murph: I wonder if, … in our enthusiasm …

Tony: This is sounding good

Murph: We let the … momentum … carry us away

Ian: I think you could be right

Tony: You’re right

Murph: I mean we need to take on board all points of view

Ian: I agree with that

Tony: There’s bound to be more stakeholders out there

Despite the hypocrisy on display, it’s not so easy to look down on this character. A quick moment of Murph expressing some guilt over what he’s doing would let us feel better about him, but the writers are too smart to let their audience off the hook like that. Also very insightful is the way Murph is never explicitly pressured to change his behaviour by his superiors, it’s merely “suggested” and Murph takes the hint. You get the feeling that this kind of scene gets played out everyday in Canberra and the rest of the political world.

Hollowmen looks to be the only work of Australian made fiction currently worth watching. It’s great that Working Dog have given us something that’s worth watching and worth thinking about.

Nice “Water Rats”-esque soundtrack, too.

I’m currently reading David Stratton’s autobiography, “I Peed on Fellini”. His life doesn’t really seem that exciting (apparently on the advice of friends, he took out most of the sex. I’m not sure whether I should be annoyed or grateful) and his descriptions of his interactions with the great directors of previous eras, beyond the titular incident, haven’t yet gone passed the depth of “I met Godard, we talked briefly”, which is a real shame. What’s the opinion of Stratton as to how the personalities of the directors he met affected the films they made? It would have been nice to know.

What is interesting is seeing the growth of the Sydney Film Festival, which he directed for 17 years, and his fights against censorship. Before his protests censorship was simply seen as the norm in Australia, and the changes he brought about helped get Australia out of the middle-ages mentality it was in. Previously, festival audiences weren’t even informed that cuts had been made, something that sounds completely ridiculous now.

Check out this story from the book that highlights just how silly the censors were (and probably still are) about screening Luchino Visconti’s film “Sandra” to the censorship board:

Although I hadn’t seen Sandra I knew its content and I was rather nervous because I hadn’t included in the synopsis, which I was obliged to send to the censors’ office prior to the screening, the fact that incest was involved. At the climax of the film, a brother and sister (played by Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel) engaged in discreet sex (just off-screen) on a woollen rug in front of a blazing fire in a sequence well in keeping with Visconti’s operatic modern take on Greek mythology. How would Prowse and his colleagues react to the incest scene, even though it was very tactfully presented? I soon found out. After the screening, Prowse took me to one side ‘You film festival people are a strange lot,’ he said. ‘You like films no-one else can understand. Didn’t you find that confusing? I thought, at the beginning, they were brother and sister.’ The film was passed, without cuts.

Perhaps it’s all in the accent. Since we’re so used to hearing American accents as the norm in films, hearing one of our own on the big screen feels unnatural. It goes further than the accent, however, and can be virtually anything that is uniquely Australian that sets off the cringe. Perhaps the pervasiveness of Hollywood has skewed our perspective about what is “real” in a cinema. A movie is set in its own world of make-believe, and when an Australian begins talking with an accent we recognize from reality, the make believe and real worlds clash and it just doesn’t seem right, and then we’re cringing.

Or are the films themselves to blame? It’s seems like this debate has been going on since the beginning of time. Why can’t our films compete with Hollywood? Is it the Governments fault for not funding the right movies, or our own fault for just making garbage?

I haven’t got the answers just yet, but I’ll be watching films from the “Last New Wave” of the 70′s (where filmmakers like Peter Weir, Philip Noyce and Bruce Beresford got started) and try and pinpoint exactly where things started to go wrong, and why. Or maybe the films have been the same, and only our attitudes have changed?

Until then, here are some images from Australian films of the past. Take a look and think about how you feel about them. Do they give you a cringe, and why? Where do these reactions come from?

Also you can play a nice game of “Test your Australian film knowledge”