Cinema Papers no. 31 March-April 1981 (2025)

OCR

~ “My prime interest is in p[...]simply must have
Q these sales in order to
raise the sort of budgets
we now need to film in this country.

To achieve this we have to have
quality. The sort of quality one can only
have with an image recorded on film.

With the power of television, we
have a vast audience at o[...]I feel an enormous
responsibility. Film provides the quality
that lives up to that responsibility.

Not only in areas of lighting and
locations, but at the post production
and the assembling of sound track
stages.

I would like t[...]ill
be a quality programme. Eastman color
film is the first step to realising that
quality.”[...]

Swedish TV
Belgian TV
German TV
Australian TV

THE AATON HAS NOW BEEN ACCEPTED IN EUROPE AS THE MOST

VERSATILE PRODUCTION / DOCUMEN TARY[...]

New Gevacolor 682
negative camera film.
This film passes even the

toughest of tests with flying colours
(if you’1l forgive the pun),

reproducing skin tones to perfection.

And[...]t offer a
wide latitude that compensates for
even the most severe exposure
variations, but delivers suc[...]ll, this new film
can be processed without any of the
problems created by climatic
conditions. And its compatible with
the process employed by most major

41[...]n summary, all we can
say is that if you’ve got the creative
know—how, and the will, we’ve got
the way. New Gevacolor Type 682.

AG FA-G EVAE[...]

THE UNIVERSAL AUDI VISUAL I

A «JED

\\[...]or a
theatre—size audience of as
many as 3000, the IMI-3000
color video projector is the
logical choice for a professional
quality visual medium. The
lMl—3000 produces clear, bright
pictures rangin[...]on up to 15’ X 20’. It is
now in wide use in the U.S.
and abroad in a large variety of
application[...]or it will project onto any flat
surface, without the limited
viewing angle associated with
other projectors that need
special high reflective screens;
thus the IMI offers the
advantage of full flexibility in
the seating pattern.

technical, medical and many
oth[...]screen display);
Training sessions in schools
and the military services;
Corporate boardroom activities[...]20
foot wide.

0 Uses optics, tubes, and power of the
Magna Image III.

0 160° viewing angle.[...]

[}[]il1l1lJIHlflF“[}H

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

[BDWIFIJIHWIHTGH

. . . enhances your production with the fastest, most professional and economical service[...]with an amazing hand held data entry terminal on the matching bench and finishes
as the world's most advanced negative matching se[...]

Eor furfiier[...]

Please start D renew D my subscription with the next issue. Delivered to your door post free

Sub[...]make a subscription to Cinema Papersa gift. cross the box below and we
Will send a card on your behalf with the first issue

D Gift subscription, from (name of s[...]St. North Melbourne, Victoria.
3051, Australia.

The above otter applies to Australia only For oversea[...]reviews.

0 Production surveys and

reports lroni the sets oi ltical
and internaiiortal production.

0[...]nbound
copies. individual numbers ean be added to the
hinder independently. or detached if desired. Thi[...]Bound Back Issues
6 12 18 Volumes Ezibinders (to the price of each
Zone issues issues issues (each) (each) copy. add the lollowing)
1. New Zealand $20.50 $39.60 $5[...]

I'Z§IVII'Ul.f’ZZ II

In this first major work on the Australian film industry’s
dramatic rebirth, 1[...]an
invaluable record for all those interested in the

New Australian Cinema.

208 pps, 28cm x 205cm (II" x 8”)

The chapters: The Past (Andrew Pike), Social Realism (Keith
Connoll[...]nce book
for anyone working in, or
dealing witli, the Australian
film industry

Edited by Peter Beilby

For the first time, a comprehensive guide to every major
aspect of the Australian film industry.

Contents include * Nat[...]r A detailed round—up of recent developments in the
Australian film industry.

320 pages, illustrated[...]shed by Cinema Papers Pty Ltd
in association with The New South Wales Film Corporation

Please send me ........ .. copies of the Motion Picture Yearbook: 1980
@ Aust.S19.5o. Outs[...].S3o (airmail).

Please send me ., ,. , copies of The New Australian Cinema @ Aust.Si4.95.
Outsi[...]

Seminar Papers

In November the Film and Television Production Association of
Australia and the New South Wales Film Corporation brought together[...]arketing, and
distribution of Australian films in the 19805 with producers involved in
the film and television industry.

The symposium was a resounding success.

Tape recordings made of the proceedings have been transcribed and
edited by Cinema Papers, and will soon be published as the
Film Expo ’8O Seminar Papers.

Copies can be or[...]in, Berkowitz
and Selvin

Harry Ufland
President. The Ufland Agency (U S.)

Please send copies of the Film Expo '80 Seminar Papers
For orders placed wi[...].

Address .. .

Contents

Theatrical Production
The Package: Two Perspectives

Perspective I. As Seen by the Buyer

(i) Partial versus complete packaging or
S[...]pikings. Mike Medavoy

Perspective ll: As Seen by the Seller
The role of the agent in packaging
Speaker Harry Ufland

Theatric[...]sing etc

Speaker Eric Weissmann

Distribution in the United States

(i) Mapping the distribution sales campaign
When and where to ope[...]Boyle

Enclosed. Aust S

Distribution Outside the United States

Distribution terms Relation[...]

Number 12
April 1977

Ken[...]Bert Deling Piero
Tosi John Scott John
Dankworth The Getting
oi Wisdom Journey
Among Women

Number[...]ored
Documentaries.

Number 26
April-May 1980

The Films of Peter Weir.
Charles Jolie. Harlequin.
Nationalism in Australian
Cinema The Little Con-
vict

Index: Volume 6

No of copies o[...]-price.’

Number 2
April 1974

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

D“Ji‘_l.E",),‘IJ.} 1

4

Number 27
June-July 1980

The New Zealand Film
industry The 2 Men
Peter Yeldharn Maybe
This Time Donald Richi[...]er 3
July 1974

John Papadopolous
Willis O'Brien. The Mc—
Donagh Sisters Richard
Brennan Luis Bunuel
The True Story 01 Eskimo
Nell

Number 14
October 1[...]Film Grendel. Grendel.
Grendel David Hem—
mings The Odd Angry
Shot Box—Oltice Grosses
Snapshot

Num[...]Tom Cowan. Francois
Tru‘laul Delphine Seyrig.
The Irishman The Chant
oi Jimmie Blacksmith Sri
Lanl<an Cinema The Last
Wave

Number 22
July-August 1979

Bruce P[...]ewsiront Film Study
Resources Koataa
Money Movers The Aus—
tralian Flm and Tele-
vision School

Index[...]ember-October
1979

Australian Television
Last 01 the Knucklemen
Women Filmmakers
Japanese Cinema. My
B[...]per copy)

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

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

DEN]
123

5

l:ll:iC]ElEiElCiCiC[...]978

Bill Bain Isabelle Hup—
pert Polish Cinema The
Night the Prowler Pierre
Rissienl Newsiront. Film
Study Res[...]-
January 1980

Brian Trenchard Smith
Palm Beach Brazilian
Cinema Jerzy T0ep|ll7
Community Television
Arthur[...]ralian Film Censorship
Sam Arkotl Roman
Polanski. The Picture

Show Man Don’s Party
Storm Boy

Num[...]n Cinema Sonia
Borg Alain Tanner.
Cathy’: Child The Last
Tasmanian

Number 25
February-March 1980[...]and
Politics

Number 28
August-September
1980

The Films ol Bruce Beres-
tord. stir Melbourne and
Sy[...]Bob Ellis Actors Equity
Debate Uri Windl
Cruising The Last
Outlaw Philippine Cin~
erna.The Club

Please make your cheque or money ord[...]

THE "WE NEED THE MONEY"
DEPARTMENT

At the annual general meeting of the
Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative late
last year, me[...]little com-
ment. Scott Murray reports:

Covering the AGM in Filmnews (Vol.
10, No. 8), Susan Lambert,[...]Strachan wrote:

“A strong argument was put to the
meeting that, given the limited nature
of the Co-op's resources, a more
effective relationship[...]n and distribution needed to
be established . . . The meeting,
therefore, resolved that, ‘If the film-
makers wish their films to be eligible
for major exhibition by the Co-op,
then they must lodge the film for
exclusive non-theatrical distribution,
except that the filmmakers are not
excluded from arranging non-
t[...]l rentals on a non-exclusive
basis'."

In effect, the Co-op will only exhibit
films it distributes. As[...]o major distributors of short films in
Australia (the Co-op and the Austra-
lian Film Institute), the decision at the
annual general meeting has set up a
no-win situation for filmmakers. The
choices basically are:

1. Going with the Co-op. This means

a Sydney Co-op cinema release,[...]W distribution and little
action in other states (the Co-op
having no other cinemas and little
effectiv[...]alone throughout Aus-

tralia; or

3. Going with the AFl’s Vincent

Library and an AFI release. This[...]sewhere, with a
possible release in Melbourne (at
the Longford), Sydney (Opera
House) and Hobart (State[...]th
this dilemma is David Bradbury. Either
he gave the Co-op Public Enemy No.
One and went for a basical[...]stribution and Melbourne/
Sydney exhibition (with the AFI).

Neither, obviously, is ideal, because
what you gain in one territory you lose
in another. Given the difficulties facing
independent filmmakers, it is an in-
vidious choice.

The AFI in particular is upset by the
AGM resolution as it was made without
consultation with the AFI. The Co-op
has long had an agreement with the AFI
whereby each organization consults the
other before undertaking radical
changes in distribution or exhibition.

John Foster, the AFl’s executive
director, raised his concern ov[...]FI public meeting in Sydney,
but those members of the Co-op
present felt circumstances were so
pressing that the Co-op had no choice
but to act.

All these consid[...]er, a more fundamental issue is
at stake: namely, the adoption by a
body of a practice it has vocally a[...]“vertical integration". In this
case, it means the linking of exhibition
and distribution on an exclusive basis.

“Vertical integration" of the
American exhibitors/distributors’ in-
terests has been the most attacked
practice in the Australian film industry
for decades. Many see it as the prin-
cipal reason for Australia's lack of a
feature film industry in the 1950s and
1960s. In fact, most industry people
sa[...]nly hope for develop-
ing a local industry lay in the breaking
down of this vertical integration. Many,

including the Australian Labor Party
and Actors Equity, still b[...]tical integration came under
severe attack during the 1972 Tariff
Board Inquiry into the film and tele-
vision industry. Various submissions
demanded the divorcing of distribution
and exhibition in Australia, Dr
Coombs suggesting that the then
Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, read
the riot act to the major exhibitorl
distributors.

Attacks continued during the 1970s,
several film historians seeing parallels
between the incursion of the American
majors in the 1930s and 1940s, and the
subsequent decline in production, with
the problems of getting an industry
going in the 19703.

Not all commentators have remained
consistent on the issue, though. in
1973, Antony I. Ginnane was the most
vocal critic of vertical integration. In
197[...]Ginnane‘s reversal, no one
could have predicted the Sydney Co-
op's abrupt turnabout. The Co-op has
always seen itself as a radical organiza-
tion supporting those disadvantaged
by the “system". It has taken a highly
"moral” line on many issues, and has
spared the distributor/exhibitor in-
terests little. To adopt a tactic of the
“system" comes, therefore, as a sur-
prise.

On[...]ms of “vertical integration"
are not allowed in the U.S., where legal
action was taken under the Sherman
anti-trust laws. This led to a partial
di[...]rs, have gone unheeded
in Australia.

So, what is the reason for the turn-
about? When challenged at the AFI
public meeting in Sydney, one Co-op
member admitted to the possibility of a
philosophical contradiction, but added,
“We need the money." “That”, came
the obvious reply, “is what Paramount
no doubt said[...]22,
1981, in Melbourne. It is being
organized by the Fantasy Film Society
of Australia.

Those interes[...].

U.S. CRITICS ACKNOWLEDGE
AUSTRALIAN FILMS

For the first time, Australian films
were featured prominently in the an-
nual U.S. critics’ “Top Tens". Charles
Champlin of The Los Angeles Times
selected Breaker Moran! and My
Brilliant Career, as did Rex Reed of
The New York Evening News.

The critics for Time and The New
York Times listed neither, but the high
circulation People chose My Brilliant
Career[...]poration (Australia) Pty Ltd recently an-
nounced the formation of a national
16mm film division which[...]nch Film Distributors, Filmways and
many others.

The management structure of the
new division will be David Chard as
general manag[...]and Cooper will be Ken
Jackson and Brian Duffy.

The head office of Amalgamated
(16mm) film distributors will be located
on the 6th level of the Hoyts Entertain-
ment Centre, 505 George St, Sydn[...]A conference on History and Film is
to be held at the Australian National
University, Canberra, from November
23 to 27, 1981. The conference will
provide an opportunity for film
e[...]television and films
to get together to consider the
theoretical and practical implications of
their w[...]lect an increasing in-
terest by film scholars in the processes
of the recording and/or transmission of
history by the means of film.

AFI ELECTIONS

In accordance with the articles of as-
sociation of the Australian Film in-
stitute, three positions have been made
vacant on the board of directors. The
three retiring directors, who are eligible
for re-appointment, are John Flaus,
Scott Murray and David Roe. The
remaining four directors (Senator
David Hamer, Pa[...]pattern of three vacant positions
one year, four the next, is continuous.

Nominations for the 1981 board
closed on February 20, and the an-
nouncement of those elected will be
made at the annual general meeting on
March 28, at the Longford Cinema,
Melbourne.

ALL-TIME CHAMPS

in[...]and Canadian film rental of
more than $4 million. The 10 highest
earners are:

1. Star Wars $175,685,000
2. Jaws $133,435,000
3. The Empire

Strikes Back $120,000,000
4. Grease $96,300,000
5. The Exorcist $88,500,000
6. The Godfather $86,275,000
7. Superman $82,500,000
8. The Sound of

Music $79,748,000
3. The Sting $78,963,000

_A

Close Encounters
of the Third Kind $77,000,000

Steven Spielberg has two films in
the Top Ten (Jaws and Close En-
counters), but George[...]Only one film in this list was released
in 1980, the 10 highest rental earners
being:

Private Benjamin $33,500,000
Blues Brothers

1. The Empire

Strikes Back $120,000,000
2. Kramer vs Kramer $60,528,000
3. The Jerk $43,000,000
4. Airplane (Flying

High in Australia) $38,000,000
5. smokey and the

Bandit ll $37,600,000
6. Coal Miner’s
7[...]

10. The Shining $30,200,000

Another film of interest is The Blue
Lagoon, co-produced by Australian
Richard Franklin, which is at No. 11
with $28,456,000. But the most
dramatic feature is the fact The Empire
Strikes Back earned almost double the
rental of Kramer vs Kramer, the No. 2
film. This reflects a relatively poor year.

The only Australian films to make the
1980 list were Mad Max at No. 82 with
$3,500,000,[...]Alan
Rudolf’s Roadie ($2,480,646), Sam
Fuller's The Big Red One ($2,328,675)
and Tom Horn ($4,300,000[...]e McQueen
vehicle.

Xanadu, for one, didn’t set the world
alight with $10 million, nor did The
Island with $9.6 million.

the Library Association of Australia.
She is a Commonwealth Literary
Fellowship winner and the author of the
book The Winter Sparrows.

Senator Durack said Eve Clifford,
who had been a member of the Board
since 1972, had also been reappointed.
Another appointment is still to be made
to the Board and applications for this
position are being considered.

GETTING INTO THE ACT

A'ustralia’s isn't the only film industry
where sections of the community are
taking union action to gain conces-
sions. Last year, the U.S. was hit by a
14-week actors’ strike, and a[...]and
directors are considering similar
action.

in the past, agreements between the
Writers Guild of America and the As-
sociation of Motion Picture Producers
have been routinely processed.
Disputes have been minor and the
relationship stable. The increased
profits in home video and pay-
television, however, have set the writers
after what they see as a fairer share of
the take. The studios. which have had a
fairly lean decade, rea[...]ts were only
now allowing them to hold their own.
The writers were unimpressed.

Another point of disag[...]olo. which was 0 moderate C0mmEf-
cial success in the U.S.

FILM CENSORSHIP
APPOINTMENTS

The Attorney-General, Senator Peter
Durack, recently announced the ap-
pointment of a new Deputy Chief Cen-
sor and two new members of the Film
Censorship Board. The new Deputy
Chief Censor is Ken Barton, a member
of the Film Censorship Board since
1971. Barton replaces Joan Pilone, who
resigned as Deputy Chief Censor near
the completion of her term late last
year.

The two new members of the Film
Censorship Board are Sue Pickering
and Mary[...]Pickering, 28, is a former regional
inspector of the Censorship section of
the Attorney-General’s Department in
Melbourne, and an associate of the
Library Association of Australia. She
has been en[...]helor
of Arts degree and is an Associate of

over the refusal of WGA (West) to
negotiate with one emplo[...], preferring to enter into
separate negotiations. The AMPTP and
several studios then lodged action
against the WGAW with the National
Labor‘ Relations Board, charging the
WGAW has failed to bargain in good
faith. This led to a stalemate in talks be-
tween the WGAW and the AMPTP; the
talks have only just resumed.

The latest development was a call by
the WGA for a February 3 meeting to
ask members for a[...]quested was an increase
in guild dues.

So, until the studios and the writers
agree on whether writers should
receive a cut: of the gross on pay-
television, strike action looks likely.
And the directors, who have pre-
viously had cordial rela[...]anagement, are looking to see if they
should join the fray: if they do, the U.S.
again faces a product shortage. For
outside[...]tors and musicians look likely in

Britain. Again the central issue is a
percentage of ancillary market[...]What has brought about such poss-
ible action is the expiry, on March 9, of
the pay agreement between the British
Film Producers Association, Actors
Equity and the Musicians’ Union. Talks
are being held, but mos[...]kely.

NATIONAL GUILD
CONFERENCE IN
MELBOURNE

The first national conference of the
Australian Writers Guild is to be held in
Melbourne next year. Commencing on
the evening of June 22, it will proceed
throughout th[...]nating in
tztge 1981 Awgies Award Dinner on June

The principal purpose of the con-
ference will be the debate and
proclamation of a new AWG constitu-
tion. Within this will be considered the
rules of the organization, its national
and state structures,[...]s.

COST VS YIELD

Another interesting feature of the
January 14 Variety is an analysis of
Cost vs U.S. Yield for big-budget films.
Examples include the infamous $44
million Cleopatra, which earned $26
million in the US. domestic market.

lian film and television community.

The Association is open to teachers
or students of me[...]nference is planned for
1982 in Melbourne, and in the interim
severa|,,workshops and seminars will
take place.

Those who wish to offer suggestions
concerning the structure and content of
these activities should[...]vestment in film and television produc-
tion, and the development of film and
television material.

Dur[...]than $10
million of Australian filmmaking. It was
the first independent film investment
company to surface after years of
government money having been
pumped into the industry.

Now, in February 1981, a new com-
pany[...]rcerer $22,000,000 $5,900,000
Close Encounters of the Third Kind $21,000,000 $82,700,000
APOCBIYPSG NOW[...]23,400,000
Blues Brothers $31,000,000 $30,000,000
The Empire Strikes Back $22,000,000 $120,000,000

The yield figures are not as up-to-
date as in the “all-time champs" list,
Apocalypse Now now havi[...]but Coppola's
closest supporters.

One lesson of the analysis is that big-
budgets don't guarantee success. Lord
Grade's $36 million Raise the Titanic,
for example, sank with a dismal $6.8
million.

But the worst returns are for the $10
million Red Tent, which secured only
$900,000[...]NEWHART DIFFUSION

Following her resignation from the
Adelaide International Film Festival,
along with five other board members,
after the banning of Sweet Sweet-
back’s Baadasss Song, f[...]Himself).

AUSTRALIAN SCREEN
STUDIES ASSOCIATION

The newly-formed Australian Screen
Studies Associatio[...]whose
concern it is to provide a focal point for
the stimulation of an Australian media
culture. Its ambition is to draw together
members who are active in the Austra-

be issued, to find a working capital of
$7 million, to provide the purchase
price for the acquisition of Pact
Productions Pty Ltd by Filmco Ltd and
qualify the new company for listing on
member exchanges of the Australian
Associated Stock Exchange. Shares
have[...]by Jackson,
Graham Moore and Partners, member
of the Sydney Stock Exchange.

The directors of Filmco will be Peter
Fox, Robert San[...]ng career in radio
and television journalism. For the past
two years, he has been running Pact
Producti[...]eehill Hollingdale and Page,
solicitors, has, for the past five years,
been the head of legal and business af-
fairs at the South Australian Film Cor-
poration. The SAFC has agreed to act
as a consultant to the new company.

With local budgets increasing, the
directors of Filmco believe that Aus-
tralian pro[...]ists in Australia at
present. It is proposed that the com-
pany service this area which it regards
as having great potential for expansion.

The directors believe there is also
considerable scope for the establish-
ment and operation of a sales
agency/marketing organization to han-
dle the worldwide exploitation of
Australian and selected overseas films
and television product. The proposed
activities of Filmco are:

0 prov[...]

They made remarks abo[...]nd Don Crombie (assessor).
They also commented on the Creative
Development Branch's refusal to fund
Har[...]ies
from Lachie Shaw and Don Crombie to
accompany the interview. Their com-
ments provided more evidence of the
problems encountered.

Shaw supports the assessors and
their decision to refuse funding. H[...]ronted that he
should ask for finance to complete the
film, calling his expectation “the divine
right to continuing support".

Shaw and Crombie set very high
standards of professionalism -- in the
“morality" of applicants‘ behavior and
the cinematic standard of their work.
One hopes they may provide the
example themselves, but the standard
they ask for seems a trifle extreme. I
h[...]com-
plete his feature, especially consider-
ing the funds requested by McLennan
may not pay for the hotel accommoda-
tion on a Crombie film.

Most of the industry would disagree
with the Shaw/Cr.ombie opinion that
Hard Knocks is a "flaw[...]would be very difficult to find
anyone who thinks the film should not
have been completed. But this,
however, was the decision of the
Creative Development Branch. Hard
Knocks was eventually completed with
money from the private sector; the in-
itial Creative Development Branch
finance was recouped ($33,000); the

The Editor reserves the right to cor-
rect for style, abbreviate and invi[...]more major awards than
any low-budget feature in the past 10
years; and, on a cost-to-return basis. is[...]s.

It is doubtful that any project re-
jected by the Creative Development
Branch has achieved the same level of
commercial and critical success. In
fact, it is doubtful that any project sup-
ported by the Branch has achieved the
same standard. Under the circum-
stances, and considering the Branch's
brief to encourage low-budget film-
maki[...].

Instead, McLennan and Friedrich are
treated to the same paternalism and
schoolmasterly homilies that
obstructed the production of Hard
Knocks from the beginning.

Rod Bishop

Dear Sir,

I read with in[...]p’s
interview with Don McLennan, particu-
larly the section dealing with an anony-
mous assessor on Don's project, King
Island. I was one of the assessors, the
others being Henry Crawford and Don
Crombie.

Now[...]ters into working for $140 a week.

Don remembers the interview better
than I do. My diary refers to the project
as slow-paced and naive, with an ab-
surdly low budget, plus the fact that he
became very red-faced and screamed
at his putative producer doing the inter-
view to shut up.

I am surprised Don Cromb[...]assert he did not,
they had interviews, one after the other,
and it seems unlikely to me.

I certainly was the assessor who kept
hammering about the low budget, butl
do not remember slipping outside and
offering to get Don the money if I could
produce the film for him. At the time.
February 1977, I was involved with
Love Let[...]nd and Newsfront, and Don
Crombie was immersed in The
Irishman. Perhaps it was Henry — you
never can tell with these quiet ones.

PS: I also enjoyed the story about
the crew being tricked into finishing the
film, believing there was sufficient
funds to pay them, especially the part
about how they all got paid later. As far
as[...]n

MORE ADO ABOUT ELLIS

Dear Sir,

May I take the opportunity to correct
a number of inaccuracies q[...]mply because they are
in print.
1. As producer of the film, I was not
imposed upon the writers by the
New South Wales Film Corpora-
tion. Anne Brooksba[...]telephoned me and asked me to
consider producing the film. Pre-
viously, I had been asked by Bob
Ellis to edit the film.

2. It was at my suggestion that Judy
Morris was offered the lead role.

Roadshow later agreed to the
proposed casting.

3. The change of line from "Luna
Park" to “Sydney Harbour" was
not changed on the day. The
original line was used in filming
and Ellis had p[...]o propose a new line, and
was requested to do so. The line
was changed in a post-sync ses-
sion, at my[...]ran's reply line
is: “I know. I've been up from the
country for some time", which
does make some difference to the
meaning of the new line.

4. At no time did the New South
Wales Film Corporation instruct
us to r[...]I as producer
did agree with them that we
remove the physical presence of
Whitlam. Further reference t[...]us, as he refused Ellis‘ re-
quest to appear in the film.

Incidentally, I was intrigued by the

photograph of atriptych Bob, posed by
the exit sign. Are you suggesting that
he is on the way out? Surely not. Upon
reflection, I imagine that the simple ex-
planation is he came in the wrong way.

Brian Kavanagh

Dear Sir,

Much as I enjoyed reading the inter-
view with Bob Ellis, I was puzzled by
one point that he made.

Bob claims to have sent me the
script of Maybe This Time, and that I
“hated it[...].

David Stevens

RIGHTING REVIEWS

Dear Sir,

The Blue Lagoon is described In
Scott Murray's review as “openly
explicit". The example given is that
when “Emme|ine (Brooke Shields)
experiences her first period, the pool in
which she is bathing turns a dark red."[...]t’s
Carrie all over again — its not explicit.
The amount of blood lost during an
entire menstrual p[...]t a bucket of
water.

And yet "when Emmeline sees the
pool water darken. she calls out in
terror for Richard." In the whole “fan-
tasy paradise” the only part of human
sensuality/sexuality presented[...]are Iepers
once a month, and so on. Male fear of
the bloody woman isn't new. It should
be recognized for wha[...]

, The point of the pool scene is to
convey that girls have periods ([...]at is “out-
spoken”), and that Emmeline feels the
experience to be private — once her
fear has re[...]dal
Kleiser undermines Emmeline’s
response with the clear implication that

menstruation is natural and shouIdn’t
be hidden. (He makes the same point,

incidentally. about masturbation.)[...]ion of "Unclean.
uncleani", it says nothing about The
Blue Lagoon.

Dear Sir,

Nowhere surely could one[...]y a wider gap than in Ken Mogg‘s film
review of The Shining (Cinema Papers,
No. 30, pp 478, 479).

A[...], to equip him for his next foray into
fatulty in the guise of a film review.

Though to be fair, one m[...]recordists often
receive an unfair proportion of the
credit for the quality of a film's sound.

In Jim McCullogh’s review of The
Earthling, he refers to Don Connolly's
crisp sound recording as one of the
admirable contributions by a local
technician. This crisp sound recording
was in fact the subtle sound editing of
Bob Cogger who quite literally trans-
formed that element of the film.

To be fair to the sound recording
fraternity, they often work under[...]nough time or con-
sideration by other members of the
crew to do their job properly.

This is where the sound editor comes
into the picture. He may, if the film has
been shot under noisy conditions, have
to re-record or post-sync much of the
dialogue, replace background at-
mospheres and sound effects, and
manufacture many others in the studio
for greater control when mixing. He
can, and generally does, transform the
sound of the film, bringing it alive and
adding depth and dime[...]tors are rather like arrangers: they
orally score the film in all its complexity
and then pass it over to the sound
mixer who very skilfully blends it all
together.

As is the case with many locally-
made features, the bulk of the creditfor
the quality of the sound should go to
the sound editor and not the sound
recordist. The Earthling is one such
film.

Most of the dialogue was post-
synced, much of the flora and fauna
footage was shot mute, and Peter[...]icky Schroder
through a majority of his scenes on the
film further complicating matters.

Nick Beauman,[...]n tardy imitation of
myself, a young publicist on the way up
to such earthly glory as remains in Mur-[...]es women because no
women appear in it, except as the
fleeting midnight fantasies of men on
trial for t[...]ot made
by him, as I recall, or by anyone else in
the similar cases of King and Country
and Paths of Gl[...]h tears, a
song poignant enough to bring to tears
the young French fantaslzing soldiers
en route to their certain slaughter on
the western front.

As in Breaker Morant, women playe[...]hy not? And if so,
why did he not include them in the out-
raged condemnation he accorded
Breaker Moran[...]lonial
cringe? Does he believe it is all right If
the English or the Americans do
something — they have poetic licence
to do it — but if the Australians do it,
there should be a Royal Commis[...]kin. Perhaps Stephen Crofts will
now level it, in the letters page. If not, I
cannot help but wonder wh[...]ained by a
study of his lacerating assertion that
the Boers are "marginalized“, and
therefore "repressed”, because they do
not appear as major characters in the
film, in spite of their similarity, as pea-
sant farmers smarting under British
colonialism, to the Australians they are
fighting.

Would he also say[...]lms as Paths of Glory, King and
Country, Dunkirk, The Dam Busters,
Reach for the Sky, The Battle of Bri-
tain, Alexander Nevsky, Destiny of a
Man, Ballad of a Soldier and A Walk in
the Sun the Germans are repressed
because they do not appear as major
characters, and that in All Quiet on the
Western Front the English and the
French are repressed because they do
not appear i[...]characters? If
so, why did he not condemn, under the
blanket category “repression“, all war
films[...]te, he certainly raises a
number of questions. Is The Women
sexist because no men appear in it? It
must[...]ofts quotes me at length, probably
because I used the word "man|iness” in
my review. I used it because it ac-
curately expresses one of the many
Australian qualities — qualities very
much of the chosen era - that Edward
Woodward, Jack Thompson[...]st, used in a review
of, say, My Brilliant Career the word

“woman|lness" in relation to Judy
Davis’ performance,[...]says as well that it is
hypocritical of me to say the English,
the Greeks, the Italians and the
Chinese have a right to be in Aus-
tralian films[...]cupied by Americans, as there are by
Germans and the descendants of
Scots, there would be every reason to
make films about them.

As it stands, with the exception of the
American soldiers in Sydney and
Brisbane in World War 2, and the Viet-
nam dogfaces on leave in Kings Cross
in the late 1960s, there is no reason to
make films abou[...]alian films annoy Aus-
tralian audiences, in much the same
way as, say, Turkish actors with thick
Turki[...]American films would an-
noy American audiences.

The simplest reason why American
actors should not be[...]making Australian films,
but American films, and the Australian
Government funding bodies, which by
de[...]hake-
speare's Hamlet does not adequately
explore the diplomatic tensions be-
tween Denmark and Poland in the early
11th Century; the total failure of Shake-
speare's. King Lear to recreate Druidic
ritual; the total failure of Superman II to
expose the penal system of the planet
Krypton for what it really was; or the
failure of Scrooge McDuck comics to
expound the Marxist point of view.

His complaint that Breake[...]r
cultural repression in colonial Aus-
tralia, or the best way of preventing the
next My Lai (if he knows how to do this,
perhaps he should share his wisdom,
and quickly) is to miss the point of the
film. This, unless I am mistaken, is how

cert[...]ltures reacted in a certain trying
situation: how the English, to prevent
war with Germany, decided to kill a few
Australians to palliate the Kaiser, and
how the Australian soldiers and their
Australian lawyer b[...]air, aggression,
cunning and finally grace.

That the film does not explore as well
the place of the horse in the South
African war is perhaps a pity, as is the
omission of a long soliloquy on the
miraculous change wrought in modern
warfare by the invention of the machine
gun, or indeed the price of fish, without
which England, a maritime[...]inanced its dreaded
colonial adventures.

Perhaps the best way to show what a
fool Crofts is would be t[...]e thinks Breaker Morant should
be. Let us take up the story at the point
where Sharp (Chris Haywood) has
stood down from the dock.
HANDCOCK: Just you and me, mate.
SHARP: Ah, git stuffed. (Exit.)
JUDGE: The prisoner will control

himself, or be restrained.
(Enter Rumpole.)
RUMPOLE: My lord, I crave the
court's indulgence. I call
to the witness box a sim-
ple Boer. I propose to
show the court the
similarities between the
two colonial nations Aus-
tralia and South Africa[...]Who is this fucker? He’ll
go. He'll bloody go. (The
simple Boer takes the
stand, chewing a straw.)
What is the purpose of
this testimony, Mr Rum-
pole?
To show,[...]es) I protest,
your Honor. This has no
bearing on the case.
Indeed, it is sympto-
matic of the prosecu-
tion’s repeated desire to
twist the facts.
I myself fail to see what
bearing it has,[...]g ,of
civilians in time of war.
Rumpole, m’|ud. The
point is to establish the
effect that colonialism
has on any people.
Well surely it depends on
the people, Mr Rumpole.

JUDGE:

RUMPOLE:

THO[...]

Down Under can afford to be without. "

mustfor anyone interested
in the localfilm industry. ”
Australian Playboy

Scree[...]981/82

Cinema Papers is pleased to announce that the 1981/82 edition of the
Australian Motion Picture Yearbook is now in preparation.
The enlarged, updated 1981/82 edition will contain ma[...]ers, editors and sound recordists
0 Monographs on the work of director Bruce Beresford, producer Matt C[...]d drive-ins
0 A special feature on technology and the film industry

Specifications

B5 (240 x 180mm[...]mail order, and
through T.B. Clark (Overseas) in the
U.S., Canada and Britain.

Contents‘

'[...]

I don't think it is. It[...]are try-
ing to prevent a war with
Germany.

I on the other hand, your
Honor, am trying to pre-
vent the next My Lai.
(Pause.)

I didn't fully understand
the reference, Mr Rum-
pole.

As well you might not.[...]p? Is
it army cooking? is it lack
of women? is it the kind
of women colonialism
produces: repressed,
re[...]you cannot
believe how I have

yearned, to uplift the con-

versational quality of
military court marti[...]ce in one night.
(Thomas rises.)

My lord, I find the
prosecution’s arguments
totally fallacious. In the
first place Boers and
Australians are not very
al[...]believing in pre-
destination. Australians
are in the main practising
agnostics, and drink like
fish. B[...], remittance
men with rhyming dic-
tionaries. But the variety
of character in any
colony makes it almos[...]. . . for a joke.

(His eyes mist over.) Ah
yes, the dear dead days
flower of Malaya I
cannot say . . .

I protest, your Honor. The
prosecution is singing
during my summing up.

RUM[...]little music into
court proceedings, to
alleviate the tension of
men in peril of their lives.
You seem to have
revolutionary ideas, Mr
Rumpole, on the ultimate
purpose of military court
martials.

Well, if you can't say what
you think, what's the pur-
pose of anything? If a
man with music in his[...]usic burst forth .. .
(sings) My Bonnie lies
over the ocean

My Bonnie lies over the
sea

My Bonnie lies over the
ocean . . .

(moved, joins in) Oh
bring back my B[...]ck
my Bonnie to me, to me.
I protest, your Honor. The
purpose of this trial is to
ascertain certain fac[...]as. Who needs
facts, when we've got
opinions, and the singing
voice of Breaker Morant.
Eat, drink and b[...]in
abbreviated form:

1. Breaker Morant exploits the con-
ventions of realist film: its con-
tinuous e[...]we always
know where we are spatially relative
to the action); it invites us to engage
in the cause-effect sequence of a
closed narrative struc[...]n these ways it “authen-
ticates” as “real" the world which it
fabricates, while concealing the
processes by which it does so. It
thus reduces the possibility of our
thinking of alternative representa-
tions of women, war, imperialism, or
the rights of prisoners, or indeed of
Ellis’ chosen[...]issues may mean to us
NOW.

. In conjunction with the film's struc-
ture of sympathies, these conven-
tions call upon us to identify with the
films represented attitudes (among
others) of cultural cringe and sex-
ism.

. The films morality structure and
identification of it[...], let alone
any analysis of it. While allowing us
the luxury of a laugh at the Poms,
the film effectively endorses British
imperialism, wh[...]Realpolitik in
which a few wild colonial boys get
the chop.

. This failure to analyse or even
describe[...]r Morant’s popularity here
suggests pleasure in the laughter
mentioned above, but relief that the
criticism implied in that laughter is
not followe[...]r documentary, af-
fect our ways of understanding the

world. The narrative, characteriza-

tion and structure of sympathies of

Breaker Moran! vindicate the likes

of Lt William Calley.

Like a child with a[...]e at least hits arguments 4 and 5,
if only around the edges. But he com-
pletely misses 1, 2 and 3. Not[...]d 3 underpin 4 and
5, but also from understanding the as-
sumptions underpinning his own asser-
tions. I will do his objections the
courtesy of logical refutation:

1. Ellis travest[...]plaining that "Hamlet
does not adequately explore the
diplomatic tensions between Den-
mark and Poland in the early 11th
Century”, etc. Nor am I trying to
re[...]— but I am arguing that
all art is political in the sense that it
either opposes or endorses its ex-[...]piece of legislation or even
Ronald Reagan having the power to
stop the next My Lai. I wrote, more
modestly, about genera[...]of how it might be stopped.
Many films represent the killing of
civilians in such a way as to dis-
courage thought about the forces
which bring about such situations.
Breaker[...]s, it
appears, refuses to consider my
point about the cultural continuity
between British colonialism a[...]r to
Canada than it is to South Africa, but
given the lacunae of our cultural
history, any comparison o[...], is of some
value). And by merely bleating
about the nasty Yanks and making
pious remonstrations about[...]al quicksand. Breaker
Morant, similarly, makes it the more
difficult to begin to analyse how
American c[...]s together
three further objections, which are
of the order of straw-clutching:

. Ellis asks why I omi[...]orant
being sexist. Perhaps he would care
to read the second sentence of the
third paragraph of my article. And if
he hasn't e[...]n more widely.

. “Why did he not condemn under the
blanket category ‘repression’ all war
films t[...]used . . . in a review of...
My Brilliant career thethe
swappability of genders but of the
differential constitution of gender
stereotypes.[...]n his
rewrite of Breaker Morant, Ellis ex-
ploits the most exploitative of such
stereotypes.

The root cause of Ellis’ difficulties is
his monolithic notion of the individual.
This informs both the conceptual and
rhetorical dimensions of his letter.

LETTERS

First, for the sake of getting it out of
the way, there is his rhetoric. Quite
apart from the cheap laughs, the non-
sequiturs and the trivializations, Ellis
apparently needs to resort to the Grub
Street tactic of ad hominem remarks in
some[...]tantive argument. I look
forward to first meeting the man whose
calumny, ridicule and innuendo
suggest[...]“argu-
ments merit contempt" neatly
epitomizes the ease with which he
trades rationality for emotional reac-
tion. And the Melbourne mistress he
uses, rhetorically, to shor[...]his own deeply-sexist fiction.

Individualism is the conceptual
stumbling block which seems to pre-
ve[...]rguments. He appears incapable of
thinking beyond the individualist terms
of conventional forms of char[...]as psy-
chologically realistic, making sense for
the spectator and thus offering
themselves as objects[...]ith any is-
sues in such a film it is not us, but the
characters, and then in accordance
with their deployment within the
narrative structure. Any issues are a
mere adjunct to the character. The
world is represented as if individuals
(the characters) control it, but this
representation s[...]t we can make no contribution
to it. From outside the fictional world,
we just watch the characters do their
thing. The conventions at work here
block any sustained analysis of issues.
They replace a conceptual logic with
the paired logics of narrative develop-
ment and the psychological realism of
characters. A critical a[...]ock or Thomas. Such iden-
tification flattens out the historical and
cultural differences between us an[...]em: either we identify (and
follow slavishly into the thought realms
of Lt William Calley) or we don’t identify
(in which case we probablyjust say that
the film is a failure for us). Heads I win,
tails you[...]n our given society. This is far
more useful than the profoundly anti-
human prescription that the answer to
leading thethe kind offilm I have
in mind, he might consider Numero
Deux or Song Of The Shirt.

This prompts some concluding
remarks about the widespread kind of
criticism which Ellis exemplifies. The
similarity of values which emerge, in
both Breake[...]about it, gives some clue as to
why he might like the film. If criticism
is to be any more than a rationaliza-
tion/projection of the critic’s own views,
it must make its assumption[...]with no guarantee
of social responsibility beyond the fact
that someone has the contract for the
job. It is of major importance to
demystify the critic’s practice of in-
dividualist tas[...]

Brown then returned to[...]e
staged revues in pubs, and appeared on stage at
the Nimrod and the Black Theatre. It was at
this latter venue that W[...]e included a part in a play, “Back-
yard”, at the Nimrod.

Barbara Alysen interviewed Brown just as he
was starting work on yet another film, John
Duigan’s The Winter of our Dreams. Brown
begins by expl[...]

The year before last, I heard that
two mini-series were about to be
made: The Last Outlaw and A
Town Like Alice. I hadn’t done any
television before, except for a part
in Against the Wind, but I felt both
were good stories. I knew the
people behind them, having worked
with Henry Crawford [Alice] and
Ian Jones [Outlaw] on Against the
Wind. I knew they weren’t merely
playing a game[...]nd.

But, having decided I wanted to
be in one of the series, I still didn’t
know how I would achieve[...]Crawford rang me.
.Luckily, he had me in mind all the
time; this made things pretty easy.

The fact that Henry was doing
Alice also swayed me into taking
the role, because he doesn’t want to
fail. He is a[...]an
intelligent bloke and has a good
idea of what the public would like.
At the same time, he isn’t inter-
ested in making some[...]er-
taining stories.

Did you pursue a part in “The Last
Outlaw”?

No. In fact, I was pleased that
John Jarratt got the role because
we are very close mates. I also
didn[...]t because I had A Town Like
Alice.

Have you seen the original film of
“A Town Like Alice” [1956, w[...]s a good film but not
anything wonderful; I think the
book is terrific. The film only went
half way and stopped when Jean
and[...]crazy
because there is a fantastic other
side to the book, which is the time
spent in the outback. I felt it was an
opportunity to play the definitive
Australian.

Joe Harmon is a role that[...]portrayal?

I think it is a shame he didn’t get
the opportunity to do the whole
book. But Peter Finch and Bryan
Brown are v[...]o are our Joe
Harmons.

Will people who have seen the origi-

nal version bring certain expecta-
tions to your portrayal?

16 —— Cinema Papers, March—April

The only expectation they will
have is an idea of what the story is
about. But you can explore things a
lot[...]an
in one-and—a-half. There is a lot
more about the women and their
trek, and greater time spent on J[...]for her.

What kind of preparation did you do
for the role? Did you talk to people
who were around at the time?

No.

Do you ever do that?

Sometimes, but[...]lly useless. What I have to
come to terms with is the psyche of
thethe story overtake
me. I tend to take on attitudes in
the character. But then, I don’t
know if, saying th[...]shitting, either. All I do is I devote
myself to the thing. I see the pro-

ducer all the time. I talk to the
director. I want to know how it’s
going, who is doing this and that. I
immerse myself in the project.

I let all that soak through. Then I
read the script and try to get an
understanding of the person: why
he would be in a place, what he is
at[...]e time
trying to understand his psyche so
that by the time filming starts I
have a personality I can th[...]few television
shows and not been used. And when
the films started happening I found
the scripts were more stimulating
than those I’d seen on television.

I am not stimulated by Thethe success or
failure of “A Town Like Alice”?
When “Water Under the Bridge”
failed to find an audience, people

were casting doubts on the future of
mini-series . . .

People have been saying “the
industry rides on this film” about
every film made in the past five
years. Right now, the industry is
the healthiest it has been, but three
or four months[...]er and
buried. I wasn’t one of those
people, by the way.

So, I don’t think alot rides on A
Town Li[...], is there
anything you hope people will get
from the series?

Yes, the characters have a lot to
say. They aren’t whing[...]t into a situation which
doesn’t resolve itself the way they

No.

Of the roles you have played, what
are your favorites?[...]film. It is a very good film and
it brought me to the notice of a lot
of people. I also enjoyed the
character I played in Third Person
Plural, for Ja[...]am not saying. I liked them all
I liked Rogers in The Odd Angry
Shot. I liked the guy in Cathy’s
Child, not that he was particularly
pertinent to the story. I liked Hand-
cock in Breaker Morant a lot, and I
know the public does as well. I
think he comes closest to defining

the Australian we know today. I
liked him for that.

Who is the director with whom you
have most enjoyed working?[...]im a great deal. I
would work again with Steve at the
drop of a hat.

I also work very well with Bruce[...]o on

I-'

Bryan Brown in his first /ilm role, as the husband Len. in Stephen

A Town Like Alice made it excit-
ing getting up in the morning to
start work -— and that was for the
whole l6 weeks.

I don’t think I’d do a film if I
didn’t like or respect the director,
no matter what the film was. I
couldn’t go through six or seven
we[...]round someone I
thought was an arse-hole.

Who is the actor you most admire?

I am a great fan of Al Pacino’s.
He has immense integrity in the
playing of his characters, and he
seems a pretty[...]hose cats. If you
go back a bit, Marlon Brando is the
best actor I think I’ve seen.

What about actre[...]lm, but I thought
she was terrific in Water Under the
Bridge.

Among the Americans I like,
there is Tuesday Weld, who is t[...]T eralba Road.

BRYAN BROWN

now. I understand the language and
the society is the closest to the one I
know; the people seem to have the
same problems.

Among modern-day directors, I
lik[...]yone. Michael Cimino is an
absolute arse-hole and The Deer
Hunter is probably the biggest load
of shit I have seen. I don’t like[...]like to move in direc-
tions other than acting?

The great thing about the Aus-
tralian film industry is that it is new
—[...]one project float-
ing with Gerry Bostock . . .

The project with Gerry is the first
concrete movement I have made
into another[...]r on a screenplay from Gerry’s
play, Here Comes the Nigger,
which I want to shoot. I haven’t
yet had the opportunity to shoot it,
and I am still working o[...]maybe there is a film there.

In Tom ./effre_v's The Odd Angry Shot, Brown played the soldier,

Rogers.

Cinema Papers, March-April — l7

Have you a timetable for complet-
ing the film with Bostock?

No, but as soon as I finish the
film with John Duigan, I’d like to
get started on it. However, I have
just heard that the Creative De-
velopment Branch of the Aus-
tralian Film Commission hasn’t
any money at the moment. This
makes it a bit difficult.

What sort[...]e to try and make
it for about $40,000.

What are the best and worst things
you have seen written about you?

The worst thing was in The
Women's Weekly. It quoted me as
saying that there[...]d I
hope there is, then let other people
say it.

The Womerfs Weekly doing that
really gave me a pain in the arse,
and I don’t think I will ever do any-
thi[...]ig head, and I really felt
shithouse about that.

The best thing that’s been said
about me was that I[...]ad it
somewhere. [Laughs.]

How much of a draw is the name
“Bryan Brown” on the marquee?

I wouldn’t have a clue. But I do
know that a lot of kids from the
suburbs really like me. I have been
in a situatio[...]t
to say I feel really good knowing
you came from the same area. So,
just keep saying the things you
say.” We then went home and
talked for ages.

I’ve had guys and young kids in
the street come up and say they like
me. So, I would[...]e it is well
known that you didn’t come through
the NIDA system?

They probably do know that,
because[...]e are certain things I say
which they agree with. The fact that
I like playing Australians makes a
lot[...]knew was
that doing it gave me quite a buzz.
But the academic side, the theor-
izing, left me a little bit bewil-
dered.[...]’s
based on. I now understand what
looking into thethe industry; I care
about the audience. As I have said,
until Australians start[...]o every Australian film, and
they sell very well, thethe Australian
Film Awards. It showed up some
profess[...]them.

Has Australia developed a star sys-
tem to the point where the go-ahead
of a production can hinge on having
a na[...]eresjbrd (right) with Bryan Brown (centre) during the filming 0/ Breaker Mar-ant.

18 — Cinema Pa[...]united inA
Town Like Alice.

would like to see in the films. It
does not mean that we drag people
into the cinema, but that we have
been connected with succ[...]d. On a smaller scale, it is
like what happens in the U.S.

Is that a good thing?

I don’t know. I fi[...]in
film industry politics?

Name an issue.

Say, the present feud between Actors’
Equity and[...]

How do you feel about the importa-
tion of overseas actors? There are
some[...]would be much better for one of us
to be playing the part. Similarly, if
there is a Yank, an Englishma[...]rest in
playing Englishmen, or Yanks.

What about the argument that im-
ported actors will want more mo[...]producers want to get their
films distributed in the U.S. But
even with all this talk around, you
look at the films being made this
year and there aren’t a[...]g; jealous
actors thinking maybe they won’t
get the jobs. But the facts never
pointed to us losing jobs.

Uri Windt[...]imports in. I know he defin-
itely wanted two. In the end, he got
one: Edward Woodward. And that
film[...]nd we
ended up with a good film. That’s
part of the whole system: each side
has ajob to do and each has to fight
hard for it.

Do you think the media have shown
Equity to be a lot less flexible than it

really is?

TheThe media have
told absolute lies. The media
haven’t even bothered to find out
the facts. The media, given the
chance, will union bash. We all
know that.

Some people feel the introduction of
the tax concessions for films will
lead to over-prod[...], “Jesus, I need
some money.” All of a sudden the
money is here. At the same time,
the rest of the world is all ears.

I have been away for three
months and I am absolutely aston-
ished at how the rest of thethe
top New York film critics, Bruce
Williamson, the critic for Playboy,
and several distributors. They were
all singing, “Tap, tap on my
window”, from The Picture Show
Man. They all knew the film.

One distributor was saying, “I
nearly g[...]ork, but they are cer-
tainly not showing them to the right
people, and they are certainly not
showing[...]uch of an audience as
other films do, except for the block-
busters like Superman and Star
Wars.

Ther[...]o to
where there are only three or four
people in the cinema. The point is
that an Australian audience, no
matter h[...]r own.

So, we will always have to keep an
eye on the foreign market . . .

Yes, if you are making thin[...]your money back, you
don’t have to worry about the audi-
ence. But there are not too many
benevolent[...]ent his
name to a number of causes. He has
backed the Wandjina Aboriginal
land rights appeal, and has n[...]terviewed —
and that is I don’t go along with the
idea that you are only a success if
you are famous or have made mil-
lions of dollars. I was a success the
moment I was born. I am in awe of
nobody. A kid g[...]respect people
because they deserve it. That’s the
only thing he should go on. That’s
the message I’d like to put my
name to. in[...]

Liz (Nancy A /len), the /z0oker«heroine of Dressed To Kill, “dressed to kill" as she anemprs to uncover the idemiry of Dr Elliott’: mysterious parie[...]

“The best horror films, like the best fairy-tales, manage to be reactionary, anarchistic
and revolutionary all at the same time. ”

Tom Ryan

ccasionally, published[...]rror films, or
reviews of particular examples of the genre’,
take the form of expressions of dismay directed
at what is seen as a malicious sexism in the films
and at the ways in which they exploit their audi-
ences’ e[...]eath, mutilation
and violation.

However, beneath the rhetoric, one rarely
finds anything beyond an impression of the film,
an impression often cast in enviably glitt[...]n because of its capriciousness.

Its approach to the objects of its scorn usually
aspires to a defence of the downtrodden (women
within a patriarchal order, or anyone whose sex-
ual behaviour transgresses the model provided
by the monogamous, heterosexual norm), a
proper concern[...]socially responsible.

But when its treatment of the films them-
selves is analytically incompetent, when its argu-
ment displays an ignorance of the ways in which
its targets are working as films,[...]of a
kind that can only be counter-productive to the
chosen cause. If it is constantly avoiding funda-
mental questions about the films it is dealing

1. Stephen King, “Why- We[...]nterest four articles by
Robin Wood: “Return of the Repressed” in Film Com-
ment, July-August 1978;[...]rs” in Film
Comment, September-October I978; “The American
Family Comedy: from Meet Me In St Louis to The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in Wide Angle, Vol. 3,[...]4, offers a
provocative psychoanalytic reading of the sexual
ideology imbedded in that film’s formal structure, while
Adrian Martin's brief sketch of Friday the 13th in Buff,
No. I. is encouraging evidence that[...]ritical
response to horror films is not entirely the product of
antipodean hysteria.

3. A very loosel[...]f “living dead” to those about psychopaths on the ram-
page in the streets of New York or Los Angeles or in the
comfortable suburbia of small-town America.

with[...]Martin and
I attempted to initiate discussion of the much-
maligned Cruising in terms which would deny[...]film nor its identity as
a cultural artefact‘. The two aspects, of course,
are indistinguishable, though for the purposes of
discussion they need to be isolated t[...]upon that which is represented
and secondly upon the system of representation
itself. My concern here[...]any attention to its formal
arrangementsfl with the result that ef-
forts to ascribe social meanings[...]cular films directed by
Alfred Hitchcock, though the view that De
Palma is simply imitating his predec[...]further discussion. More important, however,
are the terms in which characters and their func-
tions in the film are described, and much of the

4. Cinema Papers, No. 29, pp. 322-324, 392.
5. The most stimulating exception to this is Pauline I(ael’s
piece on the film in The New Yorker, August 4, 1980.

Stephen King‘

initial misreading of the way in which it is work-
ing begins here.

For ex[...]w of Dres-
sed To Kill‘ attacks what he sees as the way in
which Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) is
punished for her sexual misdemeanours:

. . the Angie Dickinson character, being a
libidinous soul, must suffer for her sins. And
so we come to the first piece of butchery: a cut-
throat job with a razor in a lift, which lingers
forever on the sight of the blood-boltered [sic]
woman pleading vainly for help.”

The attitude expressed here does seem to run
with the mainstream of thought about the film,
finding echoes in Keith Connolly’s comments in
The Herald’ and in Liz Gi1I’s in The Sung. The
latter locates Dressed To Kill in relation to films
like The Shining and When A Stranger Calls,
observing, after an unnamed American “critic”,
that “ ‘the underlying message of these films is
that today’s liberated woman should and will be
punished’ ”, and asserting[...]comment on a society that, while out-
raged about the Ripper’s reign of terror, still
considers the violation of women suitable
material for a good n[...]rtainment”.

While it can be safely argued that the narra-
tives of these films do produce analogies with the
intrusion of horror into the everyday world, and
do thematically reflect the labyrinths of danger
that can be seen to constitute modern life, the
Charge that they are conveying a repressive
ideol[...]treated with considerable suspicion°.
Certainly the terms in which the preceding
objections to Dressed To Kill have been expres-
sed ought to be challenged.

Firstly, the notion of Kate Miller as a repre-
sentation of “today’s liberated woman” is well
wide of the mark. A more accurate description
would see her as one imprisoned within the most
conservative cultural expectations of women;[...]nnett. “An Unhealthy Variation on Hitch-
cock". The Age (Melbourne).

7. Keith Connolly, “When the Movies Turned Really
Nasty“. The Herald (Melbourne), January 1. 1981, p.
l3.

8. Liz Gill, “Are Horror Films Out To Punish Women'?",
The Sun (Melbourne), December 2, 1980, p. 41
(originally published in the London Daily Express).

9. A broader question —— that the system of representation
in traditional narrative[...]— deserves separate consideration
and is beyond the immediate scope of this article.
However.[...]

Similarly, the female protagonists of The
Shining and When A Stranger Calls, who are
threatened by, but manage to escape, the
violence of a husband and a stranger respec-
tive[...]pped by traditional notions of
what it is to be a woman as their mortal enemies
are by the madness that has taken hold of them.

Secondly, the view that Kate Miller is being
somehow punished f[...]sexual desire is one quite arbitrarily imposed on
the film. Certainly, her murder does immediate-
ly. follow her “brief encounter” in the film’s
narrative chronology, but to isolate these two
events from the film and to simply assert a
causal connection be[...]reductive.

What initially seems at stake here is the atti-
tude which the viewer is being invited to take on
the events and characters on the screen. And in
its presentation of the events leading up to the
murder, this structural operation is designed to
produce a sympathy for Kate’s plight. There is
nothing in the film which invites us to judge
Kate’s actions as anything but reasonable. The
suggestion is more that what happens to Kate is,[...]bility, then it is more appro-
priately placed in the realm of the three men she
has encountered in the film up to this point: the
husband (Fred Weber) preoccupied with his sex-
ual appetite; the handsome stranger (Ken Baker)
who fails to inform Kate of his VD; the psy-
chiatrist (Michael Caine) whose madness (we[...]context, Kate is clearly located as a vic-
tim of the male, specifically of male sexuality, a
point which identifies the source of her entrap-
ment as well as of her murder. There is no more
justification for seeing the film’s perspective as
unsympathetic to Kate’[...]alma, Carrie, as un-
sympathetic to its victim of the elaborate, vin-
dictive plot of her high school p[...]ial rewards. Such a view is absurd
for it ignores the basic question which I have
raised here, and that is the attitude the film in-
vites the viewer to take to the particular acts of
violence: Endorsement? Outrage[...]March-April

Liz in an image whose details assert the film's system of

"binary numbers”: the white phone is a contact with her

source of income, the black phone with her investment
adviser. Dressed[...]. a differ-
ence between those two responses, and the points
I have made so far in relation to Dressed[...]lms, such as Hallowe’en, When A Stranger
Calls, The Shining and The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. In none of these films is the viewer in-
vited to endorse the violence infiicted on victims.
The ways in which protests have been mounted
against the films would seem to denote a per-
versity'° that has nothing to do with the films
and whose main characteristic is its blindness to
the facts of the targets of its campaign.

The interlocking network of patterns which
binds toge[...]ty. If one has
to draw an abstract ofthe film on the basis ofits
elements of horror, then that sketch would need
to deal primarily with the ways in which sex
itself is shown to be fraught w[...]uising, Dressed To Kill pivots
on an awareness of the dark side of sexuality,
evoking the monster which is set loose once the

IO. See, for example, the “Dressed To Kill Protested” page
in Jump Cut, No. 23, p. 32, which, when it actually men-
tions the film (rather than promotional campaigns for it
o[...]to win support only from
those who have not seen the film.

certainty of sexual identity is undermine[...]a possibility,
once complacency becomes aware of the danger
which lies beyond its protective shield.[...]other crucial, though con-
nected, issue: that of the shot-by-shot relation-
ship between film and vie[...]ntial ifthere is to be any real appre-
ciation of the way in which this film is working.
Here the point is the play with “point-of-view”
in Dressed To Kill, the way in which the film is
constantly subverting its viewers’ und[...]s (and, im-
plicitly, upon all narrative work) at the same
time.

The film’s opening images, accompanied by
Pino Don[...]in a
musical passage which is to recur throughout the
film"), echo a soft-porn style, encouraging the
viewer to become voyeur by fixing the camera's
gaze upon woman as spectacle.

The first shot is a slow, smooth track forward
acros[...]from steam, ap-
parently emanating from a shower. The
camera’s angle of movement through the door
deliberately withholds from sight until the last

possible moment the presence of a naked Kate
Miller in the shower.

The effect on the viewer (at least, on this
viewer) is not unlike t[...]in
Jean-Luc Godard’s Les Carabiniers (1963), in
the sequence where Michel Ange (Albert Juross)
visits[...]lace, to try to see that which is out of frame on
the screen in the titillating shots of the naked girl
in the bathroom.

The camera tracks forward into the bathroom
and a lingering close—up of Kate’s g[...]n active sex-
ual desire and functions to produce the woman
as a figure of male fantasy, desirable and desir[...]d, who seemingly remains unaware of her
presence. The next cut returns us to our previous
perspective o[...]wn body and to her pleasure as she cares-
ses it. The camera position is then transferred
from outside the shower, looking in through the
clear shower screen, to a series of close-ups in-

side the shower recess of hands stroking breasts
and genit[...]t to me, echoes
Nino Rota‘s score for Juliet of the Spirits.

12. These shots have drawn much media attention, primari-
ly reporting to us in mocking tones the sensational news
that Angie Dickinson was[...]

The disturbance appears as a male figure
looms behind[...]deaf ears, as a cut to him from a position inside
the shower recess shows him continuing his shav-
ing without distraction. The steam from the
shower almost obliterates our sight of him as
Kate’s scream takes over the soundtrack (pre-
figuring her later scream, apparently at the mo-
ment of orgasm, in the sequence with the
stranger in the taxi). The lack of response by the
husband is initially disorienting, placing this ins-
tant of terror into the realm of nightmare as the
film’s carefully-constructed spatial logic is
s[...]s, an early morning radio show sub-
stituting for the earlier romantic music (and, in-
cidentally, introducing the idea of transexuality
into the film with the mention of a “Lady
Stevie”), further disorien[...]yday quality which produces a
sharp contrast with the scenes that have pre-
ceded it.

The two points of disturbance here subvert the
viewer’s initially secure perspective on the ac-
tion, first by breaking into the realistic mise-en-
scene and then by indicating that the entire bath-
room sequence was Kate’s masturbatory fan-
tasy, and that the detached camera position,
while appearing to simply provide an un-
hindered perspective on woman as object, was,
in fact, offering a representation of the point—of-
view of the apparent object of its gaze.

The function of this disturbance, then, can be
seen to be twofold, alerting us to the fact that
this film is going to play with the processes by
which we see, or, more precisely, by which we
read images on the screen, and introducing the
f1lm’s formal arrangement around the idea of
the voyeur.

for them. However, the function ofthe substitutionhere,
as Pauline Kael has noted, needs to be seen within the
context of the sequence as Kate’s fantasy aboutherself.
There it becomes clear that “she has been‘ given the
dream body an ageing woman might have in her fan-
tasies” (Kael, op. cit.,[...]e setting, Kate's sexual fantasy comes alive with the appearance beside her of the “handsome
stranger" (Ken Baker). Dressed To Kil[...]er. Nowhere is this better il-

lustrated than in the sequence at the

Metropolitan Art Museum. As Kate
sits on a bench[...]ures seem to be looking down on her, she
observes the activities going on around her: the
ritual of the teenage couple with their arms
around each other, the attempted pick-up, the
man passing and looking at the teenagers, the
Asian parents in pursuit of their wandering
child.

Suddenly, the handsome stranger is sitting
beside her, her sexu[...]s an
image of herself (“dressed to kill”) for the
stranger to capture.

The romantic music, established as a signifier
of her desire in the opening sequence, replaces
the echoing sounds of the gallery (reversing the
contrast established on the soundtrack at the
beginning of the film). And a remarkable se-
quence of40 or more shots covers their courting
game, the camera in constant motion as the im-
ages alternate between shots of Kate’s move[...]her point-of-view. Her
pursuit becomes flight as the stranger taps her
on the shoulder, apparently attempting to return
to her the glove she does not yet know she has
lost. Then his disappearance makes her the pur-
suer once more, desperate to make herself the
prey.

Outside the museum, the camera cranes in on
her as she tosses away her remaining glove,
believing the game to have been lost. But then a
look of recognition from her belies this, and the
camera begins a panning movement controlled

The Shower Sequence:

Kate ’s point-of-view of her[...]‘

and clear sight is shattered.

>\.
5‘-’

The camera ’s forward tracking movement into the bathroom.
The track continued; the razor; Kate ’s look of desire.

. “Mise-en-scene Interrupted as Kate ’s screams go unheard and the audience ’s position of security

Fantasy and desire have passed into submission. The everyday is restored.

Cinema Papers,[...]

by the line of her look. Half-way through its
movement to the hand holding her other glove
from the window of a cab, it passes in close-up
across Dr[...]to kill” as Bobbi and
watching as she moves to the cab before (in a
subsequent shot) moving across b[...]glove.

Virtually every character who appears in the
film contributes to this sense of everybody
watc[...]der, a camera,
and his eyes and ears to penetrate the mysteries
of the world around him; the cab driver adjusts
his mirror to get a better view of Kate and the
stranger in their back-seat embraces; the little
girl in the lift that Kate will never leave alive
continues to stare at Kate despite her mother’s
rebuke; the black cop in the subway train
watches Liz (Nancy Allen), Peter’s ally in the
discovery of his mother’s killer, in a camera
movement which echoes the one outside the
museum as it moves from the cop’s look to Liz’s
reaction, passing across Bobbi who is watching
from behind the door in the next compartment;
and, near the end of the film, a woman in a
restaurant eavesdrops on Liz’s description to
Peter of the mechanics of a sex-change opera-
tion, the dismay on her face registering her dis-
approval of what she is listening to at the same
time as her desire to know keeps her listening.

An analogy with the viewer of the horror film
is suggested by this last example, and extended
during the subsequent sequence, Liz’s night-
mare, which brings the film towards its resolu-
tion. One particular camera movement assumes
a point-of-view which locates the viewer among
an audience of asylum inmates who wa[...]clothes with a nurse who has
been tending to him. The camera position here,
and its voyeuristic connotations, also echoes the
earlier shot of Kate and her husband in coition.

And rhyming with the fantasy sequence that
opens the film, this nightmare sequence also
plays with the viewer’s relationship to the per-
ceived spectacle. Even its outrageous repre-
sentation of the asylum conditions, its spatial
disruptions and its stylistic difference from the
rest of the film fail to disturb the viewer’s
commitment to the “point-of—view” teasingly of-
fered. Only with the film’s final shot, which
shows Liz waking from the nightmare into
Peter’s comforting arms (a shot which is virtual-
ly identical to the last shot of Carrie where Sue
(Amy Irving) wakes from her nightmare into the
comforting arms of her mother), is the viewer
jolted into an awareness of the deception that
has been practised.

Order is tenu[...]isturbances
have been constructed which challenge the pro-
cesses by which we customarily read narrative
images and produce an underlying chaos in the
relationship between viewer and spectacle.

This self—consciousness does not prevent the
film scaring the hell out ofits audiences and thus
fulfilling the conventional contract of the horror

24 — Cinema Papers, March-April

Peter ( K €I(/I Gordon) instructs Kate on the workings ofhis invention based on a systcnz of "b[...]turbances at a deeper level, by refusing to allow
the viewer a stable, fixed position from which to
see the unfolding of its fiction.

e Palma’s work to date indicates a

growing preoccupation with the

relationship between viewer and

film, constantl[...]g its

narrative unity to breaking point,
leaving the viewer floundering amid betrayed ex-
pectations.[...]Kate arrives for
her appointment with Dr Elliott, the wide screen
image has him to left of frame, speaking on the
telephone, as Kate enters to the right and
another patient passes her on the way out. That
patient is Bobbi, who, we learn later in the film,
is Dr Elliott’s other self.

In the terms of narrative coherence, such an
image is “impossible”, and while Dressed To
Kill on the one hand does assume the form of a
narrative, on another it is bent upon assaulting
that”.

13. A comparison here with The Shining is fruitful, for in it
Kubrick persistent[...]produce stories, but they are
also reflections on the ways in which stories are
constructed and seen. H[...]bsession; Marnie in Carrie;
North By Northwest in The Fury) but also
beyond (sharing Paul Schrader’s addiction to
The Searchers in Obsession; and playing with
Secret Beyond the Door in the same film). But to
reduce his films to a simple accumulation of
borrowed film experiences is to miss the point:
the way in which these references have a double
edge. They produce a sense of the past, and a
love for it, but they also work as distractions,
contributing to the kind of detachment from
their present contexts which is necessary ifone is
to grasp the strain of self-parody, which is at the
heart of the way in which they use their images
and their stories to play with the narrative form
they seem to occupy.

narrative order at the same time as it is being con-
structed. As Richar[...]ck’s
Shining", Film Comment, July-August 1980), The Shin-
ing strategically subverts both narr[...]

Liz and Peter, whose investigation of the murder of Kate is under the watchful eye of the police, whose detective work largely occurs off-screen. Dressed To Kill.

The exhilarating circular tracking movement
which celebrates the reunion of father and
daughter in the air terminal sequence at the end
of Obsession provides an audience with an
appropriately moving resolution to the prob-
lems built through the course of its narrative.
Yet against this, one needs to set the opening of
the film which draws attention to the fairy-tale
nature of such an ending and the wish-fulfilment
that it implies.

After the credits, the first shot is of an audi-
ence. in a darkened room watching a screen on
which appears the words, “And they lived happi-
ly ever after.” So, while the film asserts itself as
a straightforward narrativ[...]it also draws attention to itself as just that.

The opening of Sisters, a film which an-

ticipates D[...]and
thematic play around voyeurism, works to mark
the viewer as viewer, to underline the way in
which the process of viewing is controlled by ex-
pectations about the way in which an image will
immediately construct a “point—of-view” for the
viewer.

A young black male watches, apparently un-
noticed by the object of his look, as a blind girl
begins to undress in a changing room. As she un-
buttons her blouse, the camera frustrates the
salacious viewer’s desire to see more and zooms
into a close—up ofthe face of the voyeur. Sudden-
ly a key—hole is superimposed on this image, thethe entertainment “ofthose ofyou
peeking in at home”.

Clearly then, the disturbances in the films of
Brian De Palma go much further than the simple
undercutting of lyricism for the ends of the
horror film, and are pitched in the tones of
parody at the conglomerations of images that
are known as narra[...]those who want to see, they offer an insight
into the deception that is practised in the name
of fiction. They do not damn that dec[...]

After my days in television, I
tried writing The Novel. I also
became involved in mining
companies, and the vineyard
business, with Len Evans, in the
Hunter Valley [The Rothbury
Estate].

Then, about five years ago, it
seemed that the time was right to
establish a proper financial ba[...]films
—— say, three or four. I went around
“the city” in Sydney, among stock-
brokers I knew from mining days,
trying to sell them on the idea.
There was some interest, but, after
three m[...]y constant
talking, I still couldn’t get it off the
ground. Basically I was saying,
“Put a financia[...]nput. That way, you might
see some money back. In the mean-
time, there is bound to be some tax
benefits in the losses.”

The average reaction of any
serious banker, stockbroker or
merchant banker was that the film
industry was full of madmen. They
wanted to[...]oing to deal
with people who wouldn’t know
what the hell they were talking
about. I must say, that at[...]ere your proposals tax-oriented?

No, and I think the reason they

didn’t get off the ground was that
they weren’t tax-oriented enough.
I knew the people involved from
speculative mining situation[...]turn, I
tried to tap that.

Then, Peter Foxjoined the board
of The Rothbury Estate. Peter’s a
tax specialist, and one day I
discussed the film situation with
him. He immediately saw sever[...]d 65 per
cent, and my company, Enton
Investments, the other 35 per cent.

What was Pact’s first project?

The first project made was
Thirst, with Tony Ginnane.[...]erious track record, and would be
able to produce the films. That led
us to Tony Ginnane and the South
Australian Film Corporation.
There were oth[...]turned out our
timing was right, in that Tony and
the SAFC were developing some
good properties.

So yo[...]er cent financed
by Pact?

No. It was financed by the New
South Wales Film Corporation,
some of Tony’s private money and
ours.

Did Pact have a plan about the
amount of finance it would
contribute to a projec[...]rst
year we had about $1 million. But,
because of the non—recourse loan
element, we invested somethin[...]at sort of tax benefits were you
offering?

About the same as the law
allowed in mining, which was
roughly three-to[...]oration.

What followed “Thirst”?

We went to the SAFC and
became involved in Blue Fin and
Money Movers. They were complex
investments. In the end, we owned
the Australian rights, but not the
foreign. This is a shame as both

films are beginning to look good in
the foreign market. They didri’t do
terribly well h[...]Blue Fin was run as a double with
Storm Boy along the Queensland
coast it began to look quite healthy.[...]any
guidelines or philosophy toward
investment?

The general philosophy was not
to tie ourselves down[...]cause we could be
wrong. We went for a spread, in the
hope that, say, two out of eight
might succeed, and cover the cost of
the other six. I think that proved to
be right.

It is pretty much the same today.
We are looking for comedies, low-
bud[...]films, but get
them made. This is important with
the new tax law, where you have to
be sure that the film is going to be
made, and is marketabl[...]

What do you think are the qualities
which made a good deal-making
producer?[...]tions, apart from
financial?

Nothing much above the normal
investor situation. We werejust too
busy negotiating the deals, and
handling the number of people who
came to us with projects. Th[...]n those
early days?

Carlie Deans helped a lot in the
sifting and assessment of scripts.
Many just had[...]as did his wife Jenny,
and sometimes Dick Toltz, the
lawyer. But if a producer we
respected brought us a script we
liked, that was it.

How do you feel about the assessor
system?

My experience in the ABC gave
me a deep revulsion of the

28 — Cinema Papers, March-April

Curl Sliuii:[...]committee system. And, as far as I
am concerned, the assessor system
is a committee system. It is
hope[...]n and interest
and who will perhaps be working on
the film.

Did you ever seek assistance from
professional readers?

No. We are in the business of
backing our own judgment.

Your appro[...]to
a showbusiness, entrepreneurial
approach, than the processes of
government bodies . . .

Yes. But the government assess-
ment system is necessary for t[...]use public money.
They have to be able to justify the
risk situations they put money into.
But for priv[...]that system would be a
farce. We wouldn’t be in the
business if we didn’t know what
spread of films[...]t
example. We got all sorts of cooing
noises from the Victorian Film
Corporation about their investing
into it; lots of “Yes, yes” in the
corridors. But when it came to the
crunch, producer Brian Kavanagh
got a two—line letter, which said,
“Dear Mr Kavanagh, at the last
meeting we decided not to invest in
your fil[...]is not as
though Brian Kavanagh had just
come off the street. He is well-
known and well—respected in the
film industry in Victoria. And to be
treated like[...]callousness.

typical

What is your attitude to the way the
Government is involved in financing
films?

Well, the Australian Film
Commission is going the right way
by putting up good seed money. I
am not[...]moved into project develop-
ment is tremendous.

The SAFC was quite progressive in
establishing an ear[...]nnes. Is that when you were
starting to move into the inter-
national marketplace?

No, we went independently to
Cannes and to Hollywood. But it
was good that the SAFC was there,
for while we were quite indepen-
dent ofeach other, we were going in
thethe advances
system. We would rather have the
money come in cold and clean, and
anything the film earned go straight
back to the investors, rather than
see sales revenue mopped into the
production.

However, we were keen to get
other i[...]omplex
business.

Are there any co-productions in the
pipeline?

Saddlesore and Blue could be
happening with Hemdale, and the
Americans are interested in The
Bones of Peking Man.

When arranging international sales,
has it been your strategy to do the
Australian deal first, and then move
into the international arena, or vice-
versa?

Whichever way is appropriate for
the film. In some cases, we are
going vice—versa. We will try to
make the films work inter-
nationally and then brin[...]

I belong to both camps. If the
industry is at risk, it is because
there is too m[...]And, if
people are proposing that they
should get the money to develop
properties which are rotten, and
then to turn around and blame the
financiers, then that’s ridiculous.

How do you see the attitude of the
government bodies?

I don’t want to get involve[...]ut
be publicly accused Pact of not
being good for the film industry
because “this year films, the next
year coal or cattle”, or whatever he
said.[...]wo public
company mining boards to
concentrate on the film company.
We are serious about films, so it[...]s in and makes such a
broad statement. I can show the lie

1. Financial Review, January 9, I981, p.23.

of it by the way I worded those
resignations.

What other proj[...]s, there is
Double Deal, which we are shooting
at the moment, and Yankee Zephyr
— we still have to do[...]and looks to have real
potential. We are also in the

SAFC’s Sara Dane, which is about
to go into pr[...]OB SANDERS

I

“If [Yankee Zephyr] makes it [in the U.S. market], it will be a breakthrough on a
magnificent scale. "

Left: David Hemmirzgs’Race to the Yankee Zephyr. which was filmed in New Zealand.[...]ter there than
any other Australian film. And in
the U.S. it was sold for the same
up—front guarantee as Breaker
Morant.

How have the Pact films fared
financially?

Thirst hasn’t[...]some
of our money back, but not all.

Because of the deal we did on
Blue Fin, for only Australian righ[...]Deal.

so, I can see a real return; Money
Movers, the same.

Harlequin is looking great, and
only this[...]an a total return on our
investment. So we are in the black
with that.

As for Breaker Morant, we have[...]New
Zealand because of Equity
problems. But it is the first
opportunity to make the real break-
through in the U.S. We keep
hearing about how marvellous it is
that some of our films are doing
well in the U.S. — and it is
marvellous — but they are doing
well in 10, or at best 30, theatres.

The number of theatres in the
U.S. is 38,000 and films like Star
Wars are in 32[...]er.

Now, why should we settle for
less? We speak the same language,
have the same cultural cringes and
strengths as the Americans, and we
should surely go for the big one.
Zephyr offers that opportunity. Ifit
mak[...]with a cast which we think
is timed superbly for the U.S.
market. It is also well made.

Do you think any of our films have
suffered from lack of expertise by
the local distributors here, or by the
way distribution and exhibition is
structu[...]

D

Barbara Alysen

One of the people filmmaker David Bradbury
interviewed while making the film that even-
tually became Frontline is Tony Ferguson. A
former seniorjournalist with the ABC, Ferguson
is now an ALP staffer in Canberra. He
remembers the encounter clearly: Bradbury rang
him at the CAB in Bathurst, where Ferguson
was lecturing, wa[...]use properly, and about 400 feet of film.”

In the course of the interview, Ferguson
recalls steering the young filmmaker towards the
eventual subject of his film: Neil Davis, a
combat cameraman working in Asia.

A few more encounters like the one with Tony
Ferguson convinced Bradbury to narrow the
scope of the project. It had started as a study of
journalists who covered the Vietnam confiict,
and was backed by a $4500 grant from the Aust-
ralian War Memorial. “But everyone I spok[...]”

Tasmanian-born Davis spent 11 years
covering the Vietnam war, mostly for the

, British-based news syndicate, Viznews. He was[...]pulled off a string of
journalistic coups during the war, including
being the only allied cameraman to film the fall
of Saigon.

By 1978, Davis was in Thailand a[...]formal tuition in film
production. But he talked the Creative Develop-
ment Branch of the Australian Film Commis-
sion into advancing him the maximum amount
available from its fund, hired a c[...]erview.

Completed last year, Frontline collected the
blue ribbon award for the best documentary at
the New York Film Festival, plus the John
Grierson award for new and outstanding talent
in documentary film and the Greater Union
Award for Documentary Films at the Sydney
Film Festival.

The film sold widely to foreign television net-

RAD[...]. I was at a bit of a loose end, having

finished the film, and worried that I would be

left_twiddlin[...]look up Burchett in Paris and, since

I had paid the airfares over there anyway, it

made economic sen[...]ed former DLP
Senator Jack_ Kane over a report in the right-
wing ‘publication Focus. The suit claimed that a
description of Burchett as a “traitor” was
defamatory, but the case and costs went against
Burchett because the material in question was
held to be a fair[...]

Burchett’s exclusion in the 1950s and ’60s is
perhaps better known. Also, from 1955 to 1972,
the Government refused to issue him a passport
after his first one had been stolen.

Because he reported the Korean and Vietnam
wars, in which Australia was involved, from the
“enemy” side, Burchett was and is seen by man[...]adbury:
“It figures that if someone could bring the
wrath of the Government and the establish-
ment down on them to the point of having
their passport denied by successi[...]nter-
esting story to tell.”
Bradbury suggested the idea of a film cover-
ing Burchett’s life and w[...]om Australia to buy

film stock, because Kodak in the U.S. is

obviously the cheapest place to buy it. I

lugged it on my back over to Paris and got a

final-year camera student from the Dutch

Film Academy and a sound recordist from the

same place, again on deferred wages. We lived

in Burchett’s house, sleeping on the floor, and
in youth hostels.”

After two weeks of filming, it was back to
New York to take advantage of the cheap
processing there, and then to Australia where he
set about arranging the funds to shoot the film.

Bradbury approached the Project Develop-
ment Branch of the AFC where he was knocked
back on the grounds that he didn’t have any
advance sales for the project. By contrast, the
Creative Development Branch, which had put
money[...]d has since received it
back), invested $27,000.

The South Australian Film Corporation
suggested that politics and investment didn’t
always mix, and the commercial television
stations, which had presumably always believed
that, also found no reason to invest in the pro-
ject. A private investor, Robert Crouch,
responded to press advertisements and advanced
$10,000 and the remainder of the $115,000
budget came from Bradbury’s family and[...]in view ofits subject, no trade
union invested in the film.

With finance arranged, Bradbury and camer[...]d then we went straight to Ho

Chi Minh City.”

The crew spent six weeks in Vietnam, another
10 days[...]in Kampuchea that Bradbury got his
first taste of the danger under which his two
films’ subjects had worked. The film team,
including Bradbury, Peter Levy,[...]

The two films come complete with a virtual
“mythology” that feeds into them: the image
and exploits of the performing group The Whit-
tle Family. This is the first exciting aspect of
these films: they come[...]mentum infinitely
more interesting than anything the film industry
can spark within its own confines.

The films have been gestured towards in many
places, and usually glowingly. Nonetheless, I
think the surprise at their appearance has been
accompanied[...]films once one
has declared they are very funny?

The commentaries pick up on the easiest,
simplest response: let’s all slum with[...]guilty pleasures with this cheap
and nasty stuff. The films, so this line goes,
make a virtue out of lo[...]ly make themselves so bad as
to be good.

I think the concept behind the films is a great
deal more intelligent and produc[...]cal values.

It is precisely that conjunction — the associa-
tion of a technique with a “message”[...]to criticise and dislodge it. In fact, for all
of the Australian cinema’s “historical” films in
terms of subject matter, these are two of the very
few that have a historical insight into the
medium itself.

Although generally considered to be the fun-

32 — Cinema Papers, March-April

nier film, Buckeye and Pinto is the less success-
ful. Its parody of Western generic[...]but occasionally pointless. Lurking
somewhere is the rather simplistic notion that
the popularity of the Western is indicative ofthe
evils of U.S. cultura[...]level of
“us” and “them”.

However, when the film is not imposing an
interpretation upon the Western, but working
from within it, the gags and the intentions are
spot-on. The narrative code of the two cowboy
buddies dissolves in the face of homosexual
desire once the heroine is dead; an Aboriginal
stands in for the savage Indian.

Top: Buckeye (Mitcliell Faircioth[...]ve.‘ Capt.

Kirk Rogers (Mitchell Faircloth and the journalist, Laura
Lee ( Tracy Harvey). Terror Los[...]cious
adventure” is how Adrian
Martin describes the combined
program of Buckeye and Pinto
and Terror[...]/one
by one they shot and then they died”) —- the
range of the film’s expressive materials is ad-
mirable, even when the humor is scattershot.

While Andy Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboys
might seem the predominant influence on the
film, given the slightly delirious edge to the
acting and the critics’ eagerness to see it as a
camped-up Wes[...]cter to
sound effects. This is again in line with the
general aim of the films — to find those ele-
ments of culture whe[...]is more
obvious and able to be attacked. Although the
films have been accused (by Pat Longmore in
Buff, No. 2) of “making women, especially
feminists, the butt of some of the attempts at
humor”, I think rather it is the stereotypes
which construct women (and men) in a certain
way which are the true object of the films’
comedy. And these stereotypes are collec[...]e acceptable by conventional stan-
dards. This is the beauty of the film: it mimics
the dominant system too well, and in the process
exposes its ideological messages. When the
“militant feminist” Diane (Wendy Allen) is pos-
sessed by the spirit of the ancient tribe of Ood-
nagalabies, takes off her glasses and lets down
her half. the voice of patriarchal narrative is

heard loud and[...]not to be taken like that. But at whichever
level the films are read, their value arises from
th[...]

films.

Phil: The substance of Buckeye
and Pinto is that of familiar West-
ern hero and the grand perception
he has of himself. We tried to evoke
the static, photographic quality of
early Westerns, like Hopalong Cas-
sidy. This, combined with the docu-
mentary-style climax, created a
photo revue[...]19th Century, cowboy
camera feel.

Superimposing the cliches of
Hollywood onto Australia made
obvious the relationship we have
with the American cultural empire.
Within this concept, the relation-
ships Australians have towards
each other were satirized so that
when the audience laughs, it is act-
ually deeply analyzing the dial-
ectics.

David: We approached Terror
Lostralis from a different direc-
tion. The basis of the film was to
explore the distinctive identities
familiar to the B-grade, adventure,
survival, jungle genre. We took the
righteous, arrogant, self-appointed,
Hollywood hero and exposed him
as a myth by using the submissive
but deeply sceptical Australian sus-
picion of leaders. The characters
are entangled in a labyrinth of
ideals[...]edy.

Phil: We made a bubbly comedy;
I ran around the edges of the action
pushing the humor down the
camera lens. We gave each indivi-
dual access to the film structure and
script. Each actor wrote their own
relationship with the lead actors,
Mitchell Faircloth and Simon
Thorpe, within the directed con-
ception of their roles. It’s a fi[...]ant major discoveries
about men's problems during the
shoot.

David: In Terror, we create a
microcosm of the whole world.
After the plane crash, the survivors
trek though jungle, rain forests,
mount[...]but never really do anything about
their dilemma. The power, lust and
greed of the B-epic is what keeps

them going. This is the true
meaning of art: CONFLICT.

Phil: You havejus[...]ee
conflicting ideas in one sentence.

David: No. The real conflict is in
the attempt to combine two-dimen-
sional images with a ridiculous plot
and come out with a believable
epic.

The witch-doctor (Boris Branwhite, left) urges on Ung[...]arzipan (Jack Charles). Terror Lostralis.

/17 the 7‘
amworr/7 Saloon. I

Buc.l.'e,ve and Pinto

P[...]-
believability.

Could you tell us about some of the
locations used in “Terror Los-
trails”?

Davi[...]nd scenery that
looked like Hollywood sets to get
the 3-dimensional, backdrop feel.
There is the Melbourne Shrine of
Remembrance, which looks some-
thing straight out of Intolerance,
and the old clay quarry at Bacchus
Marsh that we used for the crash-
site. It was real, papier-mache, rock
form[...]: But he never made a
Western! I tried to capture the
mind-boggling monotony of the
Australian content — I mean con-
tinent — and[...]metres out of Melbourne.

Who was responsible for the songs

and the music in “Buckeye and
Pinto”?

Phil: We had the musical talents
of Peaches La Creme from the
Busby Berkleys, plus The Whittle
Family. We had the most drama-
tically simplistic musical theme one[...]e it.

David: Yes, it is very simple.

What about the score for “Terror”?
David: Tim Isaacson, the pro-
ducer, introduced Mitchell and I to[...]

As part of the 1981 Festival of Sydney, a season of new Australian films was
shown under the title: “Australian Cinema, The New Generation”.
John Fox visited the screenings and reviews some of the highlights}

Much has appeared already in print about
Against the Grain. The director, Tim Burns,
speaks about the making of the film in Cinema
Papers (No. 28) and in Cantrills F[...]s are made
and used.

Tim Burns is able to invest the most ordinary
and “natural” things with an implied violence.
The slicing of a tomato seems like a sadistic
assault upon skin and flesh. The eating ofa plum
or a cake seems like an act ofdestruction. This is
perfectly in keeping with the quotation from
Jean Genet’s In Defence of the Red Army
Fraction. which opens and activates the film:

“Violence and life are more-or-less synony-
mous. The grain of wheat which germinates
and breaks through the frozen soil, the beak of
the chick which cracks the egg—shell, the
fertilization ofthe female, and the birth of the
young can all be accused of being violent. Yet
no one would put on trial the child, the
woman. the chick, the bud, or the grain of
wheat.”

Images of wheat recur. It is[...]ms of grain in Western
Australia. where Ray Unit, the would-be
terrorist (played by Michael Callaghan),[...]rkable sequence, his mother
(played by Joy Burns, the filmmaker’s mother)
makes bread. She mixes flou[...]es
only a short time and anybody can do it.” In the
context ofthe making of a terrorist, that descrip[...]— Cinema Papers, March-April

but rather as in the associations of dream) with
crystals of sugar. In another sequence, which
shows the same fascination with processes, Ray
is making hi[...]He places it in a bed of
sugar and his hands work the sugar in much the
same way as his mother mixes the flour. The
food of life enfolds the instrument of violence.
(In its close-up attention to details, by the way,
and in its build ofsuspense, the sequence has the
flair of a mainstream Pakula, though I am not
sure that Tim Burns would welcome the com-

parison.)
Crystals . .. sand .. . grain .. . growth . . .
bud flowers: the bomb is placed among

flowers at the Cenotaph on Anzac Day, and its
smoke curls around pink and white carnations.
Smoke becomes a motif: the smoke from
stricken planes, the smoke from Vietnamese
bombing raids, and the smoke from Ray’s dyna-
mite experiments at Hutt River, even the smoke
from a cigarette, cloud the frame with an image
of death. (After one smoke-fi[...]y is
seen beside a hoarding: “Come to life with The
Mirror.”) This line of imagery climaxes with the
smoke billowing from an exploding nuclear
plant d[...]industry.

A street fire in Tim Burn5'Again5t the Grain.

The protagonist is as image-conscious as the
filmmaker. Ray is unsure of his terrorist image.[...]d an animal mask over his head.

Elsewhere, while the soundtrack talks about le
Brigate rosse and their instructions to “shoot at
the knees, not to kill but to cripple”, Ray, ever
s[...]s photo image.

It is fitting and inevitable that the film should
concern itself with photographed imag[...]ented largely as a somewhat stilted
debate with a woman photographer (played by
Sandy Edwards) called Paula Oid (Polaroid?),
who rather belts one about the ear with Susan
Sontag and leads into some not irr[...]heavy—handed sex role reversal.

Nevertheless, the sequence does lodge power-
fully the image of a camera as a gun, and
thus the ideas that to photograph people is to fire
at the[...]lves.

This is important because it reflects upon the
act of making a film and refers to Ray’s own
ir[...]able to see a
further irony that is accessible to the audience:
he houses his second bomb in a video cassette.
_ The search for self—images and the re-fashion-
ing of them by others is part of the fibre of
Against the Grain. The filmmaker is question-
ing his images and his ima[...]shioned by an
audience. His film is a portrait of the artist as a
young filmmaker, as much as it is a portrait of
the artist as a young terrorist. Each of them is
committed to acts of violence against the world

The film moves effortlessly through stills,
interviews and dramatized reconstructions to
express the experiences of the unemployed and
homeless in Port Melbourne during the Depres-
sion. These people squatted in derelict houses
until the police arrived, sometimes in the early
hours of the morning, to boot out the families,
dump their possessions in a back lane, and pull
down the houses.

It is a grim subject, grasped and realiz[...]iderable beauty. There
are moments, in fact, when the images are
almost too attractive for their own good, when
framing and lighting in the manner of Ken
Loach in Days of Hope and a painter[...]can be as picturesque as poverty.

But generally the film serves its own best
interests well, especially in such strong
sequences as the long track through the dispos-
sessed men sleeping in a train, the well-conceived
use of levels, as silent men hide on a corrugated
iron roof above the police who wait below, and a
strikingly-staged demolition, this time carried

The unemployed and homeless in Richard Lowensteins
Ev[...]itlam out — Fraser
in. Where were you?”, asks the blurb for Exits,
made by Paul Davies, Pat Laughre[...]t we
were doing and how we coped, or didn’t, at the
time.

Apart from November 22, 1963, it is hard t[...]y with comparable shock-waves,
with anything like the same degree of personal
and political consciousne[...]Day, 1975, some froze, some fought and some
fled. The possibilities of the subject for film are
limitless.

Exits chooses to look at the effect of the
Whitlam sacking on five people: a down-and-out
wr[...]demonstration footage, they
wander in and out of the cinema and the pub,
drifting and defeated, worried about the future
and wondering what went wrong. Or, at least,
the writer wonders, and asks, “Why isn’t there
blood in the streets?”

The others seem unaware that life has become
politics[...]ore or less representative
of what people do when the carpet is pulled so
suddenly from underfoot, but[...]nuine evocation. It is a pity that they
emerge as the five least interesting people in the

country.
It could be argued that the technical crudities

of the film — its aimless camerawork, fractured
sound,[...]ifeboat editing
—— are a kind of metaphor for the dislocation
and sense of futility induced by the event. It is
possible to read the film in this way, but only up
to a point. Beyond[...].

At any rate, why try to tie it all together at the
end, as ifthere has been some unifying undertow
of anger, by repeating the shot of Fraser that
shows that one may smile and say “You’ll get
used to the change”? This comes across as too
easy, petulan[...]nce that is illuminating about where we
were when the lights went out.

06
III!

Brian McKenzie’s Rac[...]verno
(Winter’s Harvest) is a documentary about the
slaughter and processing of a pig into sausages
and meat for the winter. With a steady gaze and
a matter-of-fact m[...]this Calabrian
practice in Dandenong, Victoria.

The pig-killing sequence is recorded calmly,
even dis[...]t of a
similar scene in L’albero degli zoccoli (The Tree
of Wooden Clogs) was different. There, one
could not but be involved in the Brueghelian
busy-ness and the flurry and excitement. There,
one was aware of the importance of the occasion
for survival. And there, the activity was colored
with sensuous and theatrical sound effects, like
the pouring rain, the hissing steam, the dripping
blood and the cries and audible relish of the
families. But, here, one is kept at a little
distance, the camera is at eye-level, and the
observation is fairly cool.

To point the contrast is not to disfavor
Winter’s Harvest, b[...]and
interest. It notes, but does not seize upon, the
Italian male sexism which puts the women very
firmly in their place in the kitchen.

It includes some of the jokes and play which
punctuate the serious yet not solemn work of
sawing, slicing and separating, but does not seek

to individualize the men or to make them par-
ticularly winning[...]

I saw a few years ago that a[...]have got a
release weren’t getting one because
the majors weren’t geared to handle
them. It takes[...]se films
and play them profitably in
cinemas like the Silver Screen,
which have much lower house costs.[...]eft United Artists to work
on your own, what were the films
you picked up?

The first was Mouth to Mouth,
which I was very glad to get. I think

The Middle Ground

'
5,0

V 0

n

-,‘.
5*“
V
7[...]d by
Greg Lynch Film Distributors.

doesn’t win the special effects
award this year, I will be very
s[...]an do
with little money, a bit of
imagination and the right people.

A few years ago people were saying[...]ple are saying up to $400,000.
What do you see as the upper limit?

It depends on what you are
making.[...]le film for $120,000, you
can also make a film on the same
subject for $500,000 or $600,000 -
or even m[...]m that was made
cheaply, yet looks pretty good on
the screen. Blood Money is an
example of what you can[...]g.

Actually, I think Centrespread is
going to be the leading example of
good quality, low-budget film-
making. It is the first full—length
feature in this country to be[...]tralian Film Productions
is all about. It employs the same
principles as Roger Corman,
American International and
Hammer Films, and is the brain-

Greg Lynch, independent film distribu[...]g it,
I established a very good
relationship with the Victorian
Film Corporation. I have now been
given other films, like Kostas, the
award-winning Do Not Pass Go and
Solo. Then, ofco[...]one.

As an independent film dis-
tributor, I had the problem of being
approached only after a film ha[...]annay’s Solo: a
good product but a lousy title. The
same is true of Kostas: good film,
but a very hard title to sell to the
public. So you have to come up
with new campaigns[...]mple, done much better with
Kostas after changing the original
campaign used in Melbourne.

Ideally, a producer should come
to the distributor before prod-
uction and say, “Look[...]Opposite top and bottom: Greg Lynch (centre)
at the party announcing production ofCentre-
spread.

do[...]ek in Melbourne and it is booked
right through to the end of
February. There is no sign of it
coming off, and it will outgross
Mouth to Mouth.
So, the point is to get in early.

As you know, there was some
dispute with the Creative
Development Branch over the length
of “Hard Knocks”.‘ How
marketable would “Hard Knocks”
have been if the CDB had insisted on
it remaining 50 minutes?

Wel[...]hat is really only suited to tele-
vision. Who in the hell is going to
blow up a 50-minute short featur[...]y outstanding?
There is no way you could justify

the cost.
I believe that the AFC should

have supported Don [McLennan] a

litt[...]pers, No. 30,
pp 412-416, 505, 507.

he did break the rules, the AFC is
responsible for the taxpayer’s
money it is using. I don’t believe[...]are not going to
give you any more. Go put it in
the garage.”

I believe the AFC people should
have asked themselves, “Has it any
potential and should we invest
more?” Obviously, the film did
have potential because, damn it all,
it won the Jury Prize and the Best
Actress Award at the Australian
Film Awards.

The area of low-budget features is
much discussed. If[...]gical progression. I
had become very irritated by the
amount of money being thrown
down the drain on projects that
were obviously indulgent.[...]out any sound
economic judgment, probably
because the producer or the
director thought he had a good
script. That’s n[...]ndous interest over-
seas. EuroLondon will handle the
film there and have already started
the campaign. The film will be
presented at Cannes and at the Los
Angeles Film Festival. It has a
ready-made market.

But the only films that are sure of
“ready-made” markets are genre
films. Should the Australian film

industry only be making genre
films?

As see it, one has a
responsibility to the investors to
produce something that is via[...]

If the investors are aware of, and
have an equal interes[...]o want to invest in a self-
indulgent wank?

Once the tax changes come in,
will more people be prepared[...]more self—indulgent films.
Personally, I am in the business of
making films that make money; I
am not in the business ofwriting off
money. That is the most negative
aspect of our business and if some-[...]m to write
off money, then he doesn’t belong
in the industry.

But the most successful Australian
film to be released l[...]ging Rock”, is not a genre
film, while most of the attempts at
the genre filmmaking haven’t been
very successful[...]n Australia . . .

Ifyou make a film totally for the
Australian market, the odds
against getting your money back
are very great. How many
Australian films have returned the
production costs in Australia? The
Getting of Wisdom is still in the red.
Sure you can look up the Los
Angeles figures for the film and see
it has taken $l50,000 or something
at the box—office. But what they are
not saying is th[...]that territory.
Now amortize your subsidy against
the film hire. and you have another
red entry film.

The Picture Show Man is another
film that is still in the red. There
was no way they could have got
their money back in this country.
The Last Wave is yet another
example. Even though it[...]country.

How then do you react to people
who say the amount of money that
the Government invests in films is
insignificant an[...]ff
for its cultural and ambassadorial
benefits?

The cultural advantages of a
product that hardly anyb[...]m that was made cheaply, yet looks
pretty good on the screen. Blood Money is an example of what you can[...]d critically well re-
ceived. And, I think it was the
Minister for Home Affairs, Mr
Ellicott, who said that the release of
“Hanging Rock” in London did
more[...]re films . . .

You mean they weren’t made for
the world market?

Yes...

But I could dispute that. Ibelieve
Hanging Rock would work any-
where in the world. When I saw
Hanging Rock I thought it was an
absolute natural. The film spoke an
international language: the girls,
the rock — it was just beautiful
stuff.

Importatio[...]ibution activities

do with nothing.”

has been the importation of art films
from overseas. What changes have
you seen since becoming involved?

I think the art film market is
bigger now than ever. It has also
become very competitive. One can
think back to the early days in the
l950s when the Savoy was the only
specialized cinema in Melbourne.
Then came the Dendy Middle
Brighton, and afterwards the
Valhalla with its repertory concept.
Now, of course, there is a string of
little Valhallas around the place, all
trying to emulate that policy.

Today, the market for art
product is maybe 30 times bigger
than it was in the 1950s. The
amount of product I am bringing in
in 1981 has in[...]ve 10 years
ago. There doesn’t seem to be quite
the same art film consciousness . . .

It is an inte[...]s that art product is
now releasing straight into the
suburbs, with the Fellinis going
straight to, say, the Rivoli
Camberwell. As well, some

directors eithe[...]ine, like Walerian
Borowczyk. But overall, Ithink the
market is very good.

What have been your major
successes?

The Secret Policeman’s Ball,
which is taking a fort[...]rne for
12 weeks. Even in Brisbane it is
working. The acceptance ofthe film
has been enormous. People[...]eese.

Mouth to Mouth was very
successful, though the most
successful Australian film I have
handled is Hard Knocks. But that
was a film I was involved in from
the double head, and is, therefore,
very close to me.[...]ter chance of working
because we were involved in the
promotional side.

I have a company called Silver[...]Wilson, who is one ofthe best
advertising men in the business. He
is unspoiled, enthusiastic, has a
Co[...]erson’s up-market sex film, Centrespread. It is the first film of A ustralian Film Productions[...]

his gal to.”

and the way it should be promoted.

Silver Screen handled the
campaign for Hard Knocks, which I
believe was one of the best
Australian campaigns for many
years. And the fact is we have a
smash-hit. We went right to the
market and hit it between the eyes.

On Boxing Day, I put Stir on
with Hard Knocks. Stir, I believe,
didn’t get the opportunities it
should have. This was not throug[...]inemas that were too expensive.
That gets back to the old argument
that films on that type of budget
s[...]gument’s
sake, if a house expense is $9000,
and the potential of the film is only
$9000 a week, then the film is not
going to stay in that house. It has[...]?

So, it is no one’s fault, other than
perhaps the producer’s. He should
have looked at it a little more
closely as to which were the best
houses and which was the best
distributor.

Is this lack of good houses why you
have opened one yourself?

Yes. The Silver Screen Cinema is
a profitable venture bec[...]supported by people who like
good films. Most of the product run
there is either the best from the
continent, or good Australian
product.

When I took over the Academy
Valhalla Complex it was in a fail
situati[...]to carry on that policy, I
would also get behind the 8 ball. So,
I split the cinemas and I turned one
into a sex exploitation house, and
the other one into the Silver Screen
Cinema. I then leased the sex
cinema to a company called G. J.
Marketing, who call it thethe ones that
already exist. It would also have to
be in a good location. So, I am
looking at Sydney.

Thethe

Melbourne sex cinemas also run
burlesque shows . . .

You will always have a
percentage in the community who
wants to see a sex film, for reaso[...]lves. Usually
they are single men, and they find
the cinema some sort of outlet.

Actually, I see the burlesque and
film houses gradually disappearing[...]hree
cinemas in Melbourne will
probably close and the rest will
concentrate on films.

Do you think the couple’s market
for sex films has declined? Classier
sex films of the “Emmanuelle”-type
don’t seem as popular now . . .

Yes. The problem has been the
burlesque and raincoat houses, and
the stigma that has been built
through the type of advertising in
the newspapers. Your normal
couple is not about to go[...]t might like to.
This has done a lot of damage to
the Emmanuelle-type market.

But, and this was made v[...], then you can get

John Cleese and Peter Cook in The Secret Policeman's Ball, which is being distribut[...]?

I believe — and negotiations are
going on at the moment — that it
will be released through a major
circuit. The campaign is being

handled by Silver Screen
Adver[...]ith
Penthouse, launched a national

quest to find the Centrespread
queen.

Will there be a further tie-in with
‘Penthouse’ at the time of the
release?

Yes. In the April edition there

will be the cover, the Centrespread,
and 10 more pages on the film. As
well, SAS 10 in Adelaide have
made a television special on the
filming of Centrespread. It is an
hour long and will be released
about two weeks before the
theatrical release. The film will
premiere in South Australia.

There ha[...]disagreements with Actors Equity
over members of the cast. What is
the situation regarding Equity?

I believe all the actors and
actresses on the set of Centre-
spread were Equity members — or,
if they weren’t, they are now. I was
on the set only a week or so before
it finished producti[...]Tony Paterson for
quite a while, and to me he IS the
best editor in the business. In
fact, most of the films that come
into this country that are cut, re-
structured or edited to suit the local
market are done by Tony. He is
absolutely b[...]le we took a punt on
Tony, I believed he could do the
job. It is hard to explain, because in
our business you get gut feelings
about people. One of the reasons
why you buy a film is a gut
reaction; a feeling for thethe
September 16 Variety chart, is the
fourth biggest-grossing film in the
U.S. It is a cult film for the middle-
aged, but when I bought it in
Febr[...]

01'

A long way from Lana Turner

Brian McFar|ane

The overwhelmingly theoretical emphasis at
the 2nd Australian Film Conference (Perth,
November 2[...]erging only to read
criticism of other films. In the 16 time-tabled
sessions, one could count the films referred to on
the fingers of a mutilated hand.

This comment is no[...]yone interested in film, it is
gratifying to see the growth of a substantial body
of screen theory. It[...]ns.

Nevertheless, I cannot but feel that many of
the intelligent accounts given of ways of perceiv-
ing and “reading” film would be more per-
suasive to the groundlings if they could be
anchored more firmly in the texts which,
presumably, are the starting point for their
exponents’ enthusiasms and theories, and the
illumination of which is surely their end
product[...]chief reading has not
been in screen theory, then the Conference was a
demanding experience and I am gr[...]e identified areas for
further investigation. For the cognoscente, the
recurring debate was that between the “renewed
humanism” posited by Professor Marc Gervais
(of Concordia University, Montreal) and the
theoretical approaches he parodically ab-
breviat[...]itude rather than a theory.
His “humanism” in the end seemed too loosely
formulated to be persuasiv[...]hat
it “means too many things”.

In his view, the humanistic attitude, because it
encompasses such[...]ithout, I imagine, converting for a
moment any of the SSM or Ps, he claimed for
the humanistic attitude an “integrative thrust”
as its distinguishing characteristic.

Stuart Hall, from the Open University, wasn’t
able to be present, nor was Stephen Heath of
Jesus College, Cambridge, and the Conference
organizers capably adjusted their program to
cover these last-minute lacunae. The British
visitors who did turn up — Ed Buscombe,[...]University — made a splendid contribu-
tion to the success of the Conference, in their

40 — Cinema Papers, March[...]of Macquarie University.

formal papers and in the continuing informal
discussions in and out of the conference room.
Both, too, had in their papers the Wordsworth-
ian advantage of speaking “such lan[...]but grateful relief.)

Ed Buscombe, in examining the movement
towards a national cinema in Britain (or, by ex-
tension, Australia), identified the twin urges of
an indigenous film industry as those to imitate
Hollywood and to tear itself from Hollywood.
The Hollywood cinema has exercised so great a
domination that it has come to seem the cinema,
notjust another national cinema. His account of
the ill—fated succession of attempts by the British
film industry to beat the Americans at their own
game — Korda, Rank, the mid-Atlantic exer-
cises of the 1960s and ’70s, Lord Grade — was
sharp and li[...]equate), Buscombe might perhaps have con-
sidered the British cinema of the second half of
the ’40s. The work of David Lean, Anthony As-
quith, Michael Po[...]Carol Reed surely deserved a mention, along
with the “peril bourgeois” (E.B.) successes of
Ealing[...]provided an at least respectable alternative to

the Hollywood product, and more or less on its
own terms — not to speak of the highly success-
ful, wholly idiotic tosh presided over by the
smirking Gainsborough lady. (Come back
Margaret Lockwood! All is forgiven.)

These latter films (The Man in Grey, The
Wicked Lady), ludicrous as they were, were im-
me[...]of nostril-flaring passion.
More significantly, the post-Room at the Top
realist films of Welfare Britain Tony
Richard[...]th what Buscombe called
We fantasy and desires at the heart of national
1 e.

Claiming that how somethi[...]Alvarado argued that
theoretical engagement with the question of
origination IS required. His paper, e[...]ditional criticism doesn’t at-
tempt to explain the process of creation, but
merely celebrates[...]

In the first of two papers entitled “Fiction/
Film/Femininity”, Lesley Stern, on behalf of
the Melbourne Collective (based at La Trobe
Universit[...]ion and narrative, claiming that concentration
on the latter had undermined interest in the con-
cept of the former. Her paper argued that
content-oriented criticism has reality as its point
of reference, that the status of fiction gets lost in
sociology and social realism, and that what is at
stake is the idea of the text as environment. At
least I think this is what was being argued, but
the density of Stern’s presentation was more
suited[...]innelli’s Madame
Bovary, which was then used in the second paper
to trace the relations between fiction, femininity
and film. This very intelligent account, rooted in
the detail of the film’s procedures, defined the
site of Emma Bovary’s dreams as “the private
theatre of the hysteric” and examined the fram-
ing of the fiction of Ernma,Bovary with another
story: that is, the trial of its author Gustave
Flaubert.

This framing device enables the film to juggle
the idea of fiction’s capacity to corrupt a young[...]s as being ripe for fic-
tion, leaving ambiguous the answer to the film’s
question of whether fiction is being denounced
or defended.

The use of an actual text as a basis for a
theoretica[...]guished this presen-
tation from most of those at the Conference and
perhaps points to an organizationa[...]xts. My sugges-
tion is a personal cri de coeur.

The other presentations which used media
texts —— Bruce Horsefield’s “The Four Corners‘
Program on Colleges of Advanced Education: A
Case Study in the Ideology of Television
Documentary” and Tom O’Regan’s “The Last
Tasmanian on Monday Conference” — were
successful accounts of how the media may deal
with non-fictional material.

Horsefield, who was involved in the prepara-
tion of the Four Corners program, confirmed
one’s belief t[...]alse reporting and selectivity. O’Regan queried
the validity of the apparent claims made by a
program like Monday Con[...]no space here to give detailed ac-
counts of all the remaining papers, and, in any
case, because of pa[...]rdia
University, Montreal) gave a brief survey of the
history of avant-garde filmmaking and its
relati[...]sical theories of film which
have always resisted the avant-garde. He asked
the question, “What is the object of film
theory?”, claiming that its object has always
been the commercial narrative film. (One might
not have guessed that from the Conference.)

Noel King, in discussing Union Maid[...]offered a fluent and

challenging discussion of the role of criticism
and theory in relation to the political documen-
tary; Lee Wright’s paper on[...]s a workmanlike account of
points of view between the extremes of, say,
V. I. Pudovkin’s editing-as-f[...]its very demanding material as far as
possible in the interests of clarity.

A very important outcome of the Conference
was the setting up of the Australian Screen
Studies Association, which will assume respon-
sibility for the convening of a National
Conference within two years, at which time the
ASSA’s constitution will be confirmed.
Organization of the latter is to be undertaken by
an interim Steering Committee, located in the
U.S. and convened by Rick Thompson of La
Trobe Un[...]oining fee of
$10 and a student fee of $2.

Given the obviously rapid growth of screen
studies as a dis[...]association has a very
valuable role to play. At the very least, it will
provide a regular opportunity for those engaged
in the teaching of screen studies to meet with
colleague[...]and, as well, a
platform for continuing debate.

The quality of the papers, though predictably
uneven, was high indeed, but the organizers of
the third Conference might give more attention
to off[...]a particular critical or theoretical emphasis for
the Conference. Would it also be possible to in-
vite[...]of these suggestions is intended to
detract from the achievement of Brian Shoe-
smith and his colleagu[...]was a conference of wide-ranging importance,
and the work of the organizers was felt not only
in the quality of the participants they had at-
tracted, but in the friendly spirit that prevailed
throughout the week. Even in the more arcane
reaches of the week’s scholarly discourse, when
one seemed light years from Culver City, this
spirit persisted.

A

THE SECOND AUSTRALIAN FILM CONFERENCE

Theory
Weary

Adrian Martin

The importance of the 2nd Australian Film
Conference is in its exposure of the differences
and conflicts within critical and educational
practice at the present time. Make no mistake,
the divisions are deep. And, as much as the
friendly transactions of the week tended to ob-
scure the fact, I think a certain congealing, a cer-
tain blockage in the discussion, has taken place.

Rather than attempt[...]to
offer one (necessarily subjective) account of the
positions represented at the Conference and the
relations between them.

Unlike Brian McFarlane, I went to the
Conference with a firm commitment to the
development of theoretical knowledge within the
sphere of film analysis. “Theory”, after all[...]ther film theories — as they stand
at present. The power struggle that is going on
over who will claim the right to set the agenda
for film studies has almost nothing to do[...]eat deal to do with a particular
political line.

The “new” criticism, which has finally moved
int[...]rtiary institutions, involving to various degrees
the concepts elaborated within semiotics, struc-
tura[...]l, a

Concluded on p. 101
V V‘

Ed Buscombe, of the British Film Institute, and Conference org[...]

Festival The imperious Princess: Not shown, Hong
Kong, 2860.6-[...]6m,
Avco Embassy Pictures, V (i-l-j)

How to Beat the High Cost oi Living: Zeilman/Kauf-
man, U.S., 2B0[...]ler, U.S., 2649.36m, Road-
show Dist., V (I-I-i)

The Secret Poiiceman’s Ball: Graef and Schwalm,
Britain, 2566.56m, G.L. Film Enterprises, L (i-m-1)
Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again: Universal. U.S.,
2700.23m, Cin[...], U.S., 3395.3m, Warner Bros
(Aust.), V (i-m-/')

The True and False Wile: Hai Hua Cinema Co., Hong
Kong, 2705.14m, Hong Australia. 0 (sexual allusion)
The Wailing Grave: Hong Wei Film Co., Taiwan,
2432.88[...]artin Louey, V (I-I-/)

For Mature Audiences (M)

The Avenglng Boxing: Hong Kong Alpha Motion
Picture C[...]Lynch Film Dist., V (i-m-/) L (l—m-/‘)
Bruce the King of Kung Fu: Lonis Film Co., Hong
Kong/Malaya, 2432.88m, Louis Film Co.. V (I-m-g)
The Buddhist Flat: Peace Film Prod., Hong Kong,
239B,[...]85 mins, 14th Mandolin, V (1-I-g)
Divine Madness: The Ladd Co., U.S.,
Warner Bros (Aust.), 0 (sexual in[...]o|umbia Film Dist., S (i—m-g) L (l-m-g)

Joy to the World: Not shown, Hong Kong, 2413.84m,
Comiort Fi[...]an Film, Egypt, 1097m,
Paul Nachei, S (/-l-)‘)

The Log Fighters: Elegant Films Co., Hong Kong.
2462.[...]Lyra
Films, 0 (marital discord) 0 (adult theme)

The Octagon (b): American Cinema Prods, U.S..
2B44.58[...]S., 3021.05m, Pan American Productions, L,(l-m-1)
The Shining (continental version) (d): Warner Bros,
B[...].2m. Warner Bros (Aust.), V (l-m-/)
O (suspense)

The Spiral (16mm): Film Polski, Poland, 943.42m,
Poli[...]a Papers, March-April

Films examined in terms of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations and Sta[...]g, 274-1.21m,

Joe Siu Int'l Film Co., V (I-m-g)

The survivor: Tuesday Film, Australia, 2705.14m, GUO[...]., 3087.68m, Fox-Columbia

Film Dist., L (f-m-/)

The Victim: Grafton Film (HK), Hong Kong, 2509.92m,[...]82m,

Cinema lnt'l Corp., V (i-m-g) O (suspense)

The Here (a): Hai Hua Film Co., Hong Kong, 2587.2m,[...]3653.83m (May
1980 list)

Special Condition: That the film will be exhibited only

at the 1980 Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Indian

Ocean and/[...]h-g)

(a) Previously shown in-a longer version as The Devil

Made Me Do it (March 1980 list)
(b) Shorte[...]80 list

1478.06rrI, 14th

Films Board of Review

The Octagon (a): American Cinema Prods, U.S.,
2844.58[...]cision Reviewed: "R"
Censorship Board
Decision of the Board: Register "M"

The Great Rock and Roll Swindle (b): Matrix
Best/Kend[...]show Dist.
Decision Reviewed: "R" registration by the Film Cen-
sorship Board

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

(a) Previously shown on Se[...]sly shown on September 1930 list

registration by the Film

NOVEMBER 1980

Registered Without Eiiminati[...]g, Hong Kong,
2439.02m, Joe Siu |nt’| Film Co.

The Extraordinary Adventures at Mouse and His
Child:[...]cker Fantasy: Sanrio Films, Japan/U.S.,
2286.B2m, The House of Dare

Somewhere in Time: Rastar/Deulsch, U.S., 27B0.44m,
Cinema lnt'l Corp.

The Story oi a Small Town: Chen Ru Ling, Hong Kong,
2[...]9m. Sydney Filmmakers Co—operative, L (i—m-g)
The 5th Musketeer: T. Richmond, Britain/Austria.
3307[...]etnam, 2406.15m, Hong Australia Corp., V
(i-I-I)

The Idolmaker: United Artists, U.S., 3235.01m, United[...].
Nachei, O (emotional pitch)

Kobieta i kobieta (Woman and Woman) (16mm): Film
Polski, Poland, 1118m, Polish Consulate General, 0
(adult themes)

Lady oi the Castle (16mm): Not shown, Egypt, 930m,
P. Nachei,[...]60.91m, Warner Bros (Aust.), L (i-m-j) O (nudity)
The Pioneers: CMPC. China, 2B07.17m, Golden Reel
Films, V (i-l-i) 0 (sexual allusion)

The Prayers oi one Rosary (16mmlI N0! Shcwn.
Poland,[...], Egypt,
133B.34m, Fares Radio and TV, V (i-l-j)

The Spooky Bunch: Hi Pitch Co., Hong Kong,
2539.82m,[...]68m,
United Artists (A'sia), 0 (sexual innuendo)

The Story oi Her Mother: Fong Ming Motion Pictures,
H[...]-32m, Comfort Films Enterprises. 0
(adult theme)

The Story oi Lam Ah Chun: Not shown, Hong Kong,
2565.[...]g Kong,
25G6.55m, Golden Reel Films, V (i—m-g)

The Dogs at War: L. De Waay, Britain, 3262.90m,
United Artists (A'sia), V (i-m-g)

The Enigmatic Case: Ding Leung, Hong Kong,
2432.88m,[...]cil of Film Societies, 0 (adult theme) V
(i-m-/)

The Lovable Couples: Goldig Films, Hong Kong,
2342.59[...]i-m-j) 0 (horror)

Ouale is cupue (Death Steps In the Dark) (video-
cassette): Salavia Film, Italy, 97[...].
Germany, 2593.5am, Arclight, 0 (adult concepts)
The Stunt Man: R. Rust, U.S., 3569.66m, Roadshow
Dist[...]V
(/-m-i)

For Restricted Exhibition (R)

Beneath the Valley at the Ultravlxensz RM Films, U.S.,
2621.-17m, Regent Tr[...], 647.23m,
14th Mandolin, S (t-m-g)

Education at the Baroness: La Persane Prod., France,
2219m, Blake[...]Diffusion, S (I-h-/) 0 (sexual concepts)
Night of the Warlock (16mm): Satanic Films, U.S.,
592.70m, Esq[...]Without Eiiminetlons

For General Exhibition (G)

The Adventures of Pinocchio: G. Cenci, Italy, 2633m,[...]ansaml: Star Films, Italy, 2600m. Cinema
Moderno

The Blind Love: CMPC, Taiwan, 2650m, Golden Reel
Film[...]. Sippy, India, 3-166m, SKD Film Dist.
Koroithaki the Spinithos (16mm): Not shown, Greece,
987.30m. Cas[...]Films

Not Recommended ior Children (NRC)

Ankur (The Seedling): Bijlani/Varlava, India, 3590m,
Brighto[...]K. Kavurma, 0 (adult
theme)

Close Encounters ot the Third Kind — The special
Edition (a): J and M Phillips, U.S., 3611m, Fox Colum-
bia Film Dist., V (i-I-/)

The Formula: S. Shagan, U.S., 3151.3-1m, Cinem[...]

ANNHEIM FILM

Geoffrey Gardner

The 1980 Mannheim Film Festival
opened with a curious[...]ilms
by, and/or, about women; one wonders
how far the sentiment of doing so out-
weighed a rational ana[...]eir
content.

A tribute film to Larissa Shepitko, the
Soviet director of The Ascent, was
reverently uninformative but did offe[...]many, came next and, unfortunately
but laughably, the film contained a refer-
ence to the “treasures" of the Paris
Cinematheque. many of which have
since, thr[...]ul
neglect, gone up in smoke.

Finally, there was the Polish Be:
Milosci (Without Love), directed by Ba[...]ts heroine a
photo journalist grubbing her way to the
top by skilful use of her sexual charm
and nasty frame of mind. Directed with
computerized efficiency, the film is
almost the distaff side of Feliks Falk’s
(more witty) Top[...]igh-strung nerviness and
quick-moving mannerisms. The problem
is that this film may mean one thing to
Poles (or East European socialists in
general), but in the West it has quite
another meaning.

The idea that living “without love" is
anti-social[...]'s (mostly
men’s) lives.

Without Love is quite the best
example for some time of the cultural
sea-change that takes place for so many
films. It won the prize at Gdansk, the
festival of Polish films, for the best
feature, but the reception abroad is likely
to be chilly.

The opening, therefore, set the Festi-
val off in a very special direction, and
t[...]te-night discussions,
chaired by Ulrich Gregor of the Berlin
Arsenal, often going till 2 a.m., and each[...]ual time.

East Europe

In a situation like this, the Eastern
European films tend to stand out for
various reasons, the most prominent
being their evident professionalism. The
smooth, socialist system takes over to
present po[...]s, and probably help in hiding
deficiencies. Thus the Yugoslavian Splav
meduze (The Raft of Medusa), a charm-

ing, picaresque tale set in the 1920s
about a group of young intellectuals who
take a revolutionary circus-cum-street
theatre on the road, with predictably little
response, has all the gloss of an expen-
sive period reconstructlon, st[...]f freaks (though its joke about
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was the
best of the Festival), and is rough around
the edges with its background sound-
track of "white"[...]for its central
character who starkly personifles the
breakdown of a liberal society where
education, ambition and security — the
accepted goals/ideals — have, for one
generation at least, been abandoned and
replaced by nothing.

The Raft of Medusa, for all its side-
long looks at pre-revolutionary society. is
still safely set in the past, which is
another country. The general East
European theory breaks down with Pavlo
Arcianow's She would Not Leave Her
Lover from the Soviet Union, a turgid
“romance" about divorce[...]eido (Peacetime), a film in
that style which only the Hungarians are
pursuing, wherein a person whose s[...]-
man in a small village wheeling and
dealing for the advancement of his
village, and the opposition he meets to
his bulidozing approach to development
from the hierarchy of the party.

Acted and directed with gusto (the
man's reckless driving around the rough
roads of the countryside is a perfect
visual metaphor for his work methods),
the film is never less than involving, and
often pokes some wry fun at the hide-
bound upper levels of the party.

American

Independents

As a national group, the Americans
stood out for quantity and quality. Fou[...]hort films were
entered; all made on low budgets. The
features ranged from Permanent Vaca-
tion to a bl[...]d with energy and magnifi-
cently sound-recorded, the film was
rather cruelly dealt with in Mannheim,
being screened at 11 p.m. on the final
night, after the announcement of the
prizes, when just about everyone had
headed for the bar.

lssam Makdissy’s Liar’s Dice was the
only American feature which worked with
an origin[...]stage of expression. its virtues
were economy and the good sense not to
play out its drama too resolute[...]ve short films and, if there was
one pattern from the West to echo
Eastern Europe's efficient house sty[...]this area. All were different in
intent, but had the same, smooth sur-
faces in conveying quite overt messages.

Lee Grant's The Willmar 8, about a
bank strike in a conservative[...]ainst female employees
and their impotence before the law.

The law, or, more precisely, the Ameri-
can grand jury system, also gets a good
go[...]ore grand
juries. it makes its point against what the
film terms the abuse into which the
system has fallen, though if there is any-
thing positive to be said about that
system, the film keeps it secret.

Sally Hecke’s adaptation[...]and two women make their judg-
ment as to a third woman's guilt, was
most interesting. There is a strong sub-
text in the film concentrating on the sub-
merged feelings about men, and the
woman's role in a frontier society, and
this is ably conveyed by the actors, and
in the direction which manages, against
all odds, to time every entrance and
glance perfectly.

The other notable American entries
were two documentaries which both
employed the now-familiar mix of inter-
view and archive mater[...]sting subjects. Joel Sucher and
Steven Fischler's The Free Voice of
Labor has loads of information on that
small group of Jewish anarchists who
migrated to the U.S. early in the 20th
Century, and who have maintained their
political stance to the present, even as
they and their families prospered into the
middle class.

Josh WaIetzky’s Image Before My[...]iety in pre-war Poland. It was distin-
gulshed by the fascinating material
Waletzky found among the home movies
made by American Jews re-visiting the
country, and the selections from Jewish
films made in Poland before World War
II.

The Surprise
—

At every festival, there is always one
film which comes from nowhere to grab
the attention of the audience and make it
all worthwhile. In Mannheim,[...]sion: ll valore
della donna e II suo silenzio ( A woman’s
Greatest Value is Her Silence), directed
by Gertrud Plnkus.

The film opens on a shot of a tape-

Concluded[...]

I

in 1980 viewers were offered, for the
most part, the standard diet of soap-
operas, sit-coms and cops-and-
robbers, with the ABC's clear lead in
terms of quality being as predictable as
its bottom rung in the ratings.

Notable events of the year included:

0 Multi-cultural television. Laun[...]g, with a broad
range of ethnic-based viewing.

0 The Channel 10 take-over. The
Broadcasting Tribunal ruled that the
change in ownership of the Melbourne
channel, arising from the take-over of
Ansett Transport industries by Rupert
Murdoch’s News Ltd, contravened the
Broadcasting Act. News Ltd was denied
a licence and their appeal is now before
the Administrative Review Board.

0 Sale of the Century. The new
game-show quickly achieved ratings
dominance with record figures in most
capital cities. The producers do not ex-
pect the same high figures this year.

0 Water Under the Bridge. The Ten
Network’s most ambitious project,
while rec[...]ical accolades, failed
to create viewer interest. The series
was cruelly dubbed “Money Down the
Drain".

0 Arcade. Ten tried to repeat the
success of earlier soap-opera Number
96, spending a reported $1 million on
sets alone. The series was scrapped
after less than two months on air. The
soap-opera, however, is alive and living
in Wentw[...]eral
Hospital, Riverside, etc. Cop Shop,
Skyways, The Young Doctors, The
Restless Years and Prisoner continued
to be the staples of local series pro-
gramming and productions.

o The Last Outlaw and The Time-
less Land. These big-budget mini-
series, from the Seven Network and
ABC respectively, explored aspe[...]history with artistic if not
ratings success.

0 The Ted Hamilton/John Single-
ton/Peter Couchman Shows. The Ten
Network tried hard to find a successful
“chat show” format, but all attempts
failed. This led to the signing of British
interviewer Michael Parkinson, who
this year will produce a series of shows
for Ten.

0 The Olympic Games. In the face of
world boycotts and sponsor with-
drawal, the Seven Network went ahead
with its coverage of the Games — and
reportedly lost millions of dollars.

1

Ron Casey at Moscow. Reportedly the
coverage lost millions.

0 The Logies. Mike Walsh and Paula
Duncan took out the Gold Logies early

: in the year. 7
0 Overseas sales. The Don Lane

‘Show was sold to cable television

o[...]Prisoner also scored U.S. distribution,
prompting the production of Punish-
ment, a series set in an al[...]established vein of parody and
caricature, while the Ten Network im-
ported writers and actors for its version

,of the British series Are You Being
. Served?. Kingswood Country and the

ABC's Trial by Marriage did poorly,
and Norman Gunston flew around the
country making Gunston’s Australia, to
be shown on theThe Mike Walsh
Show. Most spectacular event was The
Royal Charity Concert, directed for
Nine by Peter Faiman at the Sydney
Opera House. Farnham and Byrne on
the ABC also rated well.

Changes to Broadcasting Act

The chairman of the Australian
Broadcasting Tribunal, David Jones,
has foreshadowed changes to the
Broadcasting and Television Act which
would intro[...]for broadcasters and tele-
casters who contravene the Act.

in an interview in the Melbourne Age.
Mr Jones said,

“Our present penalties are extreme.
This affects our credibility with the
public. People can see there has
been a transgression of standards
and that the Tribunal has done
nothing about it, simply because our
penalties are too severe for that
breach.

“The ABT has now asked the Ad-
ministrative Review Council to con-
sider the introduction of a range of
penalties, such as pub[...]although direct fines could pose
problems because the Tribunal has
no judicial powers.”

Meanwhile, the Government is
reviewing sections of the Act relating to
ownership and control provisions.[...]f stock exchange
transactions which have affected the
ownership and control of television and
radio stations.

FTPAA Examines cable

The Film and Television Production
Association of Aus[...], has prepared a set of
discussion guidelines for the forth-
coming inquiry into cable television.

individuals or organizations wishing
to participate in the Broadcasting
Tribunal’s inquiry have until March 16
to lodge submissions.

The FTPAA believes that the public
should be involved in the development
and planning of a national policy for
cable and pay television. The as-
sociation’s director, James Mitchell,
said,

“The issues of pay and cable tele-

vision are subtle[...]y to national broadcast-
ing concerns. We believe the public
should appreciate the factors in-

volved, and make their feelings
known to the Tribunal.

“Cable television should satisfy
pub[...]t Aus-
tralian production companies.”
Copies of the FTPAA’s discussion

outlineare available from the associa-
tion at Suite 306, 26 College St, Sydney.

Game Shows

Channels Seven and Ten are moving
into the game-show field again, no
doubt inspired by the success of Nine’s
Sale of the century.

Seven has picked up the Perth-
produced $50,000 Letterbox, hosted by
former Willesee comedian Paul Makin.
However, the series will not compete
directly with sale of the Century; it goes
to air at 5 pm. each weekday.

C[...]ares, titled Personality Squares.
Jimmy Hannan is the host.

Skyways. Killed because of poor ratings.

Skyways Grounded

The Seven Network has announced
that, because of poor ratings in Sydney,
Skyways will cease production in April.
The show has been maintaining its
figures in Melbourne and elsewhere,
but efforts to lift the Sydney figures —
including the filming of episodes there
-— failed to make any[...]feature by Sydney filmmaker Terry
Bourke based on the disappearance in
1968 of Prime Minister Harold Ho[...]mming at
Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria.

The two-hour thriller, The Janus
Conspiracy, is being financed by the
Australian Film Commission, Fontana
Films and pri[...]Washington, though casting is not yet
completed.

The plot involves the U.S. selling-out
Australia to the Russians and Chinese
in exchange for Middle East oil fields.

RS Productions

RS Productions, makers of the suc-
cessful comedy series The Naked Vicar
Show and Kingswood Country, have
packaged Daily at Dawn for the Seven
Network. Written by Gary Reilly and
Tony Sattler, the comedy series
premiered on Seven on February 5.

Daily at Dawn is set in the offices of
The Sun newspaper and was
researched at the Sydney Sun offices. it

Concluded on p. 10[...]

I, on the other hand, wanted to
get into shorter-run, reaso[...]rograms that I felt
had a chance of breaking into the
overseas market. And our philo-
sophy when budget[...]ure optimism, though we were
certainly charged by the reaction to
Against the Wind, which I was
producing while trying to get the
rights to film Alice.

Against the Wind was something
of a turnaround in local telev[...]y,
television stations were prepared to
listen to the concept of doing more
expensive and better quality work.

The Seven Network have been
extremely supportive in r[...], I got a “no” from Nine. I
suppose I went to the others as a
matter of course, but I felt all alon[...]ce you had worked with Seven
before, do you think the other
networks felt you had a special
relationshi[...]t know. Certainly, I now
have a relationship with the fellows
at Seven, and I think that is
probably da[...]prospects
of trying to sell a series with one of
the other networks. Perhaps I have
cut myself out of the rest of the
marketplace.

Why did you decide on “Alice” after
“Against the Wind”?

David Stevens, my partner in the
project, told me at dinner one night
that he had always wanted to film
A Town Like Alice. After reading
the novel, I wrote to the literary
agents of the late Nevil Shute.
After some negotiation, we found
the rights to make a television
series were available, and we picked
them up. A feature film had been
made of the property in 1956,
starring Virginia McKenna and
Peter Finch, but I didn’t look at it
until we had settled the treatment.

We then applied for money from
the Australian Film Commission to
develop a treatment[...]had a
treatment. So David Stevens and I
financed the early stages ourselves.

7[...]ing of
episodes. I guess this is because
Wgainst the Wind was 13 episodes,
and it seemed to be the most
marketable concept. Also, the more
episodes you do, the cheaper the
per-hour budget becomes. But we
soon’ found 13 episodes was
stretching the story too much, so we
reduced it to 10. But, in doing so,
the production budget rose to about
8150,00 an hour. This was double
the Wind, and a horrendous
53? mzontemplate, at that[...]terest from
a number of quarters, as well as
from the U S., but they wanted to
ifiast tfiimenicans in the lead roles
and we wei2,en’t prepared to do that[...]éeinaes. wliia is in charge of
aoguisitions for the
heard we were doing
filiee and expressed interest. When
I explained that I”d had a bad
reaction from the head of serials at
the BEE, he said, “Oh, that’s a
different departm[...]sted."

This opened up a whole new,,ball
gamep/as the prospect of a sale to
ttiie HBC would encourage a lot of
the local funding people to come to
the party. But (iunnar then said,
“if course, we ar[...]ested
in six hours." This freaked me as it
forced the budget up to $225,000 an
hour.

Anylway, the BBC decided to
become involved on a pre-purchase[...]est a reasonable
amount of money up-lront. But we
the, had some difficulties over
atmtrol, and a week[...]NRY CRAWFORD

Gunzo (Yuki Shimoda) carries one of the women's. children during part of the long trek. A Town Like Alice.

$100,000 short. Added to this, the
government bodies would not
release their funds until we had the
total budget guaranteed. Seven had
funded all our[...]equivocation and, at this
stage, we were in it to the extent of
$200,000. We were faced with
cancelling the production, with all
that money going down the drain:
we had bought advance-purchase
airfare tic[...]d I had
already deferred most of our fees
and, at the death knell, my wife and
her father came in with[...]rely
wanted to make a profit, we could
have made the thing out at
Warrandyte and pretended the

jungle was there. But I don’t think

that would have helped us get into
the overseas markets.

Has there been much interest
o[...]u see, a local network
contributes less than half the
budget, so one has to find the rest
from other sources. We raised that
through the AFC, the Victorian
Film Corporation and the private
investors.

Can you say how much Seven pa[...]I don’t
think we are going to see much, if
any. The main exercise was to get
all the investors’ money back, and
we will do that.

What are the major overseas sales?

We are completing an agree[...]rpiece Theatre, which is
a nationwide showcase in the U.S.
It usually shows the best of British
programs, like Edward and Mrs
Sim[...]year, and we have managed to
snaffle six of them. The BBC has
picked it up, of course, for British
terr[...]profit-sharing situation but a sell-
out. It was the only way of
guaranteeing that everyone got
their money back.

Alice has been a bit of a test case
for the future of the industry. From
now on it is not going to be
unrea[...]has already done
it and broke even. After Against thethe Wind.” Now, the same
people will run around saying, “We
think t[...]as well. Alice got such a
tremendous reaction in the US.
that I now have two or three
companies intere[...]n in
future series. This is better than a
kick in the head in the long-term.

Mini--series

Do you see a future for the mini-
series on Australian television?

That’s difficult. The biggest
problem in this country is finding
the properties;_ a mini-series
demands a very special[...]fact, I can’t think of any,
and that’s one of the reasons I am
not doing another mini-series at the
moment.

Do they need to be based on existing
sto[...]was a
bit of an eye-opener for me,
because it is the first program I
have sold based on a known book. I
only had to mention the title and
people responded favorably. If you
go in with some obscure title, the
situation may well be different.

How do you regard the other two
recent mini-series?

I think the[...]

Joe clambers under the car which has broken down in a swollen creek. A T[...]Is that all?

I was asked to produce Water
Under the Bridge and one reason I
turned it down was that I felt the
property didn’t have a core. You
can’t sell i[...]story. It
has no tangible hook.

I didn’t find the characters
terribly likeable and it was a
Sydney[...]e. That didn’t make sense
to me.

What about “The Last Outlaw”?

I think there were a couple of
problems with The Last Outlaw.
The central character tended to be
very regressive. w[...]g an activist,
his speeches, like his rave during
the bank robbery, did not sit well
with me. Another problem was that
Ian opted for the historical rather
than emotional, where he had a
choice.

I also felt that the story would
have been much stronger for a tele-
vision audience if it had been told
through the eyes of the women.
This is based on the fact that
women dictate what television is
watched at nights, and there was
really nothing for women in ‘the
program. I couldn’t imagine, for
instance, my mother wanting to
watch it after the first night, with its
historically-accurate 20-ro[...]nclusion. But if Ned Kelly
had been fighting for the honor of
his mother, who was there, and we
were s[...]nk it might have hooked my
moth?‘ into watching the second
night. ‘hat would not have been
historic. .ly accurate, however.

I also produced the early
episodes of The Sullivans, which
Ian created, and we were very care-
ful about seeing the series through
the eyes of Grace, so that she
became a focus; someone with
whom all the moms at home could
identify.

Was that also the case with
“Against the Wind”?

Yes. In anything I were to do for
telev[...],
and preferably a love story.
Basically, Against the Wind was a
love story.

Alice: The Story

Presumably that is -what also
attracted[...]ove story and
Shute is a marvellous story-teller.
The novel has a lot of interesting
twists in it, and[...]p
well, though obviously we had to
modify some of the aspects of the
relationship between Jean and Joe,
bringing it up[...]ult path, though,
as there was a danger of losing the
period feel if we took the sexual
aspects too far. From memory, I
don’t think they actually had it off
in the book.

ucnbl it

:1‘ ngzxirnmz

Joe and Jean, during thefloading season, Iookfor paddy stealers. A Town L[...]s Joe if he
would mind if they waited until after
the marriage . . .

Right. We thought it was im-
portant that they should actually
make it together. The audience was
going to be living with them,
waitin[...]together. I
think they would want them to do
it.

The most significant change to the
novel has been increasing Noel’s
romantic involvement. Why did you
do that?

We felt it would give the series an
added dimension if it were a
triumvirate. rather than two-
handed, relationship. The feature
film basically only dealt with the
Malaya half of the story, and Noel,
the solicitor, occupied only one
scene at the head. He had no
romantic involvement and was
ther[...]We felt that developing Noel’s
role would give the second half of
the story added impetus and
emotional drive by giving Jean a
choice. It also, we felt, made more
sense of the run-around Noel gave
Joe in London. I think Shute[...]se things,
but never really developed them.
Maybe the morality of the period
restricted him.

You also changed Noel fro[...]e him a viable
alternative and, had he been 90 at
the end, he wouldn’t have been one.

Also, Gordon J[...]senile, but
Gordon brought a sort of virility to
the character. I remember Bryan
Brown watching one of[...].”

Why did you choose two script-
writers?

As the series is basically about
an Englishwoman, we thought it
important to have an English
woman writer involved [Rosemary
Anne Sisson]. But we also felt such
a person would be at a disadvantage
with the Australian outback
elements. So Tom Hegarty, who
had done the treatment for us,
came in to share the workload.

We sent Tom to England, and he
and Ros[...]it-
ments she had with an American
series, and in the end she could only
di) two of her three [episodes l and
4 .

As it turned out, I was very
happy with the collaboration,
because I don’t think there is a
perceptible jump in the writing
styles. Tom read Rosemary’s
scripts, an[...]id you ever consider casting a
British actress in the role of Jean?

—

Do you think the Australian
audience will see her as an English-
woman?

Well, Helen is Bnglish, of course,
a long time[...]erization and I
never doubt it. But you have seen
the series as a viewer, and your
reaction may be different. The BBC
certainly hasn’t been concerned
about her, and accent was an area
they were always twitchy about.

The only time it arguably causes a
problem is when Jo[...]un-
acceptable to him.

An interesting aspect of the series is
its portrayal of an Australian male
who[...]t authority in
Malaya, but in Australia just toes
the line. He unquestioningly accepts
the rules, like keeping women out of
the hotel bar, and even poddy
stealing has its rules[...]one could argue
that being a larrikin, and doing the
things he does do, helps him
survive.

There is a[...]ances, like war-
time. We worked to this end with
The Sulliv-ans. And with Alice,
David and I felt there was a great
danger, with all the death and
horror, that it could become too
gloomy. That is also why Rose-
mary disposed of many of the nasty
elements and deaths in a trek
montage, rath[...]uch of Mrs Collard’s
death, even though she’s the first to
die. The only death we really
exploit is that of the first child,
where we have the funeral scene in
the rubber plantation.

As in the novel, you show very little
of the Japanese brutality that
actually occurred. The Japanese
come across as a far less barbaric
occup[...]m . . .

Firstly, we tried to be very
faithful to the novel. Secondly, we
were conscious of attitudes in 1980
and of the need to deliver a
balanced point of view. I am sure
the Japanese weren’t all bad, and
we tried to show that. I hope the
audience will feel for Gunzo, the
old soldier who dies. We wanted to
show- the Japanese as people and
not as 1942 cardboard cut-out
nasties‘.

At the same time, I don’t think
we backed away from the violence
when we felt it was essential. But we
tr[...]t. We could
have made a big action adventure,
but the story was always a love
story, of two men in love with the
same woman. To digress into the
barbarity of the period might have
appeared a diversion.

Except that an audience might not
have the same gut reaction to their
predicament as if the punches had
not been pulled . . .

Well, there is[...]simply by
photographing it accurately.

In fact, the women were left very
much to their own resources. The
Japanese didn’t want to know
about them. The Japanese had
other preoccupations, like supply-
i[...]n’t want to
know about this group of women.
So, the group was left to wander
from one part of Malaya to
another. And that’s factual.

The other thing we tried to show
was that here was a[...]t
standard of living. Suddenly, they
are assuming the role of the natives.
We felt that that was, for those
charact[...]lf.

Another criticism that .could be
levelled at the series is the use of
dialogue to carry basic, if not
obvious, i[...]urns to his wife
at a tennis match, on hearing of the
approaching Japanese forces, and
says, “[...]

-.A—_L~

The Auuhaflans

-I-----I--I
FEATURES
---------

ROUND THE BEND

Prod. company . . . . . . . ..Tasmanian Fil[...]s.
an intelligent yet complex man, slips ‘round
the bend‘ into a void oi insanity. as those
who cou[...]l to reach out to him
or meet his needs.

SERIES

THE AUSTRALIANS

Dist. company . . . . .[...]made-for-tele-
vision documentary series covering the
personalities, places and events that help
give A[...]. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Ron McLean
Based on the original idea

by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[...]Synopsis: A police action series centred
around the activities of Detective Steve
Bellamy, filmed primarily in the Inner city
areas ol Sydney.[...]r . . . . . . . . . .. Eleanor Witcombe

Based on the novel
by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..Mary G[...]nopsis: A tamily—oriented drama series
based on the Biliabong books by Mary
Grant Bruce.

CORAL ISLAN[...])
Synopsis: Based on Fl. M. Ba|lantyne'a
novel oi the same name.

DECADE
Prod. company . . . . .[...]. . . . .. 1982

Synopsis: A lamily saga set amid the social
changes of the 19705.

THE LAST OUTLAW

Prod. company ....Pegasus Productions
tor the Seven Network

Producer . . . . . . . . . . . . R[...]nton (Kate Kelly),
Tim Eliott (Steele).
synopsis: The story at Austraiia’s most
famous outlaw, Ned Ke[...]. . . . . . . . . . . . Howard Griffiths
Based on the novel

by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[...]eil Wilson

Music performed by George Dreyfus and
the West Aust. Symphony

Orchestra
Mixer . . . . . .[...]s: A light-hearted look at Mel-
bourne society ln the year leading up to
World War I.

Still photograph[...]personalities.

PUNISHMENT

Prod. company .The Grundy Organization
Dist, company . . . . . ..Cha[...]. . . . . . . . . . . . ..Ju|lan Prlngle
Based on the original

idea by . . . . , . . . . . . .[...]

Synopsis: A study oi the lives of inmates
and warders at a large country p[...]for Higher School Certificate students.

covering the year 12 curricula in the ma-
jor subjects. The series includes special

programs devoted to increasing the
students awareness of the educational
system.

A TOWN LIKE ALICE

. .AIice[...]. . .. Rosemary Anne Sison,
Tom Hegarty

Based on the novel
by . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . .[...]: A World War 2 romance.

For complete details of the following series
see issue 30:

water Under the Bridge

DOCUMENTARIES

THE AUSTRALIAN SURFING
PHENOMENON

Prod. company . .[...]. . . . .. February. 1981

Synopsis; A report on the Australian surfing
phenomenon and the role of surf movies in
promoting the sport and reflecting the sub-
culture.

DO NOT PASS GO

Prod. companies .[...]g release

Synopsis: A documentary which looks at
the lives of two young people in conflict with
the law. An examination oi some oi the
problems faced by young offenders and the
support systems available to them. Pro-
duced lor the Department of Community
Welfare Services.

ETHNIC[...]production

Synopsis: A short film which looks at the
economic. political and social contribution by

migrants, to the development and enrich~

ment of Tasmania.

INTER[...]. . . . . . . . . . . . . ..Robin Heeps
Based on the original

idea by . . . . . . Wise Street Product[...]. .Production

Synoptic: An entertaining look at the

Droblems of stress in our society. and an
examination of some of the alternatives
available to help you cope with it.[...]Synopsis. A short documentary film which
looks at the economic. political. social and
cultural contribution of migrants to the
development of Tasmania.

24 HOURS AT LE MANS

.[...]. .. Awaiting release
Synopsis: A documentary on the 1980 Le
Mans.

WHISKY FATEH

Cornford Blackett-Sm[...]release

synopsis: This television documentary on
the operations and activities of the PLO in
Lebanon (their headquarters) as well as in[...]with actual war
lootage.

For complete details of the following
documentaries see issue 30:

Har[...]

IOI

Top movies from every corner of the globe will be shown on
Channel O/28 in Sydney and Melbourne. In the coming months watch
for these outstanding films[...]g
ljlnnocente Italy Luchino Visconti
AND BINDING The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Germany Volker Schl[...]os
Paradise Place Sweden Gunnel Lindblom
Knife in the Head Germany Reinhard Hauff
03 9 9 7 Elephant G[...]ain Carlos Sau ra MUIIICUITUIIAITFLEVISION E

KEM the sophisticated German
editing system has proved it[...]n.

KEM now introduces versatility and
economy to the Australian film
industry.

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

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

KEM & FILMWEST, the state of the
art.

For information and appointments con[...]

Telecine is the equipment used to reproduce
motion picture films[...]in virtually every
broadcasting station.

«From the earliest days of commercial television,
broadcast[...]directly to air using telecines in what is termed the
‘on—line’ mode of operation. The invention of
Videotape recording made possible the pre-
recording of programs that previously had to be
put to air. live. Films and slides needed in the

assembly or post-production of these pre-

recor[...]oduction’ telecine facilities. In contrast
with the widespread use of automatic signal level
control[...]ally controlled manually, with an
operator making the adjustments needed to
compensate for variations in density and color.
With the continuing trend towards totally
automated television station operation, the need
to transfer complete television film program[...]ing is increasing. This
has been made possible by the relative ease with
which videotape machines can b[...]s during idle time, or by
production companies as the final step in program
assembly. A number of film[...]obtain television pictures from films and
slides, the optical images must be converted into
video signa[...]ilar, in that a scanning beam is used to separate
the optical images into a series of horizontal lines.[...]ying spot scanner
technology (See Fig. 1.), while the other uses
camera—type telecines. (See Fig. 2.)[...]eam produced by a cathode ray
tube and focused on the film in the projector gate.
In a camera—type telecine the entire film image is

* Compiled by the Motion Pictures Division of Kodak
Australasia (Pt[...]ted onto pick-up tubes in a television
camera and the resulting optical images are then
scanned by an electron beam, as in a live television
camera. As the scanning beam sweeps across the
optical image from side to side, a tiny electrical
current is generated that varies in relation to the
brightness of the area scanned. After being
amplified and processed this electrical output
becomes the television video signal and is then
either transm[...]and
operating techniques.

Flying Spot Scanners

The flying spot scanner was developed in
Britain, wh[...]By filming at 25 fps, or by
slightly speeding up the film from 24 fps to 25 fps
in the transport mechanism of the scanner, the
two systems can be locked together so that each
f[...]tion
film transport can be used that will advance the
film in synchronism with the scanning beam,
rather than the intermittent or ‘pull down’
movement normally[...]deo Signals from
Film with a Flying Spot Scaimer

Thethe Film
and Television Interface Part One, Cinema
Pa[...]ght is
produced as an electron beam sweeps across the
phosphor layer on the inner surface of the tube
face. This spot of light is focused sharply on the
film plane in the gate and makes one complete
frame scan in 1/25 of a second.

The television fields for each frame are
separated on the cathode—ray tube face, and
therefore if correct registration between the fields
is to be obtained the distance between the scans
must be within half a line or better. (See Fig. 3.)
When operating on 625 lines, a gap occurs between
the two field scans when the film is running,
therefore there is a bar in the centre of the tube
which has less electron bombardment than the
areas adjacent to it. The cathode—ray tube
phosphor does not burn, but the glass face plate
becomes discolored. To remedy th[...]fourth photo—multiplier cell is used to measure the
tube brightness. The cell output is not connected
to the cathode—ray tube in a negative feedback
loop to give constant brightness; rather, the signal
is used to control the gain of separate red, green
and blue shading correctors. This is because the
tube discoloration is light sensitive. The light loss
in the blue channel is greater than the red and,
therefore, the negative feedback to the tube
would correct only one channel.

As the film image in the gate is being scanned
the film continuously modifies the transmitted
light in color and brightness. The transmitted light
is separated into red, g[...]

Fig. 3. The CR T face of the Rank Cintei showing the
scanned area.

by means of other mirrors into an array of four
photomultiplier tubes. Signals generated in the
photomultiplier tubes vary in amplitude in
relation to the brightness and color of the light
directed into the tubes. These signals are then
amplified and proc[...]meras.
(See Fig. 4.)

A significant advantage of the flying spot
scanner is that color separation takes place after
the film image has been scanned; consequently
there i[...]antages of current
flying spot scanners are that the format can be
changed from 8mm to 16mm to 35mm to slide by
simply exchanging the gate assembly; that color
analysis occurs in ‘real time’, that is, there is no
storage of the video signal; and that the device has
the ability to handle very high contrast ratios (up
to 500: l). The higher contrast ratio is the principal
reason for the superiority of film images to video-
originated i[...]hoto-conductive or
C amera-type T elecine

During the early days of television. the method
adopted for reproducing film was to project the
films into a television camera. This led to the
development of the camera—type telecine for this
specific purpose.

The most popular type of tube for telecine use is
the vidicon tube. A television camera fitted with
thr[...]nerate video signals from
color films and slides, the optical images being
projected directly into the camera with a suitably
modified conventional film projector.

An advantage of the camera—type telecine in
Australia is that sever[...]around an optical
multiplexer. Remote control of the projector and
multiplexer mirrors from the control room
permits almost instantaneous selection of any of
the projectors, making it possible to cut back and
fo[...]withstand continuous
operation over long periods. The film images must
be held precisely in a fixed position in the gate
relative to the scanned area on the television
camera tubes. The distance between the film in the
projector gate and the field lens of the television
camera of a multiplexed telecine is usually quite
long. often more than a metre. On the other hand,
the scanned area in a typical vidicon tube is only
about 12mm wide and it is for this reason that the
optical images from 16mm film frames must be
positioned so accurately on the face plates of the
three tubes in a color camera. Image alignment
(registration) for the three tube faces must be
carefully maintained for[...]re quality.

Films can be projected directly into the telecine
camera with a single projector in what is termed
the ‘uniplexed mode‘, but it is much more
common[...]ching from one projector to
another by activating the multiplexer mirrors and
directing the desired projector light beam into the
telecine camera. As an added convenience some
tel[...]device such as a patch of metal foil attached
to the edge of the film.

The slide projector for telecine use is a dual
channel optical system with a single light source.
The slides are mounted in slots around the
periphery of two vertically-oriented rotatable
drums. An important feature of the telecine slide
projector is its capacity to chang[...]t an
intervening dark period. This is effected in the
system described above by alternating between
slides in the right and left hand drums. A remote
control slide change mechanism that automatic-
ally advances the slides in the proper sequence is
usually included.

Generating[...]rom a synchronizing generator.
These pulses cause the electron beam in the
camera and picture tubes to trace the horizontal
lines in synchronism. At the same time the
electron beams are being driven downwards, line

by line, over the raster to trace successive fields.

A vidicon tube of the type generally used in
telecine cameras is quite[...]25mm in diameter and
152mm long although some of the newer tubes are
smaller. The front end of the tube has a flat,
polished faceplate with a transparent electrically-
conductive coating (the signal electrode) on its
inner surface. The photo-conductive layer is
deposited directly on the signal electrode and has
the property of decreasing in resistivity when
exposed to light. At the base of the tube is an
electron gun that supplies a narrow beam of
electrons. The beam is brought to sharp focus at
the photo-conductive layer by external focusing
coils surrounding the tube. When the optical
image from a film or slide projector is formed on
the faceplate of the tube, an electrical charge
pattern builds up in the photo-conductive layer.
As the electron beam sweeps back and forth over
this lay[...]ed that varies in
amplitude in direct relation to the brightness in
the different parts of the image.

T hree-tube T elecine Camera

In a color[...]ree separate signals are
generated that represent the amounts of red, green
and blue light in the optical images projected into
the camera. (See Fig. 6.) These signals must be
ampli[...]FIUEPS LENSES TUBE

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the optical system of
a typical ph0I0- conductive typ[...]nation of color
filters and dichroic mirrors) in the optical systems
separate the light transmitted by the film into red,
green and blue components. These[...]erate three separate video
signals that represent the red, green and blue
elements in the color film images. The filters used
to separate the light transmitted by the film
images into its three-color components are
selected to produce the most favorable color
television pictures from typical films supplied to
the television broadcasters by the film industry.

The filters used in a telecine are important, but
te[...]d fromfilm depend on
many other factors as well: the dyes used to
produce the color images, the characteristics of
light sources and light-sensing devices in the
telecine and the types of phosphors used in picture
monitors and receivers to reproduce the color
pictures. A factor of overriding importance[...]rdized reproducing con-
ditions that would enable the most favorable
color separation filters to[...]

is the objective " “producing: color films in the

television system. Two different objectives have[...]elevision programs would like to be able to
match the pictures from the different sources as
possible to minimize noticea[...]been proposed — and sometimes
employed — with the intention of altering the
appearance of television pictures from film to

, meet either of the above objectives. It is now
. generally accepted[...]ood quality color films. But it is unlikely
that the resultant television pictures would
precisely meet either of the objectives mentioned
above.

With the increasing interest in transferring films
to videotape for the production of television
programs, there are greater demands to modify
picture appearance to match the film pictures with

I live television camera pictures, or with the directly

projected pictures as seen in the preview room.
Along with these objectives of the television
stations, the program production companies, to
save time and ex[...]films —— either
reversal or negative — for the transfers. Such
transfers could be called videoprints, and a likely
objective for the production companies would be
to produce videopri[...]olor television
pictures that are comparable with the film prints
maiie in a color-film printing system.

‘Waveform Monitor

The video signals at the output of either a flying
spot scanner or a camera-type telecine, vary in
amplitude with the brightness of the various film
image areas. As the scanning beam traces out its
pattern of horizontal lines, the video signal levels
rise and fall to produce a co[...]s and up
to maximum amplitude in highlight areas. The
composite video signal must not exceed one volt
in the television broadcast system. To monitor the
video signals, a special form of oscilloscope,
kn[...](See Fig.
7.)

An engraved graticule placed over the face of
the tube is divided, in the PAL system, into 100

Fig. 7 A telecine waveform monitor.

THE FILM AND TELEVISION INTERFACE

Fig. 8. The calibration si.I,*nu/ on my war.-'/‘n/m um/1:n.>r 0/ (1 /ly/'n_r; 3/)0! smmzrr.

units. The portion from zero to 30 units is reserved
for the synchronizing pulses while the video
signals are displayed in the range from 30 to 100
units. When a telecine is first turned on, the video
signals may be quite low or very high, depending
on the light illuminating the film and the settings
of the electronic controls on the equipment.
Normally, in setting up a telecine, a test signal is
generated and the controls are then adjusted to
give standard signal levels on the waveform
monitor.

With a photo—conductive type of telecine, that
is the camera—type telecine, a test slide such as the
Kodak Cross Step Gray Scale Test Slide is used to
facilitate set—up. With the test slide placed in the
field lens position of the camera-type telecine, the
camera controls can be set to give a crossed
staircase display on the waveform monitor. The
waveform display gives the standard minimum
and maximum (peak white and black) signal
levels in the television system. (See Fig. 8.)

An entirely different technique for generating
the waveforms has to be employed with the flying
spot scanner. A calibrating signal that ca[...]rom a
specially-made test film or slide placed in the gate.

Once the telecine has been set up, the signal
levels appearing on the waveform monitor will
Vary, depending upon the maximum and
minimum densities of the films and slides being
reproduced. The levels of the signals can be raised
or lowered in relation to the waveform monitor
scale by adjusting the electronic controls in the
telecine or by changing the projector light levels
(in camera-type telecines)[...]iable neutral density disc that can be rotated in
the light beam.

If the three separate outputs of the color film
telecine can be displayed side by side on the
waveform monitor, the differences in the levels
from the red, green, and blue channels can be
readily seen. Even if the three channels cannot be
observed at the same time on the wave~
form monitor, but are viewed separately, it[...]er. Thus, a waveform display
with low levels from the red channel and normal
levels in the green and blue channels would
correspond to a color television picture lacking
red or unbalanced in the blue~green direction.

Television Picture Monitor

In addition to the waveform monitor that
displays the video—signal levels generated from
films and slides, a picture monitor is used to
evaluate the television pictures that are being
obtained. This is particularly important in the
operation of color telecines where signal level
a[...]cture color
balance can only be made by observing the color
displays on a properly-adjusted television picture
monitor.

The setting up of the color picture monitor
must be carried out with great care to provide the
essential picture color reference. Instruments are
available for adjusting the color temperature of
the monitor and its brightness. SMPTE Recom-
mended Practice RP37-l969 specifies that the
white reference for color television studio
monit[...]alibrating signal
or neutral test object, such as the Kodak Cross
Step Gray Scale Test Slide enables the picture
monitor controls to be set to give a neutral
display. Uniform signal levels from the three
color channels in the reproducer, as seen on the
waveform monitor, should give a neutral
staircase display on the picture monitor.

Once these conditions have been[...]n color balance in films or slides, or to modify the
color balance and overall appearance of the color
television pictures in any desired direction.

Part three of The Film and Television Interface,
entitled Technique[...]tion,
will describe how to compensate for some of the
variabilities that exist at the interface. ‘A’

Cinema Papers, March-A[...]

Timed to coincide with the centenary of Ned
Kelly’s death, The Last Outlaw was the Seven
Network’s most ambitious and expensive ho[...]ama series for 1980. Ian Jones and
Bronwyn Binns, the partnership responsible for
the successful 1979 series Against the Wind,
again doubled as scriptwriters and executive
producers. Viewers could embark on The Last
Outlaw in confident anticipation of good-quality
historical drama.