Cinema Papers no. 87 March-April 1992 (2025)

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CINEMA PAPERS IS PUBLISHED

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AND FILM VICTORIA

CO[...]TV PUBLISHING LIMITED.

Signed articles represent the views of the authors
and not necessarily that of the editor and publisher.
While every care is taken with manuscripts and
materials supplied to the magazine. neither the editor
nor the publisher can accept liability for any loss or
damage which may arise. This magazine may not be
reproduced in whole or part without the express
permission of the copyright owners. Cinema Papers is
published (approximately) every two months by

MT[...]PORATING FILMVIEWS

CONTENTS

2 BRIEFLY

4 ACROSS THE RED UNKNOWN WITH GEORGE NEGUS
INTERVIEW BY SCOTT[...]EPSTEIN

MULTI-CULTURAL CINEMA: A SUPPLEMENT

34 THE ASIAN SCREEN TEST
SYLVIE SHAW

42 CANNONS IN THE CAMERA
JOHN HARDING

44 FILMS IN COLOUR: ABORIGIN[...]TATIONS
ARCHIE WELLER

46 JAMES R|CKETSON’S DAY OF THE DOG

PICTURE PREVIEW

48 BLACK SCREENS: ABORIGINA[...]8 ELEATIC ELEVEN

CONTRIBUTORS

ANA-MARIA BAHIANA is a Brazilian film writer based in Los Angeles; CRAIG BROWN is a freelance writer
specializing in television; PHILLIP DUTCHAK is a freelance writer and film historian; JAN EPSTEIN is the film
reviewer for The Melbourne Report: EVA FRIEDMAN is a freelance journalist who often writes for The Age's EG;
JOHN HARDING is a playwright and performance poet, as well as administrator of the Ilbijerri Aboriginal-Torres
Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative; GREG KERR is a freelance writer specializing in the entertainment
industry; ROSE LUCAS is a senior tutor in Literature and Cinema Studies at Monash University; ADRIAN MARTIN
is the film critic of Business Review Weekly; KARL QUINN is a freelance writer on film; JORGE DAVID REMY is
based in Georgia, U.S., and has contributed to such magazines as Living Blues, Art Papers and The Georgia
RevI'eIIv, JIM SCHEMBRI, despite his new year's promise in The Age, has still to make his bed; SYLVIE SHAW is
the film consultant to Asialink; ARCHIE WELLER is an author, whose novel Day of the Dog has just been filmed;
RAYMOND YOUNIS is a lecturer at the University of Sydney.

The Comfort of Strangers (Paul Schrader)
Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's
Husband, Patrice Leconte)

Porte Ap[...]melio)
Mr and Mrs Bridge (James Ivory)
RUNNERS-UP
The Sheltering Sky (Bernardo Bertolucci)
La Double Vie de Veronique (The Double
Life of Weronika, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Aux Yeux du Monde (The Eyes of the
World, Eric Rochant)

BEST PERFORMANCES (FEMALE)[...]ST
Texasville
BEST PHOTOGRAPHY
Vittorio Storaro's for The Sheltering Sky
BEST PHOTOGRAPHY (AUSTRALIAN)
David Eggby’s for Quigley
BEST MUSIC SCORE
Zbigniew Preisner’s for
La Double Vie de Veronique
BEST CONFIRMATION OF
A NEW TALENT
Eric Rochant with Aux Yeux du Monde[...]ks (Peter Greenaway)
MOST UNDER-RATED
Texasville, The Sheltering Sky
MOST OVER-RATED
Ju Dou (Zhang Yi—Mou)

Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott)

The Grlffers (Stephen Frears)

Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese)
Bonfire of the Vanities (Brian de Palma)

COFIRIGENDA

In the production report on The Nostradamus Kid,
there were two unfortunate errors. First, speed was
incorrectly transcribed from the interviewwith Bob
Ellis as methadone instead of methadrine.

The second error (the editor's) had Miranda
Otto starring in The Place at the Coast. The actress
concerned was Tushka Bergen.

Le Mari de la Coiffeuse was misspelt in the

“Tenebricose Ten”, p.80.

CONTENTS

Due to the space demands of the Multi-cultural
Cinema Supplement, the proposed Part II of the
“Australian Feature Production Overview" is being
spread over the next few issues.

Film Censorship Listings have not been pub-
Iished in the past few issues due to the Common-
wealth Film Censor no Ionger publishing i[...]a user-pay
computer-phone service. Cinema Papers is pres-
ently evaluating the situation to see if it can con-
tinue publishing the listings.

2 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

*

SECOND AUSTRA[...]mber to 2 December 1991

PHILLIP DUTCHAK REPORTS

The Australian National University in Canberra
was the place where more than 400 people came
to be part of the Second Australian Documentary
Film Conference. Held over the weekend through
late November to December, the conference’s
heavy schedule kept delegates on the move to
keep up with the various lectures, screenings and
meetings.

A late rush of applicants had Film Australia
organizers trying to cope with the sudden influx.
That everyone was taken care of, and that the
conference proceeded smoothly, is a credit to all
those working behind the scenes.

The conference gave each of its three days of
sessions a broad theme. They were "The Market-
place of Ideas", “Cultural Representation" and
"Brave New World” respectively. On any of the
three days, delegates had a choice of lectures and
film or video screenings to choose from. For in-
stance, on Day One a panel consisting of the
ABC’s Peter Manning, television personality and[...]lip Tyndall and
Don Bennetts, with Pauline Webber from SBS,
screened portions of their art documentaries and
gave opinions about getting art projects ‘up’. Day

BQDE

FEW

One also saw the screening of Dennis O’Rourke’s
The Good Woman of Bangkok.

Film Australia was very particular in advising
that the showing of The Good Woman ofBangkok
was "a non-critical press screening". Unfortu-
nately for O'Rourke, this condition applied only to
the press and not to the delegates. This was
unfortunate as O'Rourke found himself under at-
tack the next day by some members of the audi-
ence for having made a “cultural" film in Thailand
and not Australia, among other things.

Some of the other films screened during the
conference were Light Years by Kathryn Millard,
Daryl Dellora’s Mr. Neal ls Entitled To Be An
Agitator and the well-received Sacred Sex by
Cynthia Connop. Video productions were also on
show, with some delegates taking the opportunity
to screen productions they had broughtwith them.
The Australian Film Commission provided a spe-
cial issue ofthe Documentary Checklistwhich gave
titles of documentaries made since 1988, listed-
them by subject and provided a survey of sales
contacts.

Other printed matter given to those who at-
tended were a discussion paper from Arts Action
Australia Inc. on Australian culture, and the exten-
sive Conference Papers, which is strongly rec-
ommended reading to those unable to attend.

The sessions, while varied and numerous,
had at times an academic tone which left some of
the audience a bit cool. Still, on a very practical
level, the event allowed a good deal of networking
to happen. Representatives from and heads ofthe

CONTINUES ON PAGE 80

OBITUARIES[...]rs and maga-
zines, let itthen be just noted here the sad deaths
ofAustra|ians Dame Judith Anderson, Gr[...]l three, in vastly differing
ways, contributed to the world film culture.

Dame Judith was an exceptional actress who
will always be especially remembered for her role
as Mrs Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock‘s F[...]Australian stage debut in Sydney in 1915 and her
American on Broadway in 191 8. Her first film was
Blood Mo[...]n such films as
Kings Flow(1 942), Laura (1 944), The
Strange Love ofMartha lvers (1946)
and Cat on a H[...]ler, lnn ofthe Damned
(1975).

Greg Tepper worked for a long
time at the Victorian Film Commis-
sion (later Film Victoria)[...]was
greatly loved by his fellow workers,

RIGHT: THE LATE DAME JUDITH ANDERSON

(WITH ALEX CORD) IN TERRY BOURKE‘S INN OF
THE DAMNED.

as he was by many filmmakers he helped. He was
also a producer in his own right (We of the Never
Never, 1982).

Brian Robinson was a filmmaker (co—director
with Phillip Adams of Jack and Jill: A Postscript,
1970) and passionate film lover who inspired
many filmmakers at the Swinburne Film and Tel-
evision School. That Swin[...]s braver and more visually cin-
ematic than those from Sydney's Film Television
& Radio School is, to many, atribute to Robinson.
His legacy will thus live on in the work of the many
filmmakers who came under his nurturing wing.

DOOUMENTARIES

MEN AND WOMEN - THE DIFFERENCE (4 X 60 mins)
Robin Hughes & Associate[...]er: Robin Hughes. This television series
examines the difference between men and women,
using the latest scientific knowledge to explode
myths about gender and to discover what lies at the
heart of the battle of the sexes.

BLOOD BROTHERS (4 x 60 mins) City Picture[...]lives are interwo-
ven with significant events in the history of the
Aboriginal struggle. The stories of Darby
Jampiniimpa Ross, Rupert Max Stuart, Charle[...]art Willoughby are told in this produc-
tion made from an Aboriginal perspective.
SEARCHING (60 mins) M[...]oolmington,who was an adopted
child, uses her own quest as the core of this film
about the personal search by adopted children for
their natural parents.

WHEN MRS HEGARTY COMES TO[...]cuses .on Mrs Hegarty’s first en-
counters with the people and culture of Japan,
which she once held as alien, and with the parents
of her adopted “Japanese daughter", who belong to
a generation she once regarded as enemies. The
filmmaker is the “Japanese daughter” portrayed in
the film.

19 DECEMBER

F E A T U R E S

DECAYS OF OUR LIVES (90 mins) Oilrag Produc-
tions. Produce[...]hris
Kennedy. This stylized.docu—drama unravels the
bizarre events which |ed;Australian dentist Gordon
Fairweather to defraud~the British health system

and become an international fugitive, leaving be-
hind a trail of overtreated teeth and pursued by a
love-struck dental nurse.

M I N I - S E R I E s

ON THE BEACH (2 x 90 mins) Southern Starsullivan.
Produc[...]twriters: Bill Kerby, David
Williamson. Australia is the last remaining place on
Earth as yet unaffected by the nuclear fallout of
World War III. As Melbourne awaits the deadly
radiation cloud, the remnants of the American navy
straggle into port. While time runs out, the survivors
find despair, tragedy and love in this[...]on Nevil Shute‘s classic book.

DOOUMENTARIES

THE TENTH DANCER (60 mins) Singing Nomad Pro-
duction[...]cer: Sally lngleton. Director: Sally lngleton. At
the end of Pol Pot’s reign of terror, only one in ten
classical dancers of Cambodia’s Royal Court had
survived. This is the story of two of the survivors and
of their efforts to rebuild a destroyed culture.
LIVING IN THE NEVER NEVER (60 mins) Sorena.
Producers: John Mabey. Rhonda Mabey. Director:
John Mabey. Cook is one of the last remaining
railway settlements built in the Nullarbor Plain to
service the transcontinental line. This documentary
shows how the people of Cook (population 69) thrive
in this harsh, remote[...]er: Malcolm McDonald. This documentary ex-
plores the bizarre world of private detectives.

23 JANUARY

F E A T U R E S[...]Megan
Simpson. Scriptwriter: Ken Catran. Based on the
novel by Tessa Duder. Winning has always been
easy for Alex, a 15-year-old champion swimmer
from the wrong side of the tracks. Then comes love
and tragedy and the loss of innocence. In 1959, she
faces her toughest challenge: qualifying for the
Rome Olympics.

COPS AND ROBBERS (90 mins) Total[...]les his suicide attempt and em-
barks on a career of crime in this action-packed
cops and robbers come[...]may-
hem and marriage.

M I N I — S E R I E 5

THE MIRACULOUS MELLOPS - THE SEQUEL (20 X 30
mins) Millenium Pictures. Executi[...]Maureen Ann Moran, Sharyn
Rosenberg, AlisterWebb.The sequelto the popular
fantasy—comedy series for children continues the
adventures of the Mellop family. Using Pan Galactic
windows-of-opportunity (a secret mode of space
travel) the Mellop children battle to save civilization
on earth.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BLACK BEAUTY 2 (26 X
30 mins) PRO Television. Exe[...]on. This period chil-
dren's drama series follows the adventures of Is-
abella Barrett, a 13-year-old orphan, whose life
changes dramatically when she is rescued by Black
Beauty. Black Beauty, lsabella and her new friends
band together to untangle the mysteries surround-
ing her arrival in an Australian country town and the
discovery of a lost gold shipment.

DOOUMENTARIES

THE BETTER LIVING SERIES (3 x 50 mins) David
Flatman[...]ucer: David
Flatman. Scriptwriter: David Flatman. The series of
three documentary specials examines the quality of
life in the developed world and looks at some of the
pressures and inequalities created by the push for
higher living standards. How can we improve our
lives and make better use of the health systems
designed to care for us? The programmes will focus
on nutrition, injury and ageing.

PRESERVING FOR THE TASTE OF IT (13 x 30 mins)
CM Film Productions. Executive[...]ctor:
Carmelo Musca. Scriptwriter: Carmelo Musca. The
series shows how Australia’s multi-cultural groups
approach the art of preserving food. The programmes
are also about the handing on of culture and tradi-
tions from one generation to the next and their
integration into the Australian way of life.

CRYING FOR THE DREAM (60 mins) Kennedy White.
Executive producer[...]ducer: Janine Haynes. Janine Haynes
was separated from her Aboriginal mother at the
age of two and placed in a foster home. She wants
to understand more of a world denied to her and
embarks on a journey to the heartland of her moth-
er’s people, the Kukutu tribe, travelling along the
trail of the Eagle Dreaming, from the southern coast
of Australia to Uluru.

THE 1992 FILM FUND

The FFC anounced late January the shortlist of six
projects for the Film Fund. This list will be cut down
to up to four films. No budget is to exceed $2.5
million.

MADONNA Producers[...]

While at 60 Minutes, George Negus became one
of Australia's most popular and respected pub-
lic-a[...]th a strong international-
ist perspective. Then, after a stint as co-host of
Today, Negus left network television to set up
with partner Kirsty cockburn their own produc-
tion company. The first project was G’day com-
rade (1989), a three-hour look at the effects of
perestroika on Soviet citizens. This was followed
by the hour-long Kids First (1990), which cel-
ebrates the first-ever UNICEF World Summit for
children held at the United Nations in New York.

Negus’ latest venture is Across the Red Un-
known: A Wilderness Journey in Russia, a two-
hour record of a journey from Nahodka, south of
Vladivostok, to Moscow. Undertaken in August
and September last year, the six-week adven-
ture covered 13,000 km of some of the world’s
least-travelled roads.

While in the depths of Siberia, filming where
no one had before, dramatic events overtook the
Soviet Union with the failed coup to topple
Gorbachev. Negus’ journey thus became one of
filming ordinary Soviets reacting to the extraor-
dinary changes in their country as news slowly
filtered through. By the time Negus reached
Moscow, the Soviet Union existed only in name,
the fragmentation well begun.

The following interview, conducted by Scott
Murray in[...]ramatic journey, then moves on to a discussion
on the coverage of socio-political journalism on

television, including the role of the presenter.

4 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

Why did you undertake to cross the Red Unknown?

Because the Russians asked me whether I would be interested in
trying to drive across the Soviet Union. I found the idea an
irresistible challenge, especially since[...]efore.
In fact, very few people had actually done the journey, fullstop.

My automatic inclination is to analyze whats going on in a
place through ordinary people, not through official channels. So
this idea appealed to me. If I couldn’t drive across the Soviet
Union and, by talking to ordinary people,[...]ing.

Whatl didn’texpectwas that, ten days into the trip, the Soviet
Union would come to a screaming halt and the whole tenor ofthe

journeywould be different. I started in the outer limits, as far away
from Moscow as I could get, to find outwhat the Gorbachev factor
had been and what the Yeltsin factor was; instead, I found myself
in the middle ofa tumult which set the country off on another
amazing tangent.

So, while the film started out to be a political odyssey, it
finished up being a piece of living journalism, of watching a
country change before one’s very eyes. The scriptline summary is
that “'We started the journey in the Soviet Union and finished it
in Russia”, or “VVe started it in the Red Unknown and finished it
in a Pink Uncertaint[...]. They regard it as no longer even pink. But that is a
very simplistic view.

LEFT TO RIGHT: ON THE BOAT FROM JAPAN TO NAHODKA, SOUTH OF VLADIVOSTOK.

PACKING THE VEHICLES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAND JOURNEY AT NAHODKA. GEORGE
NEGUS, FEODOR KON[...]DAVYDOV
(RUSSIAN ADVISER AND INTERPRETERI HEAD UP THE BILKIN RIVER TOWARDS THE UDEGAI
ABORIGINAL PEOPLE OF EASTERN SIBERIA. A BOY HOLDS A SALMON WITH A BELLY FULL OF RED
CAVIAR IN THE PRIMORSKY REGION, WHICH WAS PREVIOUSLY OFF-LIMITS TO WESTERNERS,
COURTESY OF THE KGB. ACROSS THE RED UNKNOWN.

Most of that country is still operating, if it’s operating at all,
under the auspices of the old communist structure. They don’t
want it, bu[...]hoice except to keep using it. You can’t
change from a centrally-controlled totalitarian system to a f[...]economy overnight. But that’swhat we ratbags in the West
have asked them to do.

Why did the Soviets approach you in particular?

Because of G’day Comrade. Rightly or wrongly, they regard me as
something ofKrem1inologist, as an observer of their coun try who
takes it seriously. They think[...]going on there.
They may or may not be right.

Do the Soviets feel there are few Westerners with a real interest
in and knowledge of their country?

Because they are far more politic[...], yes’ they do. They also know that I have none of the
conventional prejudices and predeterminations about Russia,
the Soviet Union, communism, etc. They would regard my pol-
itics as being as critical of the West as they are of totalitarianism.

Because I am occasionally verbally violent about whatl see as
being wrong in the West, in the old days they probably saw that as
my being pro-C[...]sian. I have always regarded them as a huge
group of people stumbling around like the rest of us, trying to
find away oforganizing their society. They happened to getitvery
wrong in the first instance, but they’v&had the guts to recognize
that. The difference between them and us is that we haven‘t had
the guts to recognize that ours doesn’twork either.[...]rush
around with blinkers on, pretending that all the ills of Western
capitalism have nothing to do with[...]

It has always amused that when the Communist Bloc started
to fall apart it was because “the people were wonderful and the
system was dreadful”. When Western capitalism is in crisis, as it is
now, it’s not because there’s anything wrong with the system, its
because “people are fucked”.

V/Vhatwe will find is that the people who overthrew the Eastern
Bloc system will have just as much difli[...]stem up as we have. We’re hearing already about the crime, the
corruption, the inefficiency and the shortcomings. V/Ve rushed to
tell them all that w[...]ching them flounder in
this awful never—land.

The Russians are caught between a system that didn’[...]y want.
They’re caughtbetween a rock and arock, the poor bastards. And
all the West does is gloat and say, “Isn’t it wonderful that
capiuilism works better than communism." Bullshit; neither of
them works. The only reason capitalism has survived longer than
communism is because we propped it up with trade unions,
gover[...]alism would have fallen on its face decades ago.

The reason communism didn’t succeed is because they stuck
pigheadedly to a system instead of adapting it. Had they let
Gorbachev have his head[...]an they’re going to have. But
no, we had to see the end of communism.

It is simplistic and superficial to say you can solve people’s
problems after 75 years ofan inadequate system by simply killing
that system stone dead. l’ve travelled the world too much to
imagine that kind of nonsense would ever be effective. Yet that’s
what we’re doing, andjust about all that’s going to be wrong in
the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries over the next

decade is our fault. We encouraged them to take that path when
we knew damn well the trouble they were going to get into.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there might be a little bit of
self-interest involved in a fragile, chaotic Soviet Union. It makes
it much easier for VVestem countries to justify their enormous
defence bills. There are a lot people in the world who still need
the world tense. Now that the communist bogeyman has disap-
peared, the only two things that will keep things tense for the
militarists of this world are an unstable Soviet Union and an
un[...]. Without those
things there are nojustifications for the extent ofmilitaiy spend-
ing and activity in the world. There are a lot ofpeople who stand
to lose a lot ifthe world is too peaceful.

How big a crew did you take with y[...]worked with a bare minimum. But this
time, apart fromfor the book of thejourney [to be published
by VVeldon Publishing[...]sians: an interpreter [Grigori Davydov], a guide [the famous
Russian adventurer, Feodor Koniukhov], and a mechanic.

So, the television operation was four, with three other people
as interested observers. The stills photographer made iteight and

the mechanic nine. That was more people than I've eve[...]VVe had to carry enough
film stock and equipment for what amounted to twenty hours of
film. That in itselfwas enough ofa load, but we[...]r in case we couldn’t find any. Then there was the
camping equipment and some extra food.

It would be difficult enough for anyone to drive across that
countrywith those roa[...]l and filming. We managed to pull it
off because of the huge amount ofjournalistic research done
beforehand on what I thought we could get along the way and
dovetailing that with what we didn’t expect to get. They came
together fai[...]you given freedom to travel wherever you liked?

The only place we were told we couldn’t film was a military zone
called Cheliabinsk, which for many years was a munitions
manufacturing area and is still KGB controlled. They told us not
to film there, but we tried them on when we came across some of
the 40,000 KGB agents who have been turned into an an[...]cross them at aroadblock, where they
were looking for drugs and gun—running. They were wearing
black[...]We
started filming, and eventually they got into the spirit of things.
VVe got a very funny piece out of it.

B - CINEMA PAPERS 87

LEFT: KONIUKHOV DANCES WITH A GUEST AT A WEDDING THE cnsw CAME ACROSS ALONGSIDE A
WAR MEMORIAL (A common OCCURRENCE IN RUSSIA) NEAR BIROBIDZHAN. ACROSS THE RED
ummoww. snow: A "PIG our" IN cHnA: NED DAWSON[...]T: RICHARD
BALLIE-MACE (CAMERAMAN|; TONY HILL (PR FOR TNT); MALCOLM YOUNG tpnooucnon
SUPERVISOR): ozone: NEGU5.

A lot ofwhatl have done in my work, apart from tilting at the
odd windmill, has been to hopefully break down my[...]ell you it has never been as difficult to film in the Soviet
Union as people would like you to believe. It’s part of the
romance of the old Cold-VVar mentality that everywhere there is

restriction and suiveillance. l’ve filmed in Russia three times and
you really have to go looking for trouble. Also, l’ve never met
obstruction from Soviet intelligence and the military outside the
Soxiet Union, whereas l’\'e had obstructions from the Americans
just about everywhere. Basically, the Russians don’t stop you
filming anything that the A_mericans would1i’t stop you filming.

What other myths about the Russian people do you want to break
down?

That t[...]at they’ve been brainwashed. They are, in
fact, the most good-humoured, innovative, politically-sophi[...]hey are anything
but brainwashed. Anybody who has the impression that under
the so—called yoke of communism they stopped thinking inde-
pendently and politically isjust too ridiculous for words. They are
politically very sophisticated be[...]freedom than we really do. X/Ve don’t recognize the
economic constrictions that our own system places upon people.

The Soviets are ingenious because they had to be. They
remained good-humoured under the most dire of circumstances;
they are politically fascinating. l low they have become even more
of all of those things, because the opportunity is there for them
to express themselves. Before itwas so constipated and constricted.

They are the nation — the nations — of the future. Ijust hope
they don’t hurtle themselves towards the West. I don‘t think they
will. Maybe the Baltic states will, but Russians are very cagey.

There are lots of aspects of their system worth keeping. They
should go throug[...]They are
ideally placed to create a whole new way of organizing power,
money and people. To merely sup[...]efective Western
system on theirs would be asking for trouble. I'd like to think that
they’re too bright for that. I also hope they don’t get influenced
by every oil-can Harry from the bloodyWestwho tells them he has
the answer to their consumer dreams. If we don’ttry[...]hey could create a new
society.

Gorbachev was on the right track when he talked about a
regulated socialist market economy at one stage. I think it is one
of the mostfascinating and original politico-economic phrases to
have emerged. It suggests a combination of systems which also
suggests an acknowledgement that both are open to serious
question. I don’tknow what a socialist market economy is, but, by
Christ, I’d like to be around when they try to make one work. It

would be amazing.

What do you think will be the main response of television
audiences to your film?

That they feel they have found out things about that part of the
world they didn’t know before; that a lot of things which are just
words in a newspaper, or mi[...]halfreports on television,
will become humanized. The whole business of what’s going on
in the Soviet Union will hopefullybe seen as an enormous human
adventure, as distinct from a political shambles.

LEFT: NEGUS IN THE BURYAT CAPITAL OF ULAN-UDE IN FRONT OF THE LAST STILL-STANDING
LENIN STATUE SEEN ON THE JOURNEY. BELOW: ON OLKI-ION ISLAND IN LAKE BAIKAL, THE
WORLD'S LARGEST RESERVE OF FRESH WATER. ACROSS THE RED UNKNOWN.

So, you are basically an old-fashio[...][Laughs] Yes, I am, and I think there’s a place for them.

Having said that, I’m also a very political and ideological
animal. I don’tjust waltz into the situation saying, “All we have to
be concerned about here is the human factor.” I see humanity in
political and ideological terms. Or, if you like the other way
around, I see politics and ideology in human terms, which is the
only way to see it.

In this bloody country, all we ever see is politics in economic
terms. We have no social or[...]ic matters. This doesn’t exist anywhere else
in the world. No other country has the same level of self-
interested preoccupation with economic matt[...]hom you elect to
govern you.

In Australia, there is an ideological desert with no political
values at all. Politics is purelya battle by politicians who hope they
can appeal to the self—interest of the voter. We all just stumble
through life, voting every few years and wondering why the hell
were disappointed. Our politics are vacuous.

Politics in the rest of the world is search for meaning. If a
politician said that in this country, he’d be laughed out of town.

So, are you going to do a film on Austral[...]ink its possible to
take an internationalist view of Australia. Iwant to make a series
on Australia wh[...]an
Australian.

That intemationalist perspective is not that common to the
feature film industry, especially if one t[...]

Yes. And what a wonderful idea it would be to have an Australia[...]nd a foreign director work together on something. The
Australian director could tell the foreign director what he ob\i—
ously doesn’t know aboutAustralia, and the foreign director can
tell the Australian director what he thinks he knows about
Australia and has got wrong.

There is a kind of parallel situation to thatwith yourself and Vital[...]though I disagree entirely with V itali’s view of Russia. And I
think he has to get his rose-coloured glasses oifas far as Australia
is concerned. But I’ve read some of his pieces aboutArmco and
the demos at the armament factory. He reveals there a picture of
a different Australia, so I think he’s waking up.

TELEVISION AND THE REPORTER

This is your third documentary. Why did you branch out into what
is for you a new field of reportage?

I don’t consider them documentaries, rather tele\isionjournal-
ism. To me, the word “documentaiy” immediately connotes a
cer[...]in a certain kind oftimeslot, with a certain
sort offiexsing audience. That's not the sort oftelexision I’ve ever
been involved in. \\"hat I’ve done, and am still doing, is pri1ne-
timejournalism. I have taken from whathas always been regarded
as a current-affairs[...]d [L11Tl€(‘l it into a lengthier
fonnat.

Has the increased length meant you are able to go into greater
depth and cover different sorts of subjects?

I’d be dishonest ifl said that foryears and years I wasn’tfrustrated
by the constrictions of the current—affairs format. At 60 Minutes,
we had progressively turned the whole encapsulation process
in to an artform. But[...]stylistic structure and time length. Whatl do now is give
things the length and approach they dCS€I'\’€.

Do you intend to make programmes of a particular style, or are
they going to be fairl[...]political. Hafing said that,
I’d like to think the treatment we give things is notjust straight
socio-political analysis. They’re not treatises at all, but socio-
politjcs seen through the daily lives of the inhabitants of the
particular area of the world. If you like, its socio—politics with a
human face, for the want ofa better cliché.

Which raises the role of personality of the presenter. To what
degree is your being presenter a factor in what you’re intending
to do?

In Australia its proba[...]etic about presenter-led tel-
evision journalism. The usual accusation about the presenter and

10 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

the reporter becoming more important than the story is just a
heap of spurious shit. It’s usually uttered by people who have
never really sat down to think about the philosophy behind what
is called “personality cult”journalism.

Television is a very visual and audience-oriented medium.
Audie[...]ewsreaders, soap stars or journalists. That being
the case, a presenter-led style of programme-making is a huge
advantage. The audience can identify with the subject matter
through another human being. If it[...]ts an enormous advantage.

So, while I understand the accusation about reporters becom-
ing more important than the story, I’d like to think that its never
been true in my case. People know that I am there for a reason,
to be, ifyou like, the audience ’s emissary in a situation. That’swh[...]o my own stories quite consciously: it stops
them from becoming a lot ofpictures vaguely related to a subject
matter, with a disembodied voice floating around the top that
doesn’t really relate to an audience.

Having said that, were making products for the international
marketand we have to be careful of howwe introduce a journalistic
character to an un[...]known overseas, are audiences going to
wonder who is this person they see wandering around?

The same could have been said of David Attenborough at some
stage of his life. But now he’s become a character, a part of his
stories, and not as many people would watch h[...]my stories, butl do think that I add to them. If the sort
ofjournalistjc character I've become — in the nicest sense of the
word character—is transportable, then I think that’s a marvellous[...]IVAL IN MOSCOW: MEDIA I -' .

AND FRIENDS. ACROSS THE RED UNKNOWN.

The usual accusation about the presenter and the reporter becoming more important
than the story is just a heap of spurious shit. It's usually uttered by people who have
never really sat down to think about the philosophy behind what is called

‘personality cult’ journalism. ”

t[...]uct into an export product.

Whereas Attenborough is English and comes from what is per-
ceived as a prominent culture, do you think there’s a resistance to
a presenter coming from Australia? World audiences may well
query why they should listen to what an Australian thinks about
Russia?

My reaction to that is: Why should we only listen to what a Brit or
an American says about Russia? We do because we’ve become
u[...]tellectual,
journalist and professional cringe to the point where we really
believe that the Poms and the Yanks are better equipped to tell us
aboutwhat’s going on in the world than we are ourselves? We are
as qualified to speak to the rest of the world as they are to us.

I don’t think the transporting of Australian talent at the
popular level should be restricted to Paul Hogan,_]ohn Cornell
and Cr0codz'leDundee.

But there is still the reality of marketing your product overseas.

So we have to bite that bullet[...]o people in
New York and London, “We understand your prejudice; it
happens to be wrong. The people at the top end ofthe cameramen, sound recordists,
producers, researchers, writers. I’ve been floating around the
world now for twenty years and we have absolutely nothing to be
ashamed of at that level.

We don’t have to go cap-in-hand to the international market
saying, “Sorry, sir, that[...]ralian presenting this; we
really wish he were an American or Englishman.” Its a tough nut
to crack. It re[...]Loader, our executive producer, are more
capable of pulling this off.

In KidsFi7st, you shared the presenter role with Sir Peter Ustinov.
Was that b[...]ence. Having Peter involved, we hoped,
would make the product more marketable internationally. But it
was also the case that Peter was the UNICEF Ambassador for
Children, so having him in there was a totally legitimate exercise
joumalistically.

To put the two of us together was a way of easing into the
international market, rather than beating them around the head
in the first instance. But that was a particular sort of product: it
wasn’t a general market product; it[...]nse rather than a journalistic effort.

In Across the Red Unknown, was it difficult finding the correct
balance of how much George Negus to put in?

My approach to everythingl do is, quite deliberately, naturalistic
and realistic. There should be no credibility gap between what
you do if there’s a camera around and what you do when there
isn’t. That being the case, I guess I set out to let my presence find
i[...]et when, seeing some Russians drink-
ing vodka in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, you stop your
caravan of vehicles, turn on the cameras and film yourself getting
drunk with them?

Let me assure you, drinking vodka anywhere in the Soviet Union,
whether you’re Australian or not, is very natural!

The other people on the trip were there to make thejoumey;
I was there to[...]never meant
to be a boys’ own adventure across the Soviet Union; itwas meant
to be a geograph[...]

porary Peter Fan. Of course, like no other American

filmmaker of his generation, Spielberg seems enthralled

by the possibilities of eternal youth, by the cosmic
‘ es not only of childhood in general but of his childhood in particular. It would
fitting that he would be the one to transport these visions - so cleverly
ed by the Disney animators in its late-1950s Peter Pan —[...]to do with personal
ranzgical reasons than with the usual Hollywood pitfalls of complicated

ytiens, tangled deals and hig[...]

\/Vritten by Jim Hart (with additional ma[...]s on-screen credit) and based on an original idea of his
eight-year—old son (“Whatwould happen if[...]n
anyone envisioned. “We didn’treally realize the size of the project
until we were smack in the middle of it”, says Hart, who is also the
film’s producer.

Building Neverland according[...]a gi-
gantic task in itself. But then there were the matters of making
grown—ups fly in a convincing way, controlling a dozen utterly
uncontrollable pre-teens (who play the new, rnulti-ethnic, Lost
Boys) and, last but by no means least, handle the tangled
overexposure of Julia Roberts (who plays Tinkerbell), her mo-
mentous unmarriage and sudden illness, right in the middle of
the shoot.

Was it worth it? On the opening week in Los Angeles,
Spielberg shows up for this interview wearing his signature pilot

jacket and baseball cap, with the relaxed and glowing attitude of

14 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

a content man. He brought Hook in at a whopping cost of $75
million (and counting) but the film, in spite of lukewarrn reviews,
is a hit in the rich holiday market: almost $100 million in tickets
over a mere 6-week period. It is enough to make anyone fly.

What are your earliest memories of Peter Pan?

My mom read Pe£erPan to me when Iwas[...]e’s Peter Pan in my elementary
school, with all the parents watching in the audience. I actually
staged it and did it as a kid, just like in the opening scene from
Hook. I put that scene in almost only for that reason.

PeterPanstayedwithyou throughoutyou[...]references to it in E. T.: T71eExtra-terrestrial, for instance. In away,
it is surprising that you didn’t do this movie earlier.

Iwas going to do itas early as 1985. I had been pursuing the rights
and in 1985 I finally acquired them from the London Children’s
Hospital. I was going to make a Peter Pan movie based on the
novel, a live-action version like the 1924 Peter Pan silent movie.

But then something happened: my son (Max) was born and I lost
my appetite for the project.

VVhy?

Because suddenlyl couldn’t be[...]more. I had to be
his father. That’s literally the reason I didn’t do the movie back

then. And I had everything ready and Elliott Scott hired to do the
sets in London.

But, as I was raising my kids, the appetite for Peter Pan came
back, and stayed with me.

Iflhat kind of childhood did you have that you seem to celebrate
it so much?

I don’t know that any of our childhoods were completely happy
—from our own memories. My childhood was bad and itwas[...]her.

Now that I’m a dad and have four kids — the fifth is on its way,
actually- they scream and yell at each other all the time. I guess
now I can appreciate even more whom my parents were.

What is, foryou, the most enduring quality of the Peter Pan myth?
Eternal youth, perhaps?

It’s a[...]Superman, Batman or E.T., it’s got to be a tip of the hat to Peter
Pan. PeterPanwas the first time I ever saw anybody fly. Before I saw
Supmnan, before I saw Batman, and of course before I saw any
superheroes, my first memory of anybody flying is in Peter Pan.

What does flight mean to you? There is a tremendous amount of
flying in your films.

I am absolutely fascinated and terrified by flying. It is a big deal in
my movies. All my movies have airplanes in them. You name the

FACING PAGE: ROBIN WILLIAMS AS PETER BANNING, A[...]5 HOOK.

movie — they all fly.

To me, flying is synonymous with freedom and unlimited
imagination[...]ded a two-engine Cessna based on my experience
in the flight simulator. But itwas more out of fear, abject fear, and
the need to control that fear thatl did it.

I’m on[...]in my movies, but,
in real life, I’m terrified of flying. just like the Peter Banning
character in the beginning of Hank. That scene in the airplane?
That was me; that’s how I fly. I get white knuckles.

Have you ever analyzed your relationship with flying?

You mean psychoanalyzed? No, I haven’t. I’m aware of the
psychoanalytic implications of flight but, no, I have never been
analyzed. I thi[...]l become more intellectual about them. I’ll all of a
sudden figure out what it is I do and then I would probably screw
it up.

What made you pick up this specific project, Hook, after all these
years not tackling Peter Pan?

I decided to do it when I read the_]im Hart script. It was a great
idea, even though my first reactions was “This isn’t exactly what

CINEMA PAPERS 87 - ‘I5

TOP: PETER AND CAPTAIN HOOK FIGHT IT OUT IN THE BATTLE TO SAVE PETER’S CHILDREN. HOOK.
AND, JUL[...]WITH DIRECTOR SPIELBERG.

I want to do, but this is a great idea for a movie.” But then I took
the idea and I rewrote the script with Jim and another writer
[Malia Scotch Marmo] and, based on the rewrite, I went ahead
and made the movie.

What was it about it that attracted you so much?

I guess I related to the main character, Peter Banning, the wayjim
wrote him — a “type A” personality.

I think a lot of people today are losing their imagination
because[...]—involved with work
and success and arriving at the next plateau that children and
family almost become incidental. I have seen this happen to
friends offor my time and I can’tgive it to them because
I‘[...]t. I said, “Gee, that’s
quite a character arc for this character. Could this person ever
have been Peter Pan? Wow, what an interesting challenge!”

Could it also be th[...]terested in returning to youth-
oriented pictures after a couple of adult projects?

‘I6 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

It’s[...]I don’t sit down and say, “NowI have to look
for a movie that is just for families”, because I had made three
films for adults. And we only got adult audiences, actually, for the
last three films, except that I didn’t think of them that way.

When Hook came bylwas actually planning to direct Schindlerk
Ark, which is very much an adult film, and which I’m finally going
to direct early in ’92.

Hookwas also an extremely expensive movie to make. Was that a
concern of yours at any point during the shoot?

I’m real apprehensive about finances on every movie no matter
what it costs. E. T. cost $10 million, and I was saying, “Gee, why
can’twe make it for $8 million?” But basically once a movie starts,
the last thing you want to be aware of is the responsibility to the
financiers because that would completely interrupt the idea that
we’re making a movie, thatwe’re telling a story together. Itwould
get in the way every day, so I don’t think that was in my mind at
all in the making of this movie.

When the movie is done the studio reminds me how much
I’ve spent making the movie, and then, of course, I start to worry.
I worry at the end but not during the making of the movie.

VVhat was so expensive about it?

Well, creating a world is always expensive. And this is what I was
trying to do: create a world. When George Lucas created aworld
for Star Wars, nobody had ever seen anything like that before. It
was the same thing here. We all have expectations for Neverland
so we needed to putour heads together t[...]verland and not just
Laguna Beach [a beach suburb of Los Angeles].

You mentioned Schindler’sArkasyo[...]Would thatbe
before Jurassic Park?

Yes. I bought the book eight years ago, butl haven’t been able to
get a writer to do a script.

It’s a drama about the Holocaust, about the real-life story ofof all the Holocaust
stories I could tell, the one that has one glimmer of hope.

Schindleris Ark has a very interesting statistic: there are six
thousand descendants from the twelve hundred Jews that
Schindler delivered to safety, and that out-numbers the surviving

jews in Poland. That’s an idea worth[...]ite.

Why black-and-white?

Because I don’t see the Holocaust in colour. I’ve been indoctri-
nated[...]. Every
time I see anything in colour about World War II, it looks too
glarnourized, too antiseptic. I think black-and-white is almost the
synonymous form for World War II and the Holocaust.

A last and maybe obvious question: Are you Peter Pan?

No, no. I think my mom is the quintessential Peter Pan. She even
looks l[...]

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ichard Lowenstein has always been a wunderkind of the

Australian film industry. Since he won the Erwin Rado
Award at the 1980 Melbourne Film Festival for his half-hour,
dramatized documentary Evictions, Lowenstein has been some-
thing of a golden boy. His recreation of the evictions that took
place during the Great Depression, when tenants could not pay
thei[...]stein could combine historical
verisimilitude and the art of storytelling to create powerful
cinema.

In 1984,[...]first
ever sit-in strike in Wonthaggi, Victoria. The film went to the
New York Film Festival and was nominated for an astounding
nine Australian Film Awards at home. He has also made innu-

merable rock music videos, for such artists as INXS, U2 and
Belinda Carlisle.

.1
H?

\«

Say a Little Prayer

But Lowenstein is perhaps best remembered forDogs in Space,
his evocation of the post punk sub-culture which had its brief
‘moment’ in Melbourne in the late 1970s. Starring Michael
Hutchence, Dogs in Space got good exposure for a relatively low-
budgetfilm in both the U.S. and Britain, and looked set to buffet
Lowens[...]d.

Since then there have been endless murmurs in the press that
Lowenstein was set to direct the big-budget “Crimes of Patriots”
— about the Nugan Hand Bank scandal and its alleged links wit[...]Pressman. But
funding proved to be a problem. In the meantime, Lowenstein
received offers to direct te[...]er has
gravitated back towards Australia where he is currently working
on his latest home-grown venture, Say a Little Prayer. Theis being funded by the
1991 Australian Film Finance Corporation’s Film Fund scheme.

There is a lot riding on this film and Lowenstein knows it, for
Say aLittlePrayermarks Lowenstein ’s directorial return to features
after five years. Moreover, the film signals a departure for the
directorwho has always anchored hiswork, in one wayor another,
in history. Lowenstein, who adapted the screenplay, acknowl-
edges that the project represents new turf for him:

20 « CINEMA PAPERS 87

Dogs in Space and S[...]story, on
chronicling an era. Say a Little Prayer is a different thing. It is a
conventional, fictional narrative and is quite a challenge for me.
It is an exercise in the direction of action and the direction of
character. It’svery rare to get a film where t[...]I have concentrated on getting a performance
out of them and developing the characters.

Say aLittlePrayerisastoryaboutan int[...]piritedyoung woman,Angie (Fiona Ruttelle) . Angie is a 20-year-
old drug addict learning to cope without her boyfriend while she
endures the miseries oflife on amethadone programme. Seymour[...]ronment, flees his home by day
and meets up with the effervescent Angie. Together they escape
into a fantastical world of their own design. However, Angie does
not tell Seymour that she is a drug addict. Instead, she tells him
she is “sick”. Seymour takes it upon himself to nurs[...]r explores Angie’s heroin addiction,
Lowenstein is quick to fend ofi suggestions that the film mines
similar terrain as Dogs in Space.

With Dogs in Space the drugs were very literally handled. In Say a
Little Prayer, the drugs are seen from Seymour’s point of view and
it isn’t the focus at all. This isn’t a social issue: it is part of the plot
development which relates to the pivotal question of whether
Angie should lie to the boy, and threaten their friendship, or
explain that she is sick, because she’s taking heroin. The film is
about what is important in a friendship, about trust and respect,

and that is where the conflict comes from.

The film charts the growth of a friendship between the classic
‘odd couple’ : Angie, the tireless extrovert, and Seymour, the boy
crippled by a debilitating inwardness. The film charts Seymour’s
journey towards growth.

at the things in life that are worth idealizing and wondering
about.

Lowenstein was attracted to the story primarily on account of
its sharply-delineated, idiosyncratic characters. While he has
added scenes and changed some of the original novel, he believes
that he has been faithful to the essence of the characters:

The best way to describe Seymour is that he is very much like a
spirit waiting to break free. The winged idea, the idea offlight, is
very important in the film. The flying horse is an important
thematic thread that keeps coming ba[...]nd represents
Seymour’s unleashed spirit. Angie is the one who gives Seymour
the wings so that he can fly.

The characters are not archetypes. They are very idiosyncratic.
They are not like the girl or boy next door. Seymour is not even
able to go into a shop and ask for what he wants because he’s too
scared. Angie is the opposite. She almost accosts people in the
street with her extroversion. The contrast between them is
wonderful. VVhat they do share is that, with their intense charac-
teristics, the world doesn’t have much time for either of them.

Much of the film’s potency is to be derived from the fact that
the audience sees the world from the mind’s eye of a little boy.

The film is not over-the-top fantasy, but it is from the boy’s point
of view, and that is interesting. I have gone for touches of fantasy,
playing with the light and shade and sparkles.

Also, it is always his perspective of the drug-taking, which is
something he doesn’t really understand.

Casting the pair proved to be a difficult task. Lowenstein
interviewed more than 1500 boys for the part of Seymour and saw
countless female actors for the part of Angie. Says Lowenstein:

Casting took ages. It didn’tjust need a good actress; it needed the
right person. There might have been only two or three people in
Australiawhowould have been rightfor the role, andbecause our
population is so small it’s very hard for people to play these

The film explores the way children distort the world in
sometimes unpredictable ways. It is something, according to
Lowenstein, that adults lose:

Seymour is always trying to make something fantastical out of the
mundane, which is avery idealistic and naive thing, and which we
te[...]meets Seymour,
she takes him into her world full of colour and light, and
everything between them is fun. Together they have this ability to
make the ordinary somehow extraordinary. Kids have a sense of
wonder about the world. I think the film really takes a good look

idiosyncratic cha[...]tend to get homogenized actors and
we tend to see the same good faces playing this type or that. We
don’t have the selection of character actors as they do in America
and England.

In the end, Lowenstein chose Fiona Ruttelle for the role of

Angie because he recognized traces of Angie in her.

CINEMA PAPERS 37 - 21

Sudi was very aware. There is a part of him that is and there is a
part ofhim that isn’t Seymour. He has a lot o[...]he had this incredible depth and
intensity behind the eyes. He seemed to have this incredible
knowledge just from a look that could break through all the
stupidity and senselessness of the adult world.

Lowenstein is aware that he has taken a risk in casting two
new[...]er, he has made choices on ‘visual appeal’ in
the past, casting Michael Hutchence as the lead in Dogs in Space.
Lowenstein knows he has his work cut out for him. VVhat’s more,
he seems to have transgressed one of Hollywood’s oldestmaxims:
never work with children. Lowenstein admits that the nine-week
shoot has been difficult:

We have been[...]ecause we’re stuck
on an eight-hour day because of child welfare. We rarely go over
time because Sud[...]or child
welfare will come and arrest us all.

It is a real challenge working with people who have had[...]sychological warfare because you don’t just
say what you want. You can say all the technical stuff up front, but
you have to play li[...]ave to play little psychological games. It really is important to
keep the characters in the mood that they’ re playing the scene in.
I have my work cut out for me keeping them on set in the mood
that they’re supposed to be in that shot. Fiona is a natural

22 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

LEFT: DIRECTOR RICHARD LOWENSTEIN, SECOND FROM LEFT, DURING

THE FILMING OF SAYA LITTLE PRAYER. WITH TOBY PEASE (IST ASSISTAN[...]RAYER..

performer, but it’s still work getting the right thing
out of her.

The film also boasts Ben Mendelsohn in the
role of a nursery attendant and Rebecca Smart
as Angie’s impudent little sister.

Lowenstein, who is renowned for favouring
fluid camera movements, has opted for more
static frames in Say a Little Prayer. He explains:

In Dogs in Space, I tended to use a lot of moving
cameras but, because there is a lot more intense
acting in this, I tend to let the characters pull that
off in a lot more static fra[...]e tripods in this film.
But when Seymour escapes from his little world, I
have tried to go for some height and use lots of
cranes. We start to soar and use more exciting an[...]hmond, production designer Chris
Kennedy has gone for a naturalistic look, highlighting the subur-
ban setting. Notes Lowenstein,

We have put a lot of effort into Angie’s bungalow, which was built
in the studio. We’ve tried to create a magic wonderlan[...]y a LittlePrayerhas a simple,
linear storyline in the final account, the film’s strength is derived
from its quirky characters. Moreover, he believes that it is pre-
cisely this new emphasis being placed on characterization which
is fuelling the ‘new wave’ of quality films coming out of Australia.

In the past, I thinkwe were so excited thatwe’d made awonderful
period film, for instance, that we thought maybe that was all we

could do. Now characterization is suddenly being thought about
in Australia. We suddenly realize that not everyone is the girl on

Neighbours. The archetypal Australians just aren’t there any mo[...]etting them be weird on screen.
That’s a change for the better. I

A change in the air.

Before taking to the air, the butterfly will

spend some four to six weeks as a[...]many things that take time, it’s
usually worth the wait.

Here, at Open Channel video resource
facility, it was also time for a change.

In the past six months we’ve been updating
our video p[...]n facilities and extending our training
resources for both professionals and amateurs.

A change that’s bringing us up to date.
And like the butterfly, it’s also been worth

the wait.

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JAN EPSTEIN REVIEWS THE TWO RECENT JEWISH FILM FESTIVAI

interested in Jewish cinema as an art form, as well as a
vehicle for a rich and diverse commentary on Jewish
experience, past and present.

In October 1991, the Festival ofjewish Cinema, presented by
thejewish[...]ilm Festival showed 25 features and documentaries of
a similar high standard and breadth of view, as well as several
Israeli shorts and a welcome Children’s Programme.

A breakdown of where these 4-4 films came from is revealing
but hardly surprising. Eleven were from the U.S. and eight from
Israel, the two post-Holocaust epicentres ofjewish culture which

N ineteen Ninety One was a bonanza in Australia for those

24 . CINEMA PAPERS 87

2 xi

»[...]me to dominate thejewish world. Four were made in the
UK, three in France, two each in Canada, Austria and Germany,
while one each came from Australia, Holland, Belgium, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Italy and the USSR. Two films were pre-war CO-
productions between the U.S. and Poland, two were co-produc-
tions betwee[...]storic USSR-
Israel-France collaboration.

I/Vhat is disappointing is the realization thatAustralian-Jewish
culture has not been as forthcoming as other comparable cul-
tures, Canada for example, in producing films which character-
ize and celebrate either the unique features ofAustra1ianJewish
life or the coming of Jews to this counuy, a notable exception
being Ben Lewin’s mini-series, The Dunera Boys.

Stimulated by the AF l’s successful screening in 1990 of the

COMMENTING AS WELL ON THE HISTORY OF JEWISH CINEMA

Yiddish classic, Dybbuk (The Dybbuk, Michael Waszynski, Poland,
1938) , 1991 saw the screening of four pre-Holocaust films, all of
them painstakingly restored by the National Centre forjewish
Film at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, which was founded in
1976 following the acquisition of a private collection of Yiddish
feature films.

The Second Australian Jewish Film Festival (IFF) screened
two films produced and directed by Polish-American Joseph
Green, and filmed in Poland: YidlMit ’nFidl ( Yiddle with hLsFz'ddle,
U.S., 1936) , the classic Yiddish musical which became an intema-
tional hit, starring the famous Yiddish actress-comedian Molly
Picon as a young woman, forced to take to the road with her
father, who cross-dresses to join a band of wandering musicians
(klezmerim) and falls in love with one of them; and DerPun'mspieler

(The jester, Poland-U.S., 1937) , a whimsical romantic[...]erwho falls in love with
a shoemaker’s daughter during Purim.

Green went to the U.S. in 1923 as a member ofthe renowned
Vilna Troupe, a company of Yiddish actors who were influenced
by Sta.nislavski’s MoscowArtTheatre, andwho themselvesbecame
famous for their avant garde performances of such European and
Yiddish classics as Ibsen’s The Ghosts, and S. Anski’s Dybbuk. After
working in Yiddish Theatre in New York for some years, and in
Hollywood playing small parts[...]up his own
international production company, with offices in New York and

ABOVE: SOLLY PEREL (MARCO HOFSCHNEIDER), THE POLISHJEWISH 30‘! WHO BECAME A GERMAN
WAR HERO IN AGNIESZKA HOLLAND’S EUROPA EUROP[...]

Warsaw, and returned to Poland in the mid-19305 with a small
troupe of NewYorkYiddish actors, where he produced four fi[...]was Yidl Mz't’n Fidl, which he wrote especially for Picon,
and co-directed withJan Nowina Przyblski,[...]der Mamen (A Little Letter To
Mother, 1939) , one of the lastfilms made in Poland before the war.

The firstJewish films made withJewish actors were produced
in Warsaw at the beginning of the century. Invariably these were

Without question, ‘Docteur Petiot' is an impressive wok

film versions of Yiddish plays and novels. In 1910, the Jewish
producer Aleksander Hertz, considered the father of Polish
cinema, founded Sfinks, Poland’s first film production house.
Few of the thousand features and shorts produced by Sfinks had

from the full horror of genocide by suggesting genocid
the mind of a deranged individual, rather than confront”
function it is ordinary people who have to be persuade:

Jewish[...]ss, Yiddish films continued to be made
in Poland during the 1920s, many of them finding their way to
America where they were considered superior to the cheap
melodramatic Yiddish films being made in the U.S., and then
subsequently distributed in Poland[...]ewish films continued to be made in Poland up to the
moment when war erupted in 1939, and it is this persistence of
Jewish filmmakers to continue to make Jewish films on Jewish
themes in the face of mounting, virulent anti-semitism through-
out Eur[...]Yidl Mit’n Fidl and Der Purimspieler reflect the illusion of self-
containment. Both were shot in small peasant towns in the Polish
countryside and, in the case of Yidl, in nearby Yiddish-speaking
Warsaw. But because we watch these films with a prescience born
of hindsight, the innocence of the surroundings, the other-
worldly quality of the restored prints and the simplicity and
quaint humour of the stories take on the quality of denial. They
remind the audience that what we are watching are the last
moments of a doomed civilization caught in celluloid, like insects
trapped in amber.

One of the most interesting films screened at the Festival of

Jewish Cinema (FJC) was Eleanor Antin’s contem[...]A World (U.S. , 1991), a post-Holocaust homage
to the East European Yiddish silentfilms of the 1920s. It is a black-
and-white melodrama about an aspiring yo[...]see him
as forsaking his roots. Not only are all the traditional themes of
Yiddish theatre and film present in the story — the humour and
colour of shtetl life, weddings, funerals, seduction, a dybl7uk— but
so too are included the realities: racial hatred, poverty and
repression.

Antin, an artist-filmmaker from University of California, San
Diego, uses the traditional silent film genre, complete with int[...]reconstructherJewish past through
avehicle which for her is the most potent expression of that past
She causes the doomedJewish Eastern Europe to live again and,
by[...]at was seldom expressed in
its films.

Something of this sense of a vanished culture is also present
in the two American Yiddish films screened at the FJC: His People

(U.S., 1925), a silent melodrama on the theme of the Prodigal
Son, set in New York’s Lower East tene[...]Aubrey Scotto, U.S., 1932) , a powerful,
Yiddish early-sound classic, based on a play by Sholem Asch,
about a Lower-East-Side sweat shop boss who employs workers
from his old shtetl in Poland, starring the famous Yiddish actor
Maurice Schwartz in a[...]

9 is an aberration. It locates the culpability for evil in

‘mg’ the realization that for terrible regimes to
to do horrible things.

Over three hundred films were produced during this ‘ golden
age’ 0fY1ddish cinema from 1927 to 1940, the majority in the U.S.
It is interesting to note, however, that although many of the key
figures in the emerging Hollywood film industry were European
Jews, their names rarely appear on the credits of these Yiddish
films. Nonetheless, these films are reminders of the connection
between America and East-Europeanjewry, which from the great
influx of the 1880s onwards saw not only the burgeoning in the
U.S. of a newjewish culture, but also the establishment of a film
industry in whichjewish producers, directors and screenwriters
played a vital role as architects of the celluloid version of the
American Dream.

The other non-Israeli features screened at the two festivals
were based on true stories about the Holocaust and related
events, or dealtwith problems ofjewish identity or the resurgence
of anti-semitism. Of the Israeli films, more later.

DocteurPetiot (F_]C, Christian de Chalonge, France, 1990) was
the most stylish of the Holocaust films, a real-life horror story
about a Parisian doctor, Marcel Petiot (Michel Serrault, in the
performance of his life) , guillotined in 1946 for the mass murder
ofjews and others on the run from the Gestapo. It is brilliantly
conceived in the genre style of such early German horror classics
as F. W. Mumau’s Eine Sy[...]’s Doktor Marbuse, Der Spieler (Doctor Marlmse, The
Gambler, 1922).

LEFT TO RIGHT: JOSEPH GREEN'5 CL[...]FIDL
(YIDDLE WITH HIS FIDDLE). MICHEL SERRAULT AS THE SINISTER DOCTOR IN
CHRISTIAN DE CHALONGE’S DOCTEUR PETIOT. JIRI WEISS’ MEMOIR OF
GROWING UP IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA BEFORE THE WAR, MARTHA AND I.

During the German Occupation, ‘Dr Eugene’ lured 27 des-
peratejews and members of the Resistance to a deserted house
on the Champs Elysees on the pretext that he could arrange their
safe passage to Argentina. For a handful of money and the
contents of their suitcases, he killed them with a cyanide ‘vacci-
nation’ (for their journey) and disposed of their bodies, partially
dissolved in acid, in a furnace. It was the clogging of the chimney
and the belching of foul smoke that finally alerted the authorities
to his crimes, which bore an uncanny parallel to those of the
Third Reich. De Chalonge’s master stroke is to use this parallel as
a metaphor to illustrate the criminality and moral bankruptcy of
both the Nazi genocide machine, and those in France who
collaborated with it.

The impact of Petiot as a Nosferatu, preying on hisvictims and
spreading the contagion of Nazism, is heightened by the deca-
dent, expressionist poetry of the visuals, drained of colour and
tinted. Natural colour impinges only at the end ofthe film, where
in a chilling reminder of the mountains of shoes, spectacles and
shorn hair at Auschwitz, the families of Petiot’s victims file past
tables crowded with the clothing taken from 53 suitcases, search-
ing for the belongings of their loved ones.

Without question, Docteur Petiot is an impressive work of art,
yet, strangely, it distances the audience from the full horror of
genocide by suggesting genocide is an aberration. It locates the
culpability for evil in the mind of a deranged individual, rather
than confronting the realization that for terrible regimes to
function it is ordinary people who have to be persuaded to do
horrible things.

The actions of ordinary people who manage to be decent in
terrible times is the focus of Martha and I OFF, Germany-France,
1990), a witty, acutely observed, warmly affectionate memoir of
growing up immediately prior to the war, by Czechoslovakia’s
leading filmmaker of the 19505 and ’60s,jiri Weiss.

Emil (Vaclav Chalupa) is sent by his abandoned mother to
stay with his sop[...])
in Prague. Ernst, a gynaecologistwith a passion for Boccaccio and
Bach, scandalizes his family when h[...]n housekeeper, Martha
(Marianne Sagebrecht) , who is a Gentile. A nice touch is the cleft

CINEMA PAPERS 87 ~ 27

Martha and I, though conventional[...]le perforinances by first—class actors who are the vehicles for
the director’s deeply-liberal humanist observations[...]ha personifies decency, as innate in her as evil
is in Dr Petiot.

Agnieszka Holland’sEur0paEur0pa (France-Germany, 1990),
screened at both festivals, is the story of how a Polish-Jewish boy
born in Gerinany survived the war by becoming first a member of
a Communist youth organization, then a German war hero,
which led to him being sent to an el[...]ing in its details than a Steven
Spielberg story, is based on the life of Salomon (Solly) Perel, who
now lives in Israel.

Solly survived because of a combination of instinct, personal
charm and luck. When his sister is killed during Kristallnacht, his
family decides to relocate in Lodz, a fatal move which sees Solly
separated from his family, seemingly forever. Born with quickwit[...]Hofschnei-
der), Solly has several opportunities during the war to abjure his

jewishness, but the reasons he does not do so, the film suggests,
lie as much with his tell-tale cir[...]strated in Angry Harvest, sees contra-
diction as the essence of human nature. She handles the com-
plexities of Solly’s youthful situation sympathetically and with
lightness and humour, but she is also clear-sighted. When Solly
weeps for the death of his friend, a German soldier, and asks
himselflat[...]so kind to him and so horrible to others?”, he is asking fundamen-
tal moral questions. Holland understands his conflict and with-
out labouring the point, as Solly’s story unfolds with mounting
s[...]s encounters with all
those who are drawn to him: the female Komosol leader, Horvath
the German, the Gennan captain who adopts him, his Nazi
girlfrien[...]dorf s book on Holocaust films,
Elie Wiesel says of such films as Das Boot ist Voll (The Boat is Full,
Markus Imhoof, Switzerland, 1981) and Obehod ad ua Kane (The
Shop On Main Street, Jan Kadar, Czechoslovakia, 1[...]s, like a secret imprint, human beings undergoing the
curse of the gods, and that’s all.”‘ Without doubt, this applies to
Couturier (]FF, Leonid Gorovets, USSR, 1990), the most moving
feature at the two festivals, which captures, in the great tradition
of Russian cinema, 24 hours in the life of ajewish tailor and his
family prior to their cert[...]aken fromAlexander Borshagovsky’s play and with
the screenplay written by the playwright, makes no attempt to
portray the massacre, which resulted in the murder, in 1941, of
more than 33,000 Kievjews. Rather, from the outset, the film is
stamped with poetry and dream. In a series of lyrically-lensed
establishing shots, an oldjew is seen praying, then packing his
bag. He stands at the door and hears the sound of marching
soldiers. A little girl steals the old]ew’s cart. “If you need it badly,
take it”, he tells her. Leaves flutter to the ground. It is autumn.
There are fires in the street, and people are picking over piles of
debris. Birds sing. The old]ew’s hat blows off in the wind, and he
retrieves it from under a soldier’s foot. Across the road some
soldiers pull down an old man’s trousers, and shoot him. Thejew
is shocked. Through the doorway of a house, a woman, the_]ew’s
married daughter, is kneading bread.

These are dream fragments which cloak the nightmare to
come, which the audience never sees. Two homeless Russian
women and a child are skulking in the shadows outside the house

at night, waiting for theJews to leave. They have been promised
theJews’ house, and Isak (Innokenty Smoktunovsky), the ladies’
tailor, invites them in. This encounter between the two families
provides most of the substance of the film, and allows for its most
poignant moment: Isak measures the older Russian woman for a
winter coat that he will cut for her from his most precious cloth.
He will never see it made, but in measuring the arms and bust of
this handsome woman, Isak, for the last time, gives expression of
his former selfas both a man and tailor.

Michel Piccoli’s performance in Mcmfha and I is masterly, but
it is one thing to portray an urbane, cosmopolitanJew,[...]ccords Isak both his dignity and his
Jewishness.

The film has a powerful final sequence: Isak and his family are
joined on the road to Babi Yar, firstby a trickle of Kiev’ sJews, then
by a torrent which becomes a sea. As they advance upon the
camera, our gaze is distracted by the sight of modern sedan cars
waiting for them to pass, and the road suddenly becomes modern
as they walk into history. Gorovets was prompted to direct
Couturier out of a concern for rising anti-semitism in the Soviet
Union and, once his debut feature was made, he left the USSR to
live in Israel.

The most fascinating feature screened, because it confronts
head-on the problems of Jewish identity in the Diaspora, was
David Mamet’s Homicide (JFF, U.S., 1991) . Aswith Mamet’s House
ofGzmws (1989) , nothing is what it seems: life is filled with irony
and surprises.

Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna) is a homicide cop, and he defines
his very existence by his job. When he is drawn off an important
case to investigate the murder of an oldJewish lady who owns a
pawnshop in a black neighbourhood, Gold suddenly feels very
uncomfortable. The old woman ’ s family, wealthy and influential,
see Gold as one of ‘them’, and, fearing an anti-semitic conspiracy,
they pull strings to get him assigned to the case. Gold is annoyed
and protests. He wants to be where the real action is, back where
he really belongs, with his team and[...]as
recently rediscovered hisJewishness, and, with the veil lifted, he
is brutally honest about what he sees. Gold doesn’t want to be a
Jew. He’s insulted, frightened at the thought of being tarred with
the same brush as weak and inferior people who speak[...]nny, and have a shameful past. As he retorts over the phone in
the house of the dead woman, “They’re not my people, baby.
Fuc[...]interestwhen he finds an
empty tommy-gun case in the old lady’s cellar, and learns that in
her youth the dead woman was a member of the Irgun, ajewish
underground organization in Palestine that fought for the crea-
tion of theJewish state. Evidence increases for the existence of a
secret neo-Nazi organization in the black ghetto, and by the time
Gold’s investigations lead him to a deserted building where a

The most fascinating feature screened,
because it confronts head-on the problems of
Jewish identity in the Diaspora, was David
Mamet’s ‘Homicide’ (JFF, U.S., 1991). As with
Mamet’s ‘House of Games’ (1989), nothing

is what it seems: life is filled with irony

and surprises.

o
J .

FACING[...]ht, complete with machine
guns and yamulkas, Gold is ripe for ‘satori’.

Dramatically, Gold’s instantconversion to militan tjewishness
is clumsily handled, but psychologically it is profound and con-
vincing. Like Solly in EuropaEuropa, Gold’s essentialjewishness is
under siege. He wants desperately to belong, but[...]him trouble and he believes it to be
shameful. He is not on the run like Sollyis, facing extennination.
Gold can[...]empt to lose his Jewishness by burying
himself in the police force as one of a team comprising blacks,
whites, Latinos and Asians — or so he deludes himself.

Early in the film, a black member of the FBI, senior to Gold,
calls him “a kyke”. What Mamet is doing here and elsewhere in
the film is bringing to the surface the growing tension between
blacks andjews, and exposing the unfairness of the black identi-
fication of the Jew as being responsible for their oppression.

For Gold, the opportunity to rid himself of self-doubt, and
exchange the stereotype of the passive Jew, the pawnbroker
feeding parasitically off the poor, for that of the virile Jewish
patriot, machine gun in hand, is irresistible. He jumps at the
chance, but by doing so he becomes more firmly i[...]emitic literature, Gold experiences a giddy sense of
belonging, of having ‘come home’ at last. Butitis soon made[...]n
an empty building. Total loyalty and commitment is demanded
of him, which Gold, theJewish cop, cannot give.

Gold may have rediscovered hisJewishness, but the result of
his actions leads to disillusionment: the militantJews reject him
because he refuses to betray his loyalty to the police force; and he
is rejected by his police ‘family’ because his involvementwith the
‘Yids’ results in the death of his partner Sullivan, for which Gold
is blamed, and subsequently ostracized.

CINE[...]

Mamet’s film is radical, handsome and brooding. It is the first
American film to demythologize and explore the situation of
American Jews, who find themselves under attack for their
Jewishness, through traditional anti-semiti[...]offshoot,
anti-Zionism. Divided loyalties, Mamet is suggesting, isn’t the
answer.Jews must get off the fence, shed their blinkers and come
to grips with[...]ignificance forJews as Spike Lee’s films have
for Afro—Americans: to raise Jewish consciousness a[...]re screened, Axel Corti’s television
adaptation of theJewishwriterFranz Werfel’s story, EineBlassb[...]s belief that neither Jews nor
women were capable of having ideas. His deeply pessimistic ideas
had a profound influence on the intelligentsia of fin de siecleV1-
enna, prompting Wittgenstein, so it is said, to write a great work
proving both his own[...]stant convert) . Weininger commit-
ted suicide at the age of twenty three, in the same room in which
Beethoven died. Manker’s film (JFF, Austria, 1989) is a noisy,
repetitive, sensationalist version of Weininger’s life which verges
on incomprehensibility

Corti’s film is altogether different. Though not as rich and
orig[...]ilogy Wohin und Zuii/Lck( WhereandBaeP) ,
A Woman is Pale Blue Handwriting (FJC, Austria, 1984) is a limpid
examination of an opportunist, a man without qualities who,
despite his affectation of introspection, has no comprehension of
the depths of his own shallowness. In confessional tone, Corti[...]Tachezy (Friedrich von Thun) , a civil servant in the
Austrian Ministry in 1936, believes the truth has caught up with
him at last, when he receives a letter from aJewish woman with
whom he had an affaire eleven years ago, requesting that he help
her with the schooling of an eleven-year-old boy.

At first he is shocked. How is he to explain this? Everything is
at stake: his marriage to his rich wife, his job[...]hrough juggling and appeasement, his self-esteem.
After the panic comes the accommodation, the adjustment. Guilt

30 - CINEMA PAPERS 87 ~

assails him and atonementbeckons: what better time than now to

become the man he always could be. Once the danger passes,
however, and theJew can be put in her place, Tachezy reverts to
being the man he always was: ‘With the necessityfor changing his
life gone, the superiority he had lost that morning came back to
him.” This is a masterly interpretation of Werfel’s cynical story
which illuminates the Austrian soul.
Two films from Canada were among the most entertaining
films: True Confections (JFF, Gail Singer, Canada 1991), apolished,
quirky, coming—of-age story about growing upJewish and female
in Winnipeg in the 1950s; and Falling O-oerBackwards (JFF, Mort
Rans[...]al, about a thirty-somethingJewish man who yearns for
the security of living with his parents again.
The Jewish element colours both of these Canadian films,
which revolve around personal growth and the struggle for
independence from family, towards whom the central characters
in both films — one female and the other male — have strong
attachments. The key issues touched upon — class, sexism, abor-[...]and safe sex in Falling OverBackwards— are not the preoccupations
ofJews alone, but issues of general concern. However, in both
these films, theJewish content adds flavour to the stories, aJewish
lens through which aspects of contemporary society can be
perceived.
Mel (Saul[...]Unlike Bobby Gold (Homicide), they are at home in the world.
They exhibit none of Gold’s paranoia or angst about being
Jewish. Th[...], if so, why? Asking this question led me to feel the lack
of Australian films that capture the unique flavour of Australian
Jewish experience: an amalgam of gum trees, elderly Holocaust
survivors, G1ick’s[...]d and Bondi. Literature has
made a start. Why has the feature film not become a medium for
Jewish self-expression in this country?

A-uanti Popolo (F] C, Rafi Bukaee, 1986) , Israel’s entry for Best
Foreign Film at the 1986 Academy Awards, was criticized at the
time in the Knesset by cabinet minister Ariel Sharon, who called
it self-destructive. Set in the Sinai Desert in 1967 at the end of the
Six-DayWar, the film’s central figures are two Egyptians, the lone
survivors of a routed company of soldiers whose only desire is to
reach the Suez Canal and home. There are two powerful meta-
phors in the film: the desert, which represents the human state,
a theatre of war in which enemies — Israelis and Egyptian[...]lves, recognize a
common humanity; and Haled, one of the Egyptians, an actor
who once played Shylock in aproduction in Cairo of TheMerchanz
ofVem'ce (“ajew sent to fightjews”) , who becomes a potentsymbol
of the futility and absurdity of war, humanity at war with itself.

Despite technical roughness,[...]ois aremarkable film,
an eloquent, powerful plea for human solidarity and sanity.
Haled is played by Salim Daw, awell—known Palestinian actor, and
his delivery of Shylock’s most famous speech — “I am a_]ew. Hath
not ajew eyes ...?” — is at once mocking, ironic and profoundly
disturbing[...]viya (Cup Final, FIC, Eran Riklis, Israel, 1991), the
most popular film at thejerusalem Film Festival[...]hough
not as poetic in concept as A1/anti Popolo, is similarly powerful. Set
during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it tells the story of
Cohen (Moshe Ivgi) , an Israeli soldier and soccer fan, who is
captured by retreating Palestinian guerrillas and[...]ofled regularly by Christian and Israeli troops. The film’s

LEFT TO RIGHT: MEL (SAUL RUBINEK) AND[...]AND PALESTINIANS FINDING COMMON GROUND IN A LOVE OF SOCCER.

DIANE PERELSZ‘IEJN’S DOCUMENTARY ABO[...]EFUGE IN SHANGHAI,

SURVIVIIE A SHANGHAHESCAPE TO THE RISING SUN).

focus is the seven days Cohen spends with the Palestinians, and
the friendship that grows between him and his eight captors,
based first on a shared love of soccer and support for the same
World Cup teain, Italy, and, later, on a recognition of a shared
humanity.

Like Avanti Popolo, Cup Final’ s sympathy is directed at the
vanquished and dispossessed. The Palestinians are shown as
dignified, decent men: Ziad, the tall, light-skinned leader of the
unit, lives abroad in Italy, and was trained as a pharmacist; Omar,
intelligent, dark and bespectacled, is nearly a doctor; Mussa is a
wiry-haired, quick-witted family man; Abu Eyesh[...]sesses a kindly soul; Faui, young and vulnerable,
is a diabetic. Only one of the group is needlessly violent, and he
is restrained by the others. Stereotyping has been rigorously
avoided.[...]numbed by their deaths, and, like Cohen who weeps for them at
the end, we find it difficult to emotionally adjust[...]hout regard to personality.

Echad Mishelanu (One of Us,jFF, Uri Babash, Israel 1990) , set
in the Occupied Territories during the Intifada, offers a complex,
sometimes confused, perspective on the impact of the Arab-
lsraeli conflict on young people. When Rafa (Dan Toren), a
young military police officer, is sent to a paratrooper base to
investigate the death in custody of a Palestinian prisoner, he is
unaware that the Palestinian, said to have been shot while trying
to escape, was responsible for the horrifying death of his close
friend. Rafa is expected by his friends at the base to be loyal to the
memory of his dead friend and his old unit, and only conduc[...]eels morally bound as an
investigator to discover the truth, even if it means implicating his
friends a[...]past.

Babash handles several themes in One cf Us the primacy of
male friendship in group solidarity, sexism in the army, peer-
group pressure and the abusive behaviour of oflicers. As a
consequence, the film loses focus at times, and the story becomes
muddled. The ending is ambivalent: Does Rafa bow to the
demands of group loyalty and burn the tell-tale tape implicating
his friends, or does he follow the dictates of his conscience and
become an outcast forever, no longer ‘one of us’?

For all its faults, however, One of Ushas energy, and a finger on
the pulse of what is happening in Israel today. It pits abstrac[...]

notions of principle against the reality of how military culture
operates, and exposes the pressure on individuals within the
group. Young Israelis, in order to survive physic[...]r and form strong bonds, a tradition
developed in the Zionist youth movements in Europe and very
much alive in civilian society, aswell as in the army. Faced with the
choice of obeying a distant command, or betraying a friend,
primary allegiance is to the group. This makes the ambivalence
expressed at the end of the film understandable.

Other notable Israeli featu[...]a
Narrow Bridge,JFF, Nissim Dayan, 1985), set on the West Bank,
which explores the intractability of Arab-Jewish hostility through
a Romeo andJuliet s[...]oup, led by a small time
entrepreneur (Moshe Ivgi of Avanti Popolo) trying to come to
terms with sexual dysfunction and loneliness in Tel Aviv.

The most interesting documentaries screened at the two
festivals were odysseys in search of new information and fresh
insights.

Diane Perelsztejn’s attempt to come to terms with her own
response to the Holocaustled to the making of Survivrea Shanghai‘
(Escape to the Rising Sun, FJC, Belgium 1991), a documentary
about 20,000Jews who found refuge during the war in Shanghai,
one of the few places in the world that could be entered without
a visa. Perelsztejn tells the story of the Shanghai Jews through
interviews with 15 elderly survivors, and retraces with them on
film the circuitous route they took to Shanghai via Vilna,[...]traordinary facts emerge that may forever
reshape the way we viewjapanese behaviour during the war. To
reach Shanghai itwas necessary to travelvia the Soviet Union and
Japan. To enterJapan avisa was n[...]panese Consul inVilna, who against
express orders from Tokyo continued to issue visas to desperate
Jews up to the moment of his recall to Berlin. A forest has been
dedicated to the memory of this ‘righteous gentile’ outside Yad
Vashem in Israel.

Equally remarkable is the hospitality received by the refugees
during their stay in 1938 on theJapanese island of Kobe, and in
Shanghai, where even under the Japanese occupation, despite
being ordered to the ghetto at Honghew, they fared better than
theJews of Europe.

FREDERIC BRENNER AND STAN NEUMANN’5 EXAMINATION OF A PORTUGUESE COMMUNITY WITH JEWISH
PRACTICES DATING BACK TO THE ISTH CENTURY, LES DERNIERS MARRANE5 (THE LAST MARRANO5].

32 0 CINEMA PAPERS 87

Pierre[...]s ofthe Spirit (JFF, U.S., 1986) , seen
first at the Melbourne Film Festival in 1988, is one of the most
inspirational documentaries ever made about the Holocaust.
Sauvage returned to Le Chambon-sur-Lig[...]ibute to this small French
Huguenot village which during the war saved the lives of 5,000
children, Sauvage included. Following their Pastor in the simple
belief that itwas the right thing to do becauseJesus was aJew, each
family in the village harboured aJewish child, participating in a
monumental act of resistance which could not have escaped the
cognizance of the Gestapo located a small distance away in Vichy.
Sauvage doesn’t try to explain goodness, or the Gestapo’s inac-
tion. He simply shows that sometimes goodness has the power to
paralyze evil, and makes the point that 75,000Jews were handed
over to the Germans by French collaborators.

Les Demiers Marranes (The Last Marranos, JFF, Frederic Bren-
ner and Stan N[...]), avisually engrossing film
embued with respect for its subject, sheds light on the secret
religion of a contemporary Marrano community in a village
north of Lisbon. Its rituals, orally transmitted, date back to the
time when the Spanish and PortugueseJews of the 15th Century
publicly converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisi-
tion, and practised theirJudaism underground. Interviews with
gentiles and Marranos alike from the village of Belmonte give a
fascinating picture of aworld not so removedfrom the dangerous
past: a painting behind glass doors in[...]riest
describes Jews as “fat, obese. Anyone who is used to Jews can
recognize them by their physical[...][...] their sibilant
pronunciation, their noses, the way they curse and swear”; a
Marrano, Emilia, a[...]describes how as a child she would enter a church for a christening
or wedding and say silently, “I e[...]t I worship
neither wood and stone. Iworship only the '73 names of the Lord
who rules over us.”

Cut off from their culture for hundreds of years, the crypto-
Judaic religion practised by the Marranos is female-centred and
eclectic, an amalgam of half-remembered stories and prayers,
tailored by their experience. As the women prepare the unleavened
bread for Passover, their most important festival, they pray that
they may be delivered from “evil, torture and death”. During the
baking of the bread they cover their eyes and sing, “Harm no man
by telling lies [...] Above all, honour your parents, they are
respectable people who brought you into the world.” An old
woman with a lined face gives aJewish perspective on history:
“The Lord gave theJewsJesus, but he betrayed us.”

These Belmonte Jews are the last Marranos in Portugal. For
centuries they have kept their faith alive withou[...]gs have changed. Ashke-
nazic Judaism has come to the village, dispelling mystery and
shame at the same time. The Marranos of Belmonte are now
prepared to circumcise their sons, observe the ‘new’ festivals,
wear hats and yamulkas in the home, and jettison the ‘goy’
calendar to follow the Hebrew. “This is good”, says Elias, Emilia’s
son—in—law who has been to America and Israel. “The men were
estranged from religion before. Now men are in charge.” Emilia
thinks it is right for the young to move on to the new rites, but she
will continue to practise her parents’ religion. “It’s all the same,”
she says, “but the prayers are not ours.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 69

Shaw). When wil[...]typed way? Will Australia ever see itself as part of that Asian

neighbourhood? Finally, Craig Brown examines the use of stereotypes on Australian
television. Also in this issue, but not specifically part of this Supplement, is coverage of

other multi-cultural, or related, issues. Specifically, there is George Negus ’ account of filming
in Russia and Jan Epstein ’s look at Jewish cinema. Thus, this Supplement is not only a partial

attempt at commenting of some multi-cultural issues, but also a catalyst to new ideas, new

forms of coverage.

CINKHA DAPIIS I7 -

J3

As the federal

government moves closer

to Asia economi[...]ift
Australia closer to Asia
culturally as well?

What will be the response
of the film industry?

Can it pass the

Asian Screen Test?

Sylvie Shaw, an independent[...]d television programmes
that are helping to raise the profile of Asia in Australia.
Already some sectors of the industry are looking to Asia,
especiallyjapan, as the new fairy godmother of film finance.
The changes come in the wake of the federal govern-
ments commitment to strengthen our ties with the Asian
region. Our destiny lies with Asia and there is a real need,
based on economic imperative, to move Australia’s focus from
Europe closer to home. But economic imperative (a[...]e will not bring about a change in
attitude.

I n the past 12 months, the Australian film and television

Asialink, a small Melbourne organization committed to
raising the profile of Asia through film and television, wants to
speed up the process and believes the media, particularly
popular-culture media, is one means to this end. But it won’t
be easy as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator
Gareth Evans, suggested recently: “How do you instil that
feeling of ‘belonging’ into the hearts of ,17 million people?
How do you make an entire pop[...]table with
its neighbours?”

Perhaps Neighbours is the appropriate word. Asialink asks if
and when the popular shows on television will begin not only[...]ian perspective, but also a face which represents
the broad community in this country.

If the Australia Council can introduce such a progressive
policy change, what about the film industry? There is cause for
optimism, with collaborative projects, worthy of support, in
their infancy. But care should be exercised in case this sea
change becomes another vehicle for an unequal power rela-
tionship —Australia to A[...]al East-West fusion.

KANGAROOS AND SCENIC VIEWS

The federal government’s Garnaut Report, Australia and the
Nm'th—east Asian Ascendancy, commissioned research on Asian
attitudes about Australia. The report concluded that Australia
was better known for its furry animals, wide-open spaces and

beaches[...]o improve our image in Asia, how do we move

away from yet another documentary of the great outback, or
our curious koalas? How can we[...]ralian drama?

WARS, WHORES, SECTS AND SEX

While the Garnaut Report states that our perceptions ofNorth—
east.Asia are increasingly better informed, the image ofAsians
in the media is largely still based on the traditional stereotype:
the enemy, the gaoler, the thug, the prostitute or the victim.

ProfessorAnnette Hamilton ofMacquarie University is one
of the very few academics to look at the image ofAsians in our
films. In her paper “Fear and Desire: Aborigines, Asians and
the National Imaginary”, she makes the point that, “right back
to the original Tarzan films, it is apparent that any Asian native
can substitute for any other”.“

This is also confirmed by our attitude to shooting films in
Asia and we have been guilty of what Sydney producer, Mike
Fuller, describes as “steamrolling the host culture”. While it is
not solely the domain of the Australian film industry, we have
a track-record of painting all of Asia with one brush — of
shooting a film about one country in another, of transplanting
one exotic Asian landscape for another (all paddy fields look
alike), ofreplaci[...]ic group with another (all
Asians look alike) and of transposing one culture for another
(no one will know the difference). The local population and
landscape serve only as an e[...]storical and ethnic diversity
has been annexed by the Australian film industry for conven-
ience. But while we continue to pa[...]

The mystery ofAsia tugs at our primitive heart string[...]tic landscapes, sexual encoun-
ters — an escape from our everyday lives. But in many of our
films the exotic also becomes the erotic. As Freda Freiberg
suggests, the heroes go troppo and awaken the “hidden native
in themselves”.5

Sometimes like in The Year 0fLivz'ngDangerausly (Peter Weir,
1982) or FarEast (]ohn Duigan, 1982) , the lead characters fall
in love with each other, but generally they suffer what Freiberg
calls the “native as stud” mentality (cf Echoes of Paradise, Phil
Noyce, 1988). They unleash the repressed sexuality of the
suburbs and, after a whirlwind holiday romance, or flirtation
with[...]r own
right. Films like Aya (Solrun Hoaas, 1990), the short Tigers Eyes
(Teck Tan), or the far-sighted mini-series In Between (Chris
Warner, Maureen McCarthy and Kim Dalton) are leading the
way. But beware the token Asian, particularly the stereotyped
version.

MORE BAD GUYS?

There is now a fear that a new genre of films will emerge
depicting Asians again as the bad guys. The Triads and Yakuza
might become popular images on our screens, and we should
be wary of this development. Already proposals are being
sub[...]nshine coast, or portraying Chinatown as a hotbed of
nasty Triad drug dealers. Perhaps there is a lesson here from
the American film Year afthe Dragon (Michael Cimino, 1985),
where the Chinese characters are both goodies andbacldies, and
where the intrepid, female Chinese-American investigative
reporter tracks down the inscrutable drug barons.

The way we represent Asians in our media comes in for
scrutiny from our near neighbours. The Malaysian govern-
ment has already expressed considerable concern about the
ABC series Embassy and its representation of a fictional Asian
society. This has soured relations between Australia and one of
our important trading nations, and has led the federal gov-
ernment to openly dissociate itself from the production.

Ian Bradley of Grundy’s Television, co-executive producer
of Embassy, says he expected some controversy, but not from
Malaysia. It stemmed from one of the early episodes where
“there was the reference to threatening to shoot the boat
people”:

V/Vhat we didn’t realise was [...] that the person who supposedly
made that threat in the 70's, had subsequently become the
Prime Minister of Malaysia, and that really is the basis of all the
problems. To this day — and I’m being honest — I don’t know
whether he ever made the threat or not [...]

I have no doubt that Dr Mahathir is sincere in being upset
about that reference to that one incident. And had we been
advised of it, had we known where it came from —well, obviously
we wouldn’t have used it.5

36 - CINEMA PAPERS B7

The Asian Screen Test

More recently there has been disquiet again from Malaysia
about the feature Turtle Beach (Stephen Wallace, 1992). The
film, based on the novel by Blanche D’Alpuget, focuses on an
Australianjournalist who covered the race riots in Malaysia in
1969 and ten years later returns to cover the plight of the boat
people. The film shows a massacre of the Vietnamese refugees
by Malaysian villagers, although there is some argumentwhether
this is historical fact or dramatic licence. Last year, the then
Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, indicated to Dr Mahathir that the
government would make a public statement also distancing
itselffrom this production. Aswell, the Australian Film Finance-
Corporation (FFC), which was an investor in the film, has
withdrawn its logo from the film’s credits. According to the
FFC’s chief executive,]ohn Morris,

The FFC took this step beacuse it might be hard for the
Malaysians to comprehend that a government agency, such as
the FFC, is a stricdy ‘hands off’ investor and maintains a
completely independent position on the contents of films and
programmes in which it invests.7

TWO STEPS FORWARD

Our political and cultural naivety is transparent. How do we
improve that?

Both the Australian Film Commission (AFC) and the De-
partment of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) organize Aus-
tralian film festivals and visits of Australian filmmakers to the

Asian region. In 1991, DFAT sponsored Cascade Fi[...]kshops injakarta with Indonesia filmmakers.

But the involvement of these two government bodies in
such ventures has been criticized on the grounds that the left
hand does not know what the right is doing. The AFC promotes
the Australian film industry, while DFAT develops cu[...]wing
Australian films, then whose responsibility is it? Is it marketing
or bettering cultural relations?

nuances that make each country special.

Films t[...]have to be chosen with care, taking
into account the political, moral and religious sensitivities of
the countries involved. The same considerations need to be
followed when Aust[...]es.

Bangkok Hilton provides a good example. Part of the series
was shot in India where the crew could not disclose they were
making a film about “drug-running — the Indian connection".
So while they were shooting, the crew wore T—shirts printed
with the words “East meets West and they fall in love. A l2—part
documentary.”

At the moment, there is sparse knowledge about the best
ways of working in various Asian countries. Australia doe[...]ers advice about
working in Asia. Where do you go for precise information?
What are the pitfalls to watch out for? Should one offer
‘financial incentives’ and how much? What about our attitude
to cheap labour in Asia? How d[...], moral, cultural and politicalfauxpas
and so on? Is it the role of DFAT, Austrade or the AFC to
provide such information?

Action-movie producers favour Asia because of the low
labour costs, though working in Asia can also have huge
disadvantages, the most obvious being that Australia is seen in
a negative light. Filipino filmmaker Nick Deocampo from the
Mowel Film Institute points out that, in his coun[...]Americans or as ugly tourists only
interested in the sex trade?‘

In a sense, this negativity has been reinforced by the legacy
of films like The Year ofLivingDangerously (set in Indonesia but
made in The Philippines) and the mini-series on CoryAquino’s
rise to power, A Dangerous Life. By shooting in a different
country from the setting, the film loses its credibility. For
political reasons, A Dangerous Life finished production in Sri
Lanka, but the local Filipino audience could not take the film
seriously when a crowd of Sri Lankan extras shouted “Cory!
Cory! Cory!”

To avoid such problems, The Philippines government is
now considering setting up a ‘One Stop Agency’ for all foreign
films made there. It is easy to see why. What is our response
when we see Australia wrongly or narrowly interpreted by
overseas media? Can we blame the various countries in Asia for
being disinterested in our product ifwe do not represent them
correctly?

By raising the profile of Asians and Asian themes, there can
be a tendency to overlook the ‘cultural specificity’ of the
different Asian nations and ethnic groups within[...]es dealing with a non-specific Asian country
runs the risk of ignoring the nuances that make each country
special. And while[...]ch in Asia, they
tend to be more about our search for identity and say more
about Australia than they do about Asia.

NEW TREATIES

In an exciting development by the AFC, Charles Hannah from
Pacific Link Communications has been employed as a consult-
ant for the next two years to open up markets in japan and
Korea, and lift the profile of Australian film and television
there. Already, through the newly-opened Pacific Link Com-
munications Office in Tokyo, he is negotiating the sale of
Yoram Gross’ Blinky Bill ( 1992) , as well asjapanese involvement
in a children’s drama series from Grundy’s Mission Top Secret,
an international drama about a group of computer smart kids
in different countries out to save the world from environmental
and other destruction.

The AFC is also pursuing the area of co-productions with
Japan. This was one of the major recommendations to come
out of Asialink’s No Koalas Please Conference in 1990.

Becausejapan has no equivalent organization to the AFC,
there were some teething problems, but now l[...]ed with both thejapanese broadcaster NHK and with the
government itself. Peter Sainsbury (AFC) comments[...]en encouraging enoiigfiiiféwarrant
a request to the federal Minister for the Arts, Thurism and
Territories to enter into formal negotiations with thejapanese
Ministry of International Trade and Industry.9

STREET GANGS[...]ofthe
Dragon, a television co-production between the ABC, BBC and
Xanadu Productions. This mini-series, based on Nicolasjose’s
novel Avenues of Eternal Peace, revolves around the fate of an
Australian doctor who gets caught up in the democracy
movement in Beijing in 1989. Tiananmen Square was recon-
structed in a disused airfield on the outskirts of Sydney and one
of the most rewarding aspects of the production was uncover-
ing the wealth of talent in Australia.

FACING PAGE: CHINESE-AMERICAN REPORTER TRAZY TU (ARIANE) AND POLISH-AMERICAN COP
STANLEY WHITE [MICKEY ROURKE) WORK TOGETHER TO FIGHT THE BAD FORCES OF CHINATOWN.
MICHAEL CIMlNO’S YEAR OF THE DRAGON.

LEFT: AUSTRALIANS KATRIONA (NICOLE KIDMAN) AND MANDY [JOY SMITHERS) AT THE MERCY OF
FOREIGN JUSTICE IN THE LUM JAU GAOL. KEN CAMERON’S BANGKOK HILT[...]

Two thousand extras were needed to re-create the scene in
Tiananmen Square and they were gathered[...]tions and student associations. On one occasion, the casting
agents took over a disco and hired the 400 patrons as extras.

The producers employed Melbourne director Wang Ziyin
(New GoldMountain) to actas a liaison between the crew and the
cast, especially with the huge number of extras. Megaphone in
hand, she translated the directions to the enormous cast. It was
an exhausting process. Line producer Wayne Barry, who coin-
cidentally was in Beijing the day after the massacre, and Wang
Ziyin were able to evoke a strong feeling among the extras,
many of whom were also in Tiananmen Square that night. As
the fires and the explosions started, the cast began to re-live
their experiences and acted[...]les with extraordinary
passion.

Wang Ziyin tells the story of one of the extras, who, knowing
he was to re-create the scene in Tianamen Square, wore exactly
the same t-shirt he had worn on the night of the massacre. He
found it hard to understand that wardrobe wanted him to wear
something else. He thought the drama was supposed to be real.
And while the title Children of the Dragon has been criticized as
yet another stereotyped vision ofChina, it is in fact the name of
the song the students were singing in Tiananmen Square.

One of the recommendations of the Asialink No Koalas
Please Conference, which brought together filmmakers from
Asia and Australia, stressed the importance of hiring a consult-
ant to avoid social, cultural or religious misunderstandings
when working in Asia. The smooth production on Children ofthe
Dragon showed just how important this is even when working in
Australia — for solving language problems and for bridging
cultural gaps as well. Wang Ziyin also mentioned having to raise
awareness with the crew that “not all Chinese are the same.”

People from Mainland China, from Taiwan, Singapore or
Malaysia all have different[...]erences should be respected. Congratula-
tions to the producers for their foresight in employing a
sensitive cultural[...]ther local feature with an Australian-Asian theme is
Romper Stamper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992) , a film[...]angs are taking over their
territory.

In casting the Vietnamese actors, the production company,
Seon Films, said they had “[...]tsoever”. Casting
agent Liz Mullinar advertised for and found experienced
actors from Vietnam. She took ads in the local Vietnamese
newspaper and spoke to leaders of the Vietnamese community
who put up flyers around the area. A mixture of good research
and community support and networking.

And next year there will be more. The ABC has also
commissioned Sydney writers Nicolasj[...]research and write a six-hour drama series about the Chinese
in Australia called The China Story. The series, set in Darwin,
focuses on one Chinese family and spans several generations
from 1910 to the present. Production is still twelve months

away .

38 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

WARRING FACTIONS NO LONGER

The recent films Blood Oath (Stephen Wallace, 1990) and Aya
still have their roots in the turmoil ofW or1dWar II, butAyatackles
something different: the experiences of ajapanese war bride in
Australia during the 19505. Director Solrun Hoaas believes:

Our media are obsessed with the war, neglecting the occupa-
tion and the treatment of thejapanese war brides, who were the
firstjapanese allowed to enter Australia after the war.”

Butwhile Ayawas selected for screening at many prestigious
film festivals around the world, the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade would not sponsor Solrun Hoaas to partici-
pate in the Singapore Film Festival because, it is suggested, the
film does not depict Australians in a sufficiently positive light,
despite the fact that the film won a specialjury prize for art and
innovation at the 1990 Torino Film Festival. Hoaas feels that
perhaps her representation of the leading Australian male
characters — one violent, but sensitively portrayed, the other
gay — is perhaps the reason.

Hoaas speaks fluentjapanese and this ea[...]ms and language misunderstandings in working with
the leadingjapanese actress, Eri Ishida. Although Hoa[...]ting process switching back and forth constantly,
the rewards are shown in Tshida’s sensitive portrayal of a
woman in an alien culture.

japan is being viewed as the film finance bank of the world
and we are having some success in gaining access to their
coffers. Aya and the mini-series RoseAgaz'nst the Odds— the story
ofLionel Rose ’s boxing fame — were par[...]se
sources. Blood Oath was able to corner a slice of the Japanese
market, grossing $250,000 within six weeks of opening in
Tokyo thanks to the amazing efforts of publicist Toshi Shioya,
who Charles Hannah says, “almost single-handedly cajoled and
bullied the film’s distributors, and thejapanese me[...]

‘gut feeling’ of the executive producer?

The feature film Greenkeeping (David Caesar, 1992) is a
comedy about “sex, drugs and lawn bowls”. It also has an Asian
focus. Caesar says the inspiration for the film came from a radio
broadcast of the Commonwealth Games lawn bowls final be-
tween a 17-year-old Chinese boy from Hong Kong and an older
Italian-Australian. He believes the film is “a metaphor for the
way Australia is changing”?

The 1991 Melbourne Film Festival further expanded
Australia’s Asian links with the screening of several films of the
Hong Kong genre of martial-arts films. But the highlight of the
Festival was the session for the film ju Dou by renowned Chinese
“5th Generatio[...]hang Yi-Mou. F estival-goers turned
up in droves. The organizers could not control the crowd and
the police were called in. Demand for Chinese cinema is very
strong in Melbourne and this rush to see a banned Chinese
film, incidentally bankrolled by the Japanese, flies in the face
of cinema chains which believe there is no market here for Asia
film. There is an audience and it can be fostered.

MARKET PLACE[...]ure on them to produce stories
which reflect both the multi-cultural and Aboriginal mix of the
Australian community, the changes have been minimal. There
seems to be a su[...]ty. But has any real market research
been done or is it just the ‘gut feeling’ of the executive
producer? How often have we heard that[...]good
story lines”, “no actors available” or “the image isn’t good for
our overseas markets”.

Ian Bradley from the Grundy Organization believes that
television executives are often motivated by fear — “fear of not
getting ratings, fear ofoffending the advertisers, and in the end
fear oflosing theirjobs”.‘3 In other words, fear of doing some-
thing different.

Other producers argue it is important to see beyond the
rhetoric and concentrate on the dramatic and passionate
elements of a story, regardless of its authenticity or worthiness.
But do we have to[...]keep them in their jobs. Do we have to wait until the decision-
makers themselves are Asia-literate?

6[...]s are supposed to present
accuracy and truth. But the image of Asia we see is limited to
natural disasters, riots, drug hauls, plane crashes and wars. And
this occurs only ifthere is a news crew to shoot it. Similar images
of streetfighting in South Korea, mud-slides in The Philippines
and poverty in Bangladesh inure us to the real problems. The
viewer becomes bored and desensitized to events in that country.

“PLEASE CONSIDER”

Advertising still represents stereotype images — of women, of
Italians and of Asians. “Can you keep a Seclet?” and “Sunright
Lice” make fun of Asian pronunciation of English words;
Singapore Airlines advertisements[...]to make us choose its product.

Where do you draw the line between what is gently funny
and what is racist? “Mr Okimura” (NBC) and “Not So Sque[...]parodies ofjapanese national characteristics,
but the ads are also made forjapanese companies. When wil[...]TO DEFEND THEIR ’FORT'RESS’ AGAINST AN ATTACK
FROM A VIETNAMESE GANG. WITH SONNY JIM (LEIGH RUSSELL)[...]ISHIDA) AND
FRANK [NICHOLAS EADIE). A PERCEPTION OF WAR: SERGEANT KEENAN (NICHOLAS EADIE) AND
IKEU[...]

the advertising industry see the real person behind the big
smile?

IT'S ALL IN THE GAME

If advertising presents a skewed view of Asians, game shows
rarely include Asians in their programmes. VVl'1ile an Australia[...]ng Tribunal survey found that game shows are near
the bottom of viewer preferences, there is no obvious reason
why Asian or Australian—Asian[...]Australian-Chinese student did very well on Sale
of the Century this year, but examples are few and far b[...]interesting change has been taking place in some of the
soaps and let’s hope that it is a taste of things to come.
Congratulations to A Country Practice for recently including a
storyline about a Chinese-Australian acupuncturist who per-
formed an operation on the matron ofi/Vandin Valley hospital
and had a love affaire with one of the nurses. While Dr. Yip left
the show after only a couple of episodes, executive producer
James Davern says it is possible he may yet return.

A number of scriptwriters have spoken of some fascinating
stories about scripts they’ve written and how the programme
producers have reacted with the same old response. I/Vhere do
we get the actors from?

This was one of the issues raised at meetings ofwriters and
actors in[...]actors by ethnic group, so one more excuse bites the
dust.

Several writers mentioned that, although t[...]te about Asian themes, they are not familiar with the com-
munity involved. They recommended that residencies in Asian
countries be provided by the AFC, along the lines of the
Australia Council, and that special ethnic consul[...]ollaboration between a native speakerwith awriter
from a particular ethnic group.

Most people at the meetings believe that the decision-
makers, the executive producers and the network owners,
need to be made aware just how da[...]d views ofAsians are, especially when it comes to the
image we present in those countries considered so[...]nother level there have been disappointmenm, too. The
educational series Asiawise has been one of the victims of the
ABC’s cutbacks and the current-affairs programme Asia Report
has been dropped by SBS.

There is a real need for more educational background
material for schools. Lastyearl prepared afilmography, Visions
of/lsia, which lists the availability ofabout 1000 films and videos
throughout Australia.” But very little ofit is made specifically
with education in mind, particularly for primary schools. 1Nhat
curriculum-specific material is available is now hopelessly out
of date.

As Australia moves closer to Asia both economically and
culturally, it is essential that the Australian community has a
solid understanding of[...]hem to become Asia-literate.
Teachers are looking for updated and accessible information,
in a language that the children themselves use and understand.

So how d[...]n one teacher asked her
students to draw pictures of Asians, most drew Ninja Turtles
and Ninjas, the horrors of war or old-fashioned images of
Chinese wearing straw hats and pigtails.

There is a desperate need to develop an awareness ofwho
Asians really are and to break down the old stereotypes.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

In December 1991, the Screen Production Association of
Australia (SPAA) looked at the developing Asian television
market. It’s no coincidence that the South—East Asian market is
still looking for American—style action movies, CNN-style news
and current[...]two-way process. VVhile we are looking to enhance
the image of Asia in Australia, we can’t overlook the image of
Australia in Asia. It seems that all too often the tourist image is
the only one represented abroad.

This image will not advance until the perception ofAustra-
lia as a people changes. Many in Asia still see Australia as a
country of whites, when in fact we are a dynamic mix of
Aboriginal, European and Asian ethnic and cultura[...]growing together in this huge southern continent.
The easy cliched image that we are westerners is both literally
and metaphorically wrong. I/Ve are[...]ers. Ifanything,
we are “Southerners”.

There is an exciting evolution within our film and television
industry, and it is gaining momentum. There is no doubt that
things will change. Even the television executives say so. The
opportunities are there now. Can the Australian film and
television industry take them up and pass the Asian screen test
with flying colours?

NOTES

1. Gareth Evans launching the Australia Council Policy, “Asia Pacific
Connections”, October 1991.

2. Carrillo Gantner, quoted in the Australia Council Press Release “A
Vision for the Future — .\'o\v”, 42/91, September 1991.

3. Ross Garnaut, Australia and the North-east Asian Ascendant}, Com-
monwealth ofAus[...]90.

Freda Freiberg, Monash University Department of Visual Arts, in

conversation with author.

6. ji[...]se Queries on Embassy’s Future"
in Green Guide, The Age, 14 November 1991.

7. In letter from Judith Rich, Public Relations Manger at the FFC, in
response to a faxed query from the Editor.

8. Sylvie Shaw, “Reportfrom the first Filmlinks Conference”, in Shaw, N0
Koalas Please, Commonwealth ofAustralia 1990.

. Correspondence[...]ieving—Script Writingin aMulzicullural
Society, Office of Multicultural Affairs, April 1991.

14. Community View of Broadcastingfiegulatimis, Monograph 1, Australian
Broadcasting Tribunal, 1991.

1:). Sylvie Shaw, Visions of Asia: A filmography of Asian Film and Films about
Asia, Commonwea[...]

MARKETED BY EAST WEST RECORDS
A DIVISION OF WARNER MUSIC AUSTRALIA
A TIME WARNER COMPANY

KING OF THE CASCADE BRUMBIES

COMMENCED PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY[...]ERNAL

PROMOTIONS

-r;r=mr* S.

-I » L

“The Promise of Immortality ” —
the last shot of The Shining

Australian film and documentary[...]

performance poet John Harding queries the

definition of “Black Films”

There’s a question out there in here

Through a camera it would blur,

or sink to the bottom of obscurity with its leadweighted
ironies.

A spotlight would not assist, as the pain reflects fight back
into your narrow vacant eyes, more help tha.n needed will
Paralyse

To stand motionless is to be shot, wrapped cut and sold, yet
our cloud of fluidity will not be housed.

When the question is in the eyes that can tell the story, the
story will speak, and the question will begin to be answered,
and the camera merges and blurs with sudden forward
motion.

— UNTITLED, JOHN HARDING

the simple path be sacrificed for the long and conflict-ridden
road. Maybe it is because along simple paths there are simple
truth[...]at, to look at Kooris* and film a necessary step
is to see how this country reflects itself and the international
arena. Is the cultural cringe alive and well and commuting
between Sydney and Melbourne? Will we forever rate the per-
fection of imitation higher than the development of local crea-
tivity and fund it accordingly? The optimist in me says that the
current upswing in the support of Australian content may be
something more than temporary.

The Melbourne film industry is thriving on producing stories
that reflect the societal idiosyncrasies, the sexual tensions and the
cultural contradictions that this great city was built on, and
winning awards in the process. It is also encouraging to see that
the gap between the general public and the Australian film
industry is continuing to slowly close. I remember not so lon[...]traight past
known Australian film titles to see what Hollywood had flung
across the seas for our cultural gratification. Yet here I am in 1992
knowing that, out of the four films I want to see at the present
moment, two of them are local product.

Now if this a genuine plateau we have reached, and the local
and international production partners are starting to believe that
the general public can tolerate Australian content, t[...]dare I say it, that Koori issues could even be on the

| am consmntly amazed at how often in my life I[...]list when new ideas are being bought and sold in the
marketplace for feature films?

Even ifthis were so, it presents one ofthe many problems that
exist in the processes of depicting Koori issues and images. I
always have great difficulty making it clear to non-Kooris the
inappropriateness of them writing Koori characters or issues into
a story. There is often disbelief thatl have any right to impinge o[...]e a different situation ifthey made it clear that the
images they conjure are their perceptions, their reality, but this
is rarely the case.

Instead, white values and perspectives are[...]k
characters and issues. This serves to reinforce the one—dimen—
sional view that white Australia has of Kooris, when the physical
aspect of being one is put up there on the screen alone.

The film industry should not be singled out here, as it
encompasses the wider community, and is reflective of the fact
that a very different perspective and psyche exists between the
black and white communities in this country in 19[...]there.

One ofthe strongest elements ofKoori life is the totality ofour
world xiew. Everything is interconnected and affects everything
else. The arts in general for White Australia seem to be a very
separate entity to the mainstream community. Elements of ac-
countability and responsibility do not bind the two together.
Thus, acommunity sees no link between the arts bodyits taxes pay
for — spending the majority of its funding supporting activities
that a minuscule percentage of the population participate in —
and the fact that they should be irate about it.

Koori a[...]ich our
culture was based. It was as important to the social cohesion of a
family as a steady supply of food; and elevated to the status of
ceremonies.

As we have adapted into the 19905, the one thing we cannot
afford to lose is our artists, and their place in the scheme of the
struggle we face. I place Koori filmmakers firmly in this group.

Of course, in these liberated times, it sounds almos[...]o their community.
If a Koori filmmaker’s work is adored by the wider community,
what possible weight would the black community’s disapproval
carry? Itwould seem the potential for retribution is minimal. The
Koori filmmakers have the ball in their court in regards to this
aspect. Only they can know to what extent their work reflects the
Kooriness in themselves. This sense of accountability is something

Canons in the C

Here Iwould like to touch on the politics of the film industry,
in reference to Kooris and films, as I see this as flowing on from
the previous point. I feel the time has come where we have to
begin to define what a “black film” or a “Koori film” is, and when
does itbecome one. Is it a black film due to the material it presents
or the origins of the filmmaker, or both?

The reason I have decided not to turn this article into an
historic look at “Aboriginal films” is because the distinction must
be made loud and clear by Koori[...]by non—Kooris (albeit with Koori consultants),
the agenda must be written by us. I feel enough has b[...]is, but simply
films in which Kooris appear, why is the Koori community always
made to feel so grateful? So grateful, in fact, that some of these
film s are given black money, so the black actors can be paid, while
less acclaimed black filmmakers are denied. The continuance of
this helps create the dangerous illusion that a lot of time and
effort and money has gone into the areas of “blacks ’n’ films”,
when in fact it has not.

Books on “Aborigines in Film” add to the distorted view, albeit
unintentionally. Let’s s[...]ris”l There, now we can all get some sleep.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the equally confus-
ing issue of Kooris who make films that aren’t necessarily[...]s filmmakers who happen
to be Kooris. Perhaps it is to the Koori filmmakers and the
funding bodies that we will leave the problems of definition, as it
may be through the development of this relationship that the
Koori community may find its niche.

The importance of the Koori filmmaker maintaining credible
links with his/ her community is evident in the self-development
of the artist, but also in providing a medium whereby st[...]e to be told are told accurately, and interpreted from a Koori
perspective. The third benefit is the opportunity to train other
Kooris, thereby building up our resource base. All this can come
from one Koori making one film.

Another stepping stone in the river of Koori filmmaking is
whom do you make the film for? As a playwright, Iwas often asked
whom do I pitch my play at? My reply was that I write for Kooris,
as I can write no otherwaywhen I arnwriti[...]But putting a “white face” on a black message is as outdated

as Aljolson.

Ifa Koori filmmaker h[...]er it be through
drama, documentary or animation, the logical yardstick is the
community itself.

A real black film is a political expression because its mere
existence[...]or criticism, means we are still here,
reclaiming the images of our identity, and still at war for land
rights and compensation. A thought-provoking reminder of this
is the fact that the federal government has recently established
the Reconciliation Council, made up of black and white mem-
bers of this multi-cultural society. Their mission, should they
decide to accept it, is to come up with a list of policies/ recom-
mendations on how we can reconcile the past, in time for the
centenary celebration of federation. Although it will permeate
all aspects of Aboriginal Affairs in its ten-year life—span an[...]get, how could it affect Koori artists?

Although the Reconciliation Council may prove to be a
toothless tiger, an enterprising Koori filmmaker could suggest
for reasons of equity that the AFI allocate a percentage of its
annual budget to Koori communities, in line with the population
ratio (i.e. 2.5%) . This principle could be applied to all government
funded arts bodies across the country. The logistics of distribu-
tion could well be along and complex on[...]r problem.

It will only be when economic justice of this kind is achieved
that the stories will unfold that have been kept for so long in the
heart of the country, and in her caretakers, the oldest race in the
world. And they will be able to be told at the qualitative level that
they should be, because th[...]rched adequately, and
Koori filmmakers will have the resources needed to enable them
to achieve their full potential.

To achieve this, the pooling of resources will eventually
become essential to the development of Koori film. The Koori
concept of “caring and sharing” must extend into the arts arena,
where it has been replaced by competition. Koori artists are
adapting and hopefully recognizing the difference between
getting caught up in the politics of the arts, and utilizing the arts
for the politics of survival. Arts for art’s sake? We haven’t the time!

P.S. What are we going to be reconciled to accept? There’s scope
there for a sci-fiz one million people mysteriously disappear off the
face of Australia in 1770 headed for the planet Terra Nullius

CINEMA PAPERS 87 0 43

OR , BLACK AND WHITE
PERSPECTIVES OF SCREENPLAY?

aving just come back from South Africa and observing,
H among other things, the use of black South Africans on

television and in cinema, I have an added interest in
studying the images used by white Australia for black Australia.
The white manipulation of the European-controlled media,
television and cinema[...]anean, Arabic
and other non—white races. But it is the Aboriginal race that is
most affected.

It was interesting to learn that the Zulu people (who are the
ones most portrayed on television) have their own television
station, where Zulu is the official language and Zulus are the
principal characters. But despite this — and despite the fact that
blacks outnumber whites some 20 to 1 — they are still portrayed as
foolish people. There is something more to be desiredin the plots
written about and for them.

This situation is solely because, despite apartheid being
dismantled bit by bit, the administrative positions in all Walks of
life are controlled by whites. However, because whites are in a
minority, there are powerful voices in the newspapers, political
parties and the unions to speak up for the black majority.

In Australia, there is a greater discrepancy of power, where the
Aboriginal population is outnumbered some 100 to 1. There is
Verylittle chance of the Aboriginal nation getting a clear, fair and
objec[...]een an ideal forum forAboriginal issues,
since it is well known prison populations are heavily based on the
Aboriginal people. Yet there was only ever one Aborigine in the
whole show, a type of token black, if you like, reminiscent of the
American television shows of the 19605 and early ’70s before Afro-
American Civil Rights enforced a better code of conduct for
television and film — as in In the Heat of the Night. Also, in Bellbird
there was only ever one Aboriginal actor, who played the town
drunk.

There have been many essays and talks about these specific
problems over the years, ranging from outright racism in the
early days (as in the argument thatAborigines cannot act as they
don’t have the will-power to do the strenuous work) up to the
paternalistic journals and comments of today. So, I will not dwell
too long on this subj[...]raying Aborigines and editors cutting out a scene of one of
the main white actors kissing an Aboriginal woman because it is
believed ratings would fall. It really is time to look at ourselves as
creators and realize that for Australia’s indigenous population
there is a lot to be desired on the cinema front. For, as I have said
elsewhere, film is the white man’s dreamtime - and more often

44 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

than not it turns out to be the Aborigines’ nightmare. The time
has come to portray a true picture of Aboriginal life. This is
especially so on television, which reaches outwards to a greater
variety of people.

It is not to say that this is not happening now. There are several
good programmes on SBS and the ABC, and there is, of course,
the CentralAustralian Aboriginal MediaAssociation, all ofwhich
are positive and informative. As for film, there are people like
Tracey Moffatt, Mich[...]films and winning awards with them.

However, it is the big-budget films that are going to be seen by
the majority of the world, films like The Last Wave, (Peter Weir,
1977) The Chant of jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978), A
Faithful Narrative of the Capture, Sufleangs and Miraculous Escape of
ElizaFraser (Tim Burstall, l976) and so on. We see the same old
stereotypes again and again, with Aborigines relegated to second
fiddle. Where is the interest in making big-budget Aboriginal
films, such as Kevin Costner’sDances_wz'th Wolves (1990) about the
Sioux, which most Hollywood producers said would[...]nd yet, there are at least four big-budget native American films
in production right now.

The native Americans have the same problems as the Aborigi-
nal people with no real conferenc[...]

NUMBER 2 [APRIL 1974):

Cen[...]Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under Allende,
Between The Wars, Alvin Purple

NUMBER 3 (JULY 1974):

Richar[...]Papadopolous,
Willis O’Brien, William Friedkin, The True
Story Oflishimo Nell.

NUMBER 10 (SEPT/OCT 1[...]Samuel Z.
Arkofl’, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The
Picture Show Man.

NUMBER 12 (APRIL 1977)

Ken Lo[...]Tosi, John
Dankworth, John Scott, Davs Ofl-Iopc,
The Getting Of Wisdom.

NUMBER 13 ( JULY 1977)

Louis Malle, Pau[...]ohmer,
Terry Jackman, John Huston, Lubes
Kingdom, The Last Wave, Blue Fire Lady.

NUMBER 15 (JANUARY 19[...]ncois Trufiraut, John
Faulkner, Stephen Wallace, the Taviani
brothers, Sri Lankan cinema, The
Irishman, The Chant Of jinimie
Blaclesnzith.

NUMBER 16 ( APRIL-JUNE 197[...]blom, John Duigan, Steven
Spielberg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa Project,
Swedish cinema, Dawnl, Patrick.[...]le Huppert, Brian May,
Polish cinema, Neivsfront, The Night The
Prowler.

NUMBER 18 (OCT/NOV 1978)
John Lamond, S[...]nalism,
Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, Water Under

The Bridge.

NUMBER 27 (JUNE-JULY 1980)
Randal Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald
Richie, obituary of Hitchcock, NZ film
industry, Grendel Grendel Gre[...]ka, Stephen Wallace, Philippine
cinema, Cruising, The Last Outlaw.

NUMBER 35 (FEBRUARY 1982)
Kevin Dob[...]hael Rubbo, Blow Out,
Brealzer Morant, Body Heat, The Man
From Snowy River.

NUMBER 37 (APRIL 1982)

Stephen Mac[...]nger,
Norwegian cinema, National Film
Archive, We Of The Never Never.

NUMBER 40 (OCTOBER 1982)

Henri Saf[...]Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, My
Dinner With Andre, The Return Of
Captain Invincible.

NUMBER 41 [DECEMBER 1982)
Ig[...]er, Peter

Tammer, Liliana Cayani, Colin Higgins,
The Year Of Living Dangerously.

NUMBER 42 (MARCH 1983)

Mel[...]an Pringle,
Agnes Varda, copyright, Stri/zehound, The
Man From Snowy River.

NUMBER 43 (MAY/JUNE 1933)

Sydney Pollack, Denny Lawrence, Graeme
Clifiord, The Dismissal, Careful He Might
Hear Tau.

NUMBER 44-[...], Simon Wincer, Susan
Lambert, a personal history of Cinema
Papers, Street Kids.

NUMBER 46 (JULY 1984[...]uvall, Jeremy Irons, Eureka
Stockade, Waterfront, The Boy In The
Bush,/1 Woman Suffers, Street Hero.

NUMBER 47[...]hael Pattinson, Jan
Sardi, Yoram Gross, Bodyline, The Slim
Dusty Movie.

NUMBER 49 (DECEMBER 1984)

Ala[...]Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti,
Brian May, The Last Bastion, Bliss.

NUMBER 51 (MAY 1985)

Lino[...]zlehurst, Dusan l\/lakavejey, Ernoh Ruo,
Winners, The Naked Country, Mad Max.-
Beyond Thmzderrlorne, Ro[...]News, film
advertising, Don’t Call Me Girlie, For
Love Alone, Double Sculls.

NUMBER 53 (SEPTEMBER[...]an, Menahem Golan, rock videos,
Wills And Burlzc, The Great Bookie

Robbery, The Lancaster Miller Affair.

NUMBER 55 (JANUARY 1986[...]Paul Verhoeven, Derek
Meddings, tie-in marketing, The Right-
Hand Man, Birdsville.

NUMBER 56 (MARCH 19[...]ard~Smith, John Hargreaves, Dead-
End Drive—In, The More Things Change,
Kangaroo, Tracy.

NUMBER 58 (JULY 1986)

Woody Allen, Reinhard Hauff, Orson
Welles, the Cinématheque Francaise, The
Fringe Dwellers, Great Expectations: The
Untold Story, The Last Frontier.

NUMBER 59 (SEPTEMBER 1986)
Robert Altman, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka,

Agnes Varda, The AFI Awards, TheThe Story Of
The Kelly Gang.

NUMBER 63 (MAY 1987)

Gillian Armstr[...]ris
Haywood, Elmore Leonard, Troy
Kennedy Martin, The Sacrifice, Landslides,
Pec Wee’s Big Adventure[...], James Claydcn,
Video, De Laurentiis, New World, The
Navigator, Who ’s That Girl.

NUMBER 67 (JANUAR[...]in film, shooting in 70mm, filmmaking
in Ghana, The Tear My Voice Brolze,
Send A Gorilla.

NUMBER 63[...](JANUARY 1989)

Yahoo Serious, David Cronenberg, The
Year in Retrospect, Film Sound , Young
Einstein, Shout, The Last Temptation of
Christ, Salt Saliva Sperm and Sweat

NUMBER 135 AUTUMN 1988

Alfred Hit[...]37 SPRING 1988

Hanif Kureishi, Fascist Italy and American
Cinema, Gillian Armstrong, Atom
Egoyan, Film Theo[...]Calm,
Franco Nero, Jane Campion, Ian Pringle’s
The Prisoner ofThe Delinquents, Australians in Holly-
wood, Chinese[...]play.

NUMBER 75 (SEPTEMBER 1989)

Sally Bongers, The Teen Movie,
Animated, Edens Lost, Mary Lambert an[...]seas.

NUMBER 73 (MARCH I990)

George Ogilvie’s The Crossing, Ray
Argall’s Return Home, Peter Greenaway
and The Coolz...etc, Michel Ciment,
Bangkok Hilton and Ba[...]ent

NUMBER 82 (MARCH 1991)

Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather Part
III, Barbet Schroeder Reversal ofl[...]AY 1991)

Australia at Cannes, Gillian Armstrong:
The Last Days at Chez Nous, Joathan
Demme: The Silence ofthe Lambs, Flynn,
Dead To The World, Marke JoFfe’s
Spots-wood, Anthony Hopkin[...]on: Terminator 2:]udgment
Day, Dennis O’Rourke: The Good Woman
ofBangIzolz, Susan Dermody: Breathing[...], FFC Part II.

NUMBER 86 (JANUARY 1992)
Overview of Australian film: Romper
Stamper, The Nostradamus Kid,
Greenlzeeping, Eightball; plus K[...]ow, HDTV and Super I6. I

ALSO AVAILABLE

BACK OF BEYOND
DISCOVERING AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION

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the 1988 season of Australian film and

television at the UCLA film and television
archive in the U.S. are now available for sale in
Australia. Edited by Scott Murray, and with exten-
sively researched articles by several of Australia’s
leading writers on film and television, such as Kate
Sands, Women of the Wave; Ross Gibson, Formative
Landscapes; Debi Enk[...]Curiouser and Curiouser;
Adrian Martin, Nurturing the Next Wave.
The Back of Beyond Catalogue is lavishly illus-

trated with more than 130 photographs, indexed,

and has full credit listings for some 80 films.

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of black Australians and a recent attempt to change

the stereotyping with Day of the Dog.

BELOW, LEFT TO RIGHT: DAVID NGOOMBUJARRA, K[...]R PARFITT
AND JOHN MOORE. JAMES R|CKETSON’S DAY OF THE DOG, FROM ARCHIE WELLER’S NOVEL .

films about them. Indeed, for many years the ‘bad Indians‘ in
those Westerns we all loved[...]ally Italians
and Mexicans because it was thought the real Indians were too
demoralized and drunk to ride horses. And no wonder since they
always got the sharp end of the stick with any encounters they had
with_]ohn Wayn[...]no
longer existed as neither did a single native American actor,
except for Chief Dan George.

Dances with Wolves, although not perhaps a masterpiece, is a
more-than-usually-fair portrayal of Indian life. It can only be
hoped that the other films follow the same path. After all, the
more feet that go down a path, the sooner it becomes a highway.
It will be great see[...]films about their
champions and people and ways of life, of how they cope with
modern life. It is to be hoped they make it out into the big world
of Super Movies to be seen the world over.

This is what has just happened with Day of the Dog. Although
it is still not strictly speaking an Aboriginal film, it is close enough
to be held proud in any Aborigine’s eyes as our film. The
producer (David Rapsey) and the director (james Ricketson) are
necessarily white, but it has a huge amount of Aboriginal input
into the film.

To begin with, it is from an Aboriginal book and also the
author (myself) worked very hard with the writer-director to

.;~J- 0.:
.'-'.

.

develop the script. We worked for about three years, although the
actual beginning of the process was even earlier. In fact, there was
interest ten years ago in making the film. Many times the script
changed either abruptly or subtly, and there were many fine ideas
from many fine people in those hectic days spinning a[...]lating together into aworkable film. Even though
the final draft had many people’s ideas in it, it[...]shing about in their skimpy outfits, but a story of ordinary city
people who just happen to be Aboriginal (or Nyoongahs, if you
like).

This is the second big breakthrough, for Day of theDog is the
first commercially-made film that shows there are urban Abo-
rigines living a different type of life within the greater confines of
the city, with their own laws, rules and language kept from days
of old when Aborigines were a nomadic peoples living in the
bush. In this respect, we resemble the Gypsy people of Europe
and, more especially, England who face the same problems of
police harassment, trouble from councils and distrust from their
neighbours as do Aboriginal people.

The other aspect that will help the Aboriginal cause is that
behind the scenes there was quite a bit of Aboriginal input into
the sound, lighting and camera: indeed, every aspect of the
administrative and technical sides of making a film had some
input. This was great for Aboriginal people because now we can
build up our own technical smff so that the daywe reach the third
stage (Aboriginal producers using Aboriginal money) we can
truly make our own films for the wider market.

This film is also a breakthrough in that there are more
Aborig[...]add spice to an already enjoyably bubbling stew. Of the five
main Aboriginal roles, only three are profe[...]I personally arn glad itwas made in my home city of Perth and
so, I think, was the rest of the Nyoongah cast. However, I’m sure
everyone will[...]tors in
this film, that they all did their best. The film was made by our
people aboutour people for our people, and that really is the crux
of the matter.

Much thanks should be given to Barron Films for stepping
into this production, because as one tel[...]e a film aboutAborigines.” I believe
we will be the first to prove him wrong.

CINEMA PAPERS 87 - 45

Day of the Dog‘

Archie Weller’s novel, Day of the Dog, has been recently filmed by
writer-director James Ricketson (Candy Regentag, 1989). It tells of a
young Aboriginal ex-con who is torn between the bad influence of old

friends, the love of a young woman and the threat of gaol if he returns
to his old ways.

Produced by David Rapsey, for Barron Films, Day of the Dog

was financed by the Australian Film Commission and the Film

Finance co,-po.«a1;ion_ PHOTOGRAPHS BY SKI[...]OUG AND
PRETTY BOY FLOYD. JAMES RICKETSON’S
DAY OF THE DOG.

There was a uibal matter that needed the elders from one
community to talk with the elders of another community some
distance away. At the time, we had a test transmission set-up
between these two places. So instead of travelling to a meeting,
the parties decided to try the set-up. The two elders where I was
came in, sat on the floor in front of the video camera and started
talking to the elders of the other communityvia the monitor. They
weren’t camera conscious or intim[...]gic
moment.

— IAN PICK, SENIOR TECHNICIAN WITH THE TANAMI NETWORK

computer-enhancement technology, a number of Abo-

riginal communities in the centre of Australia are moving
to link up their transmissio[...]es vast
cultural and social benefits to those in the system, including
medical diagnosis by video camera, education via television
monitor and allowingbroadcasts from one community to another.
On a broader level, it is part of, and one solution to, the entirety
of Aboriginal film and video.

In the film Satellite Dreaming, Philip Batty from the Central
Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) goes further
when he makes the point that the mostpowerful tool ever putinto
Aboriginal hands has been the video camera. That Aborigines
want to be working in the medium comes from cultural and
contemporary motivations: cultural,[...]ses any European
heritage; contemporary, as a way of telling
their stories to otherAborigines and anyone
else.

How Aborigines are gaining the equip-
ment and training necessary to work in this
medium, or the projects they are undertak-
ing, cannot be neatly[...]video
are operating at many dilferent levels. In the
bush and city, in groups, associations and
individually, Aborigines are involved in a
vast media footprint.

For the momentlet the unfamiliar terms
glide by. There are places such asYuendumu,
Bidyadanga and Batchelor. There are the
organizations with initials like CAAMA,
TAIMA, DE[...]video signals and

48 v CINEMA PAPERS 87

LOGO FOR CENYRAL AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL
MEDIA ASSOCIATION (CAAMA).

and overseas film festivals. The range of what is happening goes
from isolated Aboriginal communities using a video camera to
record an event of cultural importance for themselves to an
individual filmmaker of Aboriginal birth directing a feature for
commercial release. It is tribal and federal, black and white,
independent and dependent, big and small —all at the same time.

Part of the reason for this situation is thatAboriginal film and
video is reliant on forces outside its control. ll/Vhile this arguably
applies to anyone working in the field, the Aboriginal media has
to keep one footin its own w[...]wn aims, problems and
solutions), and one foot in the commercial and technological
world of the white media (for the technology, money and
training). More and more, A[...]e making inroads into
these areas but when, as in the case of the Tanarni Network, the
technology used is extremely sophisticated, the gap becomes
obvious. Add in the involvement of government bodies like
AUSSAT, for the satellite hook-up, or business for the hardware,

and the Aboriginal screen starts splitting up into a number of
screens.

At Ernabella Video Television (EV l V) in South Australia,
there is no technological gap. As Neal Turner notes for the
Pitjantjatj ara Yankunytj atjara Media Associatio[...]ion transmission system (less than a
$1,000 worth of equipment purchased from a 10 cent surcharge
on cool drinks in the store).

What was at issue was the need for locally—made videos and
transmissions to strengthen the commu-
nity’s culture, language and history. At
present, EVTV, apart from producing 125
hours of community television ayear, offers
a list of cassette videos. Ernabella carries
titles such as[...]ries: Tommy
Manta, Nellie Patterson, Armunda). It is
very unlikely that these cassettes and the
many others are to be found at your local
video store. Yet, they are importantand sell
in the Aboriginal market, and commercial
video never could or would make them,
given the small returns.

EVTV’ s videos are an Aborigina[...]inal need. As Marcia Langton,
Aboriginal lecturer from Macquarie Uni-
versity, pointed out in a paper given at the
Second Australian Documentary Film

The Ernabella, Bidyadanga, Kintore and eighty other com-
munities are part of the Broadcast for Remote Aboriginal Com-
munities Scheme (BRACS) . In 1984, the now defunctDepartment
forAboriginal Affairs published Out of the Sz'lentLand, the findings
of its Task Force on Aboriginal and Islanders Broadcasting and
Communications. It has been the blueprint which has guided
government policy on Aboriginal communications.

BRACS is one of the fifty recommendations to come out of the
report. Simply, it allows isolated communities to receive the
television signal off the satellite. It has the further facility of
allowing each community to interrupt the satellite transmission
and insert material of its own, should it find the incoming
transmission culturally inappropriate. In some instances, this
may mean the community playing a videotape.

Emabella’s making of its own videos and programmes for
broadcast is in some ways a particular case. The Aborigines of

FAMILY VIEWING IMPARJA TELEVISION AT YUENDUMU.

Ernabella quickly realized the opportunities and dangers of
television, and created a media association to take charge of the
situation.

Another community that is involved in making its own videos
is the Warlpiri Media Association (WMA) in Yuendumu. A letter
from the WMA states the association usually “broadcasts a couple
of hours a day”, and they make “the children’s television pro-
gramme in [th[...]ate their own videos or programmes due to reasons of training
or money. Still, BRACS has allowed some[...]ogramming production, if
only on a VHS scale.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Central Australian
Aboriginal Media Association and Imparja TV Pty Ltd. CAAMA
is one of the five Aboriginal media resource centres created for

the outlying BRACS stations. Quoting from a 1989 CAAMA
information brochure:

In 1980 the Central Australian Aboriginal MediaAssociation was
run by three volunteer workers, capital assets consisted of a
second-hand car, some donated equipment,[...]

Located in Alice Springs, CAAMA is the Aboriginal face that
the general public is most likely to recognize. The previously
noted Satellite Dreaming came from CAAMA Productions with
assistance from the Australian Film Commission. A separate unit
withi[...]al Unit, made up offour
Aborigines and one white, is responsible for making Nganampa.
Made as a series of thirteen, half-hour programmes “mostly in
one of four main Aboriginal languages in Central Australia with
English sub-titles", it is screened regularly on Imparja Television.
SBS currently airs a series of the programme as well.

CAAMA has further expanded ac[...]uction by moxing into corporate video production. The
recentlycompleted discussion paper, Aboriginal an[...]s “ambitious” and
“opportunities” existed for it in the production of commercial
videos, but “a lack of capital" and “limited resources” were
hindering CAAMA’s efforts. The shortage in funds has been
partly caused by the Department ofEducat.ion, Employment and
Training (DEET) reducing its financial assistance for CAAMA
with recent changes to its guide—lines.

Here again is the situation of the Aboriginal media, in this
case CAAMA, having to b[...]it needs
government support. “Then that funding is reduced, it must try
to find the monies from its own limited budget. As things are
stretched i[...]y to take on an “opportunity” have resulted.

The whole matter comes into sharp focuswhen talking about
the CAAMA-owned Imparja Television. Imparja “commen[...]87

operations [...] on Qndjanuary, 1988. Imparja is a 100 per cent
Aboriginal owned and controlled private company incorporated
in the Northern Territory”. Its broadcast area covers most of
Central Australia, from north of Darwin to south of Adelaide
(excluding those centre covered by commercial broadcasters).

Out of a potential viewing audience of 120,000, the station

estimates that approximately 30 per cent are of Aboriginal
descent. It is one of the three Remote Transmission Commercial

System licensees (the other two being the Golden V/Vest Network
in Western Australia and Queensland Satellite Television). Like

CAAMA, Imparja is in a dilemma. As a commercial broadcaster,

it must try to service all of its viewers, but its Aboriginal ownership

gives it the added responsibility of providing Aboriginal pro-

grarnming while trying to be commerciallyviable. It isThe primary Aboriginal programme telecast at 8.00
pm each Thursday and re-screened on Sunday afternoon is
Aganampa/Anzuernekenhe ( Ours [Pitjantjatjara] /Our Way of Culture
[Arrente] ).

The other aboriginal programme currently on air is called
Mana—Wana (]uslf0rFun [colloquial Warlpiri]) and is aimed at
pre-school and early primary school children. This award-win-
ning programme is produced by the Warlpiri Media Association
at Yuendumu.

Imparja has only recently completed screening of a festival of
documentary and dramatic film and video, either made by
Aboriginal people or, by far the bulk, aboutAborigines by others.
This series titl[...]rja does not produce any programmes itself, apart
from awell-received news programme, it does provide money for
the production of Nganampa. The station, with the Department
of Education, Employment and Training, has “an on-going
training agreement” and 10 of its 35 full-time employees are
Aboriginal. Weston notes that one per cent ofImparja’s air time
is specifically for Aboriginal programmes while costing over 30
per cent of “total rights purchasing expense”.

This one per cent is roughly equivalent to the amount of
telecast time given Aboriginal programmes by the other two
Remote Transmission Commercial Service licensees. The Golden
West Network, operating throughout Western[...]an hour ofAboriginal programmes
a week. It makes the half-hour Aboriginal programme Milbindi.
Having an Aboriginal presenter and some crew, the programme
is concerned with important Aboriginal issues. It also makes
Marnum, a short news insert for Aborigines which appears twice
aweek. It screens the Canberra-made Aboriginal Australia, and an
Aborig[...]th.

Queensland Satellite Television used to make the Aboriginal
programme My Place, My Land, My People[...]QST was showing up to about two-and-a-half hours of Aboriginal
programmes a week, but now does[...]

involved in a vast media footprint.

created the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program
Committee, an all-Aboriginal advisory panel to help in the
making and screening of Aboriginal material.

Apart from CAAMA, there are four other regional media
centres funded by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Com-
mission (ATSIC) . Of these four, only the Townsville Aboriginal
and Islander Media Association (TAIMA) is actively engaged in
video production. TAIMA “was incorporated on the 8th ofjune,
1982, and then had three [radio] broa[...]inistrator and a secretary”. Today video titles include
Moments like These, part of a three-part series made for Australia
Post, and Dancing in the Moonlight, which was sold to the ABC.
TAIMAruns training schemesin conjunction with the Australian
Film Television 8c Radio School in Syd[...]llege in Northern Territory and helps in
training for the communities involved with BRACS in Northern
Queensland.

The remaining centres have varying degrees of involvement
with Video. The Broome Aboriginal Media Association acts as a
centre for BRACS in Kimberley and the Pilbara, Western AUS-
tralia. F oratime, the training and making of videoswas done with
the Broome Musicians Aboriginal Corporation. The Torres
Strait Islander Media Association, based o[...]and,
supplies via its media co-ordinator training for the seventeen
communities involved in BRACS. According to Aven Noah, seven
of these seventeen are making their own videos. Finally, the
Western Australian Aboriginal Media Association is largely fo-
cused on trainingin radio production, though there are plans for
video training and production.

Before leaving re[...]munity
media organizations should be made mention of: Open Channel
in Melbourne and Metro Television i[...]h have con-
ducted training courses specifically for Aborigines. Open Chan-
nel has a continuing dialo[...]manian Aborigines. Metro was recently responsible for
showing a collection of Aboriginal films at the Australian Film
Institute Cinema in Sydney called[...]as also been involved in making a series ofvideos for the NSW
Health Department called Koories Have a Say and Have You Got

What it Takes ?.

The ABC is the other television service which beams its signal
in to BRACS communities and across Australia. The ABC, through
itsAboriginal Film Unit, makes the Aboriginal series Blackout. With
a staff of six Aboriginal director-producers, one researcher and a
production assistant, it is one of the few places where Aboriginal
work is part of the mainstream media. As well, the ABC runs the
series First Australians as part of the Aboriginal programming.
The ABC and SBS both regularly screen films and vide[...]ed to training and equal
employment opportunities for Aborigines. SBS was responsible
for making the Aboriginal series First in Line. At present, its Abo-
riginal Unit of three full-time staff is in pre-production on the
four-part drama-documentary series Blood Brothers. SBS has also
published guide-lines for producing film and television on Abo-
rigines and Torres Strait Islanders entitled The GreaterPerspective.

In film, all state film bodies have the stated policy of consider-
ing submissions solely on their merits. At a quick glance, the
Western Australia Film Council co-funded with the Australian
Film Finance Corporation Day of the Dog, with an attachment
scheme for six Aborigines. The NSW Film and Television Ofiice
gave initial funding for Blood Brothers and Film Victoria was in-
volved with Koori Culture, Koori Control. The Northern Territory,
via the Office of Aboriginal Communications, used to regularly
produce a magazine formatvideo on Aboriginal news and issues.

The AFC has been involved on a number of levels with
Aboriginal film and video. It provides funds to CAAMA for its
programme Nganampa. It has funded films byAb[...]Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy and has given funds
for Aboriginal film festivals overseas. At present, the AFC is
working through an Aboriginal consultant to develop guide-lines
and policies for Aborigines in relation to film and video.

While the FFC receives any number of submissions that for
cultural or national interests deserve funding, by its guide-lines it
becomes involved in projects on the strength of the fmancial
package offered. Still, it has been involved in a number of
ventures either by or ab0utAborigines. They include Holding On,
Holding Tight with CAAMA, Deadly, Blood Brothers and the mini-
series on the life of Lionel Rose, Rose/lgainst the Odds.

There are a number of Aborigines working individually in
commercial film and video. For example, Wayne Barker in
Broome continues his involvement with the Aboriginal media as

FACING PAGE: CLARA INKAMALA AND MICHAEL LIDDLE WORKING ON THE
IMPARJA SERIES NGANAMPA. BELOW: THE IMPARJA SATELITE FOOTPRINT.

CINEMA PAPERS 87 - 51

\/Vith a large body of ethnographic films surviving from as far
back as Baldwin Spencer’s 1901 trip into the desert of Central
Australia, and the growing body of Aboriginal-made film and
video, the preserving and cataloguing of Aboriginal work also
needs to be considered. At present, the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is the official
archivist for some material. But, as Aboriginal projects appear
from so many different places, there is a danger that some of the
more valuable or creative work may become “lost[...]At present, no one body exists which can tie all the different
threads of the Aboriginal screen together. There is the Aborigi-
nal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, which is the govern-
ment’s primaryadministxative and funding body. However, ATSIC
falls short of having a sweep large enough to encompass all of
Aboriginal activity in film and video. The best option for the
moment is the National Indigenous Media Association. NIMA
has already expressed the need to develop a system of representa-
tives on a state level to act as a coordinating body for Aborigines
working in the Various media.

Some of the Aboriginal centres like CAAMA, TAIMA and
TSIMA ha[...]es in conjunction with other
bodies such as DEET, the AFTRS or state educational depart-
ments. The only institution offering a course expressly for Abo-

rigines in media is the above-mentioned Batchelor College. The
three-year course offers varying levels of accreditation in either of
radio or video and enjoys full enrolment. Students are primarily
from communities that are part of BRACS.james Cook University
in Townsville is planning to offer a similar course in the near
future.

Finally, the Second Australian Documentary Film Confer-
ence,[...]1, started by asking
an Aboriginal representative for permission to hold the confer-
ence at the Australia National University. It ended with a National
Aboriginal Media Conference planned for non-Aborigines
working on Aboriginal land or with[...]ers as consultants or trainees on related
films. The conference also held sessions byAboriginal filmmakers
and representatives. The high profile ofAboriginals and Aborigi-
nal film and video at the conference, while encouraging, is still a
few steps away from Aboriginal work becoming simply part of
mainstream film and video.

AUTHOR'S N OTE It should be mentioned that there exists a large body
of film and video made by non-Aborigines about Abor[...]t ofthe
whole Aboriginal film and video picture, for the purpose of this article
it was necessary to put some limits on what was to be included in this
survey.

As well, Abor[...]al film, video and television are very much part of the Aboriginal
screen. This article, then, is not a comprehensive overview, but a look at
the prominent elements and players. To all those dese[...]y who have not been so accredited, my apologies.

The author also wishes to express his appreciation to the many
parties, organizations and individuals who provided information and
advice in the writing of this article.

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CALL FOR ENTRIES

Australian artists working with film and[...]and/or installation, are invited to submit
works for inclusion in EXPERIMENTA 1992. MIMA will consider[...]and completed works.
Artists‘ fees will be paid for all exhibited works and, in some cases,
subsidised travel and accommodation will be provided for artists
invited from interstate. Sight-specific proposals will also be
considered for inclusion.

CALL FOR CURATORS

EXPERIMENTA 1992 will consider proposals for guest-curated
cinema screenings, including recent[...]ental film, video and intermedia works.
Proposals for Seminars and/or Special Lectures addressing the
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ENTRY DEADLINES:
INSTALLATION, PE[...]LY 15th
Further information and application forms from:-
EXPERIMENTA Manager; MIMA, c/o Linden Gallery,[...](03) 525 5025 Fax (03) 525 5105

Melbourne,

MIMA is funded by the Australian Film Commission, Film Victoria, the ‘M03 of
the Australia Council, and the Victorian Ministry for the Arts.

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Each entry has the following information:

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Ethnic Stereotjj

The potential for the television industry to portray the

Craig Brown reports.

nly SBS, partially designed to cater for a “new” Australia,
0 has any sort of active participation in the concept of
multi—culturalisIn. For the most part, the more main-
stream networks— including the ABC — are still languishing in the
misguided belief thatAustralia is populated almost solely by white
Anglo-Saxon-Celt[...]g to these networks, there are not
enough members of ethnic groups in Australia to bother repre-
senting them on television.

The proofis in the viewing. Turn on the television and try to
find evidence of a multi-cultural Australia. Most dramas are
under the impression that no ethnic groups would live in their
mythical suburbs: for instance, how many minorities live in
Ramsey Street or Westside? Also, there are very few members of
any ethnic group lolling about on the beaches of Summer Bay
currently, which is quite ironic.Thelastethnic characterofmajor

stan[...]y'sBen Luciano,

54 - CINEMA PAPERS 87

played by the veryAustra1ian]ulian MacMahon. To make matters
worse, there were few examples of ethnic representation before
Ben, and fewer since.

Consequently, the Vl€W of Australia that television presents is
severely distorted. Occasionally ethnics and thei[...]ight be referred to in a glib, accidental manner: for
instance, an involved couple in a soapie might ar[...]inese or Italian that night. This seems to sum
up the ethnic content on most programmes; minority represen-
tations are pushed out of mind, out of sight, particularly in their
human form. Ethnics[...]elevision screens. Ernie Dingo made a regular run of
appearances on FastF0nuard during 1990, but that hardly classi-
fied as a signif1cantAborigina1componentin Australian television.
This is rather surprising considering that one successful Austra-
lian drama is set in the outback. That is not to say that all
Aborigines live in the outback but, one would suggest, if a series
is trying to present a realistic view oflife in the outback, it might
think to include an Aboriginal input on a regular basis.

Not so TheFlyingDoct0'rs. Although an episode late in the 1991
season did feature Ernie Dingo in a guest role, an Aboriginal
presence in this series is still weak. Quite possibly the producers
have mistaken the area in which they shoot the series (rural
Victoria) for where the series is set. Or maybe they are trying to
suggest that the white invasion ofAustralia is so complete that the
Aboriginal nation has been wiped out from the very heart of the
country? If not, why don’tAborigines feature more prominently
in the series? Surely no one is suggesting that central Australia is
devoid ofa significantAboriginal population; ifso, this is the most
misguided of representations — it ceases to become careless as it
borders so closely on racism in its dismissiveness. The question
arises: Who initiates this lack of representation: we, the viewers,
who won ’twatch anything that isn’ tpredominantlyAnglo-Saxon,
or is it the industry, reluctant to try anything new for fear of
offending their sponsors?

It is my belief that the television industry has been most
reluctant to pr[...]aracters or beliefs on our
television screens. On the odd occasion that this has actually
happened, the representations are almost claustrophobic in the

FACING PAGE: THE CAST OF KINGSWOOD COUNTRY: LAUREL M<GOWAN, LEX MARINOS,[...]BOVE: MIMO (GEORGE KAPINIARISI IN ACROFOLIS NOW, "THE ONLY CURRENT AUSTRALIAN SERIES
TO PLACE ETHNIC CHARACTERS AND CULTURE AT THE FOREFRONT OF POPULAR TELEVISION".

JOHN BLUTHAL AND ARIANTHE G[...]EET HOME.

way they are stereotyped: perhaps this is merely a “bridging”
process on behalf of the networks, as they test to see whether
audiences will respond to, and accept, ethnic minorities during
prime time. Unfortunately, that is wishful thinking ofthe highest
order. Programmes[...]cessfully enough — to have acted as that bridge
for multi-cultural programming in its truest form.

So far we have been stuck with the most appallingly obvious
stereotypes: Aboriginal[...]turists
and Greek waiters. This careful avoidance of representation out
ofthe norm is synonymous with the lack ofinnovation Australian
television is suffering from on the whole. The position ofethnics

on television appears to be t[...]g ethnic stereotypes

pes in Tele vision

reality of multi-cultural

on Australian telexision, one is forced — by the lack of examples
— to look closely and critically at Acropolis Now, which is the only
currentAustralian series to place ethnic characters and culture at
the forefront of popular telexdsion. Although as likeable as_]im
([...]lls most easily into a stereotypical grouping:
he is portrayed as a product of the “Monaro sect”, which is
perceived to be common among Greeks and Italians. This is to say
that]im’s only concerns in life are cars[...]that his culture centred on superficial values.
The same criticism can be levelled at Effie, although she is more
concerned with hair gel than cars.

This “[...]iess" could be considered dangerous ifit
were not for the fact that Acropolis Nowis comedic — its[...]

That is, of course, a general view of the characterizations on
Acropolis Now, on closer ins[...]n television one
ethnic character that has broken the stereotype significantly. The
character of Rick (Simon Palmores) is a more well-rounded and
believable character due mainly to the fact that his function
within the series is to play the straight man tojim and company.
Rick is a sensible, intelligent, university-educated character who
generally keeps the cafe from going broke. This character outline
is one television would normally grant to an Anglo-Saxon charac-
ter, not an ethnic one. In this light, Rick is one of the most
important ethnic representations that Austra[...]given human traits first, rather than
forced into the limited mould of the ethnic stereotype.

Attitudes towards women by et[...]objects and potential conquests — just look at the attitudes ofjim
and Mimo, as well as of V/Vayne, from All TogetherNozu. Here again,
Rick is presented as someone quite different: he actually has some
sensitivity towards members of the opposite sex. Still, the bulk of
male ethnic stereotypes on television could be described as
“sleaze” regarding their attitudes towards women. Certainlyjirn
and[...]n this characteristic, but, without
many examples of the opposite, we have a distorted View of male
ethnics as portrayed on television. And female ethnic views of
men? Well, female ethnics are so under-represente[...]n overview on their
perceived attitudes with only the comedic Effie as an example.

One of the main problems with ethnic representation on
television is that its history is both recent and predominantly
comedic. Kingszuood[...]e to

Ethnic Stereotypes in Television

say that, for its “time”, Kingswood Countvy was a brave series, which
may have paved the way for such shows as Acropolis Now— strange
because Kingrwood Cmmtrywas first run barely a decade ago. Aside
from it, the only ethnic offering before Acropolis Now was the
rigidly stereotypical Home Sweet Home, which attempted to show
the clash between “old country” parentage and chi[...]msily
written and exaggerated, Home Sweet Homewas the f1rstAustralian
series to place ethnic issues in such a prominent position. Again,
it was a comedy, which is by its nature overplayed for the sake of
making people laugh, or to simply poke fun at pop[...]Australian “drama” has long consisted mainly of soapies, and
itwould be very rare for that genre to include a realistic represen-
tation of an ethnic group, considering most don’t deal wi[...]top. One could possibly expect a drama series, on the
other hand, to include an ethnic group in anything but a
stereotypical form. Although The Flying Doctors has neglected
Aborigines as a group, it does include a Greek radio controller,
imaginatively called D.[...].

As yet, no Australian drama series has strayed from middle-
class Anglo-Saxon views of Australian society; most are more
concerned with the portrayal of the medical profession than with
ethnic minorities. W[...]generally stereotyped as totalitarian uphold-
ers of tradition.

It seems more likely that a drania series is going to be able to
break the ethnic stereotype, balancing the concepts of tradition
and “Australianism” to give a true account of the ethnic experi-
ence in Australia. Comedysitcoms s[...]acting
as successful bridging programmes, getting the networks, the
public and sponsors used to the idea of ethnic culture on popular
television. However, comedy is limited as it can most easily draw
laughter from stereotypes, whether of an ethnic, religious or
occupational nature. With[...]television most likely via a dramatic vehicle — the
television audience may still exclusively link the sounding of a
Monaro’s horn with ethnic contribution[...]

ADFHAN MARTIN

t could be argued that the filmmaking team
of Joel and Ethan Coen‘ alternate genre
films with[...]d MilIer’s Crossing (1990) are films
steeped in the history and conventions of par-
ticular story-telling genres (both cinematic and
literary), respectively the ‘pulp’ thriller and
gangster fiction. Raising[...]re a different proposition;
they do not trace out the lines of a single genre,
nor are they cut-and-paste assemblages of
successive ‘quotations’ from different genres,
which would be a fashionable but woefully
inaccurate description of their method.
Calling Barton Fink a “film with no genre"
(in the way that Raymond Durgnat described
Robert Altman as a “man with no genre") does
not mean that it is a film without references to
previous movies, the[...]onographies and oft-told tales. Indeed, like all

the Coens' work, it is stuffed with such refer-
ences almost to the point of being wholly
constituted from them. It is as if the Coens see
their essential artistic vocation as one of an
elaborate ‘rewriting’, reweaving, re-imagining
of other, pre-existing books and films. Thus,
Barton Fink would be the residue of a dream-
work that brings together the novels of
Nathanael West, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shin-
ing (1980), biographical stories about famo[...]965) and doubtless much else. But, in
essence, it is faithful to no particular model or
genre.

Barton Fink is a film that burns up bits of
many genres as fuel for its maiden voyage into
a zone without genre. A certain kind of quietly
wild, hallucinatory fiction-spinning is a higher
principle for the Coens here than genre. The
film has an anything—might—happen—next air and
afaith in strange associative leaps that take the
plot in unforeseen directions, qualities which
recall another of Durgnat’s remarks on Altman

CINEMA PAPERS 87 - 57

The critical discussions of the Coen oeuvre
which have so far appeared are rarely interest-
ing or persuasive. This is because, on the one
hand, when reduced to bare (and painfully
familiar) thematic propositions. the films can
seem astonishingly banal. Blood Simpleis about
the ‘return of the repressed‘. Raising Arizona
shows simple folk dreaming of a better life.
Miller's Crossing dramatizes the paradoxes of
trust, loyalty, friendship and love. Barton Fink
invites one of the great non-questions of art
cinema: How much really happens and how
much is Barton's fantasy? On the other hand,
the post-literary invocation of the mannerist,
hyper—kinetic Coen-Raimi ‘house style‘ as a
pure cinematic event complete unto itself is
clearly wearing thin both as a critical stance
and a mode of filmmaking (viz. Sonnenfeld’s
The Addams Family, 1991).

What is so difficult to pin down and ade-
quately account for in the Coens’ work is the
strange form that their films take — a form that
might be described as the simultaneous combi-
nation of an apparent meaningfulness with an
insistenthollo[...]ality and its uncanny emo-
tional resonance. This is not a new form in
cinema, but it is certainly one that has evaded
most styles of criticism. We find it, supremely,
in Luis Bunuel[...]Jour, 1967, like
Barton Fink, makes airy nonsense of the ques-
tion “What’s really happening?"), and also in
Bernardo Berto|ucci's least assimilable films,
like l_una(1978) and The Sheltering Sky(1 990).
Indeed, Robert Phillip Kolker’s typical critical
slur on the former—that in it “the recurrence of
the image of the moon [..,j raises it to the point
of symbol with nothing to symbolize“ — should
be taken as the triumphant motto of this almost
subterranean filmmaking tradition.

Thus, one must approach the matter of
what Barton Fink is ‘about with caution, if not
trepidation. For it is not simply ‘about nothing‘
— neitherjust a joke on those critics out hunting
for the same old ‘big themes’, nor exactly (as
Tom Ryan has argued) a sly, modernist expose
of the cinema medium as “the supreme illu-
sion”. For a dream is never simply an illusion,
and Barton Finkis a dream-film par excellence
— indeed, it is a frankly psychoanalytic film, in
the freest, most creative and poetic sense.

For perhaps the first hour, Barton Fink
seems to be about not very much at all. We
observe the life of the ‘serious’ writer Barton
(John Turturro) amid the gaudy realities of
1940s Hollywood, including a gregariously
vulgar[...]his long suffering partner,
Audrey (Judy Davis). The ‘real people’ beyond

58 - CINEMA PAPERS 87[...]Goodman,
in a marvellously physical performance). For a
long time. the film plays out a fairly elementary
diagram of mainly comic contrasts: Barton's
hypersensitivity against the system's callous-
ness; then, from another angle, Barton’s
self—importance and probable artistic delusion
against Charlie's salt-of-the—earth naturalness,
and Audrey’s down-to-earth[...]Suddenly, it
becomes nightmarishly clear that all the ele-
ments of the story exist as various sorts of
projections of Barton’s inner complexes and
problems. Barton b[...]ly improbable scene, Lipnick kisses
Barton's feet after firing his assistant, Lou (Jon
Polito), while lat[...]raculously re-hired.

Jean-Andre Fieschi has said of Bunuel that
“this cinema of manifold fictions is not a narra-
tive cinema”, since any attempt at synopsis
inevitably and artificially lineates what is in fact
a complex dream-logic. ‘Unfolding’ narrative
analyses (what most film critics pursue) offer
“verdicts on a[...]ng, backward and forward, paradoxical
hyper-logic of the unconscious. In one brilliant
associative chain of sequences, the trauma of
Audrey’s death unexpectedly breaks Barton’s
writer's block; yet (as Richard Jameson has
observed), the film maintains a perfect deli-
cate ambiguity over whether this passionately
outpoured script is ‘really’ genius or junk. The
Coens knowthat, sinceeitherjudgementwould
be purely subjective (the script is bound to be
genius to Barton and junk to Lipnick no matter
what’s actually in it), neither position can be
endo[...]rative ‘truth’. And this strategy
takes us to the very heart of the film.

Barton Fink is about an individual subjec-
tivity that grows so big it believes it
comprehends, contains and creates the entire
world — in short, egomania, or, as the film calls
it, the monstrous “life of the mind". Barton as
writer, richly comparable to Jack Torrance (Jack
Nicholson) in The Shining and Clive Langham
(John Gielgud) in Alain Resnais’ Providence
(1977), stands for all artists who share in what
has often been construed as the fundamentally
‘evil’ impulse ofart—to steal from the world and
make it the mere material of an egocentric
design. The Coens simultaneously follow the
path of Barton's mad ego as it hauls in the
world, and prepare for the terrible moment
when this world, in all its overlooked and
seething reality, will takes its revenge on the
artist’s folly of creation.

Thus, against the ‘‘life of the mind" — too
much head — the film arrays the signs of a
reality which is all body: peeling wallpaper,
leaky ears, an unstoppable ocean of blood. In
Barton’s phantasm (which is the film itself),
troublesome heads get chopped off b[...]sex and death swill and growl
around together at the bottom of a hideous
drainpipe down which the camera travels. As
Barton struggles ever more fiercely to hold his
ego or his ‘self’ together, the world around him
fills up with mock—horrific images and revela-
tions of a ‘truth’ according to which no self is
whole or secure or singular: Audrey confesses
to being Mayhew‘s ghostwriter; the rushes of a
random ‘wrestling picture’ obsessively replay
the same brute signifiers of obscene shouting
and bodies crashing to the canvas.

Egomania forgets the real world — at its
peril, as we discover in Barton's case. lttravels
to the extremes narcissism, self-delusion and
paranoid projection. Yet Barton Fink explores
still another fact of this dream-logic when it
admits the possibility that, at the height of his
individual delirium, disintegration and psych[...]n fact receive privileged
access to a true vision of the madness and
horrorofHistoryitself. Thisisthe extraordinary
insight that the film grasps at in its climactic
apocalypse, no do[...]byacomparable
fatal vision in both novel and film of Nathanael
West's The Day of the Locust (John Schlesin-
ger, 1975): we could call it a kind of social or
political psychoanalysis, aiming to express the
profound interconnection (so hard to convinc-
ingly locate) of the large—scale forces of history
and the small-scale actions of ordinary indi-
viduals. Barton Fink ‘s epigraph could be this
phrase from James Joyce’s Ulysses : “History
is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.”

Much of the latter half of Barton Fink re-
volves around a certain mysterious box. I will
be neither the first nor the last critic to invoke
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theoretical
concept of the petit objet a (small object a) to
discuss this pesky prop. The petitobjeta is like
the famous MacGuffin of Alfred Hitchcock’s
films; it is that curious plot device, that little
nothing, which seems so empty and banal, but
by which, nonetheless, the whole story and all
the ambivalent desires of the characters are
driven. For Lacan, it is a symbol (which can be
equally tragic or comic) for that which eludes
our feverish attempts to compre[...]s’.

I don’t expectthe Coens are avid readers of
Lacan, but they certainly have their own poetic
understanding of the petit objet a. The box in
Barton Fink not only remains a damn mystery
as it moves from hand to hand and place to
place, it also never re[...]es or receives it. Charlies ominous
remark (“By the way, it isn’t mine”) and the off-
hand query of the girl on the beach to Barton in
the final scene (‘‘Is it yours?”) mockthe attempts
of the protagonist or ourselves to definitively
a[...]