STAN AND GEORGE'S NEW LIFE
Australia, 1992, 103 minutes, Colour.
Paul Chubb, Julie Forsyth, John Bluthal, Margaret Ford, Roy Baldwin.
Directed by Brian Mc Kenzie.
Brian Mc Kenzie is a Melbourne writer-director who specialises in observing ordinary people, often marginalised people in the detail of their everyday life. Most often he does this in painstakingly meticulous documentaries. Sometimes he does it in feature films, with With Love to the Person In Next to Me.
Stan and George are characters in a feature film. As portrayed by Paul Chubb and Julie Forsyth, they are people who are not usually the subject of films, people who are often laughed at because of their appearance, awkwardness and inability to achieve anything significant.
But they are genuine people, warm people, who find chances and try to work with them. Mc Kenzie has created portraits of an odd couple with humour and some charm. (And when Stan gets his job at the Weather Bureau and has to talk each day on radio, we may not listen to radio weather reports in the same way again!)
Humane portraits of ordinary people.
1. A different Australian film? The director with his documentary background, interest in ordinary people’s lives? Incorporating this into a feature film?
2. The Melbourne locations, the suburbs and streets, the home, the barbershop, the Weather Bureau? The musical score?
3. Paul Chubb and his portrait of Stan, aged 40, appearance, awkward, quiet and shy, simple, living with his parents, their influence on him? His work as a barber, his father’s trade? His father urging him to get out, another job? Going to the Weather Bureau, his work, meeting George, her doing the filing work, their friendship, blossoming into a quiet romance, marriage, living together? His reading the weather reports on radio? The error, George’s investigation, her being fired, his leaving, attention? Going back home, finding out the truth, George arriving, and going into labour?
4. Julie Forsyth as George, her age, appearance, type, manner, at the Weather Bureau, her work, filing? Meeting Stan, taking him under her wing, liking him, falling in love, the romance? Marriage? The discovery of the error, George leaving, her being fired, upset? Arriving at the end, pregnant?
5. The character of the parents, the touch of the weird and eccentric, father and mother, relationship to Stan, the father urging him out, his own barber’s work, Stan to stand on his own feet, Stan returning home?
6. The personnel at the Weather Bureau, the manager, the touch of the conspiracy, the news, bad news for farmers, their complaints?
7. A portrait of ordinary people, surrounded by ordinary people at a barbershop, in an office?
8. And the future of Stan and George and the building up of a family?
