You have said that Bliss was typical of the Australian culture at that time, 1985. It was seen by many people as a very significant film?
I think it surprised a lot of people.
How did you come to it? From what you had been doing prior to Bliss?
Peter Carey and I met in advertising. He was working in an advertising agency at the time and we did a number of commercials together. I read some of his short stories and we became friends. We both talked about doing a film and we actually wrote one called Life and Death in the South Side Pavilion. That was based on his short story with that name. It ended up being called Dancing on the Water. We tried to get back together but...
Then Peter brought out Bliss, which was a big success. I gave it to Tony Buckley who was a friend. He was going to some film festival and I just gave him the book to read as a present, to read on the plane, and he came back and said, "If you want to make a film, why don't we do this?" It happened very, very quickly. We made it. And it was at a time when the enthusiasm, the energy just went into making it. We never ever considered what we would do with it afterwards. It didn't even occur to me about having an audience or selling it. I had this sort naive notion that people would like it or not.
Then before it was finished - Tony being an old hand at this sort of thing - he suggested we go into the Cannes Film Festival. I was just happy to get it done. There is a rigmarole that you go through to apply, and they saw a very rough cut - almost four hours - and they suggested it go into the Director's Fortnight. And that was fine with me, but Tony said, "No, I think we should go for something else". I hadn't even thought of going into this. So he pushed for something else and they came back with it and I said, "No, I much prefer to be in the Director's Fortnight." Tony said, "No..." In time we got it into the main competition. So there I was - I think it was with Godard, Kurosawa, people like that.
Much was made of the reaction at Cannes at the time. Was it as bad as the newspapers reported?
Well, it was bad for me because I was on the end of it. Some critic in Australia wrote, "Bliss bombs at Cannes". I'll always remember that. I was there and I saw and it was just the opposite. But everybody I knew was either happy or sorry for it. But the shocking thing was that it was the second film for this to happen. The first film was 1959 where L'Avventura, which Antonioni did, emptied the cinema in the first 10 minutes, and I only half emptied the cinema in the first 10 minutes! Actually, we were sitting there with the dignitaries and people starting getting up. I just thought the place was on fire or something. Then I realised what was happening. I don't know what it was; it was just a very strange film. I actually tried to drag some people back in!
Then, the next day they had the big press conference and I figured, well, all I've done is made a film. But they had gotten so worked up about it that I felt a bit like a criminal. One section of the press was really hositle, the other section was sort of favourable - it always split people.
The AFI Awards turned it around in Australia, at least.
Yes, that was great. I mean, if I had in fact won an Oscar, it wouldn't be as good as getting the AFI, because I didn't ever expect anything. During the making of it, it was difficult because I hadn't made a film before and, in a lot of circumstances, I just said okay. A lot of the people I was working with had made a film before, and I gave it over to their expertise. But I found that things weren't quite working out as I was wanting them to. So I sort of backtracked and there was a bit of resentment. Thinking back, half the people seemed to be on my side and the other half... it was always a battle with the film. But I always remember how it was Colorfilm that developed it, and the projectionists would try and get their shifts so they could watch the next day's rushes of the film. I always thought that was a pretty good sign.
It's a very complex film, adapting the novel, visualising ideas, visualising the satire and drawing on a whole range of cinematic styles.
Yes, people say it's complicated, but there's two sections. The section that most people remember, which is the visual side of it, and this visual side was always inspired by the words. The famous sardine scene or the cockroach scene: in the novel and I think also in the film, Harry says to Bettina - she's just been having an affair with Joel and she visits him in hospital - and he says, "Phew, you smell," and she's immediately guilty. So, really, the sardines are nothing more than a visual metaphor for it, and that's in the book. The sardines aren't, but the smell of sardines is. So all I did was to literally translate it. Then the same thing with the cockroach. They're visually more shocking than they are literally.
What of the famous near-death scene?
Well, again that's in the book, but I remember before we started shooting, I think even before I finished the screenplay, I did a little scribble. I was watching a crane one day and I figured that I could do it from that. In fact it's not in the film because it just took up too much time, but we actually went from a close-up of his cigarette burning his skin right up to heaven, so it worked.
It worked at the end as well, his real death.
That was just a big crane, an arm. But that was more of an emotional ending and that's why I say the film is in two sections. There's a very surrealistic opening half and, then, once Harry goes to the bush, everything becomes normal. Just in terms of my progress, I'm more interested in the last half of the movie now, but then I was really into the other half - and I think a lot of people still think that I'm very visual or something. In fact, short of an idea, the most other exciting thing about making a film is the performances. I've always been swept away by a good performance.
Yes, the story about Titch goes for almost 5 minutes, just a close-up of Barry Otto telling the story.
It's a combination of great performance and a great piece of writing. So for a director, if you've got those two things, all you've really got to do is make sure you don't fuck it up by getting tricky about it.
The Australian themes? In the beginning Harry seems a decent bloke and an ordinary type, so that the invitation for the average Australian
audience is to identify with him.
That's why I think it was a bit of a shock for Australians at that point seeing themselves in the cinema. They were either trying to remake American films or do period pieces. And this thing came along and it was a contemporary piece which was an unusual way of looking at things. But the thing that's always interested me is the idea of holding up a mirror to an audience so they recognise themselves.
I think what happens is that the aspirational side of cinema takes over, our culture, advertising, the pressures that television puts on people - you're not blonde enough, you're not fit enough, you're not rich enough. When this creeps into the cinema, what happens is your bum hasn't left the seat when the lights go up and you've forgotten what you've just seen. But if you're watching something that you recognise, you become a lot more involved in it. It's not very commercial. In a sense it's a very commercial idea, but in trying to raise money for films, you go into those meetings and you talk about people recognising themselves, and you see a wall come up.
I'm a great fan of Ken Loach and always have been, so even though this seemingly is a million miles away from his films, it really isn't; I'm working on something else and it will be different but yet the same, because the truth is all I'm really interested in, trying to get the truth of an idea.
Going back to your mirror image, how distorted, in an ironic black sense, did you want it to be for Bliss? How much is realism and how much is satire?
I don't ever see it as a distortion. One of the best stories is the story of a family. All the great novels, they're all about families. So, when Harry's sick, lying there, and you have an image of his family standing at the end of the bed talking about him as if he can't hear, I mean, there's nothing distorted about that. In fact, a lot of people talk about the blacknesses in our lives, but when we see it from another point of view, we recognise it as being in our lives. But there's a distance because it's portrayed as somebody else's life. It becomes funny. If this was actually in our life, it would be dramatic and too close to home. And that's the wonderful thing about cinema - it just gives you a little bit of distance to be able to recognise yourself. I guess they call that satire, but I just see it as the truth.
What about the minor characters played by Paul Chubb or Kerry Walker?
I think that's one of the great things about Peter's writing. It does give those truths, and those characters, they're there. And if you look around, I'm sure you'll find one in your life. You might even be related to one of them.
So, in a sense, we could say that Harry Joy is an Australian Everyman.
If you look at what's happening in his life and at that certain point in their life when any thinking person wonders what it's all about and whether there's any point. The wonderful thing about the story is the idea of dying and coming back to life and find that you are living in Hell.
The religious themes are present, sometimes quite explicitly about God, heaven and hell. In the discussion with the Reverend Des,
Harry asks, "Do you believe that God wants to torment us?" There is also a deal of Christian iconography. To that extent Bliss seems to be very religious.
Well, it's religious only in the sense that from a film-maker's point of view, the visual side of religion is always fun. No matter what religion it is, there's always so much ceremony. And every religion always has particular icons which all carry the weight of belief, and that's always interesting. The notion of God is more interesting when you ask people to question it, as opposed to accepting it. I think that's a problem that the church has had for a long time. They're continually asking people to accept something when the rest of the world is questioning it. In the last hundred years things have changed so quickly, and the church has hung on to a superior notion and expected people not to question, as opposed to moving with the times. In a very small way that's really what the conversation of Harry and Des is about. It's just somebody who thinks he's living in Hell. Well, if there is a Hell, there has to be a Heaven, so then does God really want to torture us? They're all good questions.
The Reverend Des seems to be moving towards a liberal trending that doesn't want to have Hell and prefers to talk about the cricket.
No, it's more of a human representation. Again getting back to the truth, all those reverends out there have a human part of their life and their feelings are continually coming into conflict with their beliefs, and they push them aside and work on their faith.
I always liken it to the different views generations have, say towards the medical profession. My mother will go to a doctor and no matter what the doctor says, she will feel intimidated by his presence. The same with a bank manager. Now, that's all changed. You stop somebody in the street and ask them about their bank and you will be lucky to get out of the conversation under an hour, because nobody likes banks, and for good reason: the banks have still got that superior attitude. So all those parts of society are still locked into those attitudes. They still want respect, but people are questioning, because as they say, there's so much more freedom. I don't know whether it started in the '60s. Maybe it did.
It would seem to be very much so. Speaking of icons and that image of church, Manning Clark was an Australian icon and you have
him acting as a minister quoting the Gospel passage about how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven, easier to pass through the eye of a needle.
Yes, but the funny thing about that was that Peter and I went to a function and Manning was there, and I didn't know who he was. He gave a speech and I said, "Gee, he's an interesting-looking guy. He'd be good in the film." Peter knew him, so we met and I said, "Would you be interested in playing a small part?" And he said yes - he was a very charming man. Just before we were filming - we only did a couple of takes - he said, "I have an agreement with you - don't you tell me how to give a speech and I won't tell you how to direct," and I said, "That's fine." He was great and it was nice to have that little bit of history in the film.
In Harry's discussions with Alex about being good - the nature of sin and guilt and being good - Bliss moved to an ethical level. It is seen in
Harry's struggles about advertising and helping Bettina or not. But, finally, with Harry's move to the bush and nature, there was almost a
kind of pantheistic faith at the end.
I don't know whether you've noticed it, but the word "seachange" has come into popular use lately. I think it's a bit like that. It happens to everybody, this set notion of being right in the middle of it all, which is the city, and then wanting to cleanse yourself, get out of it and go to the bush. I don't think it's particularly Australian, but it's easier to do here because we've got so much space. I work quite a bit in Europe and it is a beautiful place - we were shooting in the French countryside somewhere and it was so beautiful, French and summer. But I just felt that every bit of it had been walked on. There was no wilderness.
Next week I'm going up to Arnhem Land. I've been there before and I'm going up to look at some locations. But you get up there and you really do feel like a guest. So it's the idea of being in the city, being poisoned by it. At that particular point in a person's life, the city can symbolise all the bad things, so you really do want a cleansing atmosphere. I think it's easier to get it - or fool yourself that you're getting it - in this country more than any other!
Ultimately he surrendered and was one with the bush.
Yes, he just became part of nature. I really love the ending of the film, the last couple of scenes where his daughter says, "There's one more story to tell". And more so now because there's been 12 or 13 years now since the film was made, and I've changed too, so I'm more involved with the last part of the film now. In my future work, that's really the area that I want to work in. I like the other stuff but it's a bit flashy and it's not as lasting.
The audiences coming up will still find it very striking and younger audiences will find it stimulating.
I think that in the future films like Bliss will probably be re-released. It was done at a period that's gone. It wouldn't get made now. There's no way you could raise money for that. It's a hard one to sell.
Since then you've been working on commercials.
Yes, but I've been working with Robert Drewe on a number of things and with Jan Chapman. But with most of the things, they've just been difficult to talk people into. I don't know why that is. They all seem to be similar. At one point I tried for four years to get Tracks, the Robyn Davidson story, going. I came close, and it was with American money, ironically, but in the end they said, "Oh, look, I really don't know. I can't imagine who wants to see the story of a young woman finding herself in the desert." And I said, "Well, at least half the population." You come up against those commercial barriers that are difficult, and so with a film like Bliss, I look at it and wonder whether somebody could raise the money on it now.
The problem is that you go into those meetings and you really are creating such an expectation for a film, because they're so expensive to make, that you're actually lying to liars just to get the money. So the better you tell lies, the better chance you've got of getting money. But when you start talking about people recognising themselves, it's not that sort of meeting. That's an intellectual thing, and after the event it's a nice thing to discuss. Even in advertising, they do it. I try to get people to recognise themselves and that doesn't go over too well in some meetings. But after the event they appreciate it!
Interview: 30th October 1998
