CLINTON AND NADINE (BLOOD MONEY)

US, 1988, 95 minutes, Colour.
Andy Garcia, Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman.
Directed by Jerry Schatzberg.

Clinton and Nadine (Blood Money) is quite an effective thriller, a telemovie made by Home Box Office. Andy Garcia (Untouchables, Stand and Deliver) has an Al Pacino-like presence as the smuggler who gets involved in Contra arms deals and big money in Florida. Ellen Barkin is effective as the call-girl. Morgan Freeman, who worked so effectively with director Jerry Schatzberg in Street Smart, is the leader of a cartel in Miami involved in supplying arms to the Contras.

While the ingredients are those of smugglers and call-girls and local American crime, the Costa Rican locations and the themes of the support for the Contras spreads the issues to American foreign policy in the '80s. The film is presented with verve and pace. Director Jerry Schatzberg has made a wide range of films including Panic in Needle Park, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, Street Smart.

1.Effective thriller? Americana? Central America and US foreign policy, the Contras and arms deals?

2.The locations and authenticity: Mexico, the US, Florida, Costa Rica? The atmosphere of Central America?

3.The US, foreign policy, the trials of the late `80s, deals with the Contras? The alternate title, Blood Money?

4.The portrait and character of Clinton: in Mexico, his smuggling the birds, smooth talk at the border, his friend and his decision to retire, taking the dog and the guns? The dream of Atlantic City? Going to see his brother, seeing him tortured and shot? Going to the police? Listening to the tape? Tracking down Nadine and finding out about her relationship? The drive to Miami? Listening to the tape, the names? Going to Pratt? The set-up with meeting the general? The room raid at the motel, the death of the manager, Clinton and his car chase? The relationship with Nadine, getting her the piano? Tracking down Rojas? Going to Costa Rica, confronting Pratt and the general? Wounding the henchman? Being put in the prison? His ingenuity with electrocuting the guard, blasting the gate? The escape with Nadine, the swim, taking the car, through the jungle, his friend and the flight back to Miami? Separation from Nadine, getting the tape, confronting the criminals? Trussing them up? Deciding not to kill them and leave them to the law? Reunited with Nadine?

5.Nadine, the call-girl, her relationship with Bobby? The birth of Henry? Encountering Clinton, listening to the tape? Being careful? The truth? James and the set-up in the penthouse? The gift of the piano? Love for Clinton and desperate need for him? The news about Costa Rica, going? Seeing Clinton, handcuffed, killing James? The escape, sharing the adventures? At the bus terminal? The piano, going with Clinton?
6.Pratt, his smooth talk, the lawyer, the deals? Contra deals and money? The general and his serving in two wars? Right-wing patriotism? James and the call-girls, the parties? Going to Costa Rica, the deals and the set-ups? The tapes, the investigations, the callous murders? Imprisoning Clinton? The return to Miami, his catching them, trussing them up - offers of bribes, his leaving them to the police?

7.James and the vice ring? The girls?

8.Rojas, being in prison, contact with Clinton, giving him the leads?

10.Popular ingredients for action adventure? The world of crime? The international overtones?

CLIFFHANGER

US, 1993, 112 minutes, Colour.
Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Paul Winfield, Ralph Waite, Caroline Goodall.
Directed by Renny Harlin.

Cliffhanger is, as its title suggests, an action adventure with excitement and climaxes. It is a star vehicle for Sylvester Stallone, regaining box office popularity after his attempts at comedy (Oscar, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot). After this he stayed in action mode with Demolition Man.

The film was directed by Rennie Harlan (Prison, Adventures of Ford Fairlane and, up to this point, best known for the action and stunts in Die Hard Too. Here, with the help of beautiful Italian mountain locations and spectacular stunts, he creates an action adventure which is conventional, but keeps an audience entertained. The film has a strong supporting cast with Michael Rooker and Janine Turner as Stallone's assistants, John Lithgow with an extraordinary British accent as the arch villain, Caroline Goodall as his evil pilot and Ralph Waites as a sympathetic helicopter pilot.

The film combines mountain adventure with an impossible heist, a mid-air robbery of the treasury - and the search for cases of money in the mountains.

1.The film as a Sylvester Stallone action feature, action adventure, the mountains and the spectacular scenery, the heist and the search for the money?

2.The mountains, spectacular, situation for action? The editing and pace? The score?

3.The title - literally referring to the mountains, the background of the old action adventure films and serials? Audience expectations?

4.The opening, Gabe and Hal, Sarah and the danger, the decisions to save her, the tension? Her death? The clash between Gabe and Hal? The aftermath and Gabe disappearing, lacking confidence, Hal's suspicions?

5.Gabe's return, renewing the bonds with Jessie, Hal and his suspicions? The call for their help, climbing the mountain, working with Hal, the confrontation with Qualen and the gang?

6.The treasury, the planes, the official, the money, the official shooting the guards, the mid-air robbery, the crash, the plan to retrieve the cases?

7.Qualen and his British accent, an over-the-top villain? The members of the gang and their loyalty? The pilot and her determination? The cases, the signals, travelling over the mountains, the dangers? Crystal and her confrontation, death? Qualen unscrupulous? The finding of the cases, the taking of Hal, the chase for Gabe? The confrontation with the teenagers and killing one?

8.Gabe and Hal, knowledge of the mountains, their hardships, the search, outwitting Qualen? Avalanches, tunnels and caves, the precarious bridge, ambushes, the rabbit with the signal - the various devices to elude Qualen?

9.Hal, the confrontation, his death? Gabe and the confrontation with Kynette, the tricks, outwitting him?

10.Jessie, her skills, going into action, friendship with Frank? Frank and the helicopter - and his death? Jessie and her pursuit? Taken by Qualen?

11.The teenagers, their Bill and Ted style, unfortunately on the mountain, death, the other giving the warning?

12.The build-up to the climax, the fight, the traditional goodies and baddies, the action spectacular with helicopters, ropes, cliffs?

13.Hal and his destroying the money, Qualen's desperation, his death? Enjoyable action spectacle?

A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

US, 1994, 141 minutes, Colour.
Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, James Earl Jones, Anne Archer, Henry Czerny, Joaquim de Alameida, Harris Yulin, Donald Moffat.
Directed by Phillip Noyce.

Clear and Present Danger is the third of the Jack Ryan adventure stories from Tom Clancy's novels. He appeared, in the guise of Alec Baldwin, in The Hunt for Red October. Harrison Ford was introduced as Jack Ryan in Patriot Games. The same team is back with Australian director Philip Noyce directing again.

Harrison Ford is the image of the upstanding American, the decent hero with intelligence and physical courage. He is not just Indiana Jones.

This film is better than Patriot Games and should satisfy a wide audience. The villains are not only the Colombian drug lords (who seem to be Hollywood's post-Cold War baddies), but the powerful stalkers of the Washington corridors of power. In this context, the film is highly critical of the Reagan and Bush administrations. But, can decency overcome unscrupulous power and cynicism? The film hopes so.

The supporting cast is strong and includes Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer as Jack Ryan's wife, Donald Moffitt as the US president and Henry Czerny (When Night is Falling), sinister as his chief adviser. A solid action drama.

1.Popularity of Tom Clancy's books, Harrison Ford, the combination of politics and action?

2.American background and locations, Washington, California, the contrast with the Mexican locations for Colombia? Use of Panavision? Action sequences, special effects and editing? Technology, computers? Musical score?

3.Harrison Ford as an American icon, the boy scout hero, a man of his word, integrity, his oath and duty, accountability to the people?

4.The title: war situation, the words of the president, declaration of war against the drug lords, the possibilities of covert activity, senate inquiries, accountability?

5.The situation: the opening on the Caribbean, the Coast Guard, the video of the murders? The president and his assistants and the briefing, his reacting in anger, wanting to be ignorant of what went on? The setting up by Ritter and Cutter of the covert activity, the contact with Clark, the training of the personnel in California, their military expertise, the young man evasive as a sniper? The relationship between Ritter and Cutter, their access to the president, his word, nothing on paper, Ritter with his document from Cutter?

6.The sequences of Jack Ryan and his family, wife and children? The personal touch? His relationship with Greer, Greer's illness, the hospital sequences, discussion about the cancer, the magazines, Greer's warning to Jack to watch his back? Jack and his own ego, going into the CIA headquarters? His skill in identifying what happened on the boat? His taking the new job? Going to the senate hearings, giving his word? His being deceived? His getting information from computers, his computer expert assistant? Writing of reports? His giving advice to the president - and the president using it? Needing to check evidence in Colombia? His going to Colombia, the staff at the embassy and their contact with him, his meeting with Clark? The melodrama of the assassinations in the streets of Bogota? The graphic way in which they were filmed? Jack Ryan and his involvement, his escape?

7.The drug cartels, Escobader and his revenge, the way of life of the cartel chiefs, family, rivals? Cortez and his Cuban background, secrecy, advice? Cortez going to the US, the liaison with Moira and his killing her, taking the opportunity against Escobader, the arranging of the assassination in the streets, his meetings with the enemy? The irony of his being taped ringing Moira, the technology of identifying his voice with the other tapings?

8.Clark, his background, picking his men, the training? The explanation of the missions? The visualisation of the bombings, the explosions, the factory? The missile - and the killing of women and children? His contacts with Ritter? Ritter changing the plan, cutting him off? Loss of radio contact? Ryan being blamed? Arrival at the airport, following Ryan, checking by phone with Ritter? The getting of the helicopter, the rescue mission, the action sequences, working with Ryan, the final helicopter rescue?

9.Ryan and his work, the interest in the voice and its identification? His hacking into Ritter's computer? The editing of the computer duel? Confrontation between Ryan and Ritter? His decision to return to Colombia, the encounter with Clark, going to action with him, getting the helicopter, going into Cortez' building, the confrontation, the chase, the rescue? His evading action on the roof, the helicopter? The fact that Ryan used no weapons?

10.The world of violence, weapons, assassinations, drugs?

11.The administration, the characters of Ritter and Cutter? Their deals, their use of power, authorising covert operations, reading the president's mind, documents, their ruthlessness - and Cutter's visit to Panama and the deal with Cortez?

12.The picture of the American president, the background of Reagan and Bush in the '80s? Political cynicism? Exercise of power, wanting a second term? The president acting in anger - and his finally wanting to do deals with Jack?

13.Jack as a character of integrity, his confrontation of the president, the senate inquiry and his promise to tell the truth?

14.The film as a critique of American politics of the '80s, a rehabilitation of men of integrity of the CIA and FBI? Political power, use of secrecy and ruthlessness, the importance of duty, giving one's word and accountability?

CLEAN AND SOBER

US, 1988, 124 minutes, Colour.
Michael Keaton, Morgan Freeman, Kathy Baker, Tate Donovan.
Directed by Glen Gordon Caron.

Clean and Sober is a serious message film about those in their 30s during the 1980s, their struggle for financial success, their use of drugs, addictions.

The film is unusual in casting Michael Keaton, a frantic and zany comic (Nightshift, Mr Mom, Beetlejuice, The Dream Team) as a serious yuppy. He performs his serious role very well (perhaps better than his Bruce Wayne in Batman). Morgan Freeman is one of the therapists at the institution. Kathy Baker (Jackknife, Streetsmart) is another addict. M. Emmett Walsh (usually a repulsive villain) is very good and persuasive as the sponsor.

The film shows the business life of the yuppy, the lack of responsibility, the taking of drugs and alcohol - and the consequences, especially in embezzlement to gain money. The film also shows the possibility for treatment, A.A. and the possibilities of people taking responsibility for themselves. (A comparison might be made with the James Wood-Sean? Young film, The Boost, directed by Harold Becker - an ambitious yuppy who becomes cocaine-addicted.)

1.A film of the '80s? Young businessmen? Addiction? The title and hopes?

2.Philadelphia settings, the business world, homes? The institution and treatment? The musical score and the mood? Songs?

3.Michael Keaton, his comic talent, his image? The serious role - and message?

4.Daryl and his lifestyle, the opening, the phone call about the money, taking cocaine, the dead girl? The police and the pay-off? His reliance on Martin and Debbie, their refusal to help? His needing to hide, hearing the radio program about the drug rehabilitation? His beers, entering the institute, the questions about confidentiality? The consequences of his move?

5.48 hours detoxification, the cold, being alone, vomiting, the TV room and the black bashing the set, the zombie-like experience? The rules of the institute? His need for phone calls, asking for cocaine, worrying about the girl and her death, the money? Craig and his attack on him? The sessions and his listening? Donald as his room-mate, talking and Daryl ignoring him? His being ordered out of the institute? The raiding of his own office, the fear of the cleaner, no drugs? The printed note on his door that he had murdered the girl with drugs? His phone call to his mother and the pathetic asking her for money, suggestions that they sell their house?

6.The return to the institute, his motives? Craig and the urine test, also after Martin's visit? The meals, the sharing, the sessions, Iris and her taking cocaine and having to leave? The physical exercise? Talking with Charlie, Lennie and his presence at the session, Charlie's miserable life? Going to the A.A. meeting, his chatting up the girl, failing to communicate? Sympathy from Charlie? Wanting to telephone, Richard finding him, giving him his phone number? Being sponsor? The social and the dancing, his dancing with Charlie? The calls to get cocaine, getting Richard by mistake, Richard asking him to do the inventory of his life when he harmed people? His reluctance, doing it, their discussion in the cafe?

7.Leaving the institute, Richard taking him home, throwing out all the drugs and the pills? The suggestion to write the script to explain his embezzlement? His avoiding doing it? Calling Donald to go to the A.A. meeting? Visiting Charlie, awkward, the meal with them, Lennie and his offhand manner, drugs? Inviting Charlie to the movie, going out, the failure of communication? The phone calls, inviting her to dinner, thinking she wouldn't come? Her staying the night? Their trying to help each other? Trying to write the script for Charlie to ring Lennie, her failure? His ordering Lennie out of the house? Going to Kramer, not telling the truth, Kramer realising the truth, question of repayment, sacked? The collage of job interviews and his talk about his age, the salary and not needing money? The pathos of Charlie's death and its effect on him? Visiting Richard? Talking about his blame, Richard accusing him of conceit?

8.The final meeting, Daryl talking, the 30 days, admitting that he was an addict and an alcoholic, the truth about his situation? The affirmation by the group?

9.Craig and the authorities at the institute, the staff, the berserk black man, the rules, Iris and taking drugs, being ordered out? The therapy sessions, the physical exercise? Craig and the phone? The urine tests? The satisfied ending and hearing Daryl speak?

10.Charlie and her arrival, the Lennie story, working at the mill, her background of marriage, the miscarriage? Her friendliness, the dance? Leaving the institute? ..... the cocaine, Daryl's visit, the meal, the failure of the outing to the cinema, going to his place for dinner, the story, the script for telling Lennie, his coming to plead with her and weep, her going back? Sniffing the cocaine and the car crash? The pathos of her life?

11.Kramer, sympathetic, handling the situation? Martin and his support, Debbie and her reluctance?

12.Richard, the opening of the film and his talk to the A.A. group, his memories, his hitting his nose, realising that he was an alcoholic? His being a sponsor, supporting Daryl, the phone call, the question of the inventory, his talking about the blame?

13.The world of money, speculation, the law? Daryl's speech to the executives? The consequences of playing with money?

14.Drugs, availability, needs, fashion, money? The dealers? Addiction?

15.How hopeful was the film? Admitting, coping, responsibility? The work of A.A?

CLASS ACTION

USA, 1990, 109 minutes, Colour.
Gene Hackman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Colin Friels, Larry Fishburn, Joanna Merlin.
Directed by Michael Apted.

Class Action is another humane drama directed by British Michael Apted. Apted has directed a wide range of films including The Triple Echo and the series Seven Up as well as many films in the United States, for example Gorky Park as well as the James Bond thriller The World Is Not Enough.

The action takes place in a New York law firm and shows the workings of a celebrated firm. There are many deals, there is an emphasis on winning cases rather than seeking the truth. The film also highlights a rivalry between a father and daughter as lawyers. They are played effectively by Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Australian Colin Friels appears as the rather smooth but double-dealing villain lawyer.

In some ways the film confirms all the fears the public has about lawyers. On the other hand, it presents a striking drama with legal implications as well as human and family considerations. It can compare in interest with other films to do with legal families and firms such as Legal Eagles and A Civil Action.

1. Audience interest in films about the law, court cases, class actions?

2. San Francisco settings, the city, law firms, the courts, homes? The musical score?

3. The title and the focus on legal cases, companies and their disregard of the law (and bean-counters calculating that it was cheaper to go to court than to fix cars etc.)? The plaintiffs, their injuries? Victims of the lawyers? The presentation of cases, investigations, selection of witnesses, badgering of witnesses, humiliating them?

4. The background story of the family, the father and daughter, their clashes and rivalry, Maggie being a mirror image of her father? The mother, her love for her husband, forgiving him his infidelities, Maggie not being able to forgive him? The scenes between husband and wife, the dilemma of the case? The wife pleading with her husband, pleading with her daughter? Her discomfort at the opening of the trial, her collapse and death? Jed and his tribute to her at the funeral, his memories of the Mc Carthy cases? Father and daughter at home, sharing memories, Maggie and her condemnation of her father? The rivalry continuing in the case, the reconciliation, the mutual help? Familiar stories of family rivalries?

5. The opening and seeing Jed in operation in the courts, his manner, causes? Maggie and her success in court? Her place in the firm, with Fred and his approval of her, her relationship with Michael - and the affair?

6. The Argo case? Maggie asking Michael to have the case, his reluctance, giving it to her? The irony of Jed being for the plaintiffs? The talk between the two and her asking his advice? The challenge to each other? The opening hearing and the discussion about names, addresses and computers? The supplying of names? The techniques for investigating the witnesses - Fred asking Maggie to discredit the crippled witness with his weaknesses and police citations? The visit to Dr Pavel, finding out the truth about his report - but later exploiting his loss of memory with his phone number and birth date? The amount of papers found? Reports and the possibilities of hiding them?

7. Argo as a company, the engineering adviser, his discussions with the firm, giving the legal material to them ($8,000,000 a year)? His receiving of Dr Pavel's report, his explanation of bean-counting and not fixing the cars? The statistics about the possibility of explosions - and the statisticians being correct? Dr Pavel and his work for Argo? Their general success - their failure in this issue?

8. Michael, ambitious, relationship with Maggie? The revelation that he had given advice about the report? His trying to cover up, use Maggie for the case? His pressurising her to be quiet? His being put on the witness stand, his perjury, the expert unmasking him? Fred dropping him from the firm?

9. Gene Hackman as Jedediah: his strong screen presence, in the courts, relationship with his wife, tensions with his daughter? His past? Causes? Taking the case, his relationship with Nick and the other members of the firm? Their research? All Dr Pavel's papers coming? His presentation in the court, cross-examinations? The meeting with Maggie, their talking, resolving their differences after the fight after her mother's funeral? The technique in the court, the tricking of Michael?

10. Maggie, young, ambitious, memories of her childhood, antagonism towards her father, love for her mother? Grief at her mother's death? Looking through her mother's things, the photos, the explanation of the affairs, her mother's forgiveness? Ousted by her father? Going to work, badgering the witness? Fred and his promises of partnership? The discovery of Dr Pavel, the truth about the report and his notes, Michael taking them from her safe? Her anger, compliance with Fred? Meeting her father - and the technique of putting Michael on the stand, producing the Library of Congress witness? Her future?

11. The members of the staff, of Fred and his company, the personnel, collaboration? Jed and his assistants, overworked? The background for court cases?

12. Insight into the law, the pressure on lawyers, emotions and conscience, causes and truth, cover-ups, working within the letter of the law?

CLARA'S HEART

US, 1988, 108 minutes, Colour.
Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Ontkean, Neil Patrick Harris, Kathleen Quinlan, Spalding Gray,
Directed by Robert Mulligan.

Clara's Heart, even from its title, is an emotional film. Whoopi Goldberg, in her serious (Color Purple) vein, is a Jamaican maid who returns to Baltimore to help in the household of an affluent couple. The couple are played by Kathleen Quinlan and Michael Ontkean. Spalding Gray is a psychologist who befriends the wife. However, the focus is on the relationship between Clara and the young son of the family, played with effect by Neil Patrick Harris (at first obnoxiously, then uncertain, then growing in friendship). It is a picture of a marriage breaking up, of a wise mother figure who is able to act as friend and guide to a young adolescent. It is the story of an adolescent who doesn't want his parents to break up, finds himself caught in the middle, finds a new friend whom he previously despised and begins to trust. There is a subplot amongst blacks in Baltimore, especially focusing on the fate of Clara's son. Eventually she reveals her secrets in trust to the young boy.

The film was directed by veteran Robert Mulligan, who made few films during the '80s. However, many of his films in the '50s and '60s were very striking, including Love With the Proper Stranger, Up the Down Staircase, The Stalking Moon. Music is by Dave Grusin (On Golden Pond).

1.A pleasingly emotional film? Human drama? Problem drama?

2.The Jamaican sequences, the world of Baltimore, affluent, black sections of the city? Musical score, piano accompaniment, songs?

3.The situation: the death of the child, the funeral? The relationship between Bill and Leona? With David? The holiday and David being left at home? Isolated? The return, the tension between husband and wife, Leona and the help of Peter Epstein, Bill and his trips, girlfriends, family tension, husband and wife not being friends, the decision for divorce?

4.The focus on David, his age, relationship with his parents, overhearing the truth, resenting the death of the baby Edith, his father's expectations, especially about swimming? His being despised at school?

5.Whoopi Goldberg as Clara: in Jamaica, as the maid, definite with Leona, the gift, the waking up of Leona and alerting her to life? Meeting Bill, the return? Their reaction, David and his nastiness with Clara's calm? Finding her place in the household?

6.David and Clara, their clash, her room, the meals, treating him as a child and his acting as a child? Her wise interventions with the parents? The gradual bond with David? His swimming, defeat? Talking to her, alone with her? Blanche and the visit, being Clara's boy, the hairdressers, his changed hair, meeting the women, becoming more at home with Clara's friends? Dora and the puzzle about Clara's son?

7.The portrait of Clara: in herself, in Baltimore, her husband and the returned letters, her suitcase, Dora and the story of her son? Her strong stances, always being right? The parents separating, her stances with them? Her care for David, his confiding in her, the talk, going to church, his going to communion? His asking about her son, yet going from church to read her letters? Her anger? Her forgiving him, her strength as regards the decisions for the psychiatrist, the going to California? Making the choices clear to him, helping him? Not betraying him? Telling the story of her son? His anger at her not going with him?

8.David and the love between them, the gradual change, his curiosity, reading the letters, hurting her? The separation? Going to the therapy, making up the stories with Clara? His options, hearing her story? The swim and his success? His anger and bitterness in speech at thinking Clara had betrayed him?

9.Leona, her depression after the baby's death, wanting the baby to heal the marriage, at home, the therapy sessions, Peter and the friendship, falling in love? The discussion about David going to therapy, Peter's advice? The psychiatrist and his listening to the problems, picking that they were made up? Talking with Leona? The decision to go to San Francisco, confrontation with Bill? Wanting her own happiness, going to San Francisco - and the irony of David going with them and it turning out well?

10.Bill, the break-up of the marriage, leaving, his girlfriend - and David's direct questioning of her? The outings, the discussion about the therapy, his expectations for David's athletic skill, seeing him win?

11.Peter and his style, therapist, sessions? A stepfather?

12.David's return, going to see Clara at work? The talk, his apology, the reconciliation, Clara's strong explanation of friendship and the heart? His future?

13.An American story, marriage, commitment, collapse of commitment, love, family, parents' responsibility to children? Humane themes? The important race themes (and the strong characterisation of Blanche, Dora and Clara's friends, the area of Baltimore, David feeling at home in this atmosphere - especially at the dance)? A humane story?

SCOTT MURRAY


I would like to start with your father and his career and influence on you.

He started at the ABC, where he was production design, set design and so forth on all sorts of operas and musicals. Then he did a series of documentaries called Alcheringa with Graham Pizzey on birds and aboriginal sites. Then another series of documentaries, Yoga Australia or This is Yoga, which was the first film Ravi Shankar ever wrote music for and which he recorded in Melbourne. Of course, my father spent an enormous time in India studying eastern philosophies and lived in ashrams in Madras and so forth.

He made a documentary on rice in Griffith and what have you!

When we were living in Camberwell, he had the room out the back where he would edit on 16mm. Then he was an associate producer on 2000 Weeks, Tim Burstall's film. What happened after that is really connected with 2000 Weeks because it was a total flop and was savaged by the critics. There was a belief that existed for quite a while that Australians would not see Australian films. So Philip Adams, with Bob Jane's support, decided to see whether Australians would go and see an Australian film, and with John they did The Naked Bunyip, the two and a half hour documentary on sexual attitudes in Australia, which John produced and directed - Philip always claims everything, so I have to be precise on that. It was a huge success, which John then roadshowed round Australia. Then, as he often did, he disappeared off to India for more quiet times. I wasn't involved in any of the productions, I was too young. Naked Bunyip was shot in 1970 when I was 19 and at uni.

What did he really want to do with The Naked Bunyip? I remember it had those famous blacking out of frames. Dean Fred Chamberlain of the Catholic Film Office also appeared in it, so that it had a rather interesting mixture of ingredients.

He wanted to talk openly and frankly about things but the censor disagreed and insisted on all these cuts. John wouldn't agree to the cuts; he just blanked them out, because the cuts were visual. He didn't think the soundtrack should be removed, and he felt that if he just made a cut, the censor was having power over you without your having any control. The censor was furious with him putting the stencil of the bunyip over the frames, but there was nothing he could do. Legally John was complying with the Act.

I just wish it had been a technique followed because in the next four or five years films were massacred, murdered, butchered in this country and people weren't aware. Point Blank, for example, was banned three times, I think, and reconstituted so often that the film that went out is so totally different to the film that Boorman made. I'm writing a study on Borowczyk. His films were cut and banned. The critics denounced films like The Beast, which had twenty minutes missing in the print released in Australia. The films bore so little resemblance to the originals the critics shouldn't have ever discussed them. I think John's technique would have been very effective - if you had had twenty minutes of black space in The Beast, it would have got home that what you were watching was not the film the director intended. I think the censor's work was insidious. I'm particularly upset with the censor because the material was always sexually related. I can see arguments about violence conditioning children in negative ways and I believe very strongly in classification, particularly of violence. But I think nudity and pubic hair corrupting people is one of the most insane notions. If it had been pointed out how ridiculous it was that one pubic hair creeping into the side of the frame could get a film banned....

The effects are still noticeable today, where nudity still is rare. It's frowned on. Mainstream American cinema doesn't go near it yet, in a film like Air Force One, you have a very long scene of a man putting a gun in a 12-year-old girl's mouth, very sexually, threatening to blow her head off - he's just blown someone else's head off, so you know he means business. The sublimating of natural sexual desires into violence has very much been increased, I believe, because of the attitudes of the censors in the '70s. I'm passionate about it.

It was all obviously significant for you at 19 and studying at the university.

I've always fought against being deprived of being able to do things which aren't demonstrably antisocial. I mean, you can't say you have a right to kill someone, but I do think you have a right to read anything or watch anything. Clearly there was great censorship in the '50s and '60s, but it was at a time when film wasn't really challenging that censorship, but the late '60s, early '70s were, the time I was brought up. I'm having great fun at the moment, probably because of a retarded adolescence, catching up with lots of films from that time that were cut and banned and that I felt deprived about. Now I've seen some of them, and some of them I shouldn't have worried that I missed them, but I want to make that judgment for myself.

One of the glories of the Internet, which I think is the Antichrist in all sorts of ways is that it's also a great tool for good. I think my being able to get films that I haven't seen, foreign films and others, tracking them down via the Internet, is a fantastic tool for me as an adult, to make my own decisions.

I've been watching Borowczyk. If I had children, I would not let them see his films, not because there's anything that I think should be censored. It's because they're so profoundly moving and powerful films, so disturbing. Each time I see one, I can't write or think about much for a couple of days. It could be a that a child would not be moved by them the way I am. But I'm very glad I can see them now, and I've been very angry that I wasn't allowed to see them then.

The last question about your father: was the only other substantial film he directed his section of Libido?

Yes, he sort of oversaw producing and he directed the last episode. The idea was to get four or five writers, novelists, to write short scripts. It was done as a very low-budget film. Fred Schepisi did one, Tim Burstall and David Baker and John. I think John got the short end of the straw. He got last pick and it was the least liked and it was savagely reviewed. The Monthly Film Bulletin described his section as being "directed with witless insipidity".

John then went overseas and Philip Adams always describes it as "John retired hurt". I never said any of this to John and he may not know of Philip's response, and he would argue that he didn't, but John has always had a love-hate relationship with film. He hates aspects of it, as we all do. He did come back and did Lonely Hearts, which was a nightmare. The account in The Avocado Plantation bears absolutely no resemblance to the truth. John was unhappy with the screenplay and got John Clarke. It was his idea and Paul threatened to resign from the project, but they ended up working together and have worked together many times since.

In post-production Paul just vanished, went off to a Greek island with Wendy Hughes, and John had to finish the film. It was massively over-length and John had to cut it down. When Paul came back, he disowned the picture. I'm told he wanted to take his name off it. Then, of course, it won the Best Picture at the Australian Film Institute Awards, which goes to the producer, and this caused even more ill will. So John and Paul have, unfortunately, never spoken to each other since. David Stratton, as he did throughout The Avocado Plantation, only ever gets one voice on any film and he got Paul's. That was incredibly damaging to my father, what was in that book.

I was around for all of that film and I know the little quirks of history. You know there are all these sorts of flashbacks that were cut out of the script - and they all turned up in My First Wife. Paul's a good recycler, as all artists are, and I think it's a great tragedy that Paul and John parted ways, because I think Paul is a very interesting person. Nothing I have said, I would see as critical of Paul, because film is a hotbed. You always have disputes and you go your ways. I think that if John and Paul could have continued... John, of course, is a director as well as a producer and I think that may be difficult for some directors. John also did We of the Never Never, but left early on when he and the director saw things differently.

It was a case of two weeks into the production and they'd got about a day's rushes, they were massively over budget. John as producer took responsibility. The director went to Philip Addams. Philip Addams took the view that the only way to get the film finished was with the director because it was the director's vision. John didn't leave the production altogether; he came back to the Melbourne office of Southern Cross and Greg Tepper went up on location and they finished the picture.

John has a different view to most Australian producers; he believes that the responsibility of the finished film, the money, everything is the producer's. It's a heretical view, but it is the correct view. Most Australian producers disown the pictures once they're shot. They do no work, they don't try and sell them, they don't keep books, they don't know where the prints are. When I did the trailer for 100 Years of Australian Cinema, most of the producers we spoke to had no idea where the negative of their film was. It's an incredible thing in Australia. Admittedly, they get paid appallingly, they've got to get on to the next project. But John takes his responsibility seriously; he believes you are responsible for the money that has been raised.

So after those two unhappy experiences, I think he was ready to go back into an ashram again. Then he decided to do, with his new partner Peter Collins, my film. So that's how we ended up together.

There seem to be two different influences on your film-making: the family and production influence, then yourself as a cinephile and your interest in and work for Cinema Papers.

I never had an interest in Hollywood films. I never wanted to see the matinees on Saturday. I like American film now more than I did, but it's mostly the '30s and '40s and finding some good things in the '50s through cable, but I've never seen Hollywood as the best cinema. I think most of the great directors are European and most of the great European directors are French.

The biggest influence on me was Erwin Rado at the Melbourne Film Festival. You had to be 16 or 18 or whatever the law was, and I started when I was 14. He knowingly let me in. We used to have endless arguments. I would walk out of the shorts all the time; he would find me sitting on the steps of the Palais and he would abuse me in his very dogmatic Hungarian way. I absolutely adored the man. I was terrified of him. I think his festivals were superb for someone interested in European cinema. Obviously he wasn't interested at that stage in independent American - not that there was much of it - or Asian to the same extent as the festival is now.

So, when I got my own car, I would go off and see European films. The fact that they were more salacious than anything else may have had something to do with it, as my father - he was a particularly puritanical man; how he made Naked Bunyip is one of the great mysteries of the world - he kept denouncing me, "You're going to see this because it's got nudity in it." It was hard to argue, but I think that's a perfectly okay reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But whatever reason got me into these films, I got a great love of European cinema.

Then in 1969 or 1968 I saw my first Bresson, and that was really it, that cinema could go so beyond what it traditionally does. I think he's the great creative force of the 20th century. It's a purity and a power. His films seem so flat and controlled and monotone, yet they end so powerfully. Diary of a Country Priest - I think that if anybody is ever going to create a sense of faith in cinema, that's the film. And it ends with a five or six-minute shot of a crucifix. I mean, is there any more powerful five or six minutes in cinema?

Bresson's a man who denounces Catholicism yet he makes the most profoundly Catholic films, a man who denies God's existence and yet all his films seem to be an affirmation of that existence. These are all the contradictions I love in him.

Then I wanted to become a film-maker. I ended up at Latrobe University. I met someone who said, "Go and write for the student newspaper," so I did. Then Peter Beilby, who's a film producer now, head of production at Artist Services and Philippe Mora, who's a famous Australian director overseas - they were starting up a tabloid version of Cinema Papers. It had come out once roneoed in '67. Then in '70 and '71 we put out eleven fortnightly broadsheets which I wrote for. I wasn't an editor.

After I graduated, I went to teach at an experimental school called Brinsley Road, where I did maths plus the film course. It's interesting because of the people who were in it. There was Richard Lowenstein, Ross Lander as he was then (he became Ned Lander), Sharon Connolly, who's head of Film Australia, Ray Argyll, Lisa Roberts, who made an extraordinary short film and I think is now a photographer and painter, Daniel Sharp, the producer. They never listened to a word I said, they disagreed with every opinion I uttered, so I can't take any responsibility, but it was a great year.

Then Philippe Mora had whizzed through Melbourne and said to Peter, "Why don't you start up Cinema Papers again?". This was 1973 when things were starting to bubble. Peter and I went and saw Philip Addams on a Wednesday and he said, "Get an application in by Friday," and on the Monday we got the money from the Film, Radio and Television Board, which was then run by my father - which led to all sorts of allegations in Sydney. Of course, anybody who knows Philip Addams would know that nobody has a say if Philip's around. John was thrown out of the room, Philip hadn't even told him we were applying for Cinema Papers. Philip just said, "Give them the money." People started to argue, he told them to shut up, it took about two minutes, and we were off and running. I had little idea that it would take up so much of my life.

The idea was that there were three of us and we would each take it in turns to edit for a year, go off for two years to do film. But, of course, Philippe never edited an issue. He just got on the plane again. Peter and I alternated for a while, but it was impossible to juggle and I went off and made short films, an hour-long film and some documentaries. I had done a documentary at Latrobe with a group of us which, in many ways, is the most profitable thing we have ever done.

Then I was at Cinema Papers for a long time and wrote various screenplays. I came along a bit late because the Phil Noyces and Gill Armstrongs, they were the first batch in the '70s of the new young directors and I was a bit behind them. They were the first graduates of the one-year course of the Film School, and all the money was going to them. There were the official directors like Ken Hannam, Don Crombie who just made film after film in the '70s, getting worse and worse and worse - starting really well making terrific movies like Sunday Too Far Away, but their films by the end of the '70s... Then you had this strain of Weir who was making a film a year, Noyce and Armstrong and a couple of others, Stephen Wallace, and I didn't get anywhere trying to make films.

I am told by many people who have worked at the AFC that I hold the world record - I'm up to 18 script rejections in a row - and it was clear that I would never make a feature under the government system. Then fortunately 10BA came in, which I still think is the best thing that ever happened to Australian film, because I don't think it should be decided by bureaucrats with vested interests. It's quite corrupt the way some people get to make films, friends and how there's always money just before 30th June and it gets parcelled out to certain people. Some people get five, six script developments in a row and never make a feature while other people who make features can never get money.

But, fortunately, under 10BA I was able to make Devil in the Flesh, which went to Cannes in Critics' Week - still the only Australian film there - and I've been rejected by everybody and company ever since! But we're getting closer at the moment with some Americans on a very big project. They loved the idea but had reservations about aspects of the screenplay. We're now in full agreement on all of that and we're going to the next stage, so you just don't know. I want to make more films. I left Cinema Papers to do Devil in the Flesh and I was away for five years. Then everything I tried to do didn't get anywhere. I was asked back to Cinema Papers and went back for a very brief period to try and help out - I've sort of been ensnared by its tentacles ever since.

I'm lucky in the sense that I love the writing on film and I love books and magazines and I love film-making, so I'm very blessed that I've been able to have two things because if I could only make films, it would have been harder. But at the moment I'm certainly wishing I had somehow been able to make films. I'm very proud of the books and the magazines I've done, but I still think of myself as a director and I really think I have more to contribute as a director - but this is not necessarily a view shared by all.

Devil in the Flesh - why is it the film that you actually did direct?

I had done a Thomas Hardy short story adaptation with Gordon Glenn, a very interesting director. I had read the novel by Raymond Ratigay, who was a friend if not boyfriend of Jean Cocteau. It was written when he was 16 and, unlike most coming-of-age stories, it's rock-hard. What it captures, which other books don't capture, is the cruelty of many boys at that age, when they notice that they're sexually attractive - and the power they have. Men trail women by quite a bit most of their lives - I mean, girls are so much more intelligent, sophisticated and bright than a boy the same age. It's embarrassing to watch. But there's a brief period in late teens where boys are very sexually attractive, they have a great sexual aura about them, and they're often attractive to older women. Yet they're so emotionally immature - far less mature than girls of the same age - and I think they often act quite cruelly and manipulatively. Ratigay captures that aspect. It's not dreamy and soft and romantic. It's a very tough story.

His story was set during the First World War in France, and I decided to set mine during the Second World War in Australia. In the book the husband is a French soldier at the front. Here, obviously, the husband couldn't be going to and from the front, though it could have been in Papua- New Guinea, so I decided to make him an Italian POW. I did a lot of research on that. And out of that came secondary interests about Europeanisation of Australia. We come from a European culture with the convicts, Anglo- Celtic. But, post-war, with the Italian POWs who were sent here and who, then, when they went back to Italy after the war and saw a country in ruins, in massive proportion, 90-plus percent, came back and started families here.

While they were interned here and in the absence of Australian men, many had affairs because they weren't kept in the camps all the time. They would go out farming and so they had started families in Australia. I think this had a profound effect on this country. It was the start of multiculturalism.

I grew up in the '50s and '60s and I think that middle Europeans - the French obviously, less so with the Italians and the Greeks, changed Australia profoundly and much for the better. There are aspects of pure Australianness I adore and my next story is set at the turn of the century and on the battlefields of World War I; but that's lost, that Australia's gone. There are a couple of 100-year-old men who still personify it, but there's not much left.

I think that Europeanisation was marvellous for this country, and there are aspects that I show in a very subtle way. For example, the ending. You know that the husband is away, she has an affair, she becomes pregnant. You would expect the reaction of a hot-blooded Italian if he found out would be murderous and horrible. The film actually goes beyond the end of the book, the scene where the husband comes back and has to deal with the affair and the child, and he deals with it sublimely well.

I'm not interested in someone behaving badly over this. There are people who have the strength and understanding that life presents situations where your rules and your beliefs have to be understood in the context, and there's a bigness and a generosity which I love so much in the character.

It caused some problems here. Some people said I was trying to make a French film in Australia and was trying to make Australia look like France and all that boring sort of comment. It was the height of the nationalism in cinema - you could only make films about working-class Aussies who spoke in a "G'day mate" tone at the turn of the century when no-one spoke like that. They all spoke like English people. The countryside I filmed it in was central Victoria. It's very beautiful. I love the Australian landscape. It is not all Back of Bourke, it's all sorts of things. I was just rendering lovingly what I think is some of the most beautiful country in the world. Then I was told I was trying to make it look like France. My God, it doesn't look anything like France. France I adore, but Australia looks as much like France as the Irish countryside in Saving Private Ryan looks like France!

Ratigay actually wrote six endings for the book and Cocteau threw them all out. In fact, it was an idea from one ending that I took up, so I didn't feel as if I was cheating on Ratigay. I don't necessarily believe that the ending Cocteau chose is the best ending of the book and I hope Ratigay, wherever he is, has not been upset with me, because I tried to be absolutely faithful to the book. I never saw the French version directed by Claude Autant Lara, the famous one with Gerarde Philipe. I've seen the television feature they made after mine where they copy shot after shot, but I'm told by many French people who know the Autant Lara very well that my film is very faithful to the book in a way that his is not - not that it's a criticism of his film at all; he can do whatever he likes as far as I'm concerned. But I did want to be faithful to the spirit because it was the spirit of it that I thought was interesting.


Interview: 6th November 1998

CITY STREETS

US, 1931, 86 minutes, Black and white.
Sylvia Sidney, Gary Cooper, Paul Lukas, Guy Kibbee, William (Stage) Boyd, Stanley Fields, Wynne Gibson.
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian.

City Streets is an early sound film, very sophisticated. It has gangster themes (one of the co-writers of the screenplay being Dashiell Hammett). But it is also a tour de force of film style by director Rouben Mamoulian, who had already shown skill with Applause and was to make a variety of films including Becky Sharp (first in Technicolor) and films like Blood and Sand, Summer Holiday, Silk Stockings.

While the dialogue is a bit creaky, the fluid camera work - sequences at a carnival, at the beach, a car speeding up the Los Angeles mountains - show great style and the possibilities that would be developed for cinema photography.

Gary Cooper gives a kind of "Aw, shucks" role as the carnival man who becomes a gangster leader. Sylvia Sidney, star of many films at this time, is the strong heroine. Paul Lukas appears as the gangster boss and Guy Kibbee gives an uncharacteristic performance as a smooth-talking sinister gangster.

1.Popularity of gangster films at the time? How typical was this? Images of the '20s and '30s? The film in its period? Now?

2.Black and white photography, the score? Rouben Mamoulian and his fluid visual style? Techniques and flair?

3.The title, '20s and '30s, people, prohibition, gangsters? melodrama?

4.The chief and his style, his henchmen, his hold over Pop, Pop killing for him? Using Nan for his alibi? Her taking the rap, in jail, her bitter experience?

5.Nan as heroine, attractive, covering for her stepfather? At the carnival with the Kid, shooting, in love with him, suggesting that he work for the mob?

6.The kid, Gary Cooper's gawky style, skill in shooting, not wanting to work for the rackets, pressured by Pop for the sake of Nan, his success, clothes and car, the visit to the prison and Nan's disappointment?

7.Beer, prohibition, the rackets? Protection? Violence?

8.Nan getting out, the Kid welcoming her? The boss, the party, his flirting with Nan? Clash with the Kid? Aggie's jealousy? The boss wanting to get rid of the Kid, the assassins, being foiled?

9.Nan and her plan with the boss, at his home, Aggie overhearing and shooting? The meeting of the gangsters, the Kid taking over?

10.The final ride, the speeding up the mountain, the gangsters and their fear, saving Nan, knowing the truth? Aggie and her jealousy? Pop and his two-timing - and his girlfriend? The other gangsters?

11.Basic ingredients? Treated in cinematic style?

CHRIS KENNEDY



We are doing this interview in your dental surgery. I's still difficult for you to work full-time in the film industry?

It's difficult for almost everybody to work full-time in the film industry. There are very few practitioners in Australia who don't have something else to their bow - very few producers that don't work out of a back room of their house or are desperate, working from job to job. Most actors have to work at taxi-driving or something like that. For some reason, people think that being a dentist is extraordinary. I don't know why.

It's certainly a necessary service.

That's right, someone has got to do it.

But what drew you to film-making?

I started writing in England when I was working as a dentist there. The work was very tough. I would drive for hours to work in the morning, drive through the snow and ice, and see a patient every ten minutes and then come home late at night and find I was virtually shaking by the time there. And I thought that, essentially, there must be more to life than this. I found the job a little bit repetitive and soul-destroying. At school my best subjects had been English and Economics -dentistry I still enjoy - but I felt I needed a little bit of something else, so I started writing. I just told the boss I was going to take a couple of days off a week to write. He thought I had gone mad.

Then, when I came back to Australia, the Film and Television School was just getting into full gear and the 10BA legislation was funding films that I didn't know a great deal about. So I went to the Film and Television School. I set up a practice in Drummoyne and had another branch practice in Dulwich Hill. It was reasonably quiet at the time, only just starting the places, so I took the opportunity of going to the Film and Television School where I did some writing courses. You had to be accepted on the strength of the bits of work that you had done in the past, so I did that. I found it quite inspirational because I was amongst like-minded people. But I suddenly found that they can't really teach you a lot about writing; they can inspire you to go on and keep your nose to the grindstone.

I wrote a couple of scripts. I wrote a script that actually won an Annual Writers' Guild Award in the early 80s for the best unproduced script of the year. I was flush with thoughts that my media career was on the way. But I found that wasn't the case at all. The rights to the film were picked up by various small production companies who in turn paid me a small amount of money before going broke. In the end I found it just impossible to make a movie.

In that time I had also done short directing and producing courses at the Film and Television School and then went on to do a directing course in Paddington, a part-time theatrical thing which I wrote and directed for. Then, in the end, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. The Western Australian Production Company was the final one to pick up the rights to this film that I had written and they rang me up one day and said, "Well, we think we've cracked it, we've made the big-time. We have just got into bed with a fellow called Laurie Connell and I think this film is finally going to get made." And, of course, the film went the way of Laurie Connell.

In the end I just went to the bank. I had an Irish friend who considered himself a bit of a film producer and I considered myself a film writer and director and producer, so I went to the bank and talked them into giving us the money to make Glass, on the understanding that we would be able to recoup the money. It was a bit of a naive prospect, but I sort of talked the bank into it. They didn't know any better and I didn't know any better. So we went ahead and made the film.

Essentially Glass was made with a view to selling it effectively. It was made to be something that you could turn the sound off in Iceland and still get a pretty good idea of what's going on. Apart from other things, apart from being a terrific learning curve for me, it was really making movies on the job without ever having made a movie. No-one at the top end of the cast or crew had ever made a feature film before, and I was the blind leading the blind. But in the end it was quite a presentable little movie. Channel 9 bought it and Foxtel bought it and it sold to an unbelievable number of countries, so it served its purpose in a way. It was a calling card, to some degree, that I could go with and a film that had done reasonably well in recouping a good deal of its budget. It was a very small budget but people within the industry were quite impressed because very few Australian films make any money. Virtually none. Even the big blockbusters have awful difficulty getting the money back.

It was screened on Channel 9.

I have a bit of difficulty watching it myself. It's a bit like eating your own cooking, to some degree, although the two films I made after that I quite enjoy, if I ever get the opportunity of watching a bit of them. Glass was a bit of a raw and amateurish effort, but there are bits and pieces of it I quite like.

This Won't Hurt a Bit is worth seeing again.

Yes, it's a film that I like. I mean, it was close to my heart and I still find it very amusing - some of the performances and my understanding of dentistry. And certainly dentists like it. They take it and show it at the New South Wales Dental Conference. It's on video, but it's not everywhere - small releases. The big chains don't buy many Australian films. It was a good opportunity for a lot of actors, too.

HG before he was HG?

No, HG was already HG. HG was probably the least experienced of the cast in the film, actually. People like Jackie McKenzie?, she was a terrific little actress even at that stage, and Gordon Chater and Colleen Clifford and Alwyn Kurtz, people like that had all had long histories in the Australian film industry. HG really had never played a role in a movie before.

With his kind of deadpan delivery he was going to be seen as people's caricature of a dentist.-

It was funny in a way. Most people went along expecting to see HG ranting and raving, which he didn't - which was a little counterproductive. Casting him in that role, which is almost a non-existent personality - he was to be a mysterious so that everyone reacted around him but no-one really knew who he was or what his motives were - meant that everyone was expecting any minute that HG was going to stand on a soapbox and say his piece. That's a bit problematical, but I think it's still funny. People who had never seen HG before thought he was great.

A non-character?

Yes, he was almost the non-character. People like David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz, for example, although they both liked the film, Margaret thought it was great but David was whingeing about the fact that the love relationship was virtually non-existent and the character was virtually non-existent - which was really the idea of it! People get locked into an idea and try to massage a movie into what they think it should be.

You drew on your experience in England as background?

Well, I would be bashful to say it's autobiographical, but I did draw on my English experience, sure. And there have been all sorts of colourful characters that have been through the English dental scene, some of the most colourful I have known. There was a fellow in England called Hugh Hourigan who went on the run from Interpol in much the same way that HG did in the film. They all came through his front door and he went out the back door and they only caught him years later. He left everything, left his fleet of cars, his big house and his wife and family, and everything and he disappeared. They eventually grabbed him in South Africa. I think he went into one of the Homelands to play a game of golf. They were waiting for him, and they brought him back. It was on the front page of the newspapers - George, they called him - they brought George back to try him in the Old Bailey. There were various other people like that in the '50s and the '60s, in the early days of the National Health, an awful lot of funny people over there!

Glass is a thriller and This Won't Hurt a Bit is comedy and Doing Time for Patsy Cline has something of both.

It has a bit of both, yes. I have trouble drifting away from comedy entirely. I've had some ideas for deep and dark psychological dramas and that type of thing, but I think I'd probably do better to leave someone else to do that because whatever I start out with, it starts to wander back towards something that I find amusing. I think Glass was intended to some degree to be slightly tongue-in-cheek too. It was a little bit silly; it wasn't intended to be taken absolutely seriously.

Patsy Cline is a different sort of a movie in that you're expecting a little bit more of the audience. I had two streams of the story, intended not to be immediately obvious what they were, and intended to resonate off one another to some degree, so that if at the end of the movie you had done your sums right, you were repaid by understanding what had happened. It's a dangerous thing in that distributors and exhibitors don't really like it. If you're Pasolini or somebody it's all right, but they want a movie to be pretty obvious.

Where did the Nashville Dream come from? Is it something you were interested in yourself or did it become a symbol for that kind of hopeful young man?

It's a little bit symbolic of everyone's dreams. You have your ideas in your own life. You pick up people from your own life and put them into your dreams: you know someone who does you down in real life and you'll get back at him in your dreams, or vice versa; the unattainable love in real life will be someone who's not so unattainable in your dreams. So it was a way of putting those two things together. The interesting thing about it was that a lot of the critics, particularly in Australia, didn't twig to it or put all sorts of strange interpretations on it.

David Stratton said how he found it difficult to interpret whether it was real or whether it was a dream.

He came out and admitted to me later that he just didn't get it. A lot of people didn't get it. People like Bob Ellis couldn't get it. There's a few funny things I've said about Bob Ellis. I don't know whether it's got something to do with country music, which they consider to be lowbrow, something that doesn't deserve thought and they don't switch into that mode. Bob Ellis is the sort of person who will sit down and discuss Fellini's 8 1/2 till the cows come home, but you pose a simple conundrum like that and it just went straight over his head. I think it's got a lot to do with the music. A lot of the subtext of the movie was to some degree carried in the music and the lyrics. You have to lock into that in order to understand what was happening in the story. So, if you didn't like the music and put it to one side, the whole thing would be a long haul and you wouldn't bother to sit down and try to work it out.

With Matt Day's character, you had the nice, naive Australian from the land, good-natured. That's the Candide kind of experience, I suppose. And he meets up with Richard Roxburgh and experiences all the adventures but finishes up in prison and where is his dream? Interesting symbols of Australian young men in the '90s.

Yes, they were supposed to be mirror images of each other. Boyd was intended to be the sort of person who could have been anything, who had the talent and the ability but didn't have the raw guts and determination or the perseverance to weather it out. He was jumping from relationship to relationship. He'd jump from every easy opportunity to the next to make money, whereas poor old Ralph didn't have the talent, didn't have the same sort of golden-haired good looks or the talent that Boyd had, but he had all the guts and determination in the world. They were in there to teach each other something about loyalty. Boyd was there to teach Ralph that you can only follow your dream so far and make him understand or come to realise that certain other things are as important, if not more important, in life. And Ralph was there to teach Boyd at least some glimmer of loyalty and respect for other people.

And Patsy?

She was to float between them, really. She was to be available to both. Helen Garner, for example, wrote a scathing critique of the film, obviously from a political perspective. Clearly, she doesn't think that we should make movies where women are compliant in that way, or dominated by men in that way. I've never spoken to her about it, but I was startled to read her review. She said Patsy should have stayed well away from it all and waited until a decent male came along. So it's interesting when you're in a position like this and you feel that 99.9 percent of comment is positive, but occasionally you will find someone who just thinks it's a load of old cobblers.

Patsy had a certain independence. She was dependent on Boyd, but she had her own dreams. And with the illness, she seemed to make her own decisions.

Well, she did but in the end, of course, Boyd's personality overwhelmed her and she was going along with him. But, to be honest, I didn't even give any thought to the political correctness. I just based it on characters that you dream up or people that you know.

Actually, I based that pretty much on the relationship of a couple that I know and who have long since split up. She was in and out of psychiatric institutions, and this particular fellow has only just got out of jail himself. But despite that, the scrapes he's got himself into, he's a very, very charismatic character. If you came up to him and said, "I've just run out of money; can you help me," he would give you all his money and then he would turn around and say, "Hang on, I've got no money. I'm going to have to go and get some money," and he might not find the best way of getting it. So it was that contradictory element in the character that I was looking for with Boyd and I think Richard played it so well that he managed in the end to make you sympathise with him despite how terrible he really was.

With Ralph's parents, the prisoners in the jail and the police, you created quite an entertaining gallery of Australian offbeat characters.

Yes, it worked out very well. You go into a movie in the hope that you will do that. You do what you can to cast it in a way that will provide this, but I was delighted in the end with what we came up with, for instance, the policeman coming in with his little photo album of his wedding (and Tom Long did that very, very well. In the script development stages people say that this type of relationship is totally unbelievable and there's no way this can ever work on screen. It's interesting and amusing to look back and say, "Well, for me anyway, it works really well and I'm delighted with the way it works." And the father was such an archetypical sort of farmer, hanging in there till the son gets back, and the poor mother...

You had very entertainingly nice larrikin aspects of the Australian character, even the odd group of prisoners and the way they interacted with Ralph.

The characters in the cell next door, I think were terrific. I remember little Kiri Paramor, the young little fellow in the cell next door. I saw him first in Flirting, the kid with the braces on his teeth and he really stole the show.

I remember when we were working on it, almost shooting and he was umming and ahing about this character and the business of the picture of Marilyn Monroe - he would pull it out and say, "This is my girlfriend, she's American, but a great woman." I remember him coming to me and asking, "Do I really believe this?" And I said, "Yes, you believe it." And he said, "The minute I knew I believed it, it was easy for me. The minute I knew that I wasn't kidding, I believed it," little things like that, and they fitted so well. Lawrence Coy, with the big tattoos on his arm and the cigarette and Tony Barry too, of course. He's a terrific actor. It was only a tiny role for him, but I think he got a great kick out of it - he had to have his head shaved off and swastikas tatooed on the side of his head!

Anything in process?

I've just written another script. It's probably something I shouldn't talk about too much, but it's called Made in Australia. It's a sports-related story, once again a comedy drama - you'll laugh and you'll cry, I hope. It's to the point of doing something about it. I've got a studio sweating on making it but, of course, all the guns are fired elsewhere, not by me, unfortunately!


Interview: 12th November 1998

CITY SLICKERS

US, 1991, 114 minutes, Colour.
Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Jack Palance, Patricia Wettig, Helen Slater, Josh Mostel, David Paymer.
Directed by Ron Underwood.

City Slickers are three very citified amigos, who go for holidays to rough it (like the Pamplona bull chase), find they are in the doldrums of mid-life crisis. How to understand themselves and regain some of their happiness? Why not join a Colorado cattle-drive, go back to the western frontier and the pioneer spirit, where men were men...? They do. And the result is an amusing mixture of expected farcical comedy and some serious talk about life from men's point of view. (In fact, women are at the edges of this film.)

But there is a good-natured approach to the problems. Billy Crystal gives an enjoyable performance - as does Jack Palance as Curly, the dying breed cowboy who gets a chance to use his menace style as well as to do some comedy. The film is optimistic in its hope that men can discover themselves, not their macho selves, but their deeper and gentler selves. Director Ron Underwood made the science fiction thriller Tremors.

1.Entertaining comedy with serious undertones?

2.The opening New York settings, Colorado and the West? The beauty of the West? Action, stunts? The musical score?

3.The title, the looking down on the city slickers? Out west? The myths of the west, the frontier, transforming men into men?

4.The comic style of the cast? Billy Crystal's comedy, Jack Palance playing against type?

5.The prologue with Pamplona, the bull-run, the thousands of people enjoying it, the macho holiday, Mitch and his being gored? Going to hospital? Ed and Phil and their enjoyment of the situation? Each of them flying home with their wives or girlfriends? The revelation about them?

6.Mitch, a year later, his approaching birthday? His mother ringing at 5.15, the time of his birth? Barbara as sympathetic? His gloom, discussion with the boss, the nature of his job, buying air? Going to the school, his father ashamed of him? The tone of his speech? The party, the gifts? His friends arriving, Phil's crisis and the denunciation by the girl, the scene with his wife? The gift of the cattle-drive? Talking things over with Barbara, her insight, the gift of time for himself?

7.Phil, personality and style, the story of his marriage, dominating wife, her father, the supermarket? The interactions with his wife? The macho enjoyment with Ed and Mitch? The girl coming to the party, the exposing of his adultery, his wife's reaction?

8.Macho, the outdoors type, organising the holidays? His womanising? The young woman going back from Spain, the possibility of marriage, his plans?

9.The themes of male friendship, the buddies, mutual interests, talk about baseball, sexual activity, action, age? Adultery, the hypothesis of the possibility of committing adultery - and who would know? Phil's question, Ed's response, Curly's response? Mitch and his integrity that he would know? The expectations of the cattle-drive, their enjoying it, steaks, gallantry towards Bonnie? The cattle-drive and their commitment? The resolution of the crisis with family, intimacy and commitment?

10.Mid-life crises, pressures, action, the image of American men, the macho image, finding their gentler selves?

11.The cattle-drive, the members of the drive: the old ranching couple and their tough attitude, the Jewish brothers and their comedy styles, making ice cream? The black dentist and his son? The background of ethnic humour as well as prejudice? Bonnie as the only woman on the drive, her wanting to back out, their reassuring her? The ranch hands and their macho attitudes, drinking, harassing Bonnie? Curly and the old-fashioned cowboy?

12.The action sequences, handling the cattle, the training, the riding (and the ache)? Rounding up strays, life at camp, the terrain? Mitch and his coffee machine and the stampede? Curly taking him and his participating in the birth? The fording of the river and saving the calf? The traditions of the western - and the references to Red River and the shout before going on the drive? The final irony that the cattle were being taken for slaughter and supermarkets?

13.Curly, his leathery face, the men's jokes, his throwing the knife at the ranch-hands to stop them? Rounding up the strays? His disdain of city slickers? Not liking Mitch, his jokes - wanting him to stop playing the mouth organ and then joining in the singing? His philosophy of one thing in life? The memory of the girl that he glimpsed? His dying and its effect on the group? A tribute to the old style cowboy?

14.Mitch and his jokes, the riding, the coffee and the stampede, rounding up the strays, the antagonism towards Curly, learning from him, the exhilaration of the birth? Looking after Norman, making the decision to go on?

15.The men, their talk, the stories about the best and worst days of their lives, their relationship with parents, with spouses? Their decision to go on the drive?

16.Bonnie, the glamorous young woman, participation in the drive, her not wanting to talk about baseball? The ranch hands attacking her? The group advising her to go back to the ranch and not participate in the drive? Her being there to welcome them - the credibility of her relationship with Phil?

17.The drive, the difficulties, the terrain, the rain, the flooded river, the calf? The rescue in the rapids? The success of the drive? Welcomed by the ranchers and the other members of the group?

18.The glimpse of the Jewish brothers, comic style, manner and mannerisms? The black dentists?

19.The return home, relationships, Ed willing to commit himself and not imitate his father? Phil and the relationship with Bonnie? The reconciliation of Mitch with his family and children - and the delight of the intimacy of family?

20.A successful comedy about male mid-life crisis?