CALLE MAYOR (MAIN STREET)

Spain/France, 1956, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Betsy Blair, Yves Massard, Rene Blancard, Lila Kedrova
Directed by Juan Luis Bardem.

Calle Mayor (Main Street) is a fine film from Spain of the mid-'50s. Written and directed by Juan Luis Bardem, it has a fine performance by American Betsy Blair. She had been Oscar-nominated the year before for her performance in Marty. Here, once again, she portrays the ageing spinster - no hope of marriage in the small provincial Spanish town. She becomes the butt of jokes - especially the idle young men, hanging around the bars, who dare one of their number to take her out, lead her on and propose. While he does, he feels himself trapped and hurting her. His friend, Federico, challenges him and has to break the heartbreaking news to Isabel.

The film, in black and white, portrays the atmosphere of the town, the walks of the lonely women, their going to church, the young men and their hanging around with nothing better to do. The portrait of the middle-aged women, the delight of her falling in love, her believing her suitor - and then the disillusionment with the final image of her looking out the window is quite devastating. The film is a moving human document.

1.The quality of this film? Its awards?

2.The Spanish film industry of the '50s? The black and white photography, the location photography in the town, creating its atmosphere, by day, by night? The surroundings of the town? The musical score?

3.The title, the focus on the town and its main street, the people in the main street? The atmosphere of towns - and the consequences for people living there as dramatised in the film?

4.The town itself, size, buildings, age? The streets and the traffic? The homes? Offices? Bars? Churches? The people and their being seen in the town itself, on the streets? The promenades, especially on Sunday? The whole atmosphere of the town, gossip?

5.Juan and Federico, their friendship? Juan and his place in the town? Federico and his moving on? Federico and his discussions with the publisher? Their attitudes towards the town? The publisher staying, Federico having to get out? The celebrations? The young men, the friends at the bar? Their having nothing to do?

6.The character of Juan? His place in the town, influenced by the men in the bar? His friendship with Federico? The jokes, the watching of the women? The dare, Juan's weakness in accepting the dare? His approaching Isabel, the encounters, talking with her? His technique in leading her on? The effect on him? The outings, his politeness, going to the movies, taking her to the countryside? Their talk, the proposal and her acceptance? His seeing her joy? The effect on him, going to see the relations, going to see the possible apartment - and the temptation to kill Isabel? His saving her from falling? Federico's return, the challenge? His disgust with himself - and his inability to face reality, his disappearance?

7.Isabel, in the town, her friends, her distinguished background? Family? Going to church? Friendship? The promenades? Her prospects? Approached by Juan, at the station looking at trains leaving? The beginning of the friendship, his courtesy, her response? The infatuation, falling in love? Her joy and exhilaration? At home, seeing her transformed, the comments of people round about? The joy of the outings, the church, the movies (and cherishing the ticket)? The surrounding countryside, picnics? Her declarations of love and affection? His response? Her having no idea of what was happening? The planning for the wedding, her future completely changed? People's support of her? Federico and his telling her the truth - her response, the emotional devastation? The humiliation, Federico offering to take her away? Going to the station, the bewilderment about buying the ticket? Her inability to leave? Her looking out the window - trapped in her house, in the town? No emotional future? Audience response to the pathos of her experience?

8.The young men, their egging each other on, their drinking, behaviour, dares? Their ignorance and callous approach to other people? Their influence on Juan? The challenge by Federico?

9.Themes of emotions, relationships, the shattering of relationships and the devastation of emotions?

THE CALENDAR GIRL MURDERS

US, 1984, 104 minutes, Colour.
Robert Culp, Tom Skerritt, Barbara Parkins, Sharon Stone.
Directed by William A. Graham.

The Calendar Girl Murders is an entertaining, if routine, murder thriller. Based on a character something like Hugh Hefner, the film shows the world of models - though well-draped for the wide television audience. There are suggestions in the plot and some of the dialogue for darker sides of modelling. However, this is designed for the widest possible audience.

In fact, the film is mainly a police thriller with Tom Skerritt as the investigator, his usual reliable role. Sharon Stone is the glamorous model. Robert Culp is the Hefner type. In the supporting cast are Pat Corley, Robert Morse and Robert Beltran. Nothing particularly new - and you might even work out who the murderer is.

1.Entertaining thriller? Murder mystery? The world of centrefolds and models?

2.Glamorous settings, the world of modelling? Business, hotels, apartments, shows? The contrast with police precincts? Action sequences, stunt work? Musical score?

3.The title, the focus? Expectations?

4.Dan Stoner, his wanting to resign, friendship with Tony, other members of the force? The calendar girls' murders, his investigations, the background of his home life, relationship with his wife, her developing the photographs? His son and his infatuation with Cassie? The meeting with Cassie, her attraction towards him? Traynor and the models? The interrogations? Surveillance, present at functions? Discussing the case with his wife? The further murders, the interrogations? The investigation of the photos, Albert Stark and the car chase? His realising who the murderer was? Her attacking his wife, his confrontation? Her grief and his support? Arguing with Tony about her file? Portrait of the police officer?

5.Other members of the police: Tony, the boss, getting Stoner to do a favour? The argument at the end? The young assistant and his wanting to go to centrefold parties? His work with him, surveillance of Stark and the pursuit? Rose Hernandez, undercover, glamorous dresses, her not wanting to stay on the job - especially with the father critical of his daughter's career?

6.Traynor, the world of photography and magazines, centrefolds? Cleo as his assistant? His relationship with the girls, organising finances, organising socials? His arrogance? His clash with Cassie? Under suspicion? The revelation of the truth about his wife and his daughter?

7.Cassie, her work, her career, Angel of the Year? The encounter with Dan? Going to the socials, her attraction towards him and following him to the sports event? Rescuing the drowning girl? The discussions, the gradual revelation of the truth, her being Traynor's daughter, the threat to Dan's wife?

8.The girls, the initial social and the girl dumb on television, her death? The murder of the girl at home? The photography, the life of the centrefolds? The socials, parties, sports events?

9.Albert Stark, photography, infatuation with Cassie - the surveillance, the pursuit, his death in hospital?

10.Robert Morse as the has-been star, his poor performance? Under suspicion? His relationship with the first murdered girl?

11.The gallery of characters to fill out the background of this kind of story, give it atmosphere? The popularity of this kind of mystery?

CHRIS NOONAN



Did you expect such popularity for Babe in Australia, let alone worldwide?

Well, I spent seven years on that film. That involved a great deal of faith on my part and that faith was born when I first read the book. And it was sustained all the way through trying to keep that thing that I got from the book alive and translating it into another form, and I never ever lost that faith and that sense of excitement that this was going to be something that could traverse normal boundaries.

Part of the reason for that faith in it was that I thought the story was extremely solid and very uplifting and very real - it had real things to say to people - and at the same time as a film it had a gimmick, which was talking animals. So I thought the gimmick would get people in just to see what the fuss was about, but the story itself was so solid and had the potential to get under people's skin that it would actually deliver to those people who just came for the gimmick. So I had tremendous faith in it and I would be less than honest to say that its popularity shocked me. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been far more popular and I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a lot less popular, because my sense in it was complete belief, I had total and utter belief in it. So in a way it's a shock that people just didn't stop making movies after it; there was no point.

A lot of that is there in the delight - for instance the mice, I must say, the chapters, and James Cromwell. The music was good, but him singing and dancing had such vitality about it that again it was those kinds of things which made it even better than it was, so to speak. Were they your inventions?

They were invented during the writing process. Actually, the mice were something that happened towards the end of the editing process - no, the mice were used about three times during it, but not for the chapter headings; there were never going to be chapter headings. The use of the mice in chapter headings occurred after a test screening in America where we had our chapter headings and it was a screening for mostly children - a mixed audience of children and adults - and we watched them watch the movie and we saw, when these chapter headings came up, which were just words, all the children would turn to their parents, asking them what the words said. And we thought, "Of course, a lot of our audience can't read." So we decided that we had to have speaking, we had to speak whatever those things were, and that sounded so boring - you have your narrator speak these words, and it all sounded like it was dragging it down, and we searched for a way of making it fun. So we ended up bringing the mice back. It was fun developing those mice.

What about the dancing and singing?

What can I tell you about that? What I love about that is that without that - see, Hoggett was always conceived, even by the writer of the original book, as this completely taciturn Easter Island statue sort of figure who never expressed anything, in complete contrast to his wife who expressed far too much most of the time. I was worried about this character and certainly the actor, James Cromwell, was very worried - in fact it takes a lot to get an actor to express nothing, I mean really nothing, not even a little grin, nothing; has to be a comic strip taciturn sort of character, which I believed was the key to making him work, because everyone would read so much into his behaviour. But without a pay-off of that withdrawal of expression somewhere - he would have worked dramatically within the story but you wouldn't have loved him as a character, and I think it's like someone who withholds affection all the time: unless you actually see them show affection once, you're not quite sure about them. We talked about this a lot and felt that he needed some moment when he could express himself, but preferably later, after we had had the opportunity to delight in the contrast between his taciturn qualities and Mrs Hoggett's expressive qualities. So the idea emerged in the writing, which was basically George and I sitting down for many, many, many months, that this was the perfect place to do it, where it provided an opportunity for Hoggett to show how much the pig meant to him and how deep was his concern for the pig. So it provided an opportunity for an expression of love which was respectable between a man and an animal.

That was carefully choreographed, that dance, and it was very much based on Celtic patterns of dance and music, that whole little incident. What did you feel about that scene?

It was, somehow or other, a moment of joy for him. I like your word "respect", I hadn't thought of that, a kind of loving respect and just the joy and him breaking out - I now realise it was really from an Easter Island kind of thing, and I think obviously now that you say it, that's what delighted me, but I couldn't believe that he did it and it just seemed so right and joyful.

That's it, it's completely out of the character that has been established for him, but because he has been so withdrawn, there is the potential of it there, and I believe that even though when the audience first sees it and they sort of go, "What? This is confronting, it's too forward and outward for this man," there's something deeply satisfying that this person who has been so withdrawn has let it go, and there's something deeply satisfying about that.

I think that's probably a lot of its success, the mice, that kind of thing, and even the villainy of the cat. And that one that I read, that when Babe sings, apparently the pig wouldn't behave, so you had to invent, but yet of course it's a wonderful moment. And it's probably such a collection of wonderful moments then which combine the whole thing that made it a success.

That's true, but without the structural backbone which is so solid, you couldn't play to the degree that I was able to play. You just couldn't allow that sort of freedom to sort of say, "Let's just have him sing here." It would just feel like another little effect; "just something else to entertain us." But I think it was integrated into it so that Babe singing in particular was a lot more than just a delight in the pig singing. It was a whole new expression of his innocence of his fate.

You wouldn't have read a book called St Paul Returns to the Movies, the chapter on Babe in that?

No.

An American evangelical writer - it's a good book - he did St Paul Goes to the Movies in about '93 and this one is '98 or '99. He's actually talking about Paul's understanding of the ethos of the Roman Empire and how Paul's letters are continually critiquing that, and he's done a terrific job on a whole lot of contemporary films. But his one for Babe is on courtesy to others.

I'm very interested.

He has chosen sections from St Paul where everything was on merits and judgment in the Roman Empire and here's this whole breakthrough that Paul has which Babe exemplifies

Which is about courtesy?

Courtesy is the particular theme was chosen.

How wonderful.

Did you enjoy Babe 2? Is that a fair question?

I didn't. I didn't like the idea of a Babe 2 because I felt the first story was complete and - in fact I was there when the idea was born, and it was born through Universal's desire to have more of it - this has been good, let's have more. I mean, I don't want to imply any motivations on the people who actually made the film, but I felt that it was born out of - you know, the reason it was made was a desire for money, for more of the same success in the financial sense. The first one was built from a desire to do something that was almost cheeky - you know, wouldn't it be incredible if we could make a film that had talking animals and people would accept that. There was this sense that we were being naughty and very cheeky in doing something that was as bold as that was. And I felt that the way it was presented to me when I was approached about it was - the motivation was all wrong for me and I said no.

In a sense the public response has been to that, though I have to say I really liked it, because I like the darker side and I was interested in Babe in the City context compared with the innocence of the country.

I actually think in some ways it's a more sophisticated film.

Yes, I think a lot of adults, if they went to see it, would find it very interesting because of those themes, whereas perhaps the children who were delighting - there wasn't enough to delight: talk about the cityscape, the different cities, the terror of the dog, not liking Mickey Rooney. Many children did enjoy it but it's entirely different process - cheekiness and delight - something quite different)

Yes. But for me it was simply that I just couldn't see the point in pushing it further, and I had put so much energy and so much of my life into that first one - in a way I was disappointed to see it - okay, now it had moved from this group of people trying to get an idea across, moved across because of its success into the realm of big business - it wasn't a cause that I wanted to fight for any more. So that's why I said no.

To go back to the '80s - working in Cowra Breakout, then Vietnam, the Joh Bjelke-Petersen? movie - that's a decade in which you were reflecting a lot on Australian identity, politics, in a sense that Babe doesn't.

Will I go back to Australia, to Australian reflection?

What do you feel that you were able to contribute to our understanding, especially by those popular series, of our self-identity, even with the bicentenary coming at the end of it?

Of what is Australian? It was the last thing on my mind during that process. For me there was no intellectual analysis of what is Australia and what am I trying to say about Australia in that process. It was much more, for me, about - just to qualify that, there was a leftist slant, there was a sort of humanitarian humanist slant on what went on during the Vietnam War, the way the war twisted people's lives up, which was really about war itself more than about the Vietnam War, and the way in which selfishness of politicians and so on and their drive for self-aggrandisement disrupted people's lives and ruined people's lives, and these people who were supposed to be there to look after people's welfare were neglecting it for their own benefit. But what drove me within those stories were the personal stories more than the sort of geopolitical ones. I don't see myself as an authority to wax lyrical and lay down the law about my views on Australia's development. I don't think it was what any of those things were about and it's not where my interests really lie. My interests lie much more in the personal and in the power(?) relationships within personal relationships. My view on the subject matter of those things was very much through that telescope, in a way through the big end of the telescope looking small, rather than the other way around.

It sounds as if you enjoy the telling of the stories drawing on your experience but not checking thematic contents or

Thematic contents are very important to me and I would hate to subscribe to something that I found politically abhorrent, but essentially I think the point of view that I've put across is a humanist one in the sense of looking after the interests of the human beings involved in the story rather than a sort of grand Machiavellian, Bonapartian sort of strategist.

Just back on The Riddle of the Stinson: when you were talking about the faith there - just a bit more about what interested you perhaps a bit more explicitly in that Green Mountain story.

I guess what it did for me was to - there's a terrible phrase that keeps being bandied about in Oscar award ceremonies and in the American media generally, which is about someone following their dream, which has become the most suspect sort of concept; it's become cliched because it has been used so much and it's been taken over by the American Dream manufacturing machine and turned into what everyone should do is follow their dream. But it still is an important thing for me that if you have faith in your destination, if you have faith in the goodness of something in its likely good results, if you feel it will bring good to the world, then for me that is what drives people. It's what drives me. And if I'm looking at ten years of work on something, then if I believe that the end result is going to bring good to people, then the work can go on; I can drive myself like a slave with a belief in the ultimate benefit to people of that work. If I feel it's purely for my own self-aggrandisement or purely that it will make a lot of money, a lot of people buy something and you'll make a lot of money, it won't drive me in the same way as if I feel something is going to bring a lot of good. And I think that's the sort of faith that Bernard O' Reilly had in that story of the Stinson. First of all he was curious and there was an intellectual curiosity that he felt that he knew what had happened to this plane and had faith in his own intuitions and his own sense of what had happened, to the degree that he would inconvenience only himself by wanting to pursue it and find out what had happened, partly because everyone else was giving up and there were real human lives at stake. I suppose it was a sense of responsibility to these people he had never met but only read about in the newspaper, but he couldn't rest as long as he felt he knew what might have happened, where they might have gone, and no-one else was finding them, so he had this sense of responsibility that only he knew, only he could solve the problem, and I loved that concept.

It sounds like you as a writer and film-maker.

In a way, perhaps. Perhaps there's a connection. But certainly I saw that in his story. I identified with him.

What are you doing at the moment?

I'm writing a story that's based on an American book which I'm not telling anyone the title of at the moment because I don't have the rights totally tied up in a contract, but it's sort of under negotiation. It's a book by Russell Banks and it's a coming-of-age story of a 15-year-old boy. It's a tough but very hopeful story set in the US and Jamaica.

Would you make it there?

Yes, I would have to. So it's not reflecting on the Australian identity very much, but...

Universal.

Yes.


Interview: 9th September 1999

CLARA LAW



Clara Law's most recent film, The Goddess of 1967, is awaiting release in Australia. It was selected for competition at the 2000 Venice Film Festival and its star, Rose Byrne, won the award for Best Actress. The film was also on the short list for the award from the International Catholic Organisation for Cinema (OCIC).

Macau-born Clara Law studied in England and worked in Hong Kong making such films as Farewell, China, Autumn Moon and Tempations of A Monk which featured at festivals around the world. Post-production on some of these films was done in Melbourne and in 1995 Clara Law and her husband, screenwriter, Eddie Fong, migrated to Australia. Their first film in Australia was Floating Life, selected as the official Australian entry for the Foreign Language Academy Award for 1996. The Goddess of 1967 is their second Australian film.

This 1996 interview incorporated some answers from her press conference in Venice.


Both Farewell China and Floating Life are stories of migrants, from China and Hong Kong respectively. You paint very different pictures of the fate of the migrants in each film. Your perspective on migrants to the United States seems to highlight the violence of American society whereas life in Australia is much more quiet.

There are different reasons for this. First of all, I think, it's my own development as a film-maker. Secondly, migrants from China and migrants from Hong Kong do come across quite different kinds of difficulties. If you are from Hong Kong and you're able to migrate to another country, you are more well-off. If you are form China, the language can be difficult. There are more hurdles if you do not know the language. So, for various reasons, the encounters were different.

But, at the time, there was a lot of anger and a tension between Europeans and Chinese. I think that now there is less anger and more of a process thinking things through, a kind of distancing and looking at it all from a bigger perspective rather than looking at it simply as Chinese migrant problems. I think it's more of a state of modern humanity.

You explain something of the meaning of 'floating' life in your director's statement about the film.

Floating life describes most aptly for me the world of an immigrant. An immigrant is cut off from history, both one's own personal history and the nation's history. He/she has to learn to live 'floatingly'. What does existence mean away from one's country, the non-existence of an existence when one is cut off from one's roots. Ancient Chinese philosophy teaches that there is a cosmic order to the universe. This order extends from heaven to earth to humans, from parent to child... I believe in this. This belief has given me the strength and faith in the making of this film.

In Floating Life, for the migrants to Australia, you chose to use extensively the theme of the house: houses in Australia, in Hong Kong and in Germany.

In the film, a house becomes and develops as more of a metaphor than simply being the house itself. A house signifies a home and in a home you are supposed to feel safe, secure and protected. And to find a house where you can feel at home becomes the most important thing for anybody, not just for Chinese, but for anyone in the world. Of course, as you can see in the film as it develops, the house is also illustrating the state of mind of each character, the state of mind of the character at that certain stage of his or her life. So you can feel the change as the film progresses but, you can also feel that longing to have a house, which is at the same time a home.

In Floating Life, Bing, the daughter who had already settled in Australia, can be seen as similar to the woman who migrates in Farewell China: there is such stress in trying to survive that the migration experience does, in some ways, drive them mad. Is that a correct reading of the films?

Yes, I think so. I know that is the biggest problem that faces the immigrants, especially the women. I researched that and found out that it's not a special problem just in America, as opposed to other cultures. But it is more of a problem in America. New York always gives the impression of such friendship. Even for me when I was there working, I felt so much friendship. But I suppose it's very easy to become very depressed because of that. This is especially prominent among the immigrants, especially the female immigrants, because I suppose they cannot work as much as they would like. And, if they don't come into contact with people more than, let's say, they would normally do in the place where they came from, then slowly I think they shut themselves into a kind of prison. This has become quite common among them.

The boys seem to be able to manage much better.

I think that is a little bit of a generalisation. I wouldn't say so but I think that because a lot of Chinese women, especially in America, came with their family, they would stay at home, which means they had less in contact with people.

Many people mention the impact of the abortion sequence and wonder what you had in mind. It has such emotional impact for the audience.

I think it's tied into the whole Chinese belief that posterity is one of the most important things, especially for older generations. But I think that even with younger people, because we're brought up in such a way that we know that there is a continuity between our ancestry and our posterity. For that young man, I think he came to a stage of his life where he realised that he had been into the sensual pleasures all the time and never been into the deeper issues. He always felt that he was alone, just this one, single person on earth and that this had nothing to do with his family's past nor his own past and that there was no future.

But, at a certain moment of his life, he somehow felt that he was not actually alone. He performed a casual act at a certain moment without thinking of the consequences. And... looking at it physically and having it all flash suddenly before his eyes made him realise that it is not just a casual act, that it did carry some consequences. He then experienced the feeling that he was actually part of the whole, that he was not just one individual alone in this universe. He is really part of the family.

I think this is like a special moment of realisation that can come to people sometimes. I would say it's something like that, a moment of awakening. He realises that he feels the love his parents had towards him, have always had towards him, a kind of faith and hope and never giving that up in spite of the fact that what he did was not what they hoped he would do. It's a moment of feeling that so much hope and love has been shown by his parents towards him that he is part of that home.

Was Floating Life well received in Australia?

I think it has been. Sometimes among the audiences, hearing their responses when I was watching the film with them or when I talked to them afterwards, the kind of response I got was very, very positive. And a lot of migrants said that they had never in their life been able to be part of the community. They felt their own pain and sorrow and they could see that they are like that. These are some of the best compliments I have had.

There was a background of migration themes in your ealier film, Autumn Moon. It's obviously a theme that fascinates you and your husband?

Yes, I think it is my background, given the fact that I didn't come from a place where I had stayed all my life. I was born in Macau. I went to Hong Kong to live when I was young. And there was my going to England to study. I think somehow I've never felt that anywhere is familiar. I felt I'd be totally lost, so I think that's one of the reasons.

And I suppose because when Hong Kong's future was being discussed in 1982, at the time when I was in England studying, having all my student friends around me who had either come from England or somewhere similar, very few of them were foreign students. They were, as I say, either British or from America or Canada or Switzerland and they would all talk about how they'd go back to their country after their study and work in the film industry there. And, suddenly, this was a time in my life when I realised that, maybe, Hong Kong's not going to be the same and that there may not be much of a future for me. All of that made me feel that I'm a little bit different, not having a place I can call my country, trying to find somewhere to shape my identity.

In your episode in Erotique, you had a young man from Melbourne in Hong Kong in love with a Chinese woman from the United States.

Yes, the theme of exile does come up in my work. A lot of times I have felt captive and exiled even when I was just in Hong Kong. There was not much of a cultural landscape there. But I found that I tied it to my culture through a kind of belonging to the ancient Chinese more than to contemporary China, China under the Communist government. I also think that the modern human race is caught up in a fast culture, and I don't think I appreciate that very much. I just feel that I don't belong anywhere, one of the reasons that I feel I'm still looking...

Would that be part of the reason for you making the Temptations of the Monk?

Yes, it was.

It was such a surprise, given the contemporary focus in your other films, that you should go to such a lavish re-creation of history.

I think I wanted a sense of a place and of time. The film is set in a period of history when China flourished most. It was the paradox of this emperor being one of the most respected emperors for what he did for the country and yet he got his place and his position as emperor because of a massacre. I think it's quite paradoxical and the whole drama of seeing what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, and then trying to assess it and find out about your own image of yourself: what you think your image is rather than what it actually is, that the image and the reality are different, so what you really are is honestly different. The monk's life was a spiritual journey to finding himself and finding what it is true for himself.

Which I suppose is relevant to modern searches in contemporary consumerist society?

Yes, I think so. There is some of the Buddhist tradition in the story. I think I look at that more as a philosophy than as a religion.

With The Goddess of 1967, you took your characters, a young Japanese man who found the car of his dreams, the Citroed DS, on the internet and a young blind woman who took him on a journey in the Citroen to her father and into her past, you took them into the Australian desert.

This for me is a new phase. However, with a new phase it is not that you cut off the past. I am very conscious that it is a gradual thing. Eddie and I have now lived in Australia with little experience of it. But as we went into the outback to look, to feel and to explore, slowly it worked on us and it became part of us. I found something that I can feel. I found colour. I found that there is an object and a subject but it is not that they are totally opposite. Slowly that landscape is saying to me a lot about what I have been looking for in the past. It's not as if it is a cut-off point. There is a lot that I experienced in Macau, in Hong Kong and in London and this is a continuation, a natural progress into what now, looking back, I see as a new phase.

I think that I approach a new country though the landscape. I'm always very interested in finding out what the country is like through the landscape because the landscape tells us a lot abut what the country is like and the people there, how the landscape shapes and defines the people. This is very true of the Australian landscape, it tells us a great deal about the people and why they are as they are. I found the outback inspirational because it is so primeval, so ancient, so intricate, so masterful and it reminds us of the impoverishment of the modern soul nowadays. I think this is now becoming part of the development of my creative work, a new phase and an important phase for me.

The Japanese man is a modern technological man and the car, which in fact was nicknamed DS, Deesse, the Goddess, whereas the girl was from the country and had suffered all her life.

I think technology has overwhelmed us and taken over our lives. We want everything to improve. We want everything to be visibly analysed and proved so that it becomes real. And, if that does not happen, we don't believe it.

I also think that there is a lot that cannot be seen, cannot be proved. I believe in the soul, in the spiritual and I think that it is only through that that we become more complete. It is wrong to think that science and technology is all. We think that we can be God and act like God. But I don't believe that. I think it is important to know that we are not God and we cannot be God, that there is a lot we don't know and because we don't know. It is only through knowing and finding our stories and the spiritual that we become persons.

I wanted the girl to be a physically handicapped. She is damaged but at the same time she has something very precious in her, a very positive energy and warm side. She is always ready to reach out and support and to connect. I don't believe that you need physical sight to be able to see. You can be blind but you can still have a lot of images in your head. You have imagination and imagination enables you to be inventive. So, not being able to see does not mean that you are handicapped. The Japanese man can actually see but he is stuck in his world, but he needs someone to open up his world for him in some new way. She does, and this is a total revelation to him.

The film looks very different from the average movie, different use of colour for the present - the flashbacks are in fuller colour than the present - and rear projection for the road journey.

I believe cinema is images and sounds. The visual has always been very important to me and I was trying to tell the story through the visual. I wanted to create a certain colour for the film, a colour that was very ambiguous. It is a grey tone, the grey area in people's lives because I do not believe there is ever total black and white. So, I wanted to create this colour which is ambiguous and corrupted and not primary. I think this is the way the audience can be closer to the journey of these characters.

The important thing for me at the beginning of production is to find a way to communicate to my Director of Photography what I want to see in the film. I find a lot of pictures. For The Goddess of 1967, I found a book by the photographer, Michael Kenna, beautiful photography which expresses what I wanted to express. I also look to the work of a Chinese painter I admire who embodies a perspective which is eastern but which at the same time is more than eastern. I showed these photos to Dion Beebe, my director of photography. This is the second time I have worked with him and so we have good communication and I would like to work with him again. He understand me very well.

What we were trying to do technically when I showed him all this wass to find a colour, not black and white, a colour and not a colour. So we found a 'bleach-bypass' process. We did the tests and I really liked it. I think this is how it should be. The funny thing about it is that with certain colours, the properties are totally changed. Green can become suddenly red. So we had to do a lot of tests, with costumes, with the design, the colour of the car. A lot of tests so that the colour we wanted would appear exactly as we thought. That was a very long process in pre-production, tedious and meticulous. But we did it and we got what we wanted.

I always like to choreograph within a shot, not just do a close-up or a long shot. The camera can move like a dance. Every shot can be a movement. Life is a movement: a centre, a space, action, silence. So I wanted to get it all right, the colour and the movement within the shot. What I normally do is to give Dion a list and work out the shots I want to do in a day. Some of the shots are very complicated but we had rehearsals before we started shooting the film, so I knew how the actors were going to move and to play out a scene. So, it's all in my head. But when we are on location, of course, we also have to improvise. It depends on such things as the light on the day and you have to accommodate to what happens on the day. But in preparation it is all planned out.

The rear projection for the journey was important. I didn't want to shoot in the car in a naturalistic way because the film is not an ordinary road movie. The journey is a journey into the inner road of these two people. If I had wanted to simply shoot the car naturalistically on a journey, just shooting from a car on location I would have been very much restricted with camera angles and the lighting. So, I wanted rear projection. I know it can look strange, but it turned out to be a very important experience because I think the rear projection did frame for the audience the journey in a non-naturalistic way. That helped them to enter into the journey.

In the background there are themes of dysfunctional families and their effects on children.

Nothing is easy in marriages, especially nowadays. I think a lot of our children are brought up these days not having the words to say certain things because we are brought up with a lot of technological words. We don't have the words to express our feelings, out emotions. We need the symbols in our words to express the meaning. To come from an entirely different culture is important can help in the process of our trying to understand each other. With a marriage between a Japanese man and an Australian woman, it's going to be a long hard journey for the couple in the film, but at least it's the beginning of the journey.

In all my films I have been touching on the dark side of all of us. This can surface in any form. There is always the devil but there is also the goodness - but through music, through art and through ourselves, we are able to get a little closer to the real goodness in us. In do believe that we are all good. Through upbringing people can be damaged especially these days, because I think parents don't know how to be parents but that damage can be be gradually repaired.

I like films that reach into the souls of the viewers. One of the greatest delights of film-making is to create this world in full, to visualise it to the most intimate detail, and then present that, as a whole, to an audience.



Interview: 6th December 1996

MARK JOFFE



You were born in Russia. At what age did you come to Australia?

I was nearly five.

So you grew up here.

Yes.

But there seems to be a trend in Australian films from the mid-80s to the mid-90s where the image of the male hero is changing. We had Jack Thompson in the '70s and then Paul Hogan. But, with The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting, John Duigan has written a 'hero' for Australians to admire. He often looks and sounds 'nerdish', I suppose, but he has a lot more substance. Ben Mendelssohn in Spotswood and again in Cosi is very much in that line of the more unassuming, sensitive Australian rather than the macho Jack Thompson tradition.

Well, it's interesting you say that. You just do certain stories at certain times and see how they work out. But I think it is the maturity in our storytelling, telling whatever stories we want to tell. It's part of my hate but people say that it's part of the sort of quirky genre of Australian films. And I say, "Well, it's not. It just happens to be a good story that's come out now". It goes in waves of certain leading actors and I think that's fine. It's just the way it is. There's a lot of films coming out. But there'll be fewer action heroes. I would hope there's more dimension and more substance put into the characters. People aren't necessarily simple, so the more complicated they are, maybe they're more interesting.

Your films, your feature films and mini series, are quite diverse. Do you see any thread running through them besides the fact that you have chosen to make them?

I think the only consistent thing is one or two actors in the cast and my doing them. I'm guided by a good story and finding something that I could contribute to the story in the way I direct. It's not necessarily any genre that appeals to me. I'm like actors. I don't want to be typecast as a director. If there's a good story and it will work well in a film, then that's what influences me.

Cosi has a particularly Australian flavour. With Grievous Bodily Harm, Spotswood and Cosi, you are telling diverse but Australian stories. Or is that reading too much into them?

No. I think they can't help but be Australian stories. However, I was born in Russia. But I am Australian and it's just my natural perspective on things. Grievous Bodily Harm was an attempt at a film noir, a hard-edged thriller. It wasn't totally successful in its attempt but it tried to give a stylish rather than stylised view of that genre.

Spotswood was a different sort of film and, again, it was there to do. It wasn't a deliberate ploy to make it like an Ealing comedy or any particular kind of comedy. It just had the natural elements to it from the story.

Cosi is different yet again. I'm happy that they're different enough. I'd hate for them all to be so obvious, that there's some clear thread through the three films and people say, `oh yeah, well, there it is, another one of his films'.

Grievous Bodily Harm was quite grim in the subjects tackled, the madness of the John Waters character, the corruption of Colin Friels character and of the police. In 1988, when the film was released, Australians discussed these issues, the Queensland Royal Commission was in session. But in the 90s, especially with the New South Wales Royal Commission into police corruption and issues like paedophilia, a film like Grievous Bodily Harm could come into its own.

Well, look at New South Wales. There are horrific revelations every day. People are suspected. It's the culture being revealed that's stunning everybody. It's in the courts. But if you're doing a film about police corruption, well, there are very few places in the world where it doesn't exist. It's being exhibited here and now, but corruption is an aspect that is part and parcel of film noir. You've always got the tough cop or the corrupt cop. And, in the mid-90s, it was happening on a fairly grand scale in New South Wales.

Spotswood came out in the era of economic rationalism. It seemed to be such an antidote to the economic rationalism that it must have hit a spot for its audience.

Yes, that was a conscious thing. Not that we could ever make a political movie. It's not a political movie, but it talked about the manufacturing industry in this country and the economic rationalism of the government - which is still there. So, I suppose, in a gentle way - although I don't really like that term - it shows the human side of the economy and that is the side that probably appealed to the people who saw it. But yes, that was a deliberate thing.

Which makes Grievous Bodily Harm and Spotswood diverse but quite relevant. With Cosi, what were the particular characteristics that appealed to you? and their relevance to Australia in the mid-'90s?

I think their relevance is that as we move on, there's more awareness of people who don't have as many opportunities as other people. This is this case with mental patients. What's happening all around Australia and all around the world is that a lot of these patients are being analysed quite quickly and, if authorities think they're not a great menace to society, they'll be out on the street or in halfway houses.

Now, we don't touch on that greatly in Cosi, the film is not a forum for the issue. But it is a relevant part of it. I know there have been a lot of problems in Victoria. This is something not to be ignored. The social connotations are something that we did consider and we used, albeit not in a grand way because our primary task was to be funny and poignant. But they are relevant issues and that's one of the key reasons why we made this film contemporary, as different from the play which was set in the '70s.

One of the appealing aspects of Cosi is that there's a tradition in theatre of the fools speaking the truth. What you say about the humour and the poignancy coming through the six characters who perform Cosi, as well as all the others, patients and staff, enabled you to make many depth-true comments about the human condition.

Well, Louis Nowra being a writer, and a playwright, did want to put a lot of profound things in the script - and they are there, hopefully hidden quite nicely under the realistic base. It's not someone pontificating about this, that or the other. So I was on pretty safe ground because these characters could really say anything and, if it fitted into their character, they could comment. Barry Otto's character says some wonderful things about love and hate and humanity. And he does it so well that not only does he get away with it, it makes sense the way he says it.

It's just their perspective on things. They don't come from a blinkered view, they can be totally rational one minute, abusive the next and quite calm after that. I mean, it's just the way - you know, whatever psychoses they have - they manipulated themselves if they wanted, or we just treat it from certain perspectives.

Pamela Rabe has stated that on stage she thought she interpreted her character more angrily, but in the film there was greater sadness and pain.

I think that one of the most heartening things about the film is her pain, her performance of her pain, the way she acts that out. I haven't seen an audience not touched by that. I've seen the film forty or fifty times. You can feel the hush or hear the hush. You could hear something, the silence and the attention paid by the audience to her most tragic moments. That's a credit to her performance and, in some ways, it's a lovely contrast to everybody else. That's what's interesting about making a film like this: that all of a sudden, while they are a group, they're all physically different, and then you see that nice psychological, emotional difference between them as well. They all have their own neuroses - as we all do.

People ask me what's the difference between madness and normality and I say I don't know, a couple of pills perhaps. You can't be glib about this kind of thing and I'm not an expert. I've simply made some films.

The scene where Toni Collette sings `Stand By Me' is a very moving moment.

It's wonderful, very touching. It was planned that she would do something, sing a song probably. We were working out what we were going to do. We didn't want to be too hokey. We certainly wanted to make it realistic. What happened when Louis actually worked with these patients years ago - he was doing Trial By Jury - they would break into a vegie song or something. That triggered something for me - to change the whole notion: of course, something goes wrong! And it is a funny balance of a magical moment. I know people are quite amused by everyone getting into the sparklers and stuff. So it's a hokey moment and it's a very touching moment. It's quite genuine and I think that's what is appealing about it.

A character who does not receive much comment is Aden Young's director. Did he come from yours and Louis Nowra's experience?

I think he comes from Louis Nowra's experience. I couldn't knock back too many director jokes because I would have been labelled a bad sport, so we have a few jokes at the director's expense. Also the actors' expense - but not too many at writers' expense, actually, when I think about it. The only thing I did was to give Aden's character the second name Ward. I knew Vincent Ward very well and Louis had worked with him on Map of the Human Heart, so Aden became Nick Ward. I told him but I don't know if he was particularly impressed by that.

Was the performance of Gogol's Diary of a Madman in the play or was that something devised for the film?

Something for the film, because in the original play, as I said before, which was set in the 70s, there was more a social awareness. I can't remember - there might've been another play, I honestly can't remember. It may be a little heavy handed in its parallel between that and the characters' madness. I think it was good because it showed that this has been done before but in a caricature sort of way of what mad people are like. I think Paul Chubb's character does it very nicely where he just leans over and says, "You know, there's nothing about madness ...". So it was a nice sort of forum to us to say those things as well.

The Colin Friels character was interesting in that way. You assume at the beginning that he is simply going to be the wardsman. But then he becomes supportive of the whole enterprise. So, in a way, Cosi is really affirming those kinds of men and the Aden Young type of director literally gets knocked out.

Yes, that's a nice transition and Colin deserves the credit because he didn't have a lot of screen time to portray that. Speaking of that last moment between him and Ben, it's a really touching moment when he tells him, "You did all right, fella..." - it's the good old Australian thing, don't elaborate too much, don't get too emotional, but you're all right, fella. And that ........ and also ............ this or preconceptions change and that's a great thing.

I hate it when people say, "Oh, we know what's going to happen." In a lot of what we've done in this film, we've thrown a few things in there, but it's about putting on a performance. No one is really telling me that it's predictable - these things happen, but it's all the little touches that have made it believable and that's a good thing.

As well as The Great Bookie Robbery you made a telemovie, Watch the Shadows Dance?

I've got an AFI award nomination for it somewhere, but it was part of a bunch of telemovies that was made at that time. Nicole Kidman was in it and she was great. You know, there was a stage where I wanted to work and I wanted to get more experience. I came to Sydney from Melbourne and this telemovie was a sort of hybrid of fantasy and kids movie. It was a bit cheap, not so much in its production but in its notions, and I wasn't experienced enough to deal with it. But, you know, people have liked it. It's a strange little film. I haven't seen it for ten years and I'm not that keen to see it.



Interview: 21st March 1996

CALIFORNIA GIRLS

US, 1985, 100 minutes, Colour.
Robby Benson, Martin Mull, Ernie Hudson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tawny Kitaen, Charles Rocket.
Directed by William Webb.

California Girls is a popular television movie of the mid-'80s. It is a star vehicle for Robbie Benson as a bored auto mechanic from New Jersey. He heads for California to meet the girls but has a different relationship with the `woman of his dreams'. There is a strong supporting cast led by Martin Mull and Ernie Hudson. Also a guest appearance by Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The film is conventional material, given life by a pacy presentation and audience response to Robbie Benson.

1.Entertaining telemovie, telemovie style, for the home audience? Expected characters and situations? Ironies?

2.The contrast between the New Jersey setting and its gloom and the cliches about California, sunshine, beaches? The California ending? The background of the Beach Boys and other popular images of California?

3.The film as an American fantasy, reality and unreality? The credits, the commercials, the media?

4.Robbie Benson as Nathan, bored, auto mechanic, stuck in his job, stuck in New Jersey? His dreams? The contrast of reality, to marry Barbara? His job, relationship with his boss, promotions? Friends? His relationship with his mother? Father, sister and her family? The taunts about his life?

5.What brought about his decision? Seeing the boss, his friend, going on the road, off to dreams and reality?

6.Going to California, the flight, chat with the friend, the help, apartment, the party and Zsa Zsa Gabor, the photo? His expectations?

7.The party and Karen Malone? The crash and his Dream Girl? The clash, the mechanic, fixing the car, the affair? The ditching of Karen? The two weeks of a wet dream? In business - and Martin Mull and his influence on Nathan? Hard work? Her ignoring him, his absconding, meeting Karen?

8.The real world: airport, people being nasty, meeting Karen, true love?

9.The television style, delineation of characters? California gloss and sunshine? Reality and unreality? Truth?

CADDYSHACK 2

US, 1988, 98 minutes, Colour.
Jackie Mason, Robert Stack, Dina Merrill, Dyan Cannon, Jonathan Silverman, Randy Quaid, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd.
Directed by Alan Arkush.

Caddyshack 2 is a sequel to the original - or rather a remake. This time Jackie Mason plays the outsider who enters into high society and changes everyone. Rodney Dangerfield did this in the original.

The film has a very strong cast led by Robert Stack, Dyan Cannon. Chevy Chase has a guest role - but appears quite frequently in the film. Dan Aykroyd, on the other hand, gives an oddball guest role.

The film is a satire about golf - but also a satire about class distinctions in the United States, elitism, the effect of the outsider - and, of course, the winning out of true love.

1.Enjoyable comedy? Sequel? Repeat of the original - the nature of the changes? Jackie Mason and his comedy style compared with Rodney Dangerfield? The themes from the original?

2.The American cities, the wealthy and the elite, their clubs, golf? More ordinary people? The special effects for the gopher? The songs?

3.American snobbery, prejudice, the good and bad amongst the wealthy, the consequences? Affluence and garish wealth? The audience invited to take sides?

4.Jack and Katie, building, bulldozer, Jackie as kind, work, origins, loud style, the club? The dance and Elizabeth? Date, ousted? Buying the club? Partners, rivalry? The game and winning? The happy ending?

5.Katie and her friends, Harry, party, leaving, coming back?

6.Harry, the caddy, running for the drinks, the coach, partners? The son and the heat?

7.Chandler and Cynthia? Bushwood? Protest, lawyers, the golf, the party, the auction and work? Buying? Comeuppance? The marine D.A? The end?

8.The son and his snobbery, the law, Katie? Muffy and snobbery? Friends?

9.The club, its style, elitism, the auction, work?

10.Loud comic style, golf - contact sport?

11.Elizabeth, at the party, her unconventional style, liking Jack? In love?

12.The picture of the workers, their reactions?

13.A glimpse of American society, comic style? Values, honesty, public pressure? Revenge?

14.Chevy Chase and his comic style, sustaining the film, embodying the values? Dan Aykroyd and his manic guest appearance?

15.And the last image to the gopher?

CABIN IN THE SKY

US, 1943, 99 minutes, Black and white.
Eddie `Rochester' Anderson, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, John W. Bublett.
Directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Cabin in the Sky was the first film directed by Vincente Minnelli. It was produced by Arthur Freed (Singing in the Rain, On the Town...) and was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films featuring an entirely black cast. Stormy Weather (with Lena Horne) had appeared a year earlier.

The film was based on a Broadway production, one of those pictures of black Americans in the South, the religious fervour, moral dilemmas, belief in God and the Devil - and a fantasy about dying and judgment.

The film has strong leads with Ethel Waters as Petunia, Eddie `Rochester' Anderson as Little Joe and Lena Horne as Georgia Brown. Louis Armstrong is momentarily glimpsed as one of the ideas devils and Duke Ellington appears with his band.

1.A movie of 1943, America and the '40s, the war - and the allusion to devils and ideas in Europe? Traditions of black cinema - and becoming mainstream? A stage play for the screen? The stars and their reputations? Music?

2.The beginning of the career of Vincente Minnelli, Arthur Freed and the quality of his musicals at MGM?

3.Black and white photography, the sets, the town, the homes, workplace, the bars? The American South?

4.The musical score, the range of songs, their being absorbed in the plot, performance, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington?

5.The title, religion, the dream of judgment? Title song?

6.Religion for black Americans, the opening with the church, the women going, Petunia and Lily, persuading Little Joe to repent and go to church? Their worry, the congregation, the Reverend and the Deacon going to persuade Joe to come? The song in the church, the repentance, Joe leaving and being tempted to go back to gambling?

7.Joe and his gambling, the pressures by his friends, his being shot, sick, dying?

8.The fantasy and Joe dying, the devoutness of Petunia's prayers? Petunia and Joe as characters - with some of the cinema stereotypes of black characters and black life?

9.The arrival of Junior and the devils? The contrast with the General and his angels? Their argument, the comic writing about Heaven and Hell? Tempting Joe? His dilemma, his promises, his being a test case, getting six months to reform - but not remembering his dream?

10.Joe and his reforming, recovering, Petunia and her shrewdness with the dice and his friends? The singing of the title song? Joe at work, buying the fridge, songs at work? The General and his helping him? Junior and the plot of the devils to give him money, send Georgia Brown to him and send him to Hell? At home, with Georgia Brown, Petunia arriving and misunderstanding? The money?

11.Lena Horne as Georgia Brown, at the bar, her style, the devils tempting her, finding the letter, going to Joe's house - and Petunia finding them?

12.The devils and their arguments, ideas - the best devils in Europe for the war? Presence of Louis Armstrong? The personalities of the devils, the memories of Egypt and the plagues? The plan, Junior ringing his father - and the jokes about Lucifer? With Georgia? The angels helping?

13.Jackson coming out of jail, the meeting with Georgia? Petunia's arrival - the contrast with her niceness and happiness, the clothes, the dance, spurning Joe? The jealousy?

14.The tornado, the shootings? Petunia and Joe dying - arguments of Junior (and his being demoted) and the General? Georgia and the list, going to Heaven? Joe and the balance - with Georgia converting? The stairway to Paradise?

15.Waking up, the ordinariness - and Joe's reform? Petunia back to her happy and prayerful self? The dream and its perspective on behaviour in the dream?

16.The musical score - title song, `Happiness is Little Joe', `The Little Sheep' - and, especially, with the ending `Taking a Chance on Love'?

A CHRISTMAS WIFE

US, 1988, 90 minutes, Colour.
Jason Robards, Julie Harris, Don Francks.
Directed by David Hugh Jones.

A Christmas Wife is a Christmas story for an adult audience, a telemovie for the cable channels. It has sympathetic and strong performances from Jason Robards as a widower looking for company at Christmas, the first after his wife's death. Julie Harris is the timid woman who accompanies Robards to the house built in the woods for Christmas.

The film is a brief portrait of two lonely people, their interactions, talking with one another, learning affection and having to make decisions for the future. Direction is by David Jones (84 Charing Cross Road, Fire in the Dark).

1.The impact of the brief telemovie? For an adult audience? Christmas setting?

2.The American city, the cabin at the lake? Musical score?

3.The film as a two-hander, the strength and presence of the stars?

4.The focus of the title? John and Iris and their relationship?

5.John, his age, experience, retired? His continual memories of Florence - real and ideal? Discussions with his son Jim, the possibility of the visit, his deciding to stay by himself? His noticing the advertisement? The discussions with the manager, a compatible companion, $500? His concern, the phone message from the manager, the meeting at the hotel, the meeting with Iris, her observing him, their first discussions? His loneliness, motives, hopes?

6.Iris and her timidity, the mystery about her, the appearance, wanting to see John, make her decision, the initial conversation, her not wanting him to ask any questions, his agreement?

7.The trip to the country, their discussions? The house, the growing bond? The drink, unpacking, the Christmas tree and decorations, the meal? The exchange of gifts and her not having a gift? The music box with Fur Elise and her crying? The night and their separate rooms? Breakfast, John's skill as a cook? The talk, breaking his routine, the walk by the lake before dinner? The phone call from Jim - and his father not telling him that he was with someone? The Christmas dinner and its joy? The plans, the growing intimacy? Their keeping separate?

8.Calling each other by their name? Iris avoiding the questions? Her finally telling the truth? John's reaction? The unavailability of companions? Iris and her relationship with her husband? The first time that she had done the work, the need for the money?

9.The bonds that had grown up between them? Tenderness, affection, truth? The admission of loneliness? The ending and their going on their separate ways, each having enriched the other?

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

US, 1938, 69 minutes, Black and white.
Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn, Leo. G. Carroll, Lynne Carver.
Directed by Edwin L. Marin.

A Christmas Carol is one of Charles Dickens' most popular stories, filmed many times. A classic version was made in Britain in the early '50s with Alistair Sim as Scrooge. There was a telemovie version in the '70s with George C. Scott. The Muppets also got into the act with the very entertaining A Muppets Christmas Carol, with Michael Caine as Scrooge and with the Muppets as the various characters including Kermit as Bob Cratchett.

This version comes from MGM in the late '30s, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge. Gene Lockhart is Bob Cratchett. The film re creates the atmosphere of Dickensian London, focuses on Scrooge and his meanness, focuses also on his nephew Fred and his family, Bob Cratchett and his family, with Terry Kilburn as Tiny Tim.

The film is brief in its running time, however highlights the key elements of Dickens' story with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future (Anne Rutherford as the Ghost of Christmas Past) and with Leo G. Carroll as the Ghost of Jacob Marley.

1.The popularity of Dickens' story? The character of Scrooge? The spirit of generosity at Christmas? A '30s version, MGM production, black and white photography?

2.The re-creation of 19th century London, the streets, offices, homes, shops? The musical score?

3.The popularity of the characters, Scrooge, the ghosts, Tiny Tim? The message of Christmas cheer and generosity?

4.London and its poverty, winter and the cold, Scrooge's office, the streets and the snow, the shops?

5.Reginald Owen as Scrooge, his appearance, age, manner, muttering "Humbug"? His ignoring of his nephew Fred? His treatment of Bob Cratchett, the wine, the salary? The refusal to give donations to charity? Begrudging with the coal?

6.Fred, relationship with his uncle, his fiancee, family?

7.Bob Cratchett, his work, cheerfulness, Fred, the wine? His loyalty to Scrooge? His wife and the children? At work, at home, buying everything for the Christmas dinner? His care for Tiny Tim?

8.Scrooge and his being alone, the doorknob with Jacob Marley's face, the warning? Marley's ghost, memories of the past, his meanness? The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future? Scrooge and his journey back to his childhood, his relationship with his sister, growing up? His being by himself? Learning about business, isolating himself from people? His sister and her family, Fred? His looking at the present, people criticising him? Their enjoyment, his beginning to enjoy looking at others and the spirit of Christmas? The future, his concern about the Cratchetts, about Fred? His own death? The cemetery and his encounter with death?

9.Waking, his joy, wanting to buy things for the Cratchetts, visit to the family, visit to the Cratchetts, their amazement, the joy?

10.The traditional ending, Scrooge becoming generous? The families enjoying the spirit of Christmas, the donations to charity? "And God bless us all," from Tiny Tim?