October 25, 2011 (XXIII:9) Peter Weir, THE LAST WAVE (1977, 106 min.) Directed by Peter Weir Written by Peter Weir, Tony Morphett & Petru Popescu Produced by Hal McElroy and James McElroy Original Music by Charles Wain Cinematography by Russell Boyd Film editing by Max Lemon Costume Design by Annie Bleakley Richard Chamberlain...David Burton Olivia Hamnett...Annie Burton David Gulpilil...Chris Lee (as Gulpilil) Frederick Parslow...Rev. Burton Vivean Gray...Dr. Whitburn Nandjiwarra Amagula...Charlie Walter Amagula...Gerry Lee Roy Bara...Larry Cedrick Lalara...Lindsey Hanging Rock, 1974 Between Wars, 1974 Matchless, and 1972 Morris Lalara...Jacko “The Marty Feldman Show”. Peter Carroll...Michael Zeadler RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN (March 31, 1934, Beverly Hills, Los PETER WEIR (August 21, 1944, Sydney, New South Wales, Angeles, California) has 80 acting credits, some of which are Australia) has 30 directing credits, among them 2010 The Way 2011 We Are the Hartmans, 2011 The Perfect Family, 2007 Back, 2003 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, “Desperate Housewives”, 2006 “Nip/Tuck”, 2006 “Hustle”, 2005 1998 The Truman Show, 1993 Fearless, 1990 Green Card, 1989 “Will & Grace”, 2004 The Pavilion, 2002 “The Drew Carey Dead Poets Society, 1986 The Mosquito Coast, 1985 Witness, Show”, 2000 “Touched by an Angel”, 1989 The Return of the 1982 The Year of Living Dangerously, 1981 Gallipoli, 1977 The Musketeers, 1988 “The Bourne Identity”, 1987 “Casanova”, Last Wave, 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1972 The Billiard 1986 Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, 1985 King Room, and 1969 Stirring the Pool. Solomon's Mines, 1985 “Wallenberg: A Hero's Story”, 1983 “The Thorn Birds”, 1982 Murder by Phone, 1980 “Shogun”, RUSSELL BOYD (April 21, 1944, Victoria, Australia) won a Best 1978-1979 “Centennial” (12 episodes), 1977 The Last Wave, Cinematography Oscar for Master and Commander: The Far 1975 “The Count of Monte-Cristo”, 1974 The Towering Inferno, Side of the World (2003). HE has 68 other cinematographer 1974 The Little Mermaid, 1973 The Three Musketeers, 1973 credits, among them 2010 The Way Back, 2007 What They Don't Lady Caroline Lamb, 1970 The Music Lovers, 1970 Julius Know, 2007 Ghost Rider, 2002 The Birthday, 2001 American Caesar, 1969 The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1968 Petulia, 1961- Outlaws, 1998 Doctor Dolittle, 1997 Liar Liar, 1996 Tin Cup, 1966 “Dr. Kildare” (191 episodes), 1960 The Secret of the Purple 1992 Forever Young, 1992 White Men Can't Jump, 1991 Sweet Reef, 1960 “Thriller”, and 1960 “Gunsmoke.” Talker, 1990 Prisoners of the Sun, 1989 In Country, 1988 The Rescue, 1988 Crocodile Dundee II, 1987 High Tide, 1986 OLIVIA HAMNETT (died November 2001, brain tumor) has 44 'Crocodile' Dundee, 1984 Mrs. Soffel, 1984 A Soldier's Story, acting credits, among them 2000 “The Games”, 1999 Joe 1983 Phar Lap, 1983 Tender Mercies, 1982 The Year of Living Wilkinson, 1994 Ebbtide, 1990 “G.P.”, 1990 “The Paper Man”, Dangerously, 1981 “A Town Like Alice”, 1981 Gallipoli, 1977 1981-1982 “Prisoner” (39 episodes), 1979 “The John Sullivan The Last Wave, 1977 “Benny Hill Down Under”, 1975 Picnic at Story”, 1977-1978 “Bobby Dazzler” (14 episodes), 1977 The Last Wave, 1977 Plunge Into Darkness, 1974-1976 “Homicide”, Weir—THE LAST WAVE—2 1974 “Matlock Police”, 1974 “Out of Love”, 1971 “Bachelor Weir started in television in 1967, taking a menial job at Father”, 1967 “Bellbird”, 1966 The Spy with a Cold Nose, and ATN, one of Sydney’s three commercial stations. That Christmas 1963 “Drama 61-67”. he made a short film for the social club’s annual party. Count Vim’s Last Exercise, a knockabout comedy showing the DAVID GULPILIL (July 1, 1953, Maningrida, Arnhem Land, influence of Richard Lester, was a hit at the party, and Weir Northern Territory, Australia) has appeared in 28 films and TV followed it next year with another Christmas short, The Life and programs: 2008 Australia, 2007 Crocodile Dreaming, 2006 Ten Flight of the Reverence Buckshotte, a spoof on cult religions with Canoes, 2005 The Proposition, 2002 Mimi, 2002 The Tracker, himself in the title role. 2002 Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2001 Serenades, 2000 “Der On the strength of these two romps, Weir was hired as a Paradiesvogel”, 2000 BeastMaster, 1996 Dead Heart, 1995 director by the Commonwealth Film Institute (later Film “Snowy River: The McGregor Saga”, 1991 Until the End of the Australia). At first there was nothing for him to direct, so he World, 1989 “Naked Under Capricorn”, 1987 Dark Age, 1986 worked as assistant cameraman and production assistant. His first 'Crocodile' Dundee, 1983 The Right Stuff, 1980 “Young directorial assignment was “Michael,” one of three episodes in a Ramsay”, 1980 “The Timeless Land”, 1979 “Skyways”, 1977 feature about young people called Three to Go (1970). The hero The Last Wave, 1977 “The Outsiders”, 1976 Storm Boy, 1976 (played by Matthew Burton) is an office worker from the Mad Dog Morgan, 1976 “Rush”, 1974 “Homicide”, 1972-1973 bourgeois North shore area of Sydney who, in the course of this “Boney”, and 1971 Walkabout. thirty-minute movie, drifts into the hippie movement and out again, disillusioned. VIVEAN GRAY (July 20, 1924, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, Three to Go, shown on television throughout Australia, England) has 18 acting credits, most of them for TV: 1986-1988 attracted a good deal of attention and won the Grand Prix of the “Neighbours” (249 episodes), 1985 “Anzacs”, 1984 “Prisoner” Australian Film Institute. “Michael,” which opens with a dream (6 episodes), 1977 The Last Wave, 1976 “The Sullivans”, 1976 sequence about a guerilla attack on downtown Sydney, was “Solo One”, 1976 “Power Without Glory”, 1972-1976 “Matlock generally recognized to be the most original and impressive of Police”, 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1970-1975 “Division 4” the three episodes, though in retrospect it seems a rather (7 episodes), 1969-1974 “Homicide” (7 episodes), 1973 Libido, “simplistic examination of youthful rebellion and an equally and 1971 A City's Child. simplistic repudiation of its values,” as well as “gratuitously flashy” in technique. NANDJIWARRA AMAGULA appeared in no films other than 1977 After a ten-minute short, Stirring the Pool (1970), came The Last Wave. Weir’s first feature, Homesdale (1971, 50 minutes). Scripted by weir with Keith Gow and Piers Davies, it was the first of his films to show clearly his penchant for dark comedy. Homesdale Hunting Lodge is a vacation resort on a remote island that offers “a new experiment in togetherness.” In a bizarre amateur revue (no doubt inspired by Weir’s shipboard experiences) and an increasingly dangerous treasure hunt, an assortment of guests are encouraged to work out their private fantasies while developing the “team spirit” imposed by their authoritarian host (James Dellit). By the end, the most timid of the guests (Geoff Malone) has tried his hand at murder and been taken onto the Homesdale staff. As Brian McFarlane says, the film’s “view of life is dark, apprehensive, often ironic and shot through with the grim wit” that characterizes Weir’s later films; “like them, too, it is concerned with observing people in potentially dangerous situations that grow partly out of their own personalities and partly out of unpredictably and indefinably threatening milieux.” It seemed to McFarlane that the narrative momentum slowed in the middle section of the movie, but it brought Weir the PETER WEIR From World Film Directors, Vol. II. Edited by Australian Film Institute’s Grand Prix for the second year John Wakeman. The H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1988 running and, though at first it achieved only limited distribution, Australian director and scenarist, was born in Sydney, the son of it has been much revived. a real estate agent. He studied arts and law at the University of After six months leave abroad, Weir made two Sydney, where he appeared in and wrote for undergraduate documentary shorts for Film Australia, Incredible Floridas and revues, but dropped out at nineteen to enter his father’s business. Three Directions in Australian Pop Music, both released in 1972. Bored by this, he took a trip to England in 1965, working as a Whatever Happened to Green Valley? (1973, 50 minutes) is a clerk in a London theatrical booking agency/ he paid his way highly original experiment in do-it-yourself-cinéma-vérité, in back on a liner by helping to organize passenger entertainment, which five residents of Green Valley are each given a camera and arrived home determined to work in some branch of show and told to film their own impressions of the town. Weir business. coordinated the project and also chaired the debate at the end of the picture. Weir—THE LAST WAVE—3 Meanwhile, Weir (a nondriver) was working with Keith groom join the search and one of the girls is eventually found, Gow and Piers Davies on an idea that reflects his dislike of the strangely transformed and matured; the other two are never seen automobile, and which was filmed in 1974 as The Cars That Ate again. The atmosphere of the college, already oppressive, grows Paris. Weir’s Paris is a sleepy little township in New South stranger as pupils are taken away and the repressive headmistress Wales, off the main highway. Arthur Waldo (Terry Camilleri) (Rachel Roberts) tautens toward madness. finds himself in Paris after a car accident that has killed his Weir resists straightforward Freudian interpretations of brother. Although he is kindly treated by the upright mayor (John the film, but as Brian McFarlane writes, “the Rock, with its sense Meillon), he gradually realizes that something very strange is of ageless knowledge, and adolescent sexual yearning are there happening in the town. from the start, and the film makes the audience keep them in In fact, the whole community—from mayor to village mind together,” while Peter Cowie thought that the girls on the idiot—is involved in a contemporary form of an ancient industry.