Treasure 2 October 2014
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Treasure 2 October 2014 John Collins Leigh Edmonds Bruce Gillespie Robyn Whiteley Doug Barbour Damien Broderick Ned Brooks Jennifer Bryce Stephen Campbell Peggyann Chevalier Giampaolo Cossato Robert Elordieta Carole Gray Ros Gross Kim Huett Steve Jeffery Jerry Kaufman Werner Koopmann Dora Levakis John Litchen DJ Frederick Moe Gerald Murnane Cath Ortlieb Lloyd Penney Andy Robson Yvonne Rousseau Steve Sneyd Cat Sparks Joe Szabo Jean Weber Casey Wolf Sally Yeoland and many others Robyn Whiteley: ‘Cambridge punts’ Treasure No. 2 October 2014 First publication: October 2014 mailing of ANZAPA. Written and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC 3088. Phone: (03) 9435 7786. Email: [email protected]. Member fwa. 3 Editorial: Treasure — Bruce Gillespie 6 A cascade of fans: Continuum X, Melbourne, June 2014 — Bruce Gillespie 25 Letters of comment Jennifer Bryce :: Ros Gross :: Yvonne Roussseau :: Robert Elordieta :: Werner Koopmann :: Dora Levakis :: Gerald Murnane :: Ned Brooks :: John Litchen :: Sally Yeoland :: Damien Broderick :: Steve Sneyd :: Jerry Kaufman :: Joe Szabo :: Casey Wolf :: Doug Barbour :: Steve Jeffery :: Giampaolo Cossato :: Stephen Campbell :: Lloyd Penney :: Andy Robson :: DJ Frederick Moe :: Peggyann Chevalier :: Kim Huett :: & We Also Heard From 47 Feature letters: A conversation about music today (especially on ABC FM) — Leigh Edmonds and Bruce Gillespie 56 Have wheelchair, will travel: A travel diary: May–June 2013 — Robyn Whiteley Illustrations Front cover: Robyn Whiteley (‘Cambridge Punts.’). Photographs: Cat Sparks: pp. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19. Cath Ortlieb: pp. 13, 15, 22, 23. Jean Weber: p. 13. Damien Broderick: p. 31. Carole Gray: p. 33. Casey Wolf: pp. 33, 34. Giampaolo Cossato: pp. 38, 39, 40). Robyn Whiteley and John Collins: pp. 56, 57, 58, 61. 63. 65. 68. 71. 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 98, 99, 104, 106, 107, 111, 114. 2 Treasure The trouble with unearthing buried treasure of the mind kind is that first I The Train, also from the early 1960s, in which Burt Lancaster, improbably need to unearth visible treasure of the cash kind. Treasure 2 is nine months cast as a wartime railway worker, rescues the Nazi haul of French art and late because of my constant need to work (compiling indexes for book returns it to Paris; and Henry Hathaway’s rollicking North to Alaska (1960), publishers) to top up my other meagre sources of income. in which John Wayne and Cappucine hurtle around CinemaScoped Alaskan valleys and mountains. I had hoped Treasure 2 would appear in for the June mailing of ANZAPA. Instead I was hit by a deluge of interesting but time-consuming indexing jobs. Another friend, John Davies, alerts me to previously unavailable British films I finished the most recent project two weeks ago. Since then I’ve been that are being released by such labels as BFI and Studio Canal. Thanks to gathering my scattered wits and Treasure text and photo files. him, I’ve been able to see a remastered print of The Mouse That Roared, one of several films in which Peter Sellers played multiple roles; and Carol Reed’s I can’t afford to publish a print edition that is more than 80 pages long, but The Third Man, famous for Orson Welles’s ‘cuckoo clock’ speech, and last time I looked, I found at least nearly 200 pages of material that would fit distinguished by its black-and-white photography, as glorious as in any in nicely into a single issue. So here is the first of two issues. Orson Welles’s own films. Film treasure Recently I bought the new Studio Canal seven-Blu-ray set of Jacques Tati’s movies. His Mon Oncle (1958) has been one of my favourite movies since I DVDs and Blu-rays were supposed to have vanished by now. If they had, I first saw it in 1965, but it has been difficult to gain access to his other movies. would have a larger bank account, since I don’t download film and music His first two feature films, Jour de Fete and Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, were very files. popular at the Valhalla repertory cinema during the 1970s and 1980s, but they became shorter and shorter as various projectionists sampled bits of Instead, if you are an astute film fan, such as Dick Jenssen, you find obscure them. These, like all of Tati’s movies, have been reconstructed for the Blu-ray films released constantly in glorious remastered prints from obscure labels. set. They are now complete and without all the scratches and blips that He orders them from overseas suppliers, whereas I still buy from local became so obvious in the prints I saw in the 1970s. Tati’s fourth movie, Play suppliers, such as Play Music, 50 Bourke Street, Melbourne, and Readings Time (1967), has finally been remastered from the original 70 mm negative. Records and Books in Carlton. I’ve been able to see seemingly long-lost When it played in Melbourne in the 1960s, only the 35 mm print was shown. classics such as Robert Wise’s magnificent 1963 black-and-white horror film (That was also the version used for the DVD set of some years ago.) Play Time The Haunting, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson; John Frankenheimer’s was Tati’s bankruptcy-inducing folly, for which he built an entire city set near 3 Paris, so it is now wonderful to see his visionary urban nightmare clearly for during World War II find themselves bored by ordinary existence after the the first time. war. When they meet ten years later, they solve crimes not even noticed by other people. I’ll save my Favourite Films list for the end of the year. The top two are made by a man named Paolo Sorrentino. This year we finally saw the Second Series of The Doctor Blake Mysteries, made right in Ballarat and starring a swag of Australian actors, on ABC TV, but with I will mention now, while it’s in Australian cinemas, the Spierig Brothers’ no guarantee of a third series. Many of the more interesting background Predestination, based with satisfying accuracy on Robert Heinlein’s 12-page character involvements of the first series are allowed to rest this time, but time-paradox short story ‘All You Zombies’, and starring Ethan Hawke and individual episodes have been very enjoyable. In Australia, we do ten episodes Sarah Snooks. Made in Australia, this has been picked up by Sony Interna- to a series, not a measly three or four eps, as they do in Britain. tional, so could well appear without warning in a cinema near you. Don’t miss it. Snooks’ performance should give her an Oscar, if the film is released Book treasure in USA in time. Hawke is the only American in the cast, but everybody speaks with an American accent, and Melbourne has to stand in for New York and This year I was supposed to give a talk to the Nova Mob, Melbourne’s Cleveland. I haven’t worked out the implications of the uber-story that is discussion group. I wasn’t quite sure of my subject matter or the books I would draped over Heinlein’s kernel story, but with it the scriptwriters have solved be covering, and until well into the year Julian Warner, our Bossa Nova, could an inconsistency in the original story. not give me a specific month when I might speak. Not that it mattered. I didn’t have time to write a talk this year, and in the end I escaped from having TV treasure to improvise. August would have been my month, but the meeting was cancelled because many of the Mob were winging their way to sunny London That’s not an ironic heading. I watch few TV series, but I try to keep up with for LonCon, this year’s SF World Convention. (170 Australians attended.) I some of the major British shows. Sherlock (Series Three) is the most stimulat- started writing up the material I have researched. But shouldn’t it be in SF ing TV series of the year, but the distance between these scripts and anything Commentary? In the next issue, the one you’ve been waiting for all year. written by Conan Doyle has now become immense. Irritating is the current British tendency to attach a cliffhanger ending at the end of a series, but My subject is ‘Genre Barriers Work Both Ways’. (1) Why do some literary Sherlock is not unique in that. I remember an early series of Dalziel and Pascoe, authors write books that are obviously genre fantasy or SF, but few people in where Dalziel, seemingly obliterated by a shotgun blast at the end of one the SF world know about them? (2) Why do some people write books that series, is merely injured and feeling sorry for himself at the beginning of the are obviously major literary works, worthy of the Miles Franklin or Man next. Booker Awards, but their books are known only to SF and fantasy readers? The cliffhanger syndrome also spoils the end of the end of Endeavour To follow Proposition (1) I suggest reading the novels and short stories of (Second Series), which is otherwise very well written. I don’t believe for a such Americans as Steven Millhauser (We Others: New and Selected Stories), moment that Shaun Evans could be the younger Inspector Morse (John Karen Russell (St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Vampires in the Lemon Thaw), but Roger Allam as his boss, DI Thursday, gives an down-to-earth Grove, and Swamplandia!), some of the work of Jennifer Egan (Look at Me and gravity to his role.