Sparring Partners

12 PROFILE HOLLIE ADAMS SPARRING PARTNERS Bruce Beresford don’t get made to the ones that do is enormous.’’ Decades after their freshly and Sue Because of this dispiriting reality, she says Milliken at “there was a point where I thought, ‘What am I published letters, Bruce Beresford’s doing in this business? I would try prostitution, home, above, but I am too old.’ ” She quickly adds, “I’m not re- Beresford and Sue Milliken and on the set ally serious …’’ in younger “Oh, what?’’ cuts in Beresford, feigning sur- still bicker, but it usually days, left prise that his colleague has never resorted to sex work. Cue more laughter. Dressed in a brown, ends in laughter, writes tweedy suit and scarlet socks, the director — who admits (but only reluctantly) to being 75 — Rosemary Neill is a natural comedian and storyteller. He recently saw himself being interviewed on tele- vision and “I thought, ‘Who is that old guy who bears a faint resemblance to me?’ ’’ m I boring you?’’ Sue Milliken Milliken, 76, is a former chairwoman of the interrupts herself, mid-sen- Australian Film Commission and her producing tence, to admonish her friend credits range from the Vietnam film The Odd and long-time collaborator Angry Shot to the 2014 documentary The Red- Bruce Beresford. ‘’Yes,’’ Beres- fern Story. Like Beresford, she is as sharp as a ‘Aford replies impassively as he casually flips tack (and gives as good as she gets). She has a through a pile of CDs on his living room coffee whippet-thin, agile frame — despite her ad- table. vanced age, she still skis. “You’re trying to attract attention to your- but theirs is a professional partnership that has filmmaker’s “survival manual’’ and Beresford This irrepressible pair could serve as an ad- self,’’ Milliken says in a pointed yet calm tone, as endured across several decades and three agrees that “in a way it is, because it tells you vertisement for that seemingly ageless gener- if she is a therapist dealing with a patient who award-winning feature films (The Fringe Dwell- what you’re in for. You are in for a lot of heart- ation who rose to prominence on the back of a suffers from attention deficit disorder. ers, Black Robe and Paradise Road), and has ache.’’ The characteristically forthright director wave of cultural nationalism in the 1970s and “No!’’ exclaims the Oscar-nominated direc- yielded a new, provocative book. says that when he hawked the scripts for Tender 80s … and just keep going. Beresford directed an tor, pretending to be shocked at the idea he Titled There’s a Fax from Bruce, the book Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy around Holly- episode of a widely admired Roots remake that would pull focus during a media interview. At comprises Milliken’s and Beresford’s private wood, “everybody hated them’’. He went on to has just premiered in the US and will air on SBS this the duo cracks up and the tension between correspondence — sent via fax — between 1989 direct these movies, “and they both won the later this year. Meanwhile, he and Milliken are them dissipates as quickly as it erupted. It will and 1996, the year they went into pre-pro- Academy Award for best screenplay. It just raising finance for a feature film adapted from surface again, though, when Milliken com- duction on the World War II feature Paradise shows you how hard it is to get people to read a Women in Black, a novel by the Australian plains, with some justification: “I’m just trying Road. These curated faxes serve as a barometer script and say, ‘Well, actually it’s quite good.’ ” novelist and Booker Prize finalist Madeleine St to get a word in here, Bruce, if you’ve got a sec- of the times, as well as an unusually candid ac- Hollywood has always been the home of John. “Madeleine was a wonderful writer,’’ says ond.’’ (Margaret and David’s on-screen bicker- count of the trials and tribulations of getting hype, but There’s a Fax posits a far different re- Beresford wistfully, “and she was so keen for the ing had nothing on these two.) films greenlighted, cast and promoted. Beres- ality: that people spend as much time on films film to be done. It broke my heart when she died Clearly this double act — Milliken is a pio- ford jokes: “They were confidential faxes. Sue is that don’t get made as on films that do. Beres- [in 2006] and we hadn’t done it.’’ (Ladies in neering film producer and Beresford one of the sort of Julian Assange of the film world.’’ ford has garnered Academy Award nomina- Black, a stage musical adapted from the same Australia’s most successful movie directors — As Milliken points out, filmmaking is a busi- tions for Tender Mercies (best director) and book with songs by Tim Finn, was staged in has a relationship built on sparring as much as ness that blends dreams and other people’s Breaker Morant (best screenplay), while his 1989 Brisbane and Melbourne recently.) mutual respect. For this interview, they are sit- money — sometimes large pots of the stuff. So it film Driving Miss Daisy won four Academy Much of their narrative-by-fax dwells on ting, like a divorcing couple undergoing me- often takes years to get a film up; along the way, awards including best film. He has also won a Milliken’s and Beresford’s quest to bring Black diation, at opposite ends of a huge, statement there can be as many setbacks as break- swag of AFI gongs. Despite these impressive Robe and Paradise Road to the big screen. The sofa (it’s made of pale yellow leather and crafted throughs, coupled with disputes over every- achievements, he tells Review he has worked book homes in on the moment Paradise Road, in an antique style) in Beresford’s Sydney man- thing from casting to press kits. Actor and for two years on projects that didn’t see the light about a group of white women imprisoned by sion. It might not seem immediately obvious, filmmaker Rachel Ward calls There’s a Fax a of day. Milliken concurs: “The ratio of films that the Japanese during World War II, almost fell June 18-19, 2016 theaustralian.com.au/review AUSE01Z01AR - V1 PROFILE 13 apart. In January 1996, Beresford fired From top left, “That’s one of the things you just sort of say, off a fax, threatening to quit the film if Beresford with tough luck and keep going. There’s no point in Fox Searchlight insisted on casting Cate Blanchett; getting upset over something like that. I found Jodie Foster or Annette Bening. “Fox’s Milliken with out a long time ago that it’s better just to roll suggestions are just simply ludicrous. I’d Wendy Hughes with the punches,’’ he says. While the director rather not make it with miscast people,’’ on the set of has stood his ground on artistic matters, losing he fumed. At that point, the movie was Paradise Road; some battles and winning others, this comment weeks away from pre-production; years of the shooting of says much about his pragmatism and resilience. work had been poured into it. Black Robe; Beresford, whose last Australian feature was How did Milliken react? Tellingly, she faxes between Mao’s Last Dancer (2009), first worked with didn’t panic. “You think, ‘If he’s going to do the pair detail Milliken on the local, indigenous-themed The that, I have to pick him up somehow.’ As a the trials and Fringe Dwellers in the mid-80s. So what makes producer, you’ve got to try and find a way tribulations their partnership tick? An effective producer- through the impasse, you’re between the di- involved in director team, says Beresford, “must have simi- rector and the studio, trying to get the show filmmaking lar taste in films and a similar kind of aesthetic’’. back on the rails.’’ (In the end, Beresford pre- The best two producers he has dealt with, he vailed — the film starred Glenn Close, Cate reckons, were Hollywood’s Richard D. Zanuck, Blanchett, Frances McDormand and Julianna with whom he worked on Driving Miss Daisy — Margulies). Milliken reminds Beresford he also and Milliken. “If I’m working with Sue I know threatened to quit over the editing of Paradise things will happen. Whatever she says she’ll do, Road, “Did I?’’ he asks, sounding mystified. she will do.’’ The next Milliken-Beresford project, Black Milliken returns the compliment: “One of Robe, an Australian-Canadian co-production the things I like about working with Bruce,’’ she that dealt with 17th-century Jesuit missionaries says, “is that you can present him with a prob- who tried (and largely failed) to convert Can- rose’’, and he refers to strained relations (since had resisted her casting, “pointlessly’’. (Ultimat- lem and some alternatives, and he’ll help you adian First Nations tribes to Christianity, was repaired) with former film producer and broad- ely, Meryl Streep got the part, and Clint East- make the decision. Some directors will throw also marked by fierce disagreements, this time caster Phillip Adams. wood directed and starred in the film.) down their handbag and say, ‘I have to have over the US distributor wanting to cut a con- Today, he says breezily of the tensions that Other big names (John Hurt, John Malkov- $50,000 extra’.’’ Milliken reflects on how “good troversial scene. Beresford desperately wanted flare over the promotion of films: “Oh that hap- ich, Steven Spielberg, Susan Sarandon, Glenn directors challenge you.

Load more