Adaptation and the Australian Cinema
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+ _ .•-- -., j I ·m~. ~ . -" ," () • '~.' ~oo • ADAPTATION AND THE AUSTRALIAN CINEMA BRIAN McFARLANE HEN MICHAEL POWELL, one of the most flamboyantly 'cin Wematic' of British film directors, came to Australia in the 1960s, when local cinema was still in the doldrums, he made two films both based on novels: They're a Weird Mob (1966) and Age of Consent (1969). Powell famously didn't belong to the literary strand of British filmmaking (nor to the equally prestig ious realist strand), but when confronted with a new country the films he chose to make came with novelistic antecedents. crudities John O'Grady/Nino Culotto's Weird Mob of two-up had been an immense popular success and spotlight in its tale of an Italian migrant's adjust ing for roos in ment to Australian ways, and the film outback New South enjoyed at least a local box-office killing; Wales. All four of the films mentioned so Norman Lindsay's Age of Consent was far had significant overseas participation, also a popular comic novel if 'limited not just directors but stars as well, and by Lindsay's preference for adolescent in some cases other creative personnel. sexuality'.' What strikes one now is that so far from tackling their new country head-on, these In the Be2innin2 was the Similarly, when two other overseas direc filmmakers approached it through existing Word ... tors came to work in Australia in 1970, fictions. This doesn't mean that they there they each turned for inspiration initially to fore failed to come to terms with the coun THOUGH the Roeg and Kotcheff films existing literary texts: British Nicolas Roeg try they visited, but just that adaptation were quite distinguished enough to took the children's book Walkabout, by of literary works has always been a ready have launched the'Australian filmmak James Vance Marshall, as the basis for a option for filmmakers and perhaps even ing revival, in fact they didn't. What really profoundly adult examination of landscape more probably so when feeling their way got it going were two 1974 releases: Ken and intercultural meanings; and Cana in a strange land. This kind of mediation of Hannam's Sunday Too Far Away, a story dian Ted Kotcheff rigorously adapted Ken contact with the complexities of Australia, of sheep-shearers in South Australia and, Cook's Wake in Fright to explore concepts in both natural and cultural aspects, was especially, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hang of masculinity in the male-dominated not however limited to visiting filmmakers. ing Rock, a swooningly elegant horror Metro Magazine 149 • 53 I~I~J\"'(J IU~S tions in these early years of the Australian revival may well have been no higher than in US or British cinema but there was no denying the impact that these films had, nor how they helped to shape the idea of an Australian Films such as Honpinp Rock [above] national cinema, whatever that complex and unstable concept were rather consciously aimed at may be supposed to connote more discernin2 film2oers, and at any given time. There was perhaps a sense that some of as more or less art-house movies the respectability of the literary film based on Joan Lindsay's minor they did surprisingly well genre would rub off on the classic novel. In the years imme- film versions: this would not diately following, when Australian have been a new notion or one cinema began to be noticed both at peculiar to Australia. However, home and abroad, much of its prestige but generally at least respectable, quality, there are a couple of points worth noting derived from films adapted from highly between 1976 and 1982; they made more about these adaptations. It is perhaps regarded novels, including such classics impact on the growing 'idea' of an Aus not too fanciful to see these films as as Henry Handel Richardson's The Get tralian cinema than perhaps their numbers constituting a kind of riposte to the broad ting of Wisdom and Miles Franklin's My warranted. In 1983, they seemed to me to 'ocker' comedies (does anyone say Brilliant Career; the celebrated children's constitute a sufficiently dominant strand 'ocker' any more, by the way?) of the first books, Storm Boy and Blue Fin; Thomas in new Australian cinema to warrant a half of the 1970s - films such as Stork Keneally's savage The Chant ofJimmie book about them.2 And, as well as films (Tim Burstall, 1971), Alvin Purple (Tim Blacksmith; Ronald McKie's evocation of derived from novels, there were others Burstall, 1973) and the Barry McKenzie a Queensland adolescence, The Mango which took as their sources plays such as films (Bruce Beresford, 1972-4), which Tree; and, rather unusually at the time, Don's Party or non-fiction works such as won audiences as surely as they excited two respected modern novels, Helen Breaker Morant and in at least one case, critical despair. In reaction to these, films Garner's Monkey Grip and Christopher The Man from Snowy River, a poem. such as Hanging Rock, The Getting of Koch's The Year of Living Dangerously. Wisdom (Bruce Beresford, 1978) and These were all made into films of varying, The actual incidence of literary adapta- My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 54 • Metro Magazine 149 1979) were rather consciously aimed at more discerning filmgoers, and as more or less art-house movies they did surprisingly well. But the danger inher ent in this strand of filmmaking was that it might produce a rather too careful, too decorous cinema. Fred Schepisi's film of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) this effect was an exception in the way it took full on a couple advantage of the screen's capacity for of occasions rendering physical violence with unusual accentuated savagery. by the use of final cod captions A surprising number of them are taken that gave an impression of from literary sources that foreground the validating the preceding events by imply idea of coming of age. Merely to be mak ing (or insisting on) their documentary ing films from respected novels and plays status. may have seemed like a way of say- ing that Australian films had grown up, Another recurring aspect of the adapta had grown out of the ocker phase, and tions was their being set in periods past. perhaps it is less than coincidental that This is of course inevitable when the some of the key adaptations of this pe novel in question belongs to an earlier riod are actually concerned with growing time, as The Getting of Wisdom (pub up. Almost all of the pdapted films named lished 1910) or My Brilliant Careeer (pub above highlight the effects of formative lished 1901) did, or were located in times experiences on young minds, whether anterior to their publication, as were this is a matter of something strange Hanging Rock (published in 1967, set happening to a party of schoolgirls on an in 1900), Jimmie Blacksmith (published or even a diminution of contemporary inscrutable rocky outcrop, or of a young 1972, set circa 1900-01) or The Mango relevance. For whatever reason, though, girl coming to terms with her sexual ori Tree (published 1974, set in World War the period film, whether adaptation or not entation, or of another girl sending off her One). In 1989, Graeme Turner wrote: 'It is (see also The Devit's Playground [Fred first novel to a publisher, or of a young certainly legitimate to see the seventies Schepisi, 1976] and Newsfront (Phillip aboriginal man's shout of rage against revival as dominated by a particular sub Noyce, 1978]), loomed very large in the his oppressors, or, in perhaps the best genre: films set in the past, foregrounding first decade of the local revival. of all these films, Carl Schultz's Careful their Australianness through the recrea He Might Hear You (1983), a small boy's tion of history and representations of the rile Ori2inal <-1n(1 tile Best? assertion of his identity as he grapples landscape ... '3 And Susan Dermody and with conflicting influences. This film, de Elizabeth Jacka, writing of what they not DESPITE the apparent dominance of rived from Sumner Locke-Elliott's novel, too charitably labelled 'The AFC Genre' adaptations, however, there was still a re-imagined its antecedent text in terms to suggest a kind of official sanctioning, tenacious string of popular films that de of all-stops-out melodrama and, in doing claimed in 1988 that 'The most obvious rived from original screenplays, including so, made something arrestingly new and aesthetic grouping among the films [a list some of the most commercially suc adventurous from its source. Too many of 1973-87 titles is given] since 1970 is cessful of all Australian films. Mad Max of the other adapted works adopted a the picturesque period film formed in the (1979) was based on an original story by loosely episodic approach to the events wake of the success in 1975 of Picnic its director George Miller and producer that made up their narratives, and the at Hanging Rock.'4 This is not the place Byron Kennedy and was so popular (here result was sometimes a straggling affair to argue the point that merely because and abroad) that it quickly spawned two drifting towards a IOW-key non-closure, a film is set in the past this entails a lack sequels (1981, 1985), both co-scripted by Metro M;:lgazine 1119 • 55 I~I~J"I'IJ IU~S Terry Hayes who had in fact reversed the well-loved classic, We of the Never Never the expense of sub-plots.