+ _ .•-- -., 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 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 , 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, '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 (, 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 (, 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 (,

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. '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 (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, '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. Most Austral­ usual procedure by writing the book-of­ " '(igor Auzins, 1982), and Gillian Armstrong ian adaptations have tended to shave the-film of the first Mad Max. The other locked horns with Peter Carey's Oscar a bit here, a bit there, and this may well George Miller directed The Man from and Lucinda (1998). Several of David account for those earlier adaptations' Snowy River (1982), 'based on' A.B. Williamson's plays were filmed, includ­ seeming like a string of events rather than Patterson's famous poem with which ing (Michael Jenkins, 1989) a constructed narrative. it actually had only the most tangential and (Richard Franklin, 1996), (indeed, almost opportunistic) connec­ though they lacked the cinematic flair In more recent times, with the excep- tion, and made the biggest killing of any of the housebound but fluid Don's Party tion of Oscar and Lucinda, which proved Australian film up till that time, despite (Bruce Beresford, 1976) a decade or so too eccentric for popular taste, Austral­ being one of the silliest films of recent earlier. Similarly, Richard Franklin made ian filmmakers have tended away from decades. And most famously, surpass­ a cinematically intelligent talk-fest of those texts that come laden with the ing even Snowy River in international Hannie Rayson's (1995), baggage of critical respectability or that commercial success, was Crocodile articulate on matters relating to national have turned to earlier periods. In the Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986), which identity; and there was an underrated remaining space I want to look briefly at had an original screenplay of consider­ relocation to the Australian outback of three films from the last half-dozen or able good-humoured, generic know-how Chekhov's masterpiece Uncle Vanya so years which have made some more - and which also ran to two sequels, of in Michael Blakemore's Country Life out-of-the-way choices. They haven't admittedly diminishing returns. And in the (1994). This latter may have suggested much in common except that they are all 1990s, three of the major hits were Muri­ a return of the 1970s period piece, but contemporary, all urban, and all three use el's Wedding (1994, from a screenplay by Blakemore, addressing the situation of a first-person narrator, the latter offer- its director P.J. Hogan), The Adventures the returning expatriate, invested it with ing a serious challenge to the filmmaker of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994, an intelligence and relevance that went who decides to try to find some kind from a screenplay by its director Stephan beyond mere period reconstruction or of analogy with it. At best this will be Elliott) and Shine (1996, directed by Scott respectful literary adaptation. an intermittent voice-over, a precarious Hicks from Jan Sardi's screenplay) while analogy for the ongoing narration of the the other big success, In Australia, as in the US and the UK, the novel in which the first-person narrator's (1992) was directed by literary adaptation remains a filmmaking discourse surrounds everything that is from a NIDA stage production devised staple, though attitudes to the adapted not being obviously attributed to another and developed by its cast, and is thus works vary from country to country and speaker. Usually, if the filmmaker wants only marginally an 'adaptation'. To come within countries. What really matters of to retain as far as possible the novel's 'I' right up to date, the most critically ac­ course is what the filmmaker does with character, he or she will do so through claimed films of the past couple of years the antecedent text. One would have such cinematic means as point-of-view have been made from original screen­ supposed that, by now, the idiocy of shots or by establishing the omnipres­ plays: think of Somersault (Cate Short­ 'fidelity criticism' ('it wasn't like that in the ence of this character in the film's land, 2004), Little Fish (, book', 'they changed the ending', 'she mise-en-scene. Elsewhere I wrote, and 2005) and (, was blonde in the novel', etc.) had been still stand by, 'While cinema may be more 2005). Whereas once it might have been fully exposed for the shibboleth it is. But agile and flexible in changing the physi­ thought a sign of cultural maturity to no - one still reads about how Patricia cal point of view from which an event or derive Australian films from well-regarded Rozema's Mansfield Park (1999) violates an object is seen, it is much less ame­ novels, by the middle of the first decade Jane Austen's 'mastery of techniques for nable to the presentation of a consistent of the new century it was looking as if the representation of the inner life',s and, psychological viewpoint derived from one maturity might be defined by the screen's on the other hand, earnest repudiations of character. '6 originals. fidelity as a criterion of an adapted film's merits, when that particular battle has Goin2 All OUl: /-lead On Nevertheless, the lure of adaptation never surely been fought and won. Filmgoers really fades away. Even in the 1980s may secretly yearn for faithful reproduc­ THE earliest of the three is Ana Kok­ and 90s when the most commercially tions of favourite novels, but it is surpris­ kinos's Head On (1998) from Chris successful (and sometimes critically ing to find anyone with a serious regard Tsiolkas's novel, Loaded, which drama­ respected) films were based on original for the cinema's capacities allowing this tizes without compromise the explosive screenplays, there was always a trickle to critical judgment of a film de­ conflicts of its gay Greek protagonist, of films derived from literary or theatrical rived from literature. More often than not, Ari. He is up against family constric­ sources. There were sturdy if not exactly I should say filmmakers have been guilty tions, cultural expectations, and raging adventurous versions of two very literary of a too-reverential approach to literary testosterone which is leading him into novels: Christina Stead's For Love Alone texts, especially when the latter have some potentially wild situations, these (Stephen Wallace, 1986) and Kangaroo about them the aura of 'classic'. It takes a latter made the more dangerous because (1987), in which Tim Burstall grappled daring screenwriter to hack rigorously at half the time he's so stoned he's barely vigorously with D.H. Lawrence's antipo­ a celebrated novel, as Hossein Amini did aware of what he's doing and what he dean drama of passions and politics. with Henry James's dense, long, complex wants. This short (150-page) novel is There was as well an agonizingly slow­ The Wings of the Dove (1997) to focus rage-impelled, allegedly drawn from its paced adaptation of Mrs Aeneas Gunn's single-mindedly on its central action, at author's own experience, and it doesn't

56 • Metro MagaZine 149 ,------

- _._------. - • __ • - _A _

-- ... ------._ • .1, ...... :,. I

make cosy reading for nice middle-class reviewers. But it is undeniably powerful stuff, and it rejects all kinds of 'givens' about how lives should be conducted: no, Ari isn't studying; no, he hasn't got a job; and yes, he hates being asked about these things. He's aware that he's attrac­ tive and he plans to make this work for him. He may change - one would hope so - but at present he's not in line for the bourgeois aspirations of a Greek migrant father or an Australian- born Greek mother. it needs to be sa~d t!lat t!l~S is Kokkinos has made a a Funny, indeed sometimes witty, rigorous film from this confronting material. It mad~y ~nsi2hUu! ta~e or child!lood is not a coming-of-age envy, ima2inative mendacity and film in the manner of the 1970s adaptation of determination [Halil71! Alisol7 AS/Jley, youth-centred novels. above middle] No wise older person leads Ari towards commentary, there are enough shots of maturity and in A1ex Dimitriades' perform­ roughly twenty-four hours. The scenes Ari looking thoughtful and resentful, and ance he remains angry, self-absorbed, of frantic sex are unsparing but also enough shots of the object of such looks, simmering with ill-directed rage against unprurient; there are moments of family to remind us of whose story this is. everyone and evelY,thing. It is a triumph of rapprochement, but these inevitably actor and director that such a protagonist founder on matters of generation and Exceptionally Ordinary: /-Iolin!! doesn't alienate our sympathies, and, as gender, of cultures old and new. Kok­ A/ison AS/7/ey he walks glumly away in the dawn after a kinos foregrounds the central clashes: rough night with Sean (George in the nov­ between Ari and his parents still locked ROBIN Klein's Hating Alison Ashley, el) who knocks him around and turfs him into an old idea of Greece, underlined by published in 1984, is reputed to have out, there is just the faintest sense of his the soundtrack's use of touristy Greek sold over 200,000 copies, surely not all being led to reflect on his life. This image music, and by the black-and-white news­ of them to girls between the ages of ten is curiously at odds with the voice-over reel footage, at each end of the film, of and thirteen. I never expected to be part which insists: 'My father's insults make migrants arriving in Australia, these mo­ of its vast readership. But viewing the me strong. I accept them all. I can smell ments frozen in time, as Ari's parents' at­ good-natured film derived from it when the shit but I'm still breathing. I'm gunna titudes may be. The film implies that Ari's it was nominated in the Best Adapted live my life. I'm not gunna change a thing.' father's idea of Greece belongs to the Screenplay category at last years AFI The defiance of the words has a strange past, to the time he left there, and that awards, I wondered what the source pathos when heard in conjunction with coming the patriarchal heavy as he does material might have been like. For the the image of the solitary figure in long no longer cuts any ice, certainly not in benefit of those not numbered among the shot. The film then ends with Ari doing a Australia and probably not in Greece. The 200,000, it needs to be said that this is Greek dance on the wharf. Whatever he production design creates with exact­ a funny, indeed sometimes witty, madly says, the Greekness is not just inherited ness and without patronage the pride the insightful tale of childhood envy, imagina­ but inherent. emigrants have taken in establishing their tive mendacity and determination. Yes, it Australian homes - and with equal exact­ does end with rapprochement between This is a complex film, hewing close to ness scenes of varying degrees narrator Erica Yurken (Erk or Yuk for the contours of Tsiolkas's narrative, most of boisterousness and squalor. With the short) and the hateful because so appar­ of its episodes retained and in the same mise-en-scene working so effectively, the ently perfect eponym, but along the way order, the whole thing taking place over film doesn't miss the novel's first-person it is refreshingly free from sentimentality

Metro Magazine 149 • 57 1(I~l,r"IJIU~S -.. -.------.-..-....-._-._------

and appropriate sentiments. Kids surely This raises an interesting point about the a burst of Beethoven's 'Song of Joy' on enjoyed the lack of moral uplift as Erica adapting process: without having access the soundtrack and, in its study of how goes about bending others to her will, to the continuous narrating voice of Erica Eddie has undramatically sought to do and only very uneasy adults would be that is such a strength of the novel, the his best equally for family and the house­ worried about this. The perfect Alison, no film counts on verbally more articulated less poor, this has been earnt. The film, one will be surprised to learn, has a chink awareness of the reasons for hating Alison which uses Eddie's voice-over sparingly in her exquisite armour - a mother too Ashley than could be expected of, say, a and aptly and elides slabs of his experi­ preoccupied with herself to take much 10- or 11-year-old. Cynically, one might ence in rapid montages, avoids being a notice of her. Erica, on the other hand, also suppose that the Goodrem name was simplistic fable about the poorest being comes from a slovenly household where intended to sell the film. One can never those readiest to help. Eddie, reduced to false eyelashes and black lacy bras are afford to underestimate such extra-textual three dollars, is, and Connolly, Perlman apt to compete with junk food for space elements in the packaging of a film and and Wenham make us believe this. on the dining-table. She is mortified they can always influence the course of an when Alison drops into the scene of very adaptation. Hating Alison Ashley is much Writing about Three Dollars just before the messy family life, with Mum sitting on the more fun than those earlier coming-of­ 2005 AFI awards ceremony, I noted, 'In knee of truckie boyfriend Lenny. Finally, age films. Philippa Hawker is right to say: a contemporary cinema too often domi­ though, Alison gratefully accepts the offer 'Director Geoff Bennett and screenwriter nated by mindless, soulless blockbusters of a sleepover. Christine Madafferi stick fairly closely to and digitalized would-be epics, a film like the trajectory of the novel, to its events Three Dollars, so rigorously focused on The filmmakers have recognized that this and its tone.'7 The film moves ineVitably ways of being valuably human, within the is a species of morality tale, articulated towards an understanding between the small scope of anyone's life, is doubly through sharply made contrasts - sharply two girls: and despite Goodrem's star­ valuable.'B And went on to express out­ enough made, that is, for kids to appreci­ power it is wholly apt that Burmeister was rage that David Wenham's finely calibrated ate them and for adults not to be bored the one to be AFI-nominated. According study in altruism hadn't even been nomi­ by them. The narrating voice of Erica to the AFC's list of top box-office earners nated. As distinct from the egregious feel­ (Saskia Burmeister) is one of the novel's among Australian films, Hating Alison Ash­ good movies, this is a film that makes you rd chief joys, and adults no doubt respond ley ranks 83 : with a bit more promotion feel goodness has something going for it. to the self-delusion at war with genu- one might have expected it to do better. It is as well about issues that matter in our ine perception which characterizes her society - not just what Rose Capp calls diction. Film voice-over is no substitute Tl7ree Dollars: AModern Fable 'the pernicious power of big business' for the ongoing voice of a first-person and the way in which the film interrogates narrator, but it can - and in this case does ONE of the more under-appreciated films the ideal of rural Australia, finding in it 'a

- offer an immediate connection to the of the last few years was Robert Connol­ paradise unequivocally lost9 - but also protagonist's inner life. Screenwriter Chris Iy's Three Dollars (2005), which the AFI about gender roles and how far family can Anastassiades introduces Erica's Olym­ awards more or less overlooked. Adapted provide a bastion against a chilly world. pian view of the contrast between her from Elliot Perlman's novel (Perlman and Connolly has, in bringing Perlman's mina­ world and Alison's luxurious background Connolly collaborated on the screenplay), tory but still oddly bracing novel to the with ironic words about places where 'one and featuring a remarkable perform- screen - on occasions echoing uncannily could blossom and realize her potential', ance from David Wenham, who contrives the words, actions and tone of the novel followed by 'Barringa East was not one to make the innate goodness of the - preserved its sense of the inter-connect­ of those places'. The voice-over is used protagonist interesting and persuasively edness of the personal and the social. sparingly but aptly, as in Erica's reflection thoughtful, Three Dollars was nominated that 'You can be lonely if you're excep­ for five awards (Wenham was, extraor­ A film which scarcely surfaced com­ tional': with a child's vanity she is sure she dinarily, not one of the nominees) but mercially, The I/Iustrated Family Doctor is exceptional; ironically, she will prove to won only for Best Adapted Screenplay. (2005), though less accomplished than be so, but not in the way she imagines. This is a tough, uncompromising stUdy Three Dollars, also had, like Connolly's Director Geoff Bennett, whose main work of the anomie-potential in contemporary film, a kind of thoughtfulness built into has been in television, makes astute use big-city life, of the difficulties in the way its structure. These are films on which of the mise-en-scene to create both the of maintaining integrity and a job with serious work seemed to have been done sterile perfection of Alison's world and her a corporation none too fussy about its at screenplay stage to ensure unusual grooming, abetted by Delta Goodrem's dealings with the environment, of balanc­ density of texture. In Metro No. 144, I immaculate appearance and deportment, ing the claims of wife and child against reviewed The I/Iustrated Family Doctor on the one hand, and the slovenly, wran­ broader ethical challenges; and in the (directed by Kriv Stenders who co-wrote gling, affectionate mess of Erica's home end, dealing with educated near-penury. the screenplay with David Snell, the author life. And don't bother, if you want to get I haven't space to deal in detail with this of the novel on which it is based) at some the best out of this film, to suggest that film, but want to note it as characteristic length. I mention it again here only to draw that sounds like a simplistic resolution. of the sort of adapted fictions that have attention to the different kinds of novels attracted filmmakers in recent years. And, that have attracted Australian filmmakers The ages of the children have been raised yet, neither novel nor film is depressing, in recent years. It's as though cultural duty from Grade 6 kids to teenagers, presuma­ let alone tragic, though sOllle of its im­ has been done by the literary heritage and bly to accommodate the 20-year-old stars. plications may be so. The film ends with filmmakers are more ready to engage with

58· Metro Magazine 149 ------~

--- .~------.-- --I riskier contemporary texts - riskier in the ting focus on the habit and the heedless into Film, Heinemann, , sense that such books don't come laden opportunism it gives rise to but because, 1983. with academic respect (or even bestseller as a first-person narrative, it offers no Graeme Turner, 'The Period Film', in status) and therefore don't elicit a debili­ escape from the confines of the mind of Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan, The tating reverence from filmmakers. its profoundly unattractive protagonist, Australian Screen, Penguin, Mel­ and there's not much hope to be had bourne, 1989, p.100. The latest such text, the film due for from its bleak ending. But - and it is quite Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, release within weeks of my writing, is a big but - Candy is also a love story, and The Screening ofAustralia, Vol.2, Luke Davies' Candy (1997), filmed by Armfield has wisely cast two of the best , , 1988, p.31. Neil Armfield, and already shown at the young Australian actors (Heath Ledger John Wiltshire, Recreating Jane Berlin Film Festival where it was nomi­ and Abbie Cornish) in the leads. Austen, Cambridge University Press, nated for the Golden Bear award. The Cambridge, 2001, p.135. novel can be confidently recommended We shall see. What we have not seen for Novel to Film: An Introduction to the to anyone who wants instruction on how some time, and the reasons are no doubt Theory ofAdaptation, Clarendon to maintain a heroin habit on unreliable a complex amalgam of the cultural and Press, OUP, Oxford, 1996, p.16. funds, how do deal with a crabs infesta­ the commercial, are tasteful studies of Philippa Hawker, 'Hating Alison Ash­ tion and how to do some very bad things coming of age in picturesque period en­ ley', The Age, 10 March 2005. with other people's credit cards. As one virons. The novels most recently chosen 'The AFI Awards - And How to Win who wouldn't know crack from smack, by Australian filmmakers incline to the Them?', Metro, No. 146/147. I must say how vividly Davies evokes all urban, the contemporary, the down-and­ Rose Capp, 'For a few dollars more', the repellent and tragic aspects of drug dirty; novels, that is, which tell it like (or, if Metro, No. 144, p.12. addiction, as well as the kinds of exhila­ grammar is your thing, 'as') it is. • 10 Susan Wyndham, 'The book was bet­ rating highs and dreadful lows with which ter', The Age, 9 April 2005, A2, p.5. it alternately irradiates and desolates its Endnotes devotees. Davies worked with Armfield The Oxford Companion to Australian on the screenplay, doubting that his Literature, Second Edition. Oxford 'claustrophobic interior monologue could University Press, Melbourne, 1994, work visually'. 10 The book is a demanding p.469. read, not just because of its unremit- Words and Images: Australian Novels

Brought 10 you bv ~

enhancetv.com.au is a free resource that keeps librarians and teachers informed about the very best educational programs screening on TV.

Go to www.enhancetv.com.au/subscribeto sign up for your free weekly email TV gUide today.

FREE •••

" WEEKLY EMAIL TV GUIDE

" STUDY GUIDES Did you know that you can copy from TV? For more information: www.screenrights.org " FEATURE ARTICLES

" ONLlNE EDUCATIONAL TV GUIDE

Melro Mugazine14D • 59