An Interview with Bruce Beresford
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[ The NFSA’s Atlab/Kodak Cinema Collection ] FROM OCKERS TO THE OSCARS: AN INTERVIEW WITH Bruce Beresford 1 Bruce Beresford was one of the most prolific and proficient of the first generation of filmmakers in the Australian revival of the 1970s. More than most he worked adventurously across a wide genre range, and perhaps it was this facility that made him such an attractive proposition to Hollywood and elsewhere. HEN Bruce Beresford was in girl who played the violin to play a couple Melbourne in August to promote of folk songs, and then I added some gun- Whis memoir, Josh Hartnett defi- shots. There was a guy at the studio who nitely wants to do this … true stories from said, ‘That’s easy,’ and I could see how he a life in the screen trade (HarperCollins, did it – laying the film in one synchroniz- 2007), he spoke to Brian McFarlane about er and putting parallel ‘bang-bangs’ in the his Australian films. other. I thought this was a pushover and we just mixed the sound. The film was shown To get the trivial over first, did you once, at the Sydney Film Festival, then it went off 10 as one database confidently states, use to a few European ones. the pseudonym ‘Martin Agrippa’? As I understand it, you spent the early 7 No, Barry Humphries and I made a film for part of your career in the UK. What took one of his stage shows about a moviemak- you there? er whose name was Martin Agrippa. It was a send-up; he was an underground film- When I graduated from the University of maker and we called him Martin Agrippa. Sydney in 1962, there was actually no film work here of any kind, and also I found no How did you come to get your first film, one was interested. I used to talk about The Hunter, made? films to people and there wasn’t much re- sponse. It’s completely different now. So I It was made when I was still a student. I’d got on a boat, even before I knew whether just got a 16mm camera, a wind-up Bolex, I’d got my degree or not, and I went off to and I was in the country. It was the first England thinking I’d find some sort of work 16mm film I’d made, though I’d done quite there. That was the only reason I went. a lot of 8mm films before that. I shot it out at my uncle’s farm at Coora in New South Did you then get involved with BFI [Brit- Wales, and then, when I came back to Syd- ish Film Institute] Production Board? 1-7: MONEY MOVERS. 8-9 THE GETTING OF WISDOM. ney, I thought it would be nice to put sound 10-12: THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY MCKENZIE. 13: on it. I didn’t really know how to do this, so When I first got to England, I started apply- DIRECTOR BRUCE BERESFORD AT THE W HOTEL IN WOOLLOOMOOLOO, 08.03.04 (PHOTO MARCO DEL I went to one of the studios where I got a ing for some jobs … There was a job GRANDE). 14 DEBBIE (NELL SCHOFIELD) AND SUE (JAD CAPELJA), PUBERTY BLUES. 15: FRONT L-R: DANNY (TONY HUGHES), SUE, DEBBIE, GARRY (GEOFF RHOE). BACK L-R: STRATCH (NED LANDER) & GLENN (MICHAEL SHEARMAN), PUBERTY BLUES. 16: DEBBIE, PUBERTY BLUES. 17: DEBBIE & SUE IN THE SCHOOL TOILETS, PUBERTY BLUES. 18: THE GREENHILLS GANG SURFIE CHICKS. L-R: KIM (JULIE MEDANA), DEBBIE, SUE, CHERYL (LEANDER BRETT), VICKI (JOANNE OLSEN) AND TRACEY (SANDY PAUL), PUBERTY BLUES. 110 • Metro Magazine 154 3 2 5 4 8 11 The only reason I made‘ all those very different films is that I find each film so absorbing of my time and thought that, when it’s finished, I like to think of something completely different, 6 because it’s more stimulating to me. BRUCE BERESFORD’ [PICTURED RIGHT] 9 13 12 14 15 18 16 17 Metro Magazine 153 • 111 [ The NFSA’s Atlab/Kodak Cinema Collection ] advertised in the papers for a film editor at the When did you start with the BFI Produc- I can’t imagine! [laughs] Maybe people had Central Office of Information on the South tion Board? never seen Australian comedies on the Bank. I applied for that, and I showed them screen. Everyone was surprised, because The Hunter and a couple of little films I’d About 1965, I think. It had some sort of when we first showed the Barry McKenzie done in Australia, and they said, ‘These are link-up with the Arts Council which got in film to distributors they didn’t want to show good, you can have the job.’ I thought this touch with me and asked me to come and it at all. No one showed the remotest inter- was great, but they added, ‘The thing is give them some advice on art film … So est, so Phillip Adams [producer] arranged you’ve got to go to the union and get their I sat on a board at the Arts Council and to hire the cinemas and we just showed it approval. They’re running a closed shop found they wanted to make a number of ourselves. Maybe they thought it was too and they’ve got to approve you.’ these films about Barbara Hepworth, Hen- ‘rude’, but also there’d never been any tra- ry Moore, the Pre-Raphaelites and the arts dition of Australian films being shown and So I went to the ACTT’s [Association of of village India and so on, but they had very drawing an audience. Cinema and Television Technicians] place in little money. Well, one thing I did know by Soho Square: it was very hard even to get this time was how to make films with very I don’t know how watchable those ocker in there, as it had a great big steel door. I fi- little money, as a result of budgeting all the comedies are now … nally got in and met a funny little man who films for the BFI Production Board, and get- told me: ‘You can’t have the job because a ting the maximum I could out of the mon- Oh, they’re terrible, but I thought the sec- lot of our members are unemployed.’ ey available, giving grants to as many peo- ond Barry McKenzie film was quite fun- ple as possible. So I fell into doing those art ny. It’s got some longueurs in it but it did I said, ‘Then why didn’t your members ap- films, and working with people who were have some very funny scenes – it ends with ply for the job?’ experts in those fields. Dame Edna kissing Gough Whitlam! ‘That’s beside the point. We’re going to let How did you become involved in the They [the ocker comedies] really got the them know now that the job’s available, ‘Barry McKenzie’ films [The Adventures revival going, didn’t they? and, when all our members are employed, of Barry McKenzie, 1972; Barry McKenzie then people like you can apply for jobs.’ Holds His Own, 1974]? They did, but they didn’t do me any good. It was a huge mistake for me. I suppose I went back to the Central Office of Infor- Barry [Humphries] and I were friendly in it did get my foot in the door, but the crit- mation and was told, ‘Well, that’s it, I’m London and ‘Barry McKenzie’ was a com- ical reaction was so hostile I could hard- afraid. You can’t have the job.’ ic strip in Private Eye. Well, I was reading ly believe it. Barry and I would read some it one day and thought, This would make of the reviews and say, ‘What on earth are I was supply teaching in London for a a very funny film, and I suggested to Bar- they on about?’ It’s just a comedy, and a while, which was just awful. Then I saw a ry that we should do a film script of it, be- very good-natured one. They were going on job advertised for a film editor in Nigeria. I cause I’d heard they were going to set up as if, in some way, we were betraying the applied and found out I was the only appli- a film fund in Australia and I thought that country. There was a whole period where cant, and I went off and ended up in Enugu was the kind of thing we should make first I was totally persona non grata. The Film in eastern Nigeria in this government film off because it would probably be popular. It Commission would have cocktail parties for unit, which was a shambles. Inadvertently, seemed to me a good idea if they put gov- visiting directors and I’d never be invited! it was quite good for me. They never made ernment funding into a film that people ac- any films there at all: it was run by a very tually went to watch. This would create You are one of the major names of the strange Swiss man who seemed deter- confidence. And it was very funny. 1970s Australian revival. What would you mined to do absolutely nothing, so I joined say to the idea that you were the great an African theatre group, and I directed and Anyway, I did an adaptation of it while Barry craftsman of the period across a wide acted in plays for them.