[ The NFSA’s Atlab/Kodak Cinema Collection ]

From ockers to the Oscars: An interview with 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 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 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, 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: . 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), . 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.

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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]

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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 , 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 [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. All I ever learned was away on some tour, and when he came genre range? about directing actors was what I picked back we went through it together and pol- up working with those guys. It was very ished it a bit. He gave me some stuff from That’s usually taken as a sign of essential good for me. a musical he’d written based on the com- triviality! The only reason I made all those ic strip; it was never quite finished but I put very different films is that I find each film I was going to ask you if you just like quite a bit of the material from it into the so absorbing of my time and thought that, working with actors, because you are a film script, including some of the songs. when it’s finished, I like to think of some- director who always gets good acting thing completely different, because it’s performances from casts. How much and A lot of it was filmed in England. It had to more stimulating to me. Perhaps if you set- what sort of direction do you give them? be, really, because it was a sort of ‘innocent tle to one genre, you’re likely to get more abroad’ story, but we did about a quarter of acclaim. Yes, I really do like to work with actors. I it back here. don’t know that I give them a lot of direc- Did you have any sense of pattern? Were tion. I try to guide them into the emphasis Why do you think that strain of ‘ock- you deliberately moving from broad com- that I think the role should have, and I talk er’ comedies (Alvin Purple [, edy to period drama to heist thriller, or to them quite a bit about their roles. I al- 1973], Stork [Tim Burstall, 1971], etc.) did you just take whatever came up? ways like to exploit what they can do rather were so popular then? than put them in a straitjacket. No, to any of that. I just took whatever in-

112 • Metro Magazine 154 terested me or excited me. Things like The in Australia but not really outside the coun- and right. [Williamson] cleverly wove Getting of Wisdom [1978] I’d wanted to do try. I even wonder how well known they the characterizations into the politics – all since I read [Henry Handel Richardson’s] were here. As for My Brilliant Career, I think are failures in some way and most were book when I was about fifteen, and I always it’s a pretty boring book. compensating with political/social idealism. wanted to make a film of it. I think he based all the people on friends I heard that you were once trying to set of his. What attracted you to it particularly? up a production of [Henry Handel Rich- ardson’s trilogy] The Fortunes of Richard The whole swimming sequence is an in- I think, you know, it was the story of the girl Mahony and I wondered what has be- vention for the film: what did you see as being an outsider, and I’d always felt that come of the project. its function? What other changes did you this was my position, which was probably feel necessary to accommodate the so- not true. I never was particularly an outsid- I wrote a miniseries adaptation of it. I’ve cial change in the period since the play er; I always had friends and was well ac- read all of the Richardson novels, and very first appeared? cepted. I think it was just a role I liked to much liked Maurice Guest, which they cast myself in. Also, I thought it was a very made into a film called Rhapsody [Charles I think the swimming sequence was re- good novel, much more concise than any Vidor, 1953], a real shocker. About Maho- ferred to in the play, although I’m not sure of her other novels, to put it mildly. And it ny, I wrote first of all a thesis script and about this now. Anyway, it fitted in with the had a very well observed, very cleverly de- expanded it into a miniseries, and they disintegration of behaviour as the evening lineated range of characters. It was based both exist. I haven’t given up on this and wore on. The film gave David the chance to on her own experiences at school, but I’d there are people in Melbourne I’m talking add little bits and pieces that were impossi- also based the film script on her mem- to about it. Zelda Rosenbaum and Oscar ble, at that time, to realize on stage. oir, Myself When Young, which covered the Whitbread commissioned the script about same period. two years ago now. Financing has been a What do you remember of the way problem. At one point the ABC was inter- the film was received by the critics and Was it reading Myself When Young that ested, then it wasn’t. the public? inclined you to change Laura from a bud- ding novelist in the novel to a promising It’s a harrowing story but it would make I had the impression that Phillip and Dav- pianist in the film? a great miniseries. I greatly simplified the id didn’t think much of it at first, but when number of characters. When you break it was shown publicly it had a good re- Yes. But it was also a matter of its being down those three volumes of the book, sponse. Critics were in general quite enthu- much more filmable. It meant we had there’s not all that much plot. It’s fairly siastic. scenes of Laura sitting at the piano and out- straightforward, but it’s got a huge cast of raging people by playing Thalberg, whereas characters, though people keep coming in Am I straining too hard to find continuity it would have been much more difficult to who are recreations of earlier characters, so in your early work if I suggest that in their make it interesting to show her writing. in the miniseries I combined some of these, different ways quite a few of them deal because there was often no advantage in with people straining against authori- It was one of a number of classic introducing new people. ty figures and structures of various kinds Australian novels adapted to the screen – Barry McKenzie and the Brits; the La- then … When and where did you first see the bor voters in Don’s Party [1976], Laura in play Don’s Party? Wisdom, the soldiers in Breaker Morant I know. Someone recently wrote an article [1980], the girls in Puberty Blues [1981]? in a literary magazine saying this wasn’t so I didn’t see the play at all. I was in London, and I wrote a rebuttal naming them all. where I’d gone to live after the critical bat- You’re right, I think, though I’ve never real- tering of the Barry McKenzie films made ly thought about it. I guess I’m attracted to Why do you think there were so many of me persona non grata in Australia. The play certain kinds of story and that’s probably these adaptations of novels, often peri- was sent to me by Phillip Adams. I thought true for everyone, according to their per- od pieces about young people coming it was quite outstanding, very funny, very sonality traits, to something that’s already of age? acute and with a great bunch of characters. within them. It may have something to do Part of the enthusiasm of my response was with what I said before about ‘casting’ my- Maybe they were from books people had that it was about types of people I knew, self as an outsider. read when they were younger and that had mainly from my days at university. It’s the made a big impact on them, and they just only film I’ve directed where I didn’t have to One of your films which gets less written felt ‘I’ve got to film this’. do extensive research. about was Money Movers [1978]. It was a bit of an oddity among the films that got Do you think there may have been an el- If you were asked what is this play/film the revival moving. ement of hoping the prestige of the nov- about, how would you answer? For ex- els and their titles would rub off a bit on ample, is it a study in disappointed Well, that came about inadvertently be- the films? aspirations? Is its satire chiefly directed cause I had written this script I wanted at suburban middle-class leftism? the SAFC [South Australian Film Commis- I don’t know. You see, I don’t think those sion] to do, called ‘The Ferryman’, based novels were all that well known – perhaps The targets seemed to me to be both left on a very famous attempted murder case

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in Sydney, round 1906. There was a book What happened was that the SAFC bought to the story. You know that big summing-up called Death Cellar Darlinghurst, which I’d their script and bought the play, and they speech of Jack’s [Thompson], I wrote that. loosely adapted. The script was about the gave them all to me and said, ‘You can use It’s not in the play, though everyone thinks it manipulation of crowds: because the guy this as research material.’ Well, I didn’t use is and though you might expect it to be, and who’d tried to murder his wife was very any of their script because it was complete- it wasn’t in the Hardy–Stevens script. When good-looking, he’d managed to turn pop- ly different from what I was doing. I used I was working on the script I thought, we’ve ular opinion against the wife and to per- a little bit out of the play, mainly in the first got to give a speech that summarizes the is- suade everyone that she had administered scene where the Scotsman’s on the stand. sues. You can hardly ever do that in a film; the poison to herself in order to discredit The play was one of those where the actors you can hardly ever have a scene where one the husband – an absurd proposition. It be- talk to the audience and you couldn’t really character says, ‘This is the way it is.’ But in came a cause célèbre. I thought it was an adapt it to the screen. a courtroom you can do it. So I thought, I’m interesting psychological study. going to give him a speech that presents the When the film was first released it only had case for the defence, so I was able to bring The SAFC then suddenly changed its mind my name on the screenplay, but David Ste- out all the issues of fighting a guerrilla war and said it wouldn’t do it, and I always vens and Jon Hardy kicked up a huge fuss, and the rest. It was a long five minutes on thought it was because the lawyer involved and it went to court in Adelaide. The judge screen. was a founder-member of the Australian pointed out they had a contract with the Labor Party, canonized by the Left but he SAFC that said they were to get screen Elements of war adventure and court- was manipulative and devious in this case. credit. I didn’t know this and said that if you room drama – a surefire combination? My feeling was always that someone had look at the screenplay I wrote and look at But an inevitably non-happy ending – did said to the SAFC that they didn’t want that the film, you’ll see that there’s nothing they that concern you? film made, though I could be complete- wrote in the movie. But the judge said, ‘I ly wrong. Then I had to find something to have no interest in that. The contract says It was a worry commercially! The film nev- do quickly, because they said, ‘You’ve still they are to get screen credit and they must. er made any money, even though it is quite got to make a film and we’re not going to The contract has to be observed.’ highly regarded. In England, though, the re- do that one.’ I didn’t have another one pre- views were horrendous, but very good in pared, but then I stumbled across this book What sorts of things about it attracted America. of Money Movers, which I thought was a you to it? In what ways does it seem a pretty badly written book, but I thought it peculiarly Australian story? Were the English cross about the repre- was an interesting kind of world. sentation of Kitchener? It had a lot of things that interested me. It was very unusual in the context of the The basis of any screenplay is conflict, and I don’t know. It opened in London about the time: a genre thriller … the conflict in this was enormous, and it same time as Gallipoli [, 1981], had a very interesting range of characters. and that was very nasty about the Brits, Yes, and very gory too. It was very savage- I had a lot of fun writing it and it took me but it made a fortune and ran forever in ly cut when they showed it in England. It a long time to write. I did a lot of research the West End, whereas Breaker Morant ran wasn’t at all popular in Australia. I’ve never about the Boer War: I went to the Imperi- three days in London. It started on a Friday seen it since it first came out. al War Museum in London and read letters and they pulled it out of the cinema on the home. It was in a letter from a guy in the fir- Monday. This was depressing but in spite How did you come across the Breaker ing squad that I found they’d held hands as of good reviews in Australia and the US it Morant story? they walked towards the chairs. never did find an audience. But, after all these years, I’ve just been to Canberra to I fiddled with that for a while. ‘Breaker’ Mo- I never found out all that much about the introduce a screening of it. rant lived for a while near Kurrajong Heights three main soldiers. I knew a reasonable where my parents lived in New South amount about ‘Breaker’, but I kind of made You seemed to be interested in the way Wales, and my mother pointed out his up the other two characters played by Bry- hierarchies worked and in more or less house to me. It’s now a kind of convales- an Brown [Handcock] and Lewis Fitz-Ger- enclosed milieus in films like the football cent hospital or hospice. I started getting a ald [Witton]. I thought, maybe the Bry- club’s committees in The Club [1980] and bit of interest then and did some research an Brown character was a very ordinary, that surfing enclave in Puberty Blues. about him. Then a whole lot of things hap- down-to-earth Australian. He’d been a farri- pened. Someone gave me a copy of this er, so I based him on uncles I’d had. Then I It’s the conflict again that’s interesting. The play by Kenneth Ross and a film script had thought the other one was just a naïve boy, conflict in The Club is fabulous, with all been written by and Dav- who was really quite at sea in all this con- those guys pulling in different directions. id Stevens for a TV movie about ‘Breaker’ flict. So I set out to contrast those three About Puberty Blues, I picked up that book Morant, but I didn’t like it at all. people. They were very much up against in a newsagent’s while I was waiting for a authority, against Kitchener and the rest. bus. It was written by a girl who was only They get a credit for it … The fact that those other soldiers were giv- fifteen, Kathy Lette [co-written with Gabri- en orders to shoot people was true, but elle Carey], and it gave me such insight I know they do! They didn’t originally but that doesn’t mean you should do it. into the way those kids were living. And the they took me to court and won. I had the conflicts get heightened in groups like a only credit as I didn’t film their script at all. There were a lot of interesting moral aspects club or a surfie culture, but, as well, most of

114 • Metro Magazine 154 those films have both got quite a bit of hu- Probably a mix of both. I thought it was gripped by it. I called my agent and said I mour in them. Even Breaker Morant has got a very good individual story, and I ad- had to make a film of this novel, and when some very funny lines, right down to the mired the way the book treated the Abo- I told him it was by Brian Moore, he said, ‘I ending when Morant [] riginal characters with the same respect think he lives here in California.’ So I looked tells the firing squad to make sure they you’d have for white characters, like the him up in the phone book, found him and shoot straight. way Conrad always dealt with native peo- drove out to his house. ples in a time when this was rare. Nene [1986] may well have had this same unpatronizing approach, and I thought it was a great story to tell, and been the first feature film with all the key I thought how interesting to make a film you feel when you watch it that everyone is roles played by Indigenous actors. showing that these people had the same so real and believable. It’s not just a mat- loves, hates, hopes and aspirations as the ter of adventure but of sheer hard slog. I No, Charles Chauvel’s Jedda [1955] was rest of us, instead of regarding them as thought Peter James made it look great. the first. I found Nene Gare’s novel on a strange or exotic. street stall in London, and it had a picture He also shot [Australian/American co- on the front that looked to me like an Aus- It’s photographed by Don McAlpine who production] Paradise Road [1997], which tralian Aborigine, so I bought it just for that, has shot a lot of films for you. What do I was greatly moved by … but it turned out to be a very well-written you value about him particularly as a col- novel and it was such a touching story. Her laborator? It didn’t do any business, in spite of that husband was director of Aboriginal fantastic cast of women. I felt it wasn’t going Affairs in Western Australia, and they’d He shot ten films for me. He’s very resource- to work when I was at a movie, in spent years living on various communities ful and he’s very fast, which is a great advan- Double Bay I think, and a trailer came on for in remote areas, and The Fringe Dwellers tage when you’re doing a low-budget film. Paradise Road, and it showed all the wom- was based on a true story. He lights scenes very fast and with great en in the camp. There were two ladies sitting artistry. He’s got the same quality that Pe- behind me and one of them said, ‘There’s a How did you cast the film? ter James has got; he’s also done ten films film I don’t want to see.’ I think they – and for me. They’re both very versatile: they ad- other people – thought it was going to be There were two actors, Bob Maza and Jus- just their lighting style to suit the subject, horribly harrowing. Anyway, the critics didn’t tine Saunders, who played the mother and so no two of the films they’ve shot look the like it. And those women! was father. They’d both had professional acting same. I could say to Don, I want such and wonderful – and so was Elizabeth Spriggs. experience, but Kristina Nehm, who played such a look, harsh, romantic, whatever, and Trilby, hadn’t. She was with an Aboriginal he could do it. Some cameramen, like the fa- I’m sorry you didn’t make a lot of money dance group, and I went up to Townsville to mous American Gordon Willis … whatever out of such a good film. see her when someone recommended her. he shoots, they all look the same. We were all amazed when it didn’t do well. It And where did you film it? Have there been other regular was so-so in Australia, terrible in the US and collaborators you’ve found especially Britain. I think they thought it was just sil- In Queensland. The town was called Mur- congenial to work with? Editor William ly, the business of forming that humming or- gon, only about a hundred miles from Bris- Anderson, Judy Lovell, Fran Burke, chestra. I spent a year researching it all over bane, and near there was an Aboriginal David Copping … the world, talking to women who’d been in community …. We shot a lot of it in Mur- those camps. I read Betty Jeffrey’s White gon but we built the Aboriginal community If they’re really good, like those people, it’s Coolies, and there were quite a few other you see in the film. It was like the real one, enormously helpful. You know what they’re books by women who’d survived the camps. but the trouble was that the real one was like, and they know how I like to work. And I thought it was a great story, but for some much further from the town, and I wanted it’s been like that in America by and large reason it just didn’t interest anybody. one where you could walk into the town, so too, like Herbert Pinter who’s designed we found a grove of gumtrees and we built about six films for me, and John Stoddart’s You’ve filmed all over the place: do you it in there. done about the same. have any preference for where you film? Is it easier in Australia? It was a rarity among films being made here The [Australian/Canadian] co-production at the time, but nobody went to see it. I Black Robe [1991]: how did you come Australians are easy to deal with. For one knew it wasn’t going to do any good when across that story? thing, nobody’s impressed by celebrities, I went to a dinner party on the Gold Coast so that they tend to be very relaxed and with these very rich people. The lady sitting Again, I read the novel, by Brian Moore. behave normally, which does the celebrities next to me asked me what film I was mak- I’d read all of his books up to that point. I a lot of good, because they’re not used to ing, and when I told her I’d just made one bought the novel in a bookshop in Los An- that. Australians aren’t rude to them; they with an all-Aboriginal cast, she said, ‘How geles and when I read it I thought, This is just take it in their stride and treat it like a disgusting!’ like opening up another world. The insight job. The English are like that too, and the he had into the Jesuits and the Indians, and English actors are so charming. I’ve hardly Did you see it primarily as an individual’s how they related to one another, seemed ever worked with one I didn’t like. • story and struggle or were you drawn to really true, stripped of any kind of roman- the notion of the social problem film? tic overlay about either group, and I was

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