‘The one weapon we have has Australia written on the blade’
During the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the Screen Forever conference, writer, broadcaster and film maker Phillip Adams called for a repeat of the Government largesse of the 1970s and for the “cultural and political idealism” of the Whitlam administration to save Australia’s film industry. Read his full address here.
Hector Crawford. Named for the Trojan prince. Presumably his parents also considered other classical heroes – Rome’s Horatio, the Carthaginian Hannibal or Hercules, son of Zeus.
On balance I think Hercules might have been a better fit given Hector’s herculean efforts to get local drama onto Australian television.
I first met Hector in the mid-fifties, hours before television was introduced to this country and years after the Americans and British had managed to crush what was left of an Australian film industry through their ownership of Hoyts and Greater Union.
Wow. Just wow. Thank you Mr Adams.
I am going to risk all and come out.
One of my favourite films is Road to Nhill.
There’s so much stuffing in this piece it’s hard to know how much meat is left; and what meat there is, is predictably left.
JimP your body of work clearly dwarfs that of Adams.
This was a dreary, self indulgent, SPA keynote. The past is another country – they do things differently there. The conference needs dynamic, cutting edge thinkers to generate meaningful discussion on the the future of Australian screen content creation.
… because Ronnie, no-one ever learns any lessons from the past. Dolt.
@ Ronnie
The past is a time in Australian film making that though not successful enough , for the reasons Philip Adams has stated, was nevertheless more successful than its future, which is the present.
What on earth do you mean by [quote] “dynamic, cutting edge thinkers”[unquote]
I do hope you are not foolish enough, or young and arrogant enough, to think that the older a view the lamer it must be, and that only new ideas can be good ideas.
The past was the same Australia as it is today. We old people, when young, inherited it from our grandparents and parents, who had worked for it and fought for it and expressed their hopes and aspirations. We also worked and fought for it and tried to make it a better place.
Yes we do need meaningful discussion (meaningless discussion would certainly be of no use ) on the future of Australian content creation, but it would be a gigantic waste of time if there is no film industry to which to apply that created content.
Philip Adams’ account of the history of Australian film is pretty damned accurate, I know because I lived through it, I was one of those actors who had to play Germans and Englishmen, and speak like Olivier when I did Shakespeare.
I remember the likes of Chips Rafferty who used to buy up seats in the cinema to attempt to keep Australian films running, and I remember a range of expat Australian actors who came back from England to play Australians in the newly minted television industry.
The past can be consulted, the present is all we can prove, the future can’t be assured, but if it happens at all, it can only be improve based upon the present and the past.
I hold this truth to be self-evident. Too many Australian films are duds. Too few people pay to watch our films.
Most Australian films are rubbish with poor scripts. This is the simple reason people in Australia will not pay to see them. Film finance via the Government to churn out the usual dreary woe without making an effort to make a commercial film that people will pay for. The theatre owners recently made the same comment. So before saying I am wrong ask the people who run Village Roadshow their opinion. They will confirm the above as recently written. Some exception apply but they are very few.
Jennifer
You are right, most Australian films are dross and the reasons are very plain. The scripting is generally very poor. The vital theatricality is nearly always missing (when it is present it is only in very short bursts) and the general opinion of film makers is that the industry in the USA is in some way the bench mark of film making and story telling, which is absolutely dead wrong.
Mood music will lift a bad script or a dull movie, but when a film is a stinker, not even a symphony orchestra and a celestial choir will fix it. Producing good films is no different to producing good theatre of any other kind. They must be built from the ground up, they need to be nourished and to have life breathed into them, and they need to be built as a carpenter builds a house; foundation, frame, cladding and lining etc, and all the finishing touches that make a house a home.
Too many so called film makers in Australia raise funds and then unfold a plan similar to painting by numbers. They replicate what the world recognises as a film, but it is as obvious as a paint by numbers copy of the Mona Lisa that it is a fraud.