The problem of perception
Showbusiness is about risk. What Australian film takes a risk? Name me one Australian movie in the last 10 years that’s had one special effect in it.
We can think of many that take considerable risks, but how can the industry fight unfounded perceptions such as this one, recently published in The Sun-Herald?
Columnist David Dale compared the Australian film industry to a zombie this weekend.
Every time you think it’s dead, buried and nibbled by maggots, it staggers out of the grave and gives a shocking insight into what Australians want in homegrown entertainment.
I can certainly respect a philosophy that puts entertainment value over didactism but, sometimes, creative people try to use the “its just supposed to be a bit of dumb fun” bit to excuse poor work. The truth is, if you aim to inspire, to move, to excite, you will inevitably find yourself (perhaps much to your horror) entertaining.
Arthouse films often simply referse this philosophy, aiming first to lecture us on the ways of the world and second to be entertaining. Its the same philosophy reversed, and both show a lack of ambition. The aim should not merely be to educate or merely to amuse, but to tell a story populated with interesting, engaging, relatable characters.
While its not the case across the board, you can’t deny that there is a very strong attitude of elitism and pseudo-intellectualism running through film culture in Australia, from the small indie producers to the executives at Screen Australia. There’s almost a studio mentality – commercial = stupid, simple, slapstick and arthouse = edgy, provocative, lofty and above all subdued. As you say, apparently there’s no middle ground.
It goes to show that there arent so much “smart films” and “dumb films”, “important films and “shallow films”, as just plain “good films” and “bad films”. So many of the supposedly high-minded films of recent years haven’t failed because they’re intelligent, but because they’re bad. At least recently, the high-minded films have been great – Balibo, Samson and Delilah, The Square…and Animal Kingdom is out there taking the world by storm. The thing is, you can’t expect people to come flying back because a few good films came out.
I can tell you right now that I hated Somersault, Candy and above all The Proposition. The former two were overly-concerned with being edgy and gritty and provocative and, despite being made well in all technical respects, failed to be engaging. The Proposition broke my heart. Here it was, finally, the Australian western we have been waiting for. Here’s a chance to make something gripping and exciting and old-fashioned. But no – instead we get Guy Pearce riding around with weirdo poetry whispering in his head for two hours. That film so staunchly AVOIDED being entertaining and was so concerned with being different and “subverting expectations” that is made me want to give up on Australian cinema altogether.
There is a trust that needs to be re-established, and its going to take a few years of consistently good films – both arthouse and commercial – to get Australian back in the cinema (or hell, get the films in the mainstream cinemas and out of the damn Independent houses).
One more thing
I enjoyed Balibo very much, but in many ways it illustrates the problem – as an expose and an indictment of atrocity, it is very very good. But as a film in its own right, its only pretty good. We get a lead character who is slowly drawn away from his complacency and into the middle of conflict. That’s interesting stuff, but hardly groundbreaking.
And if you listen to Robert Connelly’s interview’s about the film, you hear him say very clearly that his interest in film has shifted away from the actual narrative possibilities and further into using film as an educational medium. So right there, one of Australia’s star film makers saying upfront that cinema has limited possibilities for him.
As a screenwriter – and also a script developer and one of those dreaded ‘outside readers’ for Screen Australia, et al. – I would endorse the comments of Jonathan Adams, including his choice of non-entertaining films. From the start of my patchy career, I have never seen the validity of the distinction between ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’. True, some films are too demanding or too ‘depressing’ or simply not to someone’s taste. But in the end there are only good films and bad films. Didn’t Oscar Wilde say something to the same effect, even if he wasn’t talking about movies? If you want to preach to the masses, you better disguise it extremely well within a good story. Start where the audience is if you want to take them somewhere else. Filmmakers who only think about the audience in terms of what ‘they’ should know end up with a misery-fest. Such stories do not suit the times.