Wednesday 11 May 2005

the golden age of australian film

So a few months ago I watched Gallipoli, and last night I watched Mad Max, and I'm asking myself, how is it that it has been the latter that succeeded commercially? Miller's film was OK, but Weir's was just far, far, far superior, in every way. I still need to track down Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Cars That Ate Paris, My Brilliant Career, The Road Warrior, and perhaps some others like The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, if they can be found. Suggestions please.

14 comments:

Afe said...

The Year My Voice Broke?

Storm Boy?

The Man from Snowy River?

The Shiralee? Although I think that's a mini series. And if you're doing mini series then you should do the Thorn Birds.

And if you want to push the envelope a bit and challenge yourself, try Crocodile Dundee. :p

Anonymous said...

Star Wars III is about to be released and make huge bank... and you're wondering why the movie with shit blowing up was more commercially successful? :)

Jim said...

The Year My Voice Broke I'm all over - got the DVD back in oz, seen many times. Flirting, the sequel, I haven't seen, though. I'll look into Storm Boy and the Man from Snowy River, though. The Shiralee sounds a little too much. I might try and find Don's Party, too.

Jim said...

Yeah, there weren't that many explosions in Gallipoli. Oh, except for the world war part.

I see your point, although Mad Max is a long, long way from your typical action film - short on snappy one-liners and long on personal interactions.

Anonymous said...

God didn't really hit his directing stride until the sequel.

(Going to see "downfall" tomorrow)

Anonymous said...

I don't remember if i've even seen Max Max I.... can only remember some awful thing with involving tina turner and pig shit.

Jim said...

Tina was the third, Thunderdome. Don't know about the pigshit, but I'm gonna say thunderdome again, on a whim. I saw it years ago, and from what I remember it was a whole different type of movie. The 1st actually isn't apocalyptic at all, except in a Clockwork Orange thug-violence-out-of-control kind of way.

Although God certainly ramped up his explosion budget for the sequel, he was in better form deaths-wise in the original. I actually saw the prequel on the weekend, in the form of Kingdom of Heaven. Christians bad, Muslims good. Sieges good. French dubbing bad.

Hugh said...

Gallipoli is quintessential "Australian" filmmaking. Mad Max, whilst a great film, played on international themes, hence its success in my opinion.

I own Gallipoli and not Mad Max. I do like MM, but I feel Gallipoli is superior filmmaking, despite MM's better commercial result.

Peter Weir, early on, had a very unique take on things.

Mummy/Crit said...

May I also suggest 'Breaker Morant'? (easy to get on DVD in Aus) Afe suggested 'The Shiralee' and 'Storm Boy' and I'd back those up...though the acting in Storm Boy is very SAFCorp 70s...

good luck, and I'll vanish back into the obscurity that is blogger, though I enjoyed gatecrashing, and I may be back for more.

Jim said...

I have Breaker Morant back home on DVD (along with The Year My Voice Broke, and Sunday Too Far Away) - the last line might be my favourite last line in all of cinema.

As for other Weir, Picnic is on my list, and I have a hankering to see The Cars That Ate Paris, too, although I don't expect to like it so much. It was one of the few films I missed from the ABC series from a few years ago (8 great australian films, or something like that).

Keith Duddy said...

written by Patrick White. Australian suburban gothic.

Also, I reckon Mad Max II was the best of the three. It's more self-contained, has a great performance from Bruce Spence as The Gyro Captain.

BTW: did you see the Mad Max version in the Aussie original, or the US voice overdub. Must have been the former, else you would no doubt have commented on how awful it sounded.

Keith Duddy said...

The missing text, subsumed into the anchor URL was "The night, The prowler"

Keith Duddy said...

Oh, and I forgot that The Night.... features one of my fave Aussie actors (sadly no longer with us): Paul Chubb.

Anonymous said...

It was cool to see bruce spence in star wars 3, even if it was only for a minute or two...