Original subtitles

I've had this filing system for a very long time, since I was about 12 or

something like that.

It's updated almost every day.

Basically the top part is major directors, not every director, because

would be impossible, but major directors.

So Peter Weir, all his films are listed here.

Starting with Count Vim's Last Exercise in 1967,

a short film.

I know you can do these things today through the internet, but I like my own

system.

He's a cinephile.

So many of the filmmakers know him.

Everywhere around the world.

I can't imagine a life without film.

I try to see a film every day.

At least one.

He lives in a celluloid world.

Doesn't stop.

I mean this in the nicest way possible.

Professorial. Put out your hat!

David Stratton is slightly terrifying because he has an encyclopedic knowledge

of cinema.

It is his entire life. If you like, it's his religion.

Yesterday I was watching a 1934 film.

Things I've missed.

Trying to catch up on the past.

He has seen more films than I think anyone else I know.

Well, he's definitely seen more than 1 ,000. Tell him he's dreaming.

Has he seen 10 ,000? I bet he has.

The latest film I saw has a number of... 20 ,000.

No.

25 ,254.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my God. That doesn't obviously count if I see them again.

And that's one of the reasons David Stratton is David Stratton, because he's

seen more than you have.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed. I suppose it became an obsession when I

young, and it just took over my life, and it's still there.

I think David has made an immense contribution to Australian film, and I

it's been unique.

In the various roles that he's played, he's taken Australian cinema to the

world, but he's also brought world cinema to us.

the philosophical bloke from Broken Hill.

A story about Chips Rafferty and the Overlanders, because the Overlanders had

just come out.

realize that means standing us in the cattle out there, don't you? Well, we

think this trip's crazy anyway. You're likely to lose the whole lot, horses and

all, so we're getting out.

You could hardly not notice Chips Rafferty. He was such an iconic figure

film and he was so larger than life and yet so down to earth.

One of my friends at school at Salisbury had an older sister, and she had

Picturegoer. So I discovered Picturegoer through Bridget.

See, I remember her name.

And I had a bit of a thing for Bridget. She was, like, two years older.

Yeah, so that's how I discovered it, and I persuaded my parents to subscribe, to

add it to their newspaper subscription.

I don't think any of the family would describe themselves as cinema lovers.

We get on all right, but we're not close because we have nothing in common at

all. I'll be honest with you.

I wouldn't care less if I never saw another film in my life.

Wowza. Right, Jackie, let her go.

Take them over the top. Can't you see it? Yeah.

We'll have them climbing ladders before we're through with them. This should be

interesting.

It wasn't a sealed road then. It was a dirt road.

Oh, yeah.

Wake and Fright. That's a tough watch.

Wow.

No -one's going to live happily ever after in that film.

They screened the film. Somebody said to me, I've got to go home and have a

shower.

I said, yes, that's what I want. I want you to feel the heat, the sweat, the

loneliness.

Endless space.

That space was damning.

But one of the most devastating things about the film for me was that Chips

Rafferty, who was this great hero in The Overlanders, was playing this policeman

who is so friendly and yet so quietly menacing.

It's an incredible performance, and sadly it was his last performance.

You clever blacks never like to stop in the one spot long, do you?

Depends on the place.

What about another beer?

I think the whole thing with aggressive friendliness is very interesting. When I

was travelling, the same sort of thing happened. Someone would shout you a

and you only wanted one, but you had to have another one, otherwise it was rude.

He says, you know, let me buy you a drink. And the guy says, no. And he puts

hand on his shoulder and says, let me buy you a drink. And it's terrifying.

You know that bloke's going to say, yeah, as many as you want to.

My memorable moment with chips was on the very first day in a pub. I said,

action.

What is this head? Cut.

He said, this isn't real beer.

I said, be sensible, chips.

At this rate, by 10 o 'clock in the morning.

You'll be drunk. We'll have to send you home, he said.

Ted, darling, you look after the directing, and I'll look after the

He's only got two states of being.

Dangerous or dead, nothing in between.

Can I get you a beer?

Get a film history around the old place? A lot of film history around here,

yeah. That's good.

Cheers. Cheers.

There was this extraordinary life, a madness.

When those scenes when they're driving that car madly across the landscape,

yahoo, head out the top.

Ted Koch here brought a reality to the screen that was crucial for all

Australians and all would -be filmmakers in this country to meet themselves for

the first time.

And I know people left the screenings saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's

us. That's not who we are. This is terrible.

The way a culture exists today can be traced back to its origins. With the

fleet rolling in, that violence is just lurking below the surface.

And sometimes it can be scary. And it makes for powerful characters.

Back in the early 80s, I wrote, few, if any, Australian films made since Wake

and Fright have had the intelligence, the power, and the fearful beauty of

masterly film.

35 years later, I still think that's true.

My recollection of my brother David was he wanted to see every film, every

single one, in any language.

And he would always write a critique of it when he got home.

I wouldn't mind betting that somewhere in the barn are the first ones he ever

wrote.

Overlanders is 1946, so it's filed under 1946.

And I've actually noted that I saw it at the Gaumont Cinema in Trowbridge in

1947.

I haven't got an exact date. Well, you can forgive me that because I was, you

know, seven years old at the time.

It's a very good film, widely proclaimed and enjoyed by all.

There are real thrills in the hardships enjoyed by the travellers. A superb film

in my childish handwriting.

And a picture pasted in.

Some people's hobby was collecting stamps. Mine was collecting movies.

I can remember him spending hours and hours and hours doing that.

In the summer holidays, I'd be out playing cricket with my friends and he'd

going to the movies and then writing about it in his bedroom.

My father thought it was a complete waste of time.

Muriel, did you steal this dress?

No. You're terrible, Muriel.

Sits around the house like a dead weight.

Watching TV, sleeping all day, getting arrested at weddings.

You're useless.

You're all useless.

PJ suddenly, you know, came out of the gate and you're like, who is this guy?

Better finish your orgasm.

He just nailed the Australian humour.

It came out of his memories of feeling like an outsider in his own family,

actually, in his own town, you know, growing up in a sort of really ochre,

Coast town.

The main character is based on my sister, but a lot of the things that

you know, I experienced.

We've told you a thousand times how to do your hair, but you never listen. You

never wear the right clothes.

You're fat.

You listen to... 17th music.

A lot of the lines which get the biggest laughs are things that people actually

said.

Hi. What a coincidence.

You mental case!

You keep away from us!

Are you a real handler? No.

The screenplay for Marriage Reading really jumped out to me as

Girls that I understood. She was this kind of outsider and I went, well,

I think I could play this.

Nicole's having an affair with Chuck.

Muriel saw them fucking in the laundry on your wedding day.

And look, not everybody got it. I remember at the time reading, I think it

Schofield who wrote this horrible review about this dreadful movie about this...

unfortunate fat actress who'll never be seen again and her unattractive friend.

You think I could be famous?

Sure.

For what?

I don't know. I could be an actress.

You're mental enough.

Casting is everything.

I look back on it and I go, what would that film be like without those two

women? But the most important thing is to convince people that you two are

really in love. What about the blonde?

It's very funny.

But there's such dark stuff in there.

How can you stand this?

You push me around in this chair. You cook for me. You even help me dress. I

hate it.

But somehow it's a comedy.

Have you left Mum for Deidre?

I really cried for that mother when she went to that wedding.

It was so traumatic.

I arrived at the church.

And they were filming, filming, filming, and no one had done anything with me,

and I was just there, like, watching it.

And then PJ came to me and said, oh, my God, we've got to be out of here in 15

minutes, and what are we going to do with you?

I said, bring her up the aisle, and I'll get into the last pew.

And he said, oh, God, that'll be good, that'll be good.

And I said to Tony Collette, when you come up that aisle, do not, do not look

me.

So she came up the aisle and she walked past me.

And then I broke.

And it was one take.

As a filmmaker, you're always asked why comedy and tragedy together

as if the two have to sit at separate tables.

When I was growing up, I wanted to see life as I experienced it, which was

happiness, sadness, you know, sometimes all in a morning.

Muriel, you can't come barging in here without warning, trying to turn Rhonda

against the people who love her, against the people who were there for her when

she needed them.

Yes, she can.

Sorry, Mum, you know I love you, but you drive me crazy.

And you three want a bunch of cocksuckers.

People responded to that film because so many people also felt like outsiders.

He's had people all over the world come up to him and say, I am Muriel.

Even Julia Roberts said it to him.

And he went, no, you're not.

She said, I am, actually.

When he left... He certainly gave the impression that it was a holiday, a long

holiday, but still a holiday.

The fact that he'd been supporting the Sydney Film Festival in some sort of

voluntary way, maybe in the back of his mind he'd thought, wouldn't it be

wonderful if I could stay here and do this?

Any chance of getting The Forbidden Planet again?

You've seen it three times.

When David started working at Stratton Sons of Me, he probably bunked off in

afternoons to go to the movies.

There were rows over the supper table about his performance, and the position

that our father took was, well, it'll never do you any good going to watch

movies in the afternoon.

Because on the one hand, it was a dream job. I couldn't have imagined anything

I'd rather do.

But on the other hand, I had told my father that I would go back to England

work in the company and I felt an obligation to that, so I was very, very

I don't think I made a phone call at all.

I think I wrote him a letter.

My father was beside himself with fury, absolutely.

I mean, he was dreadful for a few weeks.

What's going on? Your brother's being an idiot.

So what's new?

Did you know about this?

Have you tried it?

I think somehow with Lantana we did touch

on things that people recognised in their own relationships, in their own

families. they perhaps couldn't talk about easily.

Hello.

You look like you're enjoying yourself.

Yeah, I am.

That's good you're having a good time while our son's at home smoking pot.

Leon, I know. I was the one that told him if he's going to do it, he should do

it at home where at least we can control it. Why didn't you tell me?

Because you haven't been around much lately.

I guess that's what I do really like about films, getting under the surface,

getting to that subterranean psychology in people that...

But it's what we're all about, really.

Film is a bit more than just entertainment to me.

Film is the ideal medium to actually say a few things that you can't say any

other way.

What about me?

Oh, I almost forgot.

You, my precious.

You are my life.

You are my life.

If anybody asks me my

favourite Brian Brown role...

I honestly think I'd say Beautiful Kate.

I sort of got to play a character I hadn't played before. I didn't want to

the part.

When she said to me, you know, when she said, I want you to play this man in it,

I went, first of all, I'm not old enough, Rachel.

I said that in Toronto at the film festival. The whole audience laughed.

Why did you run off like that then?

Can you answer me that?

Look, we couldn't do this some other time, could we?

You have any idea?

How much we needed you here.

We didn't have a film industry at all. Yes, we had newsreels, television had

started, but we weren't...

to make feature films.

When I did my first short film, when he was running the Sydney Film Festival,

people would boo and hiss at the films and get up and walk out.

But I think having those public screenings opened doors for young

At this point, we need to decide whether this preoccupation with violence is

necessarily unhealthy.

And the question is an enormously complex one.

I remember after the screening, a distributor said, we've seen the film,

really interesting, I'd like to distribute the film.

And I was so naive, I said to him, what does distribute mean?

In the 70s, his hair got longer and longer and his beard got longer and

Hello, hello?

Michael.

What are you doing? Nice to see you.

That's why I remember you had long hair and flares. Long beard down to here. You

were never fashionable. I must say, you know, a bit dorky. See, fashion never

interested me. I know. You don't have to tell me that.

Consider a man who's resolute, determined.

It was like a whole lot of people crawling across the desert and suddenly

there's somebody with water.

All these filmmakers suddenly came across the sand and said, we want some

this, we've got things to say.

Hey, what a colossal bit of skirt.

Anyway, Watch Under was shortened to Chunder. At the time that Beresford...

Humphreys and I were making Barry McKenzie. Tim Burstall was making a film

called Stalk. Both of them represented the first wave of ochre filmmaking.

Burstall then picked it up again with Elvin Purple.

Many people in Australia felt these films were absolutely abhorrent and were

looking for nicer, sweeter films.

And lo and behold, along comes Pickett Hanging Rock.

What we see and what we seem.

How about a dream?

A dream within a dream.

It's something about the character of Miranda that is spooky.

I won't be here much longer.

She's connected to, you know, other worlds. She knows things other people

know. From the moment I read it, I was so excited by just how different it

Cheers, ladies.

Hang and rock.

Peter Webb was pushing things much further than a lot of other directors in

realms that were going beyond the naturalistic.

There's a magic inside that particular story.

I've seen Picnic at Hanging Rock dozens of times, but this is the first time

I've been here, and it is extraordinary. I feel like I know the place, and yet,

of course, I don't know the place.

Peter Wynn made a beautiful piece of art, a lyrical look at the Australian

landscape, and juxtaposed with these uptight, ditched -up... young Victorian

schoolgirls. I thought

it was deeply beautiful, spiritual. It

wasn't just telling a story. He was using the camera in a way that was very

artistic and like a painter.

I wanted the film to look like one of those Impressionist paintings that was

produced by Tom Robertson, etc.

Paintings were very romantic and what struck me is the way they used to use

harsh Australian light and make it quite beautiful.

And don't worry about us, Mademoiselle.

We shall only be gone a little while.

It had quite an influence on me.

I think I saw John Jarrett in it and went, I want to be in a film.

It did have a lot of beautiful girls in it. Maybe that's got something to do

with it too.

I saw Picnic at Hanging Rock and went, oh, I want to be in a film like that.

I want to play Miranda.

And it gave me such hope. I thought, you can make a film like that in Australia?

Well, maybe I can.

But maybe the reason that the film embedded itself so deeply in the

consciousness is because of the mysterious atmosphere that Peter Weir

create.

When the girls actually walk up through that little gap in the rock the last

time you see them, there was some part of me quite psyched up and just doing

that moment like something was going to happen as we went through that gap.

That moment, Peter does this incredible cut.

That stayed with me forever. That was absolutely chilling and a real, that was

incredible mastery of filmmaking.

Something terrible has happened.

The mystery of it, it was beguiling.

What happened to those girls?

How can it just leave us like that in a state of not knowing? And yet what an

interesting place for a film to leave us. And I think that's one of the

of why it's been such an important film in the Australian psyche.

Australian cinema was blossoming.

So I grew up with a love of Australian cinema.

They were iconic Australian films, which we were really proud of.

When Gopaloo rocked up in that film, you know, it just made me feel proud.

It made me feel awesome.

I remember distinctly feeling that this is the first time I've sat in a movie

theatre. The accents are your accents.

There was something of me on that screen and that's what I was connecting to.

It just felt good to watch those films.

You know, the decade of the 70s in Australian film was really...

A period of looking back at our history. Totally.

I mean, Newsfront, apart from being a wonderful film, is so informative about

what was happening in Australia in that post -war period.

What do you think of Ben Chifley?

He's a bit common, ain't he?

Common?

Well, six years ago, he was still an engine driver.

Ben Chifley's the second best prime minister we ever had, mate.

Don't you forget that.

I mean...

I didn't have Snowball Pot and Cuddle Pie read to me when I was a child.

I had Enid Blyton.

Enid Blyton?

The girls?

No, she wrote books for boys as well.

Anyway, that's beside the point.

I grew up not

seeing myself on screen.

There are more voices coming from marginal cultures because I think the

a single monolith is changing. And I think that's kind of...

I say, look at your parents.

Hardworking migrants, work two jobs, struggle all your life, buy your kids a

house. Yeah, that's purpose.

What I wanted to imbue through the story was a really kind of intense emotional

sense of the character.

There's a melancholy to him, a sense that he can never be the conformer that

parents want him to be.

He's also dealing with his sexuality. He doesn't want to be labelled as gay.

Suddenly the lights come down and you are immersed in a completely different

world.

As a young boy of an immigrant Southern European culture and a homosexual,

you know, it was something forbidden and ugly and dangerous.

Head On was beautifully realised by Anna Kokkinoff.

It was also very interesting to see this very brutal film come from a woman's

mind and perspective.

It was really powerful.

I think I can feel a Greek record coming on.

I'm an advocate for people of different backgrounds to be telling their own

stories. You just get a different level of understanding and emotional

connection.

As it

started playing in cinemas, a

lot of Greek Australians came to me and said,

This film has given us the capacity to talk to our parents in a way we've never

been able to speak before.

We were eternally grateful to our parents for slaving away in factories,

also needed to sing our own song and be hybrid cultural beings that we were

without those burdens.

I was born exactly a week after Britain declared war on Germany.

So all my infancy and early childhood, I was living in England during a war

situation.

My father was around when I was very small and I couldn't really remember,

then he was posted to the Far East.

My mother was a volunteer with the Red Cross.

My grandmother effectively looked after me.

Granny used to take David out to see a matinee every afternoon at one cinema or

another.

You have to put yourself in the sort of situation of the wartime.

You never knew when a bomb was going to land because they were in southern

England.

I think they use it as absolutely a form of escapism.

Part of the difficulty that my father and my brother had...

was because my brother didn't know him for the first five or six years of his

life, because when he came back from the war, he was a stranger.

What was it like without a father?

All I can say is that when the war ended, my father came home from Asia.

I was six years old.

Logan, P .S.'s father, played by John Hargraves, is absent for most of the

but there's a memorable scene in which P .S. meets his father for the first

time.

Hi, P .S.

Here's a present for you.

What is it?

Why don't you open it up and see?

He bought a present.

It was a balsa wood model plane. Not unlike this, but it had to be assembled.

And that was the last thing I was interested in.

I rejected my father's present.

I mean, what a terrible thing to do. He'd been away all those years. He was

seeing me for the first time for many years.

In hindsight, I feel sad about that.

He never said anything to me about it. I think he must have been disappointed.

But I was probably a nasty child.

Yes.

I think that was it.

Here is the story of my career.

my brilliant career.

Once upon a time, to even want to be a filmmaker, such as myself, if I say

vainly, in 1952, was unthinkable.

Don't you ever dream there's more to life than this?

I remember voicing it at a party and saying, well, I'm going to make films,

a girl saying indignantly, you can't say that!

And I said, well, I just said it.

I was very scared of it and I didn't think I was really ready.

And it really was the moment when someone said to me, oh, who are you

cast? She's obviously got to be really plain.

And I said, well, why?

And they said, well, because all the time through the book, she's talking

how ugly she is.

Nobody loves me. And I went, duh.

She's a girl, all women.

pull themselves apart, especially in adolescence.

And that's when I thought, if a man does this film, he'll completely stuff it

up. He will never get it.

How about a reward?

Let me go.

No matter what, I have to do it.

Oh, the pillar.

Well, I was summoned to an audition.

Margaret picked me up to go to the casting.

I said, so is this a children's film? Because she'd sent me the script.

And she shrieked, no, no.

And then I said, and, you know, what do you have to do with the film?

And she said, I'm the producer of this goddamn movie.

So it really didn't start well.

I was approached by one of them today.

He was very forward.

He wanted to kiss me.

I was working opposite this extraordinary girl. This is like nothing

seen. She was vivid and alive and present. What's the question?

Bloody woman, I thought, I thought we should get married.

Well, what a handsome proposal.

How could anyone say no?

She made it pretty clear from almost day one that I was the lightweight.

And never let me forget it.

The film launched some brilliant careers, not just Judy Davis as Sibylla

Neill as Harry Beecham, but also the director, Gillian Armstrong.

I had a huge burden. Number one, it was my first feature. Number two, I did

realise that all women were being judged, really, on whether that film

When Gillian suddenly came to prominence and people were talking about, isn't

this great, this is a woman director, that's all I needed for me to go, yeah,

OK, there's one, then there's going to be more and I'm going to be one of them.

She's trying to kiss him.

Run!

Shut up. You shut up. What? This is Bill.

David's initial reputation came out of what he did at the Sydney Film Festival.

It was only through Variety that David became kind of an internationally known

critic. I wouldn't discount also his look, because David was instantly

identifiable. The white hair, the white beard, and kind of the same suit most of

the time.

No other Australian critic became known outside of Australia.

We used to ricochet into each other at Cannes when I was over there trying to

flog films and he was over there trying to review them.

For a while, he joined me on the board at the Australian Film Commission and

a very valuable ally.

And, of course, he was a warrior in the cause of finding an audience for

Australian films, which was and remains difficult.

This is my bat cave.

duty to try and do something with them.

Bring them closer to our way of living.

Dreaming again?

You know, Barty, sometimes I dream I'm out there with them.

Maybe I will go one day.

Just for fun.

Oh, Jedda.

Whatever would you do out in the bush with all those naked monkeys?

Why was it controversial?

Well, I think it was controversial because my grandfather had the idea of

casting two unknown Aboriginal people in the lead roles, and that was just not

thought of in the mid -50s. It must be fun to dance a croppery.

Real wild fellow, one.

Charles went to Menzies at the time to see what sort of assistance he could

and Menzies was very, very scathing of the whole idea.

And a lot of media people at the time and industry people said, you know,

never make a film again, it'll be death at the box office.

And I think in some way, I think that even propelled my grandfather even more

make this film.

You have to remember that when Jeddah was made, the Indigenous people of this

country were not even listed among the population.

They were part of the flora and fauna.

No -one else was presenting an Aboriginal man, a young Aboriginal

worthy of admiration and being seen as beautiful.

I remember seeing Jeddah when I was really young.

When you look at it, the Indigenous characters, they've been dubbed over and

they're just someone going...

You know, and that's meant to be them speaking.

So I just look at that and I'm so appalled by that laziness that the

had.

So there's some challenges with that film, but it was of its time.

Films of that era were meant to have a happy ending.

To have a tragic ending like that, there's something in people's minds for

to come.

As long as I've got you to love me, every day is gonna be a fun, tiny day.

Samson and Delilah was, I thought, a very confronting film.

Did you set out to make a confronting film?

No, but yes.

I had these two characters.

I'm going to write a petrol sniffer's love story.

It is an incredibly dark film. I'd be bullshitting not only to those two

characters, I'd be bullshitting to Australia if I was to make that film any

lighter.

Samson and Delilah were in some ways a beautiful simplicity.

It's his power.

Extraordinary performances from both those kids.

The boy dancing, I thought, was just incredible.

Some films can rise to being what you can safely classify as a work of art.

There I actually learned something for the first time that I'm looking at a

culture that is struggling in their own land and the horror is quite

overwhelming.

When pain is truly there for a reason because of the truth of the story and

the truth of history and our existence.

and Australia stands up and watches it, that's so powerful and so beautiful.

One of my all -time favourite Australian films.

Almost kind of Shakespearean on some level, you know. The take on huge

like truth and justice and give it to me in a way that feels very human.

The characters started dictating to me when I was writing what.

happens, well, one of them should really die because they've been through so

much abuse.

And I had these two characters, Samson and Delilah, going, we've fought this

hard, we've fought this strong, and we've been through so much shit.

How dare you try and kill us all?

We're going to live.

Warwick Thornton Sampson and Delilah was a catalyst for Indigenous filmmaking

and absolutely opened the floodgates for people to go, wow, look at this,

another way of storytelling.

Those characters resonated so powerfully.

But, you know, it's not depressingly bleak. It gives you something to hang on

to, which is tremendously important.

I think that our censorship people tend to overprotect us most horribly, and I

think they have a very poor idea of what we in this country can take.

It was films of real stature and real importance that were being attacked by

Philistines at the film censorship board at the time. They were ignorant, stupid

people. You're seeing an abridged, mutilated version.

Now, that's criminal. Just making my hackles rise now just to think of it.

Turkey Shoot is one of the most sadistic and pointlessly violent films that's

ever been made in this country. It really is an obnoxious piece of work.

My big disappointment, I suppose, is that David

Stratton didn't like it. He didn't get...

My particular sense of humour, my sense of irony, and the fact that cinema now

and again has to be outrageous. And I like occasionally to make outrageous

cinema.

Almost... No.

No, I don't know what else to say about Turkish shit.

Today, some of the Osploitation films have achieved cult status, and some of

them are pretty good. Patrick, for example, is one of the better ones.

But the one Osploitation film that stands head and shoulders above the

course, is the first Mad Max.

I believed it. I believed that that was the future.

That's what my future was going to look like. And it was in my country.

Well, George, I don't know whether you've ever seen this, but back in 1979,

there was a preview of a film called Mad Max, and that was the first review I

did for Variety for which I got paid.

Something of a new departure for Australian films.

All stops out, fast -moving exploitation pic. Have a look.

Wow. And it's a good review.

I was quite excited about it, I remember.

Nor does he dwell on the violence.

Plenty of horror is implied, but very little seen.

The death of Max's wife and baby is shot in a particularly distant way.

I'm glad you picked that up because it was one of the big, big things. I know.

It's just so implied.

Yeah. It diffuses the film with a certain degree of a feeling of violence.

people remember things that weren't actually on the screen.

It looks like being a winner down under.

And it was.

Yeah.

It's terrific seeing films and hearing all about them. Because I love film.

the highlight of my week.

We started off at the very beginnings of cinema in the 19th century, and we're

now up to 1959.

I would say David, among all the international critics, had a wide

cinema that was kind of unsurpassed, if not unequalled.

I do know the course is 10 years, but I can tell you something that you may not

know. It's not going to finish at the end of the 10th year if he's got

to do with it.

He speaks with us too.

There will be no mobile phones, no noisy food wrapping.

And we have to hold our bladders.

I think we're all going to be on Zimmer frame by the time the thing finishes.

We'll continue until we're on our walking sticks.

Something may be longer.

I'm not sure.

Time just doesn't seem to matter when you're having so much fun.

So in June 1972, I was driving in a car and, of course, without my knowledge, I

was being followed by ASIO officers.

They followed me for a while and then lost me, which seems a bit careless,

really.

It came out not so long ago that there was a file on him in ASIO because of his

trips to Russia. I mean, how pathetic is that?

So this is me.

in 1969, apparently a dangerous spy, going into the Soviet embassy

in Canberra.

Actually, of course, what I'm doing is I'm picking up a visa so that I can

attend the Moscow International Film Festival.

I don't think you're a real Australian if you don't have an ASIO file.

I mean, if you've shown a passionate interest in the world around you, you

as they say, a person of interest.

Bastards.

Okay, stop it there. It gets boring after this. I just yelled. It wasn't

go and tell people.

Has anybody got a torch? The dingo's got my back. The dingo. They must think

we've come down the last bloody shower.

Okay, this is Evil Angels.

A film that will divide a nation.

It was like everyone in Australia had a theory.

It was everybody, everywhere, from every walk of life, in every different

situation, having an opinion, expressing it rather aggressively.

I can't believe how the dingo can have taken the baby.

I wanted to show all of those groups a whole picture of

what was actually against the Chamberlains.

What about this stuff here about sacrifice in the wilderness?

It's a pretty weird name, isn't it? No, no, no, no. Now, I heard it means

sacrifice in the bloody wilderness.

Evil Angels is a masterpiece.

It's a way of telling a story by fragmenting it into different groups,

sentence to another person, picking another dinner party.

That style actually was a generation changer for storytelling.

A lot of people found it very strange for a mother to dress their child in

black, and they saw it as an unnatural colour for a baby. It added weight to

that rumour or myth that Azaria, in fact, had been sacrificed in the desert.

The kid was always dressed in black. So was the bloody mother.

She dressed it in black all the time. Well, I heard a rumour that the kid was

really bloody cracked, and she couldn't handle it, and that's what happened.

What good is prayer?

The only thing God's good for at the moment is to stop me from... cutting my

throat because that's what I feel like doing.

It was a tough shoot for Meryl and myself. I mean, we were playing real

characters. We did feel a sense of responsibility to those real people.

And we knew we were doing a film that wouldn't be particularly popular with a

lot of Australians because so many people had made up their minds.

It won't be much longer than we actually had.

From my point of view as an Englishman who came to Australia, that whole...

chamberlain case revealed a very ugly side to the australian character and the

film really taps into that big time you hear people say a dingo stole my baby

it's always a kind of gag line and i kind of gag when i hear it because a

did steal that baby and she did say that and my heart goes out to them and every

time i hear that i just have to restrain myself

because it pisses me off, actually.

It's piss off.

Alice Lynn Chamberlain, you have been found guilty of murder.

There is only one sentence I can pass on you, which would be imprisoned with

hard labour for life.

I would say that film Evil Angels was absolutely crucial in changing

I think probably before the release of that film, I would think many, many,

people still believed that she was guilty.

And the winner is...

It's a wonderful movie. I love it.

Shut up. I've got my lion adlib. And I was full of enthusiasm. You cut me off

the part.

You're never being a hairdresser, but I can tell you that.

Hi, it's movie show time again. I'm Margaret Pomerant. And I'm David Strath.

Good evening.

Hi.

Of course, the world was divided between people who agreed with you and people

who agreed with me. I know.

Everybody who came up to me said, well, actually, I agree with Margaret always.

They say they agree with me always, too.

You know how to hurt a person.

This one's for the Raincoat Brigade, don't you think, David? I think this was

very funny film. One half, and it's lucky to get that.

So many of us watched it.

I mean, I completely understand that these things reach an end, but it's a

I think we all miss it.

Seems to me that everything that I embrace in this film repels you.

David and Margaret disagreeing was better than David and Margaret agreeing.

I can only give it one because I was very bored. David, what the hell is

That's a classic. Margaret's dirty, smoky laugh.

Have you laid an egg?

I never missed that show when I was growing up because...

To me, it was a way of looking at cinema that I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear

the way they critique movies.

It's a knockout. David, if you didn't love this film... I loved it.

People who would never listen to a film critic got interested and said, I want

to go and see that film.

There are deeply divided opinions about our next film tonight. It's an R -rated

Australian film, Rompastompah.

Most people had a strong reaction to it, one way or another, but whether it was

negative or positive, they were engaged.

No one took their eyes off it.

This is not your country. I know that people see it as a racist film. I

profoundly disagree.

I can't score it at all, I'm afraid.

David took a moral stand about it. He wouldn't give it any stars on his TV

program, which I thought was a step too far.

This is a dangerous film. Give me a break.

But pompous windbag that he was, he did us a great favour.

I remember Rumpus Dompert.

hitting us in Melbourne like a brick across the head.

One of the kind of films that you talked about, have you seen Rumpa Stumpa?

Rich people and

powerful people brought in boatloads of human trash.

Cheap labour.

This book was written by Adolf Hitler.

It's simply about the ongoing struggle of the white race and the enemies it

faces.

We all got arrested as a group one night. We'd been drinking in a pub, and

thought, you know, I can just talk to the sergeant, you know, I'll explain

you know. And I said, look, sorry, sir, but, you know, we're actually actors,

you know. I know we've got no hair, I know we've got the boots on and

everything, but we're actors, we're making a movie. And he goes, actors, eh?

Yeah, you're just an actor.

Well, I hope you're a method actor, son, because you're going to fucking enjoy

this. Put him in the cells.

How you going?

Russell Crowe is the embodiment of the themes that I wanted to explore. That

there is something raw about Russell, a little bit primitive.

He's not afraid to engage his primordial instincts.

There was a fire inside of him.

Still is.

What happened, mental bitch? Mental bitch? I heard what you just said.

There's a story behind that, but I'm not going to embarrass you by telling it.

Tell the story.

Embarrass me.

You said in Cannes that the negatives should be burned.

I don't think I ever said that.

I saw him there, glass of wine in his

hand, pontificating to several people.

Phil Noyce was there, I think.

Various people.

Yeah. And he looked up. I didn't like the way he looked at me. And Geoffrey

in and threw a glass of wine all over me and said, keep away from my movies.

Stay away from my film, you fucker, is what he said.

It didn't matter what I said in that moment. I had to say something.

David, you know, a filmmaker makes a film.

It's like a baby.

And, you know, us critics sit there and say, well, your baby's ugly.

Of course, you know, that...

That's upsetting.

But at the same time, you could argue that our viewers, they deserve to be

the truth as we see it.

And if I saw him again, I'd do it again, except with a red.

Holy shit, David!

What do you do with my business, all right? You're coming to me.

Get your hands off me, bro.

Let him go, bro. What do I have fucking business with? Fucking let him go, bro.

You ever swear to God before?

Feel good?

You want to say it?

That's my boy.

What in the skull?

Oh, no.

They didn't have him in a still, did they, Britt? What do you think Jarl is,

Mum? We're in a holiday camp. Yeah.

Oh, she goes. You just missed him.

That's all right. I like you better.

You've got to go!

One of the ways in which I thought this movie might be a little bit different,

it's a crime film, but really it's a crime film about a family of armed

in which you never see them commit an armed robbery. What you're seeing is

their last days.

The show reinvented the crime picture effectively with Animal Kingdom.

We like to observe the dark side

of life.

I've met a number of crims in my time at different times.

They've always been, you know, characters, charming characters.

I wouldn't want to rely on them.

Hello? Oh, hello, darling.

No, one of those days, having a bloody crisis.

I remember when I did Two Hands.

I'm playing origami with my kid.

Morris, phone.

Oh, shit. You know, at the same time I'm on the phone, I say... Yeah, fucking

where? Make sure you kill the bastard.

That's a lovely -looking pterodactyl.

You always read about these killers or whatever and they go, he's such a nice

bloke, I used to see him playing with his children.

Well, he did, you know.

You're not to play with that, all right? Dad's got a splitting bloody headache.

Ned Kelly.

I'm sure I've heard that name somewhere.

I'm sure you have, Kurt.

This looks pretty unassuming, but in fact it's incredibly exciting and

incredibly important because this is a reel from the first feature film made

anywhere in the world.

And it was made here in Australia, the story of the Kelly Gang, made in 1906.

Hollywood didn't even exist.

There was no film industry, really, anywhere in the world.

They were just making it up as they went along. They had to stage the scenes,

frame them, shoot them, how the actors would behave. It was all completely and

utterly new.

Strictly Boreham is the Australian battler's dream, but presented in a

original way. I'd never seen anything quite like it before.

It's colourful, it's flamboyant, there's not a gum tree in sight.

It was no excuse for what Scott did.

Baz Luhrmann is somebody who actually sees the world differently.

Hit the nail on the head, Merv. Let's not start chucking the babies out with a

bathtub. The way he photographs the film, there is often a slightly

dimension.

This kind of little bit of madness.

I've got my happy face on today, Liz. Everything's going to be all right.

It was so unusual. Oh, my God.

It was like a breath of fresh air, but not... meaning that everything before it

was dull, but it was like, OK, let's go this way.

He took Shakespeare and turned it into a gang war picture without losing what

Shakespeare, you know, intended for it.

Everyone was just like, what is this?

I was thinking, Baz Luhrmann's the coolest.

I want to work with him.

Oh, my gosh, Willem Roos. It was crazy bold at

the time. I mean, now it sort of looks like, oh, yeah, of course.

Flying around in a trapeze at, like, midnight, running my hand over all those

men with their top hats.

Amazing.

But, you know, I always liked Strictly Borum best because it was made with such

tenderness and such passion.

As Bant himself once said, it's a little film that could.

You're David Helfgott. That's right, Vera, that's right, that's right, that's

right. I used to watch you win all those competitions.

Hey, baby, what about a tune?

A tune, baby, sure, no worries, no worries.

Oh, sock it to us, Liberace.

When you talk to financiers, they'd say, well, we love this script, who can

possibly play this? And you go, well... I've got this brilliant actor, you see,

and he's named Geoffrey Rush, and he's just before the die -in of the

stage, and they go, oh, he's never done any film? How old is he? I said, well, I

think early 40s. They said, early 40s, never done a film? What sort of a

is this guy?

Scott and I visited David Helfgott.

We played around with...

Could David's hands in a form of puppetry in the right shots be my hands?

It was David's hands and Geoffrey's face acting away.

So we get a little closer to production and Geoffrey says to me, you know, I

don't know that I can be David if he's in the room with me.

I said, well, that's a bit of a problem, isn't it?

I knew enough about filmmaking by then to say, as long as the keyboard, my

and my head are all in shot at the same time, I can give you bars 1 to 40

on the Hungarian, List Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, but on these bars, it's

out of my league, and that's when you've got to cut away to the people at the

bar going, he's very good, isn't he?

David, when I met him, a huge amount of his conversation was about his father,

who just seemed to be ever -present in his mind. The shadow of his father was

there. You can't... I am your father, who has done everything for you!

Everything! When I first showed the film to David, which is a scary

experience... Hello, David.

And he sat there on the floor, actually clinging to my leg, sitting on a couch.

No one will love you like me. No one like me.

At the end of the screening, he said, I wish my daddy had been as nice as that.

I mean, really, that was something.

It's almost as if the film helped to sort of exorcise a demon in a way.

The thing is, I feel nothing.

And finally, to all those people who were happy to bankroll the film as long

I wasn't in it.

If there was only going to be one win, it had to be Geoffrey.

It represented everything about the struggle to make the film, about a bunch

unknown people who got together and got international attention, about a

pianist... that the world had not heard about, it was life -changing.

It doesn't seem like 50 years ago, but it was.

1966.

How are you? Yeah, very lovely. Nice to see you. Oh, no, you can't take my

photograph. They always talk good way about us, yeah? We love you, David.

Can you give me a reference?

How are you?

Good, how are you? Oh, very well.

That feeling that David has brought to us all as Australian

filmmakers, that we're doing something that's worth recording.

I'd like to track him.

Out here.

We run a very tight ship.

These days of the internet, too many bozos give their opinions and they're so

unqualified and they wouldn't have a clue and they should just pull their

in. I really like you.

But someone like David Stratton, who's seen thousands and thousands and

thousands of films, is entitled and in fact it's incumbent on him to tell us

what he thinks about them because it comes from an educated place.

Tonight on this Australia Day, something...

Very, very exciting for David Stratton. He has been honoured in the Australia

Day Honours List. David Stratton, Ayo.

They came down to meet me at the end of the Cannes Festival and I noticed there

was a couple at another table that were looking at me and they said to me, oh,

David, we're from Melbourne and we watch you on television and the movies you

host and so on and they're wonderful.

And my mother said, he's my son.

That still chokes me up.

Sorry to interrupt.

No, that's all right.

Yeah, of course.

Could you put it to my brother? But he's a real man. That's all right.

He's been in movies for years and years. Oh, right. Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

I've always respected the fact that David had his opinion and he held his

ground. And I think that is ultimately, you know, why he has the revered

position that he has, because, you know, he speaks his own truth.

If he likes it, he likes it. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't like it.

Very cool, though, is I have known him to change his mind.

As a real estate agent said, location, location, location.

And we're right next door to the airport.

It will be very convenient if we ever have to fly one day.

I want to see a written report from David Stratton as to how he's changed

opinion of the castle.

For... Australian filmgoers, the building behind me is one of the most

houses in Australia, except that it's not a house. It's a home.

It's the castle.

Ergonomic chairs, four of them.

What's he want?

180.

He's dreaming.

When I first saw the castle, I found it a film of caricature. It was a

caricature that I was uncomfortable with.

Well, I'm afraid it wasn't for me, Margaret. I really didn't get onto the

wavelengths of this film. I think it's a very Australian sort of humour. Well,

I'll give it one and a half.

Oh, David.

As you can see, I've put a fair bit of work into it.

Yeah? Fake.

Plastic. Gives a place of Victoriana feel.

What do you mean, the aesthetics of it?

They were my own outfits.

My own jeans.

Like to do pottery.

And as for my wife...

credible pottery work, I will hear nothing against it.

I actually thought someone was taking the piss out of me when I read the

because my dad trained greyhounds and we lived in Calamarine.

So when I started reading the script, I thought this is a bit of a piss take. I

find this a bit close to the bone.

They had these masks which you put over your eyes when you're sleeping so you

can't see anything. Yeah, and they were complimentary.

Yeah, they were for free.

That just... tore it to pieces in my family. We were just in stitches all the

time because it was strange and real and heartwarming.

How's this, boys? Woo -hoo!

What do you call this?

Chicken.

It's got something sprinkled on it.

Seasoning.

Seasoning. It's so sincere and honest and it's terribly funny but it's not

sneer, sneer, nudge, nudge. It's full of love.

Love. I mean, the filmmakers love them.

They love those people.

And look at these models.

Well, look at them and look at you.

I mean, now that is a head of hair.

I do go back and revisit films, especially if I get the impression that

missed out on something.

Who ordered medium rare, mate?

Good stuff.

And that's what I did with the cut.

I began to really be drawn to Michael Caton's wonderfully dry, laconic and

very Australian humour.

Now I know that sometimes what is right and fair is not clear cut.

It's a bit iffy.

I've got my house and I don't want to move.

I think that's the highlight of the great Australian dream.

Give me one moment.

It doesn't matter if it's next to an airport. You know, I just think that's

amazing. What section of the constitution has been breached?

It's the...

Constitution, it's Mabo, it's justice, it's law, it's the vibe, and,

no, that's it, it's the vibe.

Let's dig it up.

Bud Tingle's speech at the High Court, I think it's one of the most beautiful

scenes in Australian cinema.

You can buy a house, but you can't acquire a home.

I can't speak for those who wrote this document.

But I'll bet when they put in the phrase on just terms, they hoped it would stop

anyone shortchanging someone like Daryl Kerrigan.

It doesn't matter how many times I've seen the film, I've always found that

speech to be incredibly moving.

It taps into that national theme of the underdog overcoming adversity.

to restore justice in the world. In favour of the appellant.

Shit.

That's us.

We won.

We won.

It's a beautiful portrait of a family. It's very satisfying, and you completely

understand why it struck a nerve.

I'm not a user of social media myself, but it is interesting when you look

the twitter zone is that the right word when the castle was on television not so

long ago people were twittering lines from the film like tell me they're

dreaming and lovely things like this a perfect film all these years later not a

word or seen out of place genuinely consistently funny warm lovable and

an interesting one has any australian film ever entered into our consciousness

quite like the castle the country has taken the castle to its heart i mean in

funny way it's your own little bit of immortality

In some sort of weird way, David is representative of what film can do for a

population because he's come to understand his adopted culture through

It's a beautiful thing.

I actually think that you're a really nice person.

You are. You're a really decent person.

And a national treasure.

But you're still very British.

I can't help it. I've got to tell you, David, those shoes that you wear, they

are, I mean, that has got to be the most British English thing about you. The

same goddamn shoes of 50 decades.

I buy them in wholesale lots. I know.

I'd like to point out that you were the one that was dressed at the ABC by

someone else.

I dress myself. I've dressed myself today.

Yes.

I can tell.

Shut up.

Never thought of him as an Englishman.

Just thought of him as a well -spoken Aussie.

He just got born in the wrong country.

He's very proud of being an Australian.

Oh, I'm very grateful to Australia. I mean, Australia has given me a home and

profession and a world, really.

I hope I've contributed something back.

I've brought my passion to an appreciative audience.

So I've been incredibly lucky to do that Incredibly much.