Gallipoli with Jennifer Kent

From a place you've never heard of, a podcast you'll never forget. okay for our guest uh just just for the context of what there are what that's happened that's the tagline of the film and he's put the word podcast the american tagline now i think it's an interesting marketing strategy it's kind of a tagline saying oh jesus this is a hard one to market from a place you've never heard of you're leaving a place you've never heard of hey guys i know this title is going to make no sense to you but but if you watch the movie you'll be happy about it after the fact right you won't forget it it's also it's a poster that's the final image of the film that's what's fascinating yes that the final image yeah that is really bold i thought it is but it's out of context so i guess you don't know that's what's so interesting about it is it's not obfuscating the ending at all but it is out of context in a way where you don't read into it and then when the movie hits that image it's almost twice as devastating to now understand what that image was you were looking at. But Platoon did the same thing and this is a movie that reminded Platoon really sort of is drafting off this movie and that's another movie where they had the final image basically as the poster. But basically final not literally. This is the actual final image Is Platoon the year No it's years later. It's later. It's 86 Yeah. When I was a kid we used to actually go to the cinema for school. And so this film was a film that we all went to see. This was like a new release school field trip to the theater. Yes, exactly. And watching it again last night, which is 45 years later, I could not believe that some images were emblazoned in my soul. And one of them was that final image. I remembered that. I also remembered Jack's conversation with his uncle, you know, that stuff about racing. I wrote it down, which is, you know, what are your legs? Steel springs. What are they going to do? They're going to hurl me down the track. How fast can you run as fast as a leopard? How fast are you going to run as fast as a leopard? Then let's see you do it. And I was just like, as a kid, that really got to me. You remembered it. Yes, I do. How old would you have been when you saw it? About 10, around 10. But the thing that was so devastating for me last night is as a 10-year-old, you see a film like this and you think, what a terrible thing that happened in our history. That's terrible. But then as a woman in my 50s looking at this and seeing nothing has changed, I just started howling. I was like, you know, seeing what just happened in Iran and knowing that the human beings, the so-called forgettable masses, are the ones that always suffer. And just to know that nothing changes. This film, it gutted me last night. And I just felt, wow, this is a masterpiece. Hard agree. Jennifer, some lore on this podcast. This is Blank Fick with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as getting to make possibly the most expensive Australian film made up until this point, but possibly the road warrior beat it by a little bit. OK, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, it was basically at that level of the industry rising to establish this is the new ceiling of what could be made and being given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. baby we are talking about the film gallipoli yes from place you've never heard of podcast you'll never forget hopefully uh is australia the place you've never heard of or gallipoli well that's why that's why the american tagline is so funny the australian tagline was just peter weir's film of gallipoli okay very much a sort of like you know this is one of one of our emerging uh filmmakers has made a film about a very important historic event in australia right i guess it sold itself more in that way. This is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick at Hanging Cast. Our guest today, to my great excitement, is one of my favorite modern filmmakers, someone I've talked about so much. And our guest from the furthest away that we've ever had, I think. This is true. A record being broken. I don't think so. I don't think we've ever had a guest from so far away beating on to the show before. Furthest away geographically, furthest away in time. You are far ahead in the future. Yeah, it's tomorrow there. Yeah, we're a A day ahead. There's like flying cars and shit around here. Because I was, our friend Rob Shearer, a mutual friend, helped us set this up. Yeah. And we were going back and forth about what days and times to throw out. And I said Monday evening. And he went, and just to clarify, by that you mean her Tuesday, right? Yeah. This is always, I'm used to it. I'm the master of, okay, so you realize I'm in the future. Right. You have to deal with this all the time, right. Yeah. Yeah. A day ahead, but further, you know, later in the next day, if that makes sense. But anyway. Yes. I'm here. We made the great Jennifer Kent. The filmmaker behind The Babadook and The Nightingale, two of my favorite movies of the last 10 years. Yeah. Well, it's more than 10 years for Babadook. Babadook, it was just the 10th anniversary? It was just, last year was 10 years, which is sort of unbelievable to me. I often contend it is like one of the most influential films of this century. It's a wonderful film. And I, beyond just how much I love it and how exceptional I think it is, I do think there is a ripple effect across all of horror at a studio level, at an independent level, globally. Like, I do think there was a turning point in that film, and I've seen the entire language of horror change around it. Wow. Well, you know, we're not here to talk about me, but in regards to that film, it was really hard to get made, actually, because there's a big snobbery within the Australian funding systems towards horror. Right. And so I said to them it was arthouse horror, and their response was, you know, there's no such thing as that. But that's the way I sort of treated it, that it was, I mean, And to call it elevated, it's a disparaging term towards horror and cinema. I think all horror is elevated because it's just pure cinema. I am 100% with you, and I've always found the elevated horror thing very backhanded. Right, it's backhanded. The fact that you had to call it arthouse horror and trying to get financing to make it shows that it was before the elevated horror conversation. conversation yeah yeah and now i think they're like okay bring us your horror you know right and that's good i'm i'm really happy that that means that other filmmakers who really care about the genre and there are many there are you know many of them in australia that they can get their films made but even finding a way to uh tell what is clearly like a story that personally means a lot to you that has big ideas and big emotions and big like uh story notions to communicate that it's not just like i'll make a horror movie because that's what can get sold or i'll take a different idea and i'll dress it up in horror when i saw babadook it felt like the atom was yeah of like oh this is a pathway for what yeah this genre can be and it has felt like i don't I found it entirely transformative on like the landscape of horror as a movie I adore. Also, I've told this story before on the podcast, but I went to see it with my parents. And like 40 minutes in, my mother was gasping. It was my second time seeing it. I dragged them to see it because I loved it so much. And like 40 minutes in, my mother was like covering her mouth with her hand. And I said, it's really scary, right? And she went, no, you don't understand. This is the only movie I've seen that depicts what it felt like to raise you as a child. Yeah, he was the little Babadook boy right here. Oh, well, me too. I mean, I used to invent go-karts without brakes and send them rolling down hills with me in them. And yeah, I was pretty, pretty. Maybe I wasn't seeing the Babadook in every corner, but I relate. Put it that way, Griffin. I don't know if I was seeing the Babadook literally, but yes. The movie, it certainly helped me a lot in terms of therapy. It unlocked a lot of things. yeah I mean I had one guy who wrote to me and said that his uh he lost his dad very young and his mum raised three boys and he said he said he's an editor and he was just watching it late at night like put it on half watching it and he said that he he was just sort of drawn in and by the end he said thank you you know this was more valuable to me than 20 years of therapy and as a A filmmaker. I mean, when you get that kind of, I mean, that's why I do it, you know. I've really turned down a lot to make films that get a cut somehow sent back to me. But, no, it means a lot to really reach people, you know, and you never know who you're going to reach. I mean, does Peter Weir know that, you know, someone's watching his film 45 years later and just ugly crying about, you know, the messages of the film. Yeah. And the futilities of war. It's, like, incredible to me. What is your relationship to Weir generally? Like, have you seen most of his filmography? What, you know, did you, I guess you grew up with these movies, as you just said. Yeah, well, the interesting thing about, you know, without giving you a lecture on it, but we didn't make it. You were invited to give a lecture. How about I just sit here while you give us an Australian film lecture? That would be just fine. school or asses. Well, okay, let me start way back in the beginning. My great great uncles were film producers. Great great in the silent era. Okay, in Australian silent film. Yeah, yeah. And so my dad being low key and sort of chill Australian as we all are just close to before he died said, oh, did I ever tell you that your great-great-uncles were film producers? And I said, no. And anyway, he told me the story that, you know, they were also film distributors and they distributed the first film ever made, which is the history of the Ned Kelly Gang, the history of the Kelly Gang. Like a spy-land. How long was it? It was the first film ever made. Period. Like in the world. Wow. Period, yeah. And that was a feature length, but it's lost. There's only bits of it now. But then they went and produced a lot of silent films with Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyle, who were like big stars. And we had, in Australia, the most thriving film industry in the world. It surpassed Hollywood. So there were more bums on seats to see our films than there was anywhere in the world, including America. and then the Americans saw that and came in and went, we want that. So what they did was they, mafioso style, came in and put a stronghold on all of the Australian cinemas so that Australian films could no longer be made because they wouldn't be screened. And so my great-great-uncles took these films that they were making and went round to town halls and public spaces and tried to screen them and they fought it and fought it and fought it and then they had to give up and they went into to live theater production right right i feel like australian cinema kind of atrophied right i mean like well well so that was in that was in the 30s and then for almost 40 years we didn't make any films right right right which is insane right when you're reading about peter weir sort of coming up in the 70s it's like there's really not much of an industry there's a television industry which is how he's getting started or there's not much of a film industry but also people in these interviews we keep reading and quotes from him at the time you know talking about what the australian new wave represented even though we've lacked this context it's been very clear they're not just saying like oh and then a new movement or a new style came in the new wave was starting up the machinery again that's right that's right and then so it puts it into context right because if you look at okay in 1969 we had zero again uh i mean there was one filmmaker charles chevelle who who made like jedo which is a very odd kind of intentionally good but quite racist film and uh and we have none of those in america oh no but then so you had nothing and then you had wake and fright which is extraordinary, and Walkabout, which is also extraordinary. That's 71. And Walkabout. Yeah. Yeah. And they were both directed by, you know, non-Australians, but they're both masterpieces. But it was because the government of all places, and it was a bipartisan thing, it was both the right and left wing, two, you know, two prime ministers said, well, we're going to invest in culture. Right. We're going to give you some culture. Yeah, let's get some culture going. And what's extraordinary to me is it wasn't like Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, yeah, aren't we good, let's make sort of propaganda films about how great Australians are. These films were very, they sort of equaled American independent cinema and European new wave, you know, the French new wave, in that they were very critical of our society, our culture. They're very odd and disturbing. Odd and disturbing, yeah. Yeah. Like I we have a cinematech here in Brisbane. It's all free. Like they play incredible films. And one of the films I had the other day was The Cars That Ate Paris. And, you know, even films like that, they're just subversive and weird and brilliant. Right. Cars That Ate Paris, we've covered. Yeah, right. His first major film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of strangely funny. Do you guys get that in terms of its humor? I found it very funny, but I don't know if I'm finding it funny for the reasons he intended. I think it's making fun of a sort of small town mindset that I think we did understand, but then there's certainly things we're probably not picking up on, on this sort of small town mindset of the 70s that it's satirizing in Australia. Yeah, it just felt sort of quintessentially Australian to me, that film. and sort of Babadook-style humor as well. And then I realized, oh, there is such a thing as Australian humor. Just to clarify, in the 40 years where theaters are operating but Australian films basically aren't getting made, is it primarily American films that are playing there? Is it equal amounts of films from the UK and from other parts of Europe? Yeah, I think we, yeah, I mean, I wasn't around, But I, knowing from my mum, who was a big, you know, sort of, we wouldn't call her a cinephile, but she watched everything that came out. And it was mainly Hollywood. I think that qualifies as cinephile. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can give it the title. Like, unintentional, unintentional cinephile. But we all, we had a lot of British films made here. You know, The Sundowners. And Chips Rafferty was an Aussie star. He was an Australian actor, but he was always starring as the token Aussie in British films that were made here. Right. Yeah. And, you know, those early weird films, I mean, Picnic and Hanging Rock, I don't know if you have a particular impression of that one. I know that is sort of, that's such a, you know, totemic one for Aussie cinema. I mean, yeah, it's one of my favorites. I had to make a list for the age here just today, actually, of my 10 favorite Australian films. Wait, what are your 10 favorite Australian films? Yeah, I want to get it. This was unrelated to the show. You were doing it for something else? Yeah, yeah. So I had to make a list just because they're asking filmmakers what their favorite. I mean, I kind of hate making lists because filmmaking is not a horse race. Sure, it's exclusionary to make a list, but it's fun, too. But I made it. Yeah. I made it. So my favourite Australian films today were Wake and Fright, Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. Oh, yeah, that's right. Fred Shepstein. Yeah, Skepsy, yeah. Skepsy. Yeah, that film made a huge impression on me, especially for The Nightingale, I think. uh gallipoli mad max snowtown 10 canoes and chopper i don't know 10 canoes i'm looking i don't know that one either but i mean my god three out of 10 slots was peter weir yeah right you had three peter weir movies um yeah he's the last wave was a film we covered where i think we felt very out of our depth in terms of the sort of like the cultural stuff he's wrestling with there loved it it's a very interesting movie yeah you're just kind of aware that there's a bunch of stuff underneath the surface that we don't have the ability to pick up on. But it was fantastic. I think Join the Club in that it is, you know, it's a film about sort of climate, not climate change, but it's an environmental film, I think. And, you know, the Aboriginal presence in it, what I really admired that he did was just let them go. Right. Let them leave what the story is. And, I mean, that's what we did in Nightingale as well was, you know, the script was made in full consultation with Palawa people, Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But that's what I think you probably, is that what you're finding a bit confounding? Like, oh my God, what is this? Not even confounding. I mean, Last Wave, I would say, Last Wave is trying to confound. I mean, both Last Wave and Picnic and Hanging Rock are happy to leave you, you know. In the dark. Yes, a little unsatisfied in terms of explanations and ready to wrestle with it, which is great. Gallipoli is not that at all. Alkalipoli is a very sort of straightforward kind of punch in the jaw, which is fine. Like, I mean, that obviously works great. I'd say I don't think it's that we've been confounded by these early ones, but there's almost like an anti-Dunning-Kruger syndrome thing where the more we try to do some research, either going into the movie or after the fact, then you start to become more aware of how much you don't know, if that makes sense. We're like, oh, let's have a slight set of cultural context on this. I think that's why I do probably favor his earlier films that were made in Australia. And it's not because they were made in Australia, but there's a tone to them that's very unconventional. And it's really purely from him. And you really feel that. I mean, in The Last Wave, I love that section where the older Aboriginal character is just saying to Richard Chamberlain's character, Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? It keeps saying it over and over. And the first time I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, who am I? Who the hell am I? Walked to the kitchen, got a cup of tea and thought, who am I? But it's very Aboriginal. It's very authentic in that way. And yeah, my memory of Gallipoli Having not seen it again last night Was that it's a very conventional film That I enjoyed as a kid That was my So it was, you know, it is very conventional But I would argue that now It's like the antithesis of Saving Private Ryan Which starts off so gritty and confronting and horrific And then kind of goes into a much more romantic everything's going to be all right, we're going to save this one dude who, you know. But this film, Gallipoli, is where mates, everything is going to be okay, everything's going to be all right, and then nothing is all right. And if you look at the structure of the film, it's like an hour and 46 minutes. And I just clocked at this time, you know, that the first hour and 15 minutes, you don't even sort of realize there's a war. I mean, you know there's a war because they tell you there's a war. And even when they're in Cairo, they're having fun and it's about their relationship. But it's in that last 30 minutes. Yeah, 30 minutes. And then it gets serious all of a sudden. And then in the last 20 minutes, you're like, oh, my God, this is a horror. I mean, it's a horror thing. and I because Gallipoli is such a you know pivotal you know I learned about that in school and like the battle you know that David grew up in London I grew up in England so so you know you know World War I we're all you know we were taught all this stuff like I think I thought of this movie as like a sort of definitive accounting of like what happened at Gallipoli and what went wrong and what well you know about the big battle and then that's what I love about the movie is that it's not that at all it's like they're like you don't need to understand like what happened here except that it was lunacy except that they were just throwing people you know yeah over trenches run that way yes exactly yeah yeah and no no one was everyone was indispensable no one was going to survive that i mean it was an absolute failure in terms of you know if you look i mean i'm no army historian but any most australians can tell you that that was a failure and you know 130 000 plus lives were lost on both sides and and and they didn't achieve any got anything out of it and that was a failure before they sent all these boys to die like it was already a conclusive failure and then there was this completely unnecessary mass sacrifice pushed on top of it to establish some lore within the history of our show jennifer when you were saying watching this you you view this as a period piece and then go i can't believe this kind of stuff is still happening today you know you were comparing it back to your experience of watching this yeah for a first time as a 10 year old my relationship to war in movies is like perpetually frozen at the age of 10 where more so than any other type of film war movies tend to just make my brain short circuit for that exact reason i just become like a pollyanna child where i go i don't understand how this is real right more so than any fantastical genre film i just go like i don't understand how this is still how things get settled and i become so overwhelmed with anxiety that it's really hard for me to engage with them and i would say the war films i do like tend to by and large be movies that are not actually war films quote unquote as a genre they are films where war is a backdrop and there is some emotional tour story being told in front of the war i did not know what to expect from this film and i think i expected much like david right this is more a conclusive kind of epic retelling of this important moment in australian history and starting it and immediately realizing 10 minutes in oh they find out the war is happening in the newspaper there's just this kind of like did you guys see there's some war happening right right and and the fact that the movie is and i love the guy who's kind of out in the middle of nowhere and says oh is there a war going on yeah and this movie is really structured more as like a boy's adventure film in the sense that it is like these guys going off to join the circus and the war is kind of uh friends these guys are gonna go be friends together you know everyone is like obstructed these boys are going off in a journey they could just as easily be looking for like a hidden pirate ship you know it could be like a goonie style adventure and they're approaching it yeah exactly and there's a word that we it's very dated no one says larrikin now but it's a very Australian word that would be used to describe these guys is, you know, larrikins, that they're up for a bit of fun and they're a bit naughty and, you know, break the rules, but it's all going to end well with a beer and a joke. And that's why, like, and Snowy, I remember as a kid, we all cracked up laughing at David Ague in that role because he was so, such an innocent you know and then to that's when I lost my shit last night watching it was when he was in the tent he said they're not giving me food or water and I just broke down and from that point on and even when I forget the actor's name but the young guy at the beginning who's fighting Archie on the horse and Archie's running remember when they re-cree. Oh yeah, I'm not sure. Let's see. And then they sort of see each other as the bully character's just about to go over the trench and he's an absolute mess. Harold Hopkins, that's that actor. Harold Hopkins, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's so well constructed actually, as a script I feel. It is, yeah. It's brilliantly constructed. Basically from that moment, like just from the tone and where the story was starting at the beginning, I went, oh, I see what this is, and he is setting me up for, like, the grand tragedy of this movie, which is these guys aren't thinking of themselves as being in a war movie. They don't understand what war is. They think this is, like, the beginning of some rip-roaring adventure and some coming-of-age tale, which is what this really is. The story of World War I, of course, right. It's like this is a coming-of-age movie interrupted by the brutality of the world. Yes. And he delays it, and delays it and delays it till the absolute till they can't delay it anymore even when they rip off all their clothes and they jump into the water and there's shells firing off around them I mean that you go oh I don't feel good here because you know there's this sort of danger that's introduced underwater so brilliantly like that but then when the guy comes up he's only had his arm hit and not badly so you think oh good you know back back to sort of laughing and having fun but it's and then when those shells go off yeah yeah yeah yeah brilliant brilliant because even until that guy is like nicked by the one bullet even as their bullets floating past them it feels like it's just adding to like the beauty and the ambiance right you know it's kind of this like visually ecstatic thing well just the whole thing with her at the beach and there's just like shelling going on yeah And they're just kind of like, yeah, well, that's over there. You know, like, you know, like just that feeling of it's like, yeah, it's close, but it's not here yet. Yeah. Until that night. Until that night. Until that night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like it's a sneakily sort of untraditional way to tell the story. Like, you know. It is. Yeah. It's not milking the drama and the kind of excitement of war. It's not milking that. Right. No. because when war hits it hits and that's game over it's it that's the end of them all well not all of them but almost all we're said that like part of the big inspiration for this film part of it was that he went to visit the site and he saw the bullet casings and such that were still there well but it wasn't just that he saw the um the case of the um that it's gibson's milcomson's character gets it in the care package the beverage yeah yeah you know he saw i have to find it yeah I will look. We have some research we can. Like he got the bath salts and the cookbook. It's the Eno bottle. Yeah. So is that an existing Australian brand? It's not anymore. Okay. And it was when I was a kid, it was. It was still a thing. So the audiences watching that would have gone, oh, yeah, okay, I know what that is. That was the big thing he said is he went to visit the site. There were still bullet casings there. And then he saw an Eno bottle and it was like immediately conjured the idea of, oh, these were just kids. These were kids who were using the same products that I use today. Right. Yeah. The banality of needing to take like an antacid in the middle of this thing made him conjure the whole thing, which is also weirdly similar to how Last Wave came about. He talked about envisioning seeing the object in the cave. Oh, sure. It's two consecutive movies where he finds an object and is like, that's a good idea. movie. Wow. Have you ever met him or interacted with him, Jennifer? I have no idea. I haven't, unfortunately. I haven't had anything to do with Peter. But I mean, I feel I know him because, not in a kind of stalkery way, but just because as a kid, I saw these films and they're like a dream. They're like a dream that I had. And they're so important to our psyche as Australians, especially people in the arts and and in film so yeah he's he's an absolute master to me and i i would guess that many people don't know who he is in america do you think i think that he's yes a little bit on that edge it's part of why i really wanted to cover him if he's made a lot of very very well-remembered films yes that do linger in the cultural consciousness but he's not thought of as an auteur i mean obviously by film fans he's very well regarded but like you know in the in the larger public and he should be more you know and like and he should be such an interesting and varied filmography and he worked in every genre and even when he came to hollywood he kind of never had one thing that he did He kept kind of hopping between you know most of the storytelling which was so interesting David! Yes? This episode is brought to you by Moo B. Moo B! Oh the global film company the Champions Great Cinema. Ah! The Global Film Company the Champions Great Cinema. Ah! The Global Film Company. Iconic directors. Emerging auteur is always something new to discover. Movies, films are hand-selected. You can explore the best of cinema. Give me one example! David, give me one example! No, they have a new movie that's streaming on the movie in the U.S. It's Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. It's the Jim Jarmusch movie from last year. The one, The Golden Lion! This is a film at Venice that regretfully regretfully regretfully you and I both didn't get a chance to catch up with. But now I will be able to enjoy this funny, tender, and gently moving exploration of the universal intricacies of family dynamics. Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Kate Blanchett, Vicky Creeps, all the people who were invited to Ben's birthday party. It's a triptych, right? There's a New Jersey section, a Dublin section, a Paris section, obviously. Jarmusch has done such storytelling before, Night on Earth. and such. Coffee and cigarettes, Griffin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's about the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent, or parents and each other. I simply cannot relate. I know, right? Having a complicated relationship with your parents? So, you can watch that, and you can watch all the other great stuff they've got at Mubi. To stream the best of cinema, you can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. I think, Jennifer, when my experience in telling people that we're about to cover Weir, it's usually, who is that? And then I can list a couple films. I'll say Picnic at Hanging Rock. I'll say Witness. I'll say Truman Show. I'll say Master and Commander, and they'll go, oh, I didn't know one guy made all of those. Or I say Peter Weir, they repeat back those four movies. Those are probably the four. And then they go, what else did he make? Right. And then I'll name the other movies, and they'll go, oh, I didn't realize the same person made all of those. It doesn't feel like anyone has a very complete notion of him here, even if they know his movies. But I know in Australia, Picnic and Hanging Rock, and Gallipoli especially, are, those are very foundational movies to Australians. Yeah, and I mean, I think even your average, you know, mom and dad would know of Gallipoli. It's like a bit like Crocodile Dundee or, you know, it's the kind of film that everyone saw or even if they didn't see, they think they have. They feel they've seen it. And maybe they saw it in school or something like that. It does, right. Yeah, I mean, and it's the Mel Gibson sort of breakout movie. You know, there's a lot of, right. Okay, before we get into the context and open up our research dossier here, now, just only because you brought it up, I must ask, Jennifer. We covered the three Crocodile Dundee movies in deep pandemic while we were losing our minds. We had never seen them before, and we were kind of fascinated by being a little too young for them and knowing that they were such a good cultural phenomenon. And there was one day where we watched all three of them in a row in January 2021, losing our minds. And started kind of like skeptical. What is this? What is this fad thing that was popular in the 80s? And then like 20 minutes into the first Crocodile Dundee, we were like this fucking rule. I love this guy. I'd watch 80 of these movies. The drop off on two and three, I found pretty severe. Yes. Yeah. Right. I haven't seen two and three. I've definitely seen one. I mean, did you go into Paul Hogan's kind of history? We tried to. Really? I mean, yeah. He's still kicking around, right? I mean, he's quite old at this point. Yeah, he's sort of, you don't hear about him now. But when I was growing up, you know, as a kid of the 70s and 80s, he was this cultural icon. And he was known as Hoag's, you know. And he used to be a bit, his claim to fame before he became a star was he helped work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So he was a real Aussie, you know, sort of labourer. Yeah. But he was a larrikin. If ever there is a use for the word larrikin, that's him, you know, with a capital L. And he had a show called The Paul Hogan Show. Right. We know that. Yeah. Yeah. And it was funny. I mean, it was very Aussie. Uh-huh. And, you know, he had a co-star, like, it was sort of like the Benny Hill show. Or, I don't know, what's the American equivalent? I mean, what is the, it's sort of like a Carol Burnett or something. But like, yeah, maybe laughing or. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a big popular sketch show. Yeah. Sketch show. Exactly. But, but with ongoing characters. Yeah. And so then for him to make Crocodile Dundee, I have no idea how that, who produced that film. And then I'll be able to tell you maybe how it came about. Yeah. It's a really good question. Because my two-pronged question was like, how was it received in Australia at the time? And then how did Australians feel about Americans for the next three decades being like, oh, Australia, like Crocodile Dundee? It's basically becoming the one reference point. Yeah, I mean, I find it kind of hilarious how Americans view Australia anyway. You know, that you get off the plane and you grab your luggage and there's spiders all over it. Right, right. You know. Scorpions falling from the sky. A drop bear is going to, like, attack you, and you'll basically be dead before you get to the taxi. Yeah. And, you know, we play on that too. I mean, and there is some truth in it. Like my ex, his cousin came from Germany, and we went to the sea, and we were at an estuary, and we were on this bridge, and this kid went to his dad. Dad, look down, look down, there's a ray. and it was like a manta ray the size of a car. And I've never seen that in my entire life, but this poor German guy said, I'm never. That's the first thing he sees. I want to go home. Look, I mean, I can tell you that it was produced by John Cornell, who I think was his sort of. Oh, yeah, so that was Strop. That was the guy who's made Strop. Right, Strop, his sidekick. Yeah. Okay. Okay, only produced by him must have been other people. He's the only good producer. What? The distributor was called Hoyt's Distribution. Yeah, that's like a cinema chain, right? Yeah, it's a cinema chain. Rimfire Films was the production company. So then in that case, I mean, yeah. Yeah, in that case, it must have come from Hogue's. It must have come from those two. I mean, stroke a genius. And didn't Hogan also have the cigarette campaign where he would always say, anyhow, have a Winfield, but that was his thing, right? Yeah, oh, my God. And he did that Aussie laborer thing of like having your ciggies in your T-shirt, like on your – Like you tuck the sleeve. Yeah, right. Yeah, is a masculine thing to do. It's so funny that we're talking about Paul Hogan because like he used the – no, I know. No, I mean we need to create a – what's the word I'm looking for? A tapestry between these two points. I'll just say the other thing about this movie is that the line Jennifer already quoted, the how fast you're going to run as fast as a leopard. That Bluey, I have young children, so I watch Bluey all the time, which is now my closest connection to Australian culture. The modern Croc Dundee. Well, that's set very close to where I live. Right, you're from Brisbane, right? Yeah, and I lived in Sydney for many decades and then came back here because I want to be close to my family of origin. And I love it here. It's changed. It's not like Bluey. It's not like Bluey? I really was hoping it was exactly like Bluey. Did the dogs talk? Although there is a Bluey world or something that's been... Yeah, there's like a visible Bluey. Yeah. There's an episode of Bluey called Obstacle Course Vets where he says, how fast will you run as fast as a greyhound is the line they use. The second, which it's an homage to Glyph. Oh, really? Oh, in Bluey. Oh, that's so sweet. I did just say where I am now is the composer is next door to Bluey. He's incredible. He's a kind of genius. James Jazz. Yeah. A woman. Oh, cool. Yeah. I'll make the other connected bridge. I guess I just forgot this. Russell Boyd shot Crocodile Dundee one and two. Who shot Gallipoli. Who's Peter Wilson. Yeah. I noted that last night that Russell Boyd has done a lot. I wrote down the films. He did Last Wave, Year of Living Dangerously. He started on Picnic and Hanging Rock, and he did all of them through Europe Living Dangerously, I think. Yeah, and then did Master and Commander. He came back to Master and Commander. John Seale was the camera operator on Gallipoli. And then he also did Witness, Mosquito Coast. Yeah. And had a great Hollywood career. Yeah, I mean, he did like Gorillas in the Mist, Rain Man, Children of a Lesser God, Mad Max Fury Road. So, yeah, I think he's another genius. Yes. It's stuff like that that makes the Australian film world feel small, like that. It's like, you know, he hooks up with George Miller at the end. Yeah. Like, yeah, I know it's bigger than it seems. It's just these names loom so large, I think, for American viewers like Peter Weir, George Miller. Yeah. I think we punch above our weight, to be honest. Oh, yeah. No question. In terms of, you know, the size of the industry. because when I was looking at making that list of 10 favorite films, I got a bit depressed because I went on, I don't know, I checked a few sites, including Wikipedia, but that was the one that had most of the films. And there's not a lot of films that have come out of Australia. Right, yeah. Yeah. It's also just fascinating, though, to what you were saying earlier, that, you know, there's the American New Wave happening and the French New Wave happening, And both of them are happening in response to what are like massive film industries, but industries that have started to become a little stayed and are dealing with the like, you know, coming out of decades of things like the Hays Code and like the Nazi occupation and all these things that were like, sure, really tightening and restricting movies. And then the industry doesn't kind of know where it's at. And then they finally empower this like younger group of film school graduates to start making whatever the fuck they want. And they start making these films that are more wild and funny and out there and genre films and political films and movies that are speaking to like the disenfranchisement and irritations of the moment. But that's like films that are made in response to what those filmmakers were frustrated other films weren't tackling. Versus the Australian New Wave, as you're saying, were films made in response to what was going on in the culture, but they weren't responding to a deficit of those films in conversation. They were responding to a deficit of movies, period. Yes, they were responding to a void, to an absolute void. But then to come out of that and have the films be kind of so strong minded in their messaging and looking at the early weird stuff and even watching like Homesdale and the early shorts and whatever. Yeah. He feels very, very concerned from the get go with trying to work through the kind of like politics of the young people of Australia at that moment. And also like constantly trying to reckon with the history of the land he lives on. and the murky cultural mess of that. Yeah, I think he was just really true to himself. That's the feeling I get just from his films, not from knowing him, but, you know, that he had a certain kind of spiritual core that he wasn't afraid to kind of face and embrace. And that's what I'm feeling when I watch, especially those earlier films. I'm seeing that I mean even did you cover The Plumber? Yeah we did are you a fan of The Plumber? I love The Plumber oh you just did it isn't it like you know when you get I mean when you get that it's usually a guy but when you get that person in your house and they start asking questions about your life or you know I had one in the other day well, are you an artist? And I didn't, like, he didn't know anything about me. And I said, oh, and then I started offering up information. I thought of The Plumber. It is maybe my second greatest anxiety trigger behind war is people in my home asking me questions. Yeah, it's a nice kind of very contained idea for whatever, a thriller, a horror film, whatever you want to call The Plumber. But also a social comedy. I mean, The Plumber is quite funny. It's funny. Yeah, it's funny. And I think he has this beautiful sense of humor, this very black Australian sense of humor. I don't know. Does that translate? I guess in Green Card, that's quite a funny film. Green Card's very funny, but Green Card's also so interesting. I'm a huge fan of Green Card, but it's also very sincere. It's also quite a sort of, you know, it is a straightforwardly romantic movie, but yes, it is. You know, the humor in it is not like big jokes. It's not just a rom-com. yeah yeah yeah no he and i think gerald dipardieu is fantastic in that i mean it's many years since i've seen that but yeah he he is excellent in the movie um yeah i want to open up the dossier yes okay i'm gonna this is our research uh jenna i'm just gonna take a look so the last film he makes before this is is the last wave yeah yeah so after that weir apparently takes a year off of filmmaking decides that he needs to watch more movies to teach himself to be a better filmmaker so he calls himself sort of a primitive filmmaker and says like I just I started with D.W. Griffith I watched Russian silent movies I watched Hitchcock movies I watched Chaplin movies I watched French cinema I watched you know whatever he's basically doing a sort of syllabus for himself in the 70s I guess so he's probably doing mostly like sort of pre-war cinema but he's going like chronologically region to region like filling in all the gaps of his understanding this final sentence is so good he said um i was astounded astonished and fascinated with the great gift of these films and so glad that i hadn't looked at them earlier if i had i don't think i would have made films because i was at the bottom of the hill oh wow wow so when he says this whole kind of primitive film thing and you do look at like picnic and hanging rock and uh the last wave and car state of paris they're so accomplished and they're so clear in their vision but they also do feel like outsider art in a certain way i almost on the level of what you're saying jennifer of like his spiritual connection rather than them feeling like the conforming to the rhythms you know from other movies and then he suddenly watches a bunch of other movies realizes if he had known how differently he was doing things he would have been too anxious to ever make anything right i mean thank god he didn't watch other films that was going to be or even if it influenced those films and kind of polish the rough edges off them i'd be disappointed in that you know i think have like three under his belt yeah then go through this whole well four if you count the plumber which i know is like an hour no you should count the plumber yeah he's got i think so four four yeah the plumber happens right after the sabbatical of watching movies for a year that's when he's in this state of what do i do next and the next thing he was trying to do was year of living dangerously yeah this ended up jumping ahead of uh yeah he's also he's courted to by hollywood for the first time to make the thorn birds oh which is uh yeah which is obviously set in australia right that's based on the book yeah yeah yeah yeah uh herbert ross had dropped out peter weir is somewhat courted um but he basically realizes he's not right for the movie and he has this thing where he talks about how when he's trying to, when he's prepping to make a film, he gets this enormous collection of music that he has and he sort of picks out the tapes that he wants to listen to. I mean, it's the 70s. I do that now though. Right, right. And he just couldn't pick like the songs that were like really sort of speaking to him for the Thorn Birds and he's thinking like, eh, I'm not right for this, but I can fudge it, I'll do it. and he's sitting at a bar afterwards and he's waiting for the writer to join him. Like, why can't I find the sound of this movie? Why can't I find the song that figures the right feeling for this? And he says, and this is, he gives such interesting quotes in these interviews. He says, he puts a swizzle stick in his mouth, he clenches it, he starts, like, making a buzzing noise with it, basically. Peter does. Peter Weir does. And he says, you know, that's what my films are. They have the sound of tension to them. That's the fundamental sound I want and I'm just not feeling it with the thorn birds. You know, like he's like, I'm not going to be making a movie that has that kind of quality to it. So he drops out. That's how he describes dropping out of the project. It's very interesting. That's so fantastic. And that was made into a miniseries, right? Yeah, right. With Rachel Ward and Richard Chamberlain from The Last Wave. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I haven't read it, but it's like an epic story, right? It's like a sort of generational, like an East of Eden type sort of like, you know, 40 years story. Yeah, I think it was quite a pulpy, if I'm not trying to be disparaging. But, you know, it's a bit of a, not quite a bodice ripper, but this is a priest from memory. Look, I don't even know if I've seen it, but a priest who gets, you know, falls in love with Rachel Ward's character. Right. Yeah, it serves that purpose. I mean, maybe it's more, maybe the book, I haven't read the book, but maybe the book is deeper than that. But yeah, I can see why it wouldn't it have it wouldn't have his name on it. I can see that. Yeah. The other crazy thing in this period of time is he almost makes what would become John Carpenter's The Thing. Yes. What? Oh, which I never heard this before. He's offered what you know, he's offered an adaptation of who goes there. The short story, which had already been turned into the thing from another world. yeah then he sees ridley scott's alien and he's kind of like well that's really good and that kind of has a vibe beyond that he was like i feel like i'm close but i can't quite crack the right way to dramatize this and then he sees alien and he's like well that's what i should have done right and then he would have done then he sees the thing and he's like that was also good i don't think you know like so you know that all works out oh my god that's amazing i didn't know that but then the Two big things. Yeah. The Plumber comes about basically because he's at a dinner with a bunch of people and the story gets told of someone having a similar experience. And he's like, that's a good idea for a movie. A producer at the table is like, well, you should do it. Right. And he's just like, I don't know if it's a full movie. And he goes, well, but there's this TV thing. You could do it quickly. And I think in him trying to get out of his head after this movie watching sabbatical year, he goes, I'll just make this. It'll be simple. I'll get it up on its feet. But then he makes this thing we referenced in the Plummer episode, Heart, Head and Hand, which is a documentary about ceramicists. It's about a teacher called Peter Rushforth. I've never seen it. I don't know anything about it, but it's sort of a documentary documentary. It is an actual documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a short documentary, but the thing I got to find the quote here, the reason I bring it up and I haven't been able to find the thing to watch it is that he basically changed his approach in terms of how he thought about how he made films. Yeah, he said he learned from watching the way that ceramics treated their work to apply this craft over art motto. Right. And his quote is, he said, Gallipoli was another period where I turned away from any sort of style, attempting to reinvent oneself properly. Probably some people who didn't care for the film as much as earlier films said, I miss your style or I prefer the earlier films. And I said, well, style is just another tool for me. I don't ever want to be trapped by style. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think like like watching it with such distance now as in, you know, so long ago since I saw it. I do think his soul is in that film, in Gallipoli. I mean, it's very intimate, actually. I mean, a lot of it is really about two people in a frame or four people in a frame. And, yeah, sure, there's some dance. You know, there's like that tragic scene where Bill Hunter's character realizes that they're going to war the next day, so he lets them have a drink. You know, but it's not epic. I wouldn't call that film there are some sort of crowd scenes that would have cost money but I feel it's still a very human intimate film it's still him I think it's an anti-epic in a really interesting way because it does have the scale and the production weight it has the locations and the big sweeping visas at times and all of that but it's actually eluding all of the obvious story beats you expect and a kind of epic tale set against the backdrop of a war. Yeah, I mean, it's nothing like Come and See, the Ellen Klimoff film. But that is also an intimate anti-war, if you can call these films anti-war. But, you know, that is also two people in a scene, mostly following one or two or three people. Yeah, I mean, Come and See is also... I mean, Gallipoli is, you know, it's a mundane thing. away like the all these boys were just told like go over the come and see you're right it's the it's about an atrocity like it's like it's hard to watch yeah so very i mean and and and like it's a surreal nightmare that film it's like it from the first frame you know this boy is you wondering what he's doing and he's pulling a gun out of the the sand i mean it it's one of my favorite films it's very cool i can see that it would be a film that had influenced some of the stuff you did i mean Yeah, yeah. The big animating idea that I just got really hung up on here in the dossier is he said, and it's sort of what got him starting about the idea of how to make a war movie, a thing he hadn't considered before, is he read an interview with Ingmar Bergman where he had said you can do most anything on screen except kill somebody. And that's where you can't suspend disbelief. And we're kind of took that as a challenge. Right. And he said, that wasn't a bad observation, but you can achieve everything with the suspension of disbelief, which is a Samuel Taylor Coleridge phrase. In war films, you see all kinds of injuries like arms and heads blown off and people dying, the horror of war. But I thought, what if you didn't see much of that? What if you just killed one person whom you've gotten to know and like? And that was part of my structure, apart from the key vision that these were young athletes at the peak of their condition. And it's like, right, that's the whole idea of a movie of, you have these guys who seem kind of blissfully unaware of what lies ahead of them. And you just kind of string along the tension of, okay, but when is everything going to get bad? And instead, you're going to end literally at the moment the guy dies, you know? Yeah, I mean, the movie is just leading to, yeah, just a flash frame. Yeah. And you know what? Like, it's such a, to me, like a lot of German films end on a freeze frame and it really annoys me. Yeah. Because it's like, it's a stylistic thing. But here is the only, I think the only film I can think of where I cannot think of a better ending. It's like a bullet to your own chest, that ending. And it's the thing at 10 years old, I remember. Yeah. I remember Freeze Frame and obviously not a filmmaker at that age, but it really worked on me. It's also so funny for this film to come out of him being like, OK, challenge accepted. How do you put a realistic death on screen? And yet he builds this movie that's a machine to narratively get to that point and earn it. But the movie ends before you actually have to kind of watch the guy die. He does evade showing you that in a way. Well, I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing. And maybe it was just the mood I was in or whatever. But I really, I really, it took me an hour or more to really come out of that state of, you know, really hit me hard watching it. I just, I think I'd been watching news all day, actually, and just feeling despairing for humanity. I was going to say, that's probably a bad way to pre-game Gallipoli, is remind yourself what's going on in the world today. I watched it while my children were napping, and I woke up and I had to just turn off the movie and go get them up. I think I had maybe seen it in school, truly. I could not remember this movie at all. Like, if I saw it, it was in high school, so I don't really remember. and I just sort of forgot the entire storytelling approach he took and then was kind of blown away by it because I did keep thinking of Platoon which I don't know how consciously Stone is borrowing from it but Platoon gets you into Vietnam fairly quickly. Platoon is not mostly concerned with them and whereas this is the opposite. This is basically like the first battle that they're going to do is the last battle they're going to do and it's right at the end of the film. And I mean, this is sort of a random segue, but I think the film Wolf Creek actually does that too, to very different effect. But you're, you know, you're, I mean, the slasher, if you call it, I'm not calling Wolf Creek necessarily a slasher, but, you know, it's like a video game normally, that genre. You just go, oh, another one, another one. But here, I think it's like an hour. It's formulaic in a fine way. Like you're like, I can't wait to see what the next one is. Right. Yeah, yeah. But with these three, you spend an hour with them and you think, oh, they're idiots, but they're kind of endearing and charming. And then, you know, the shit hits the fan. And that's what makes that film terrifying is the emotional investment. And I think here as well, you invest. But I just want to ask you, what did Bergman mean by that? Because I don't quite understand what he's saying. So he felt that if you showed a death on screen, people weren't going to believe it. Is that what he was on? My interpretation is that he was saying that it is the hardest thing for audiences to suspend their disbelief on because it is the thing that you can't really – there's no way to show an even partially real version of it in front of cameras. Is that because people are like looking for the flutter of the eyelid or the chest? I guess so. I mean it's hard to – I can't find whatever quote he's referencing if this is through weird. But I could see it. As an actor, it's playing a thing you have no experience of actually living through. And as an audience, you know it's kind of weirdly the fakest thing on screen because two main actors can kiss and they're not really in love, but they can go through the motion of kissing. But yeah, nobody's dying. Right. And I think Weir's point was the way death usually is depicted on films is like in a war film, you show bloody squibs going off. You know, you show crazy explosions and you don't get the intimacy of death, but you get the kind of like the viscera of death and to try to do the exact opposite. That is really interesting, you know, because when I look at this film, everyone dies, but no one is shown dying. Yeah. So Gibson. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But the people who die, die off screen or it's like they die off screen. They fall down. Yeah. Yeah. Like Snowy. Snowy. We know he's on the way out. And that's. But, you know, Mel Gibson's character, Jack, is it Jack? Yeah, Jack. No, Frank, Frank, Frank. Jack is Bill Kerr. Oh, yeah, yeah. Frank leaves before it happens, of course. And, you know, the other Barney, it's like Barney's dead. And that's devastating to hear that news because that's how people did hear it. Right, right. Right. Rather than getting a big platoon style fall to your knees. Right. With Barbara playing. Yeah, exactly. You just get a telegram. Like I remember my dad, who was too young for World War Two, but his brothers weren't. They were quite a bit older. And I didn't know my granddad because he died before I was born. But my dad said to me that when conscription came around, my granddad would hide his sons in the cupboard. Wow. So they wouldn't be taken away. And that to me is devastating. Yeah. And that's the face of war. Like at the beginning when his uncle says, I can't even remember what he, but his response almost made me, I choked up at his uncle's response, knowing that his beloved nephew is going off to war. Also, the setup of the movie is that this kid has a kind of future ahead of him that's clear. He does. He has such an extraordinary ability. Well also and this probably isn maybe meaningful for audiences outside of Australia but I think the unsung hero in this movie is Mark Lee like the actor I think his performance is so beautiful and innocent and there something so real about it. And, you know, he, he didn't go on to be Mel Gibson. He, he's, he's an Australian actor who basically. And I think, I don't think, I mean, look, he was on this show called the restless years while he was doing this. And then he went back to that, and that's kind of like Young and the Err, like what are your shows? Like a soap opera, right, yeah. Yeah, like a long-running, you know, Days of Our Lives kind of soap opera. And so I think, but I also think his goal wasn't to conquer the world as a person. I saw him in a lot of stage plays when I was studying to be an actor at NIDA, And, you know, he was around then doing – and a beautiful actor. Like it wasn't like he wasn't deserving of more. But see, in the 80s, I mean, because I graduated in the year above Kate Blanchett and Essie Davis at NIDA. And if we said we were going to Hollywood to be actors, we would have been laughed out of the room. You know, it was really only after that that, you know, when Kate – to Hollywood. Yeah, when Kate and Nicole and Russell Crowe and all these people. But at this stage when Gallipoli was made, 81, actors weren't doing that. And I think if Mel Gibson didn't have that dual citizenship, he probably would not have either. Or would have been much more difficult if he wasn't actually born in America. He's such a fascinating case. But I even think beyond that, there just was this energy around him of everyone going like, holy shit, we have discovered a new element. We need to figure out how to build industries around this. Mel Gibson, yeah. I mean, he was a force of nature. It was kind of Mad Max. I mean, he's so wonderful in the original Mad Max. He's incredible, Jennifer, about this small group of filmmakers punching above their weight class. It is crazy not just like we've already kind of established this thing where seeing the cars that ate Paris is the thing that inspires George Miller to make Mad Max. Peter Weir's seeing Mad Max inspires him to go, fuck, I should make something for Mel Gibson. Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Yes, right, right, right. It really interests me because he meets with Mel Gibson, I think, for Last Waiver, an earlier film. And when he meets him, he says, like, look, I don't think I'm going to cast you in this. I don't think you make sense for it. You're not old enough, but I really wanted to meet you. And then so he brings him back for Gallipoli and he says, look, I've cast Mark Lee, who's this like angelic Australian boy. Like, and that's who he's playing. And I need someone who feels modern and you feel modern. Like, because I need someone who's going to resonate with like contemporary viewers, you know, in life. Because Mark is this, you know, feels like he's from an angel. he feels like he's from decades ago whereas you feel like a more real person but also ginsen is relating that but i believe it completely because that is how he feels in the movie you're like this guy's a little out of you know out of the ordinary like you know yeah he's behaving early in the film but he still feels time period too he still feels of the time like right and the additional layer is this is the guy who survives right that this is so much an end of innocence movie or we're through the prism of this specific character but also that like this is a turning point in the history of australia that's what i wanted to ask you jennifer right like that yeah this is the context i only have a little bit but gallipoli is the moment when australians are like why are we serving the british empire right like you know like it's the it's a very definitive sort of transformational moment for the country a little bit on in terms of like why have we been shipped you know halfway across the world to fight a war that barely you know involves us i think we've always had that towards the Brits. I think there's, we were, especially in that period, seen as kind of like the scum. Right, the sort of second class. Yeah, the, I mean, yeah, yeah, like my friend went to work in England as an actress and one of the, and he's very famous, but I won't mention who, but he said, oh, you're from the Antipodes, you know, and it's like, oh, and he mentioned her name And he said, Susan, I had a child woman called Susan as a child. You know, it was sort of really playing on that class system, whereas Australians, the brilliant thing about living in Australia is we don't have an active class system, even though we came from this very sort of regimented class system of Britain. yeah no I think that's right that's one of the you know worst things about Britain is I mean which as living there obviously I was sort of outside the class system because I was American right so yeah I wouldn't fall into the weird traps but then I would see others it was like oh yeah if you talk you know the word you use to describe dinner or the bathroom like immediately slots you in you know to a sort of into a sort of social class for everybody else definitely I think it's It's gotten better, I think, you know, as the world becomes more homogenized. But on that point, I actually felt sad last night watching it on some level beyond the tragedy of the film that I'm watching these iconic Australian actors who are really Aussie, who are really Australian. Right. And I'm seeing our history and this beautiful Australian culture. I mean, it's also, it's not perfect. Like, I think, you know, I know that from The Nightingale. Yes, you have confronted Australian history. Yeah, but that there's an identity that I feel has been lost. And I would say that across the board. Right, the kind of guys you're seeing in these movies don't really exist anymore. No, because now it's, you know, and no slight on you guys, but there's an Americanization of Australia and culture. And it's sad. I feel it's sad because I want to see, I mean, I want to see Australian films about Australian concerns. But this is an interesting question. Like, how much is Mel Gibson, the canary in the coal mine for that? Talking about his weird kind of like dual identity, right? Yeah. And that beyond just thinking he was a talented actor and, you know, seeing him in Mad Max and the fact that Mad Max had crossed over to the States more. One of the motivating things for Weir and trying to find a project to do with Mel Gibson was an understanding that the American studios were interested in Mel Gibson. Yeah. Already just from the first Mad Max and even more so after Road Warrior was like Hollywood is interested in this guy. Right. How do we build a bridge to him? If any Australians are making movies with him, we're more interested in importing them over here. And if anyone can help us figure out how to translate him into a Hollywood star, that's infinitely valuable to us. Yeah. And it's this weird thing about him where he's like one foot in both worlds. Yeah. Yes. And I think but I think he very quickly became. This is like absolutely no judgment because he was born in America, but he became American. I mean there would be audience out there who don't even know he's Australian I remember finding out for the first time he barely had an accent and then he was in movies like The Patriot I mean he was playing he went full America like he made all these sort of war movies and like you know he really leaned into it but then it also means that a lot of the other like Australian exports who crossed over into Hollywood were guys where it was like well how good's your American accent sure Yes. You know, the fact that they like let Heath Ledger be Australian in 10 Things I Hate About You is unusual because very often it was we like your kind of rugged masculinity. But can we add a little bit of like American oorah on top of that? Totally. And then we'll let you through the doors. Yeah. I mean, Mel was, you know, he was a pioneer in opening up the talent pool of amazing actors that come out of this country, you know, and it's just been an avalanche of them ever since, I feel. Compared to our population size, there's so many beautiful actors here. so the other thing i don't know much about jennifer is that like this is western australia right like the start of the you know where he's from yeah which i feel like is is a unique part of the country in and of itself right like because it's so massive and it's kind of hugely underpopulated it's mostly desert i don't like does this capture the culture of that part of the country very like deeply well i think it's very true to the fact like perth is the most isolated city in the world. It's the furthest away from any other major city. I think, yeah, I think it very beautifully demonstrated that, that you, you know, that great scene where we were mentioning before of the guy saying, oh, is there war going on? I can imagine that. I can imagine that. Especially back then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think, I think that's very true. Just to give you a little more research, right, so we mentioned him, he goes to Turkey, he visits the beaches, he's very stirred by it he brings in david williamson who he yes who is a sort of a playwright you know first and foremost who he talked to about picnic and hanging rock where they hadn't actually worked on it yeah and you know first they're like okay do we do you know a sort of full accounting of gallipoli like you know enlistment you know the evacuation of gallipoli the whole you know do we try to do this sort of big thing and then they they just sort of narrow it down to make up a story about two men like it's not a true story right like anything like that they're like let's just make this much more oblique what's also allegorical like this whole notion for him of this was a loss of innocence moment for the australian identity have a character who represents that innocence down to the point that he will die in the name of a meaningless cause right that he will go out and walk straight into his death to represent an ideal they obviously went you know Gallipoli, Winston Churchill was very involved in Gallipoli. There were early drafts that had Winston Churchill as a character. They had a completely wide aspect. Which can be a bit boring. It would be incredibly boring. It would be an encyclopedia article. That immediately turns me off. Right. I like it. You like it. Yes. I mean, it's interesting historically, but when you take something down to the super personal, and it becomes epic, actually. Emotionally, there's room for it to be that. Whereas if you've got, you know, all these scenes with like masses of, I mean, there are battle scenes there, but it's not focused on that. It's actually very intimately shot. Then it tells you the story of this whole battle that was pointless, I think. Yes. Yeah, I'm with you. Right, and go to police. I'm with you, Griff. I feel, yeah, yeah, I feel like it showed in a nutshell how pointless the whole battle was. I think our brains process these things in similar ways, Jennifer. And it is that thing of like if I just see a sprawling battle scene of 80,000 people killing each other, my brain kind of turns off because I can't even calculate what I'm seeing. And I've lost the personal connection to that beyond just like ideologically not understanding how anything could get to that place. Yeah. You know, once we've evolved into having conversation or other options, emails, other abilities to work out issues. Yeah. But yes, this is a movie that keeps everything framed through such a personal lens and such a tight kind of two-person story. And even like the kind of biggest scenes you see are when they're doing like the battleground training in the desert. Yes. And it's just like a bunch of boys wrestling each other in a backyard basically. Yeah. I mean even that, how amazing was that scene where they were all play acting dying? Yes. It's just so beautifully structured, this film. And I think going back to that intimacy, as a filmmaker, I am much more attracted to that style of filmmaking myself. You know, I'm working on a sci-fi that looks to be shooting this year. That is so cool. Whoa, okay. And very exciting. But it's an adaptation of something. But even though the subject matter is huge, the film is kind of somewhat intimate. Yeah. I personally, I mean, big films can be amazing. And I mean, I watched Ben-Hur recently. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, Ben-Hur, you can't believe that they made it. You can't believe it, but it's also brilliant. I don't understand why this is made. Yeah, it's a brilliant film. And so I'm not saying, oh, I don't like those. But to make them, I would never choose to make a big, big film. So that's why a film like Gallipoli just is my happy place. Yeah. If you told me you were making like a gigantic action epic, I would be surprised given the films of yours I've seen so far. I would be like, oh, I didn't know you were. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I just need to call out. Yes. Truly two weeks ago, Jennifer, David just texted apropos of nothing. You know what scene really pops in Ben-Hur? The chariot race. I mean, it was a joke. Oh, my God. Yes, of course. But you were re-watching it? No, someone else was. But you know what's amazing about that film? And look, maybe it's not true, but no one died. I think no one died. That's insane. Maybe a horse. I mean, I'm not sure. No, no horses. No horses. No horses. Unless they're telling us fibs. They might be telling us. But, you know, unlike other productions of the period, no one, no animal or human died on that. That's crazy. And watching it, it's so dangerous, right? When you're watching it, you're thinking, this is going to someone's instantly, like they're going to crash any second. And, you know, it's, I mean, for real. Yeah, it's sort of like Man Max as well. I mean, like that's the magic of the Man Max movies. Oh, yeah. This film is funded by Rupert Murdoch. Yeah. Associated R&R film. I know. I saw that at the beginning and I was like, oh, my God. It basically was single-handedly funded by him. And Robert Stigwood, who's the guy who made Grease, produced Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Yes, that's right. And Murdoch is basically like, you know, let's make a movie in Australia. I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. They formed this company. This ends up being the only film they ever make. But to your point, Jennifer, they basically were like, it seems like something's going on in Australia. And they hire like an American film executive. And they're like, go there and like give us a rundown on the scene. And he's like, I've seen every Australian movie over the last two months. And there were like 12 extraordinary filmmakers here. There's absolutely a scene that's worth putting money into. And they were very committed to that as a long term project. And then this ends up being a one and done. Right. Right. But Peter Weir formed the idea first and then approached. Yes. Yeah. He's been trying to make it for a while. I think he spent a lot of 1979 trying to get it made. Some investors withdrew. He starts working on other stuff and then they come in and they fund it. It cost three million Australian dollars, which was the highest budget an Australian movie had ever gotten at that point. Yeah. But obviously not incredibly high budget. No, no. And what's that? Probably about 25 now or something. Right. I mean, it's not insane. It's well below, obviously, what American films cost at the time. So, yeah, as I said about Gibson, like, he was basically, like, you know, brought in because he already has a lot of heat, but also because Weir loves the contrast between him and Mark Lee. Perfect casting. Right. Mark Lee was sort of something of an unknown, I think, that they just sort of found doing, like, a photo call. Well, he was on the show. I think he started doing that around his time or whatever. Yeah, so he wasn't a big star or anything, Mark Lee. Right. Like the embarrassment of riches in this moment of this, like, generation of talent all coming up together is that Russell Boyd's the DP, but John Seale is the camera operator. And John Seale basically had already ascended to being a DP. But everyone was like, this kind of feels like the big graduation movie for the Australian film industry. Yeah. So we'll all just jump on board and work on this one together. Oh, but this is interesting. Jennifer, you'll be interested to hear this about Mark Lee. Apparently, while he's doing Gallipoli, he tells Peter Weir, Milo Schformen is offering Mozart in Amadeus. Oh, my God! And he says, like, I'm not into it. I'm not going to do it. Oh, my God. And Weir says, like, look, he stayed in Australia. He had kids. He kept it simple. This is a Gibson quote. Oh, no, Mel Gibson said that. Sorry, yeah, it's not Peter Weir. Oh, Mel Gibson. Oh, Mel Gibson was offered Amadeus? No, no, Mark Lee was offered a Gibson just recollects him basically saying like, I'm not going to do it. See, that's what I mean about Mark. I just have this feeling that he didn't want to set the world on fire. I know that he's also a musician. Like he had bands in Sydney for many years, you know, and would play live. His brother's a musician as well. It's just, you know, not everyone wants that life, right? Because it's not the greatest to be a star. I mean, the fascinating quote, because this is coming from Gibson, who is recounting Mark Lee's experience. And Mel Gibson is someone who I think even Mel Gibson for his flaws would admit stardom made him insane. Like, well, yes, if I can read the quote. And this is from a 2001 interview. Mark Gibson, Mel Gibson recounts the Amadeus thing. And he said, so it's a choice you make in a sense. I don't think the full consequences of it hit me till later. And I think Mark had more of an insight into it. He stayed in Australia, got married, had some kids. He wanted to keep it simple, didn't want it to get nuts. Right. For Mel Gibson, too, in 2001, say. I think that guy maybe had it figured out how to not go crazy. Oh, my God. And what was Mel doing around that time? Was he directing by that stage? It's when he's still a huge star, but the wheels are coming off pretty soon after. It's like signs in The Patriot. Yeah, 2000 is Patriot, Chicken Run, and What Women Want this same year. He was like top of the pile in Hollywood. He was the highest paid actor in Hollywood. And he's like calling like, hey, I guess maybe that guy kind of had a good idea. Yeah, yeah. But that's, I mean, you know, in this movie, it's like this grand tragedy that this young man doesn't get to live. There is a similar thing, even though the outcomes are very different, of this guy kind of stayed true to his vision of his notion of what he wanted his career to be in Australia. and maintain some sense of sanity and privacy. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I was talking about before, of the resonance of this actor who kind of effectively disappeared. Yeah, right, right. I mean, of course he didn't. No, without being in talking to him, he's true. There's like an innocence to the fact that he's preserved for many viewers as just the guy in Gallipoli. That's right. And like a mosquito in amber, you know, he's a perfect, angel. But it's all accounts also like happy and balanced, you know? And then the Mel Gibson character in this movie, the whole film is like building to this guy seeing how bad things are about to go. Right. And trying desperately running in circles to do anything he can to stop it. And he is powerless. And all he can do is just choose to, as Mel Gibson put it, like he has the power to be a coward in this moment, which is the smart thing to do. but he doesn't save anyone else. Can you imagine just on a level of war trauma, if that character was real, those screams of Mel Gibson's character at the very end when he realizes he's missed, it's just blood curdling. It's horrible. and that that that human would never get over that never get over because it wasn't just one man that went up over the trench it was all of them it's medical stuff that only you can apply 40 years after knowing the branch and paths of people in their careers but it is like right there is like the kind of survivor's guilt that you gain to push through whatever you need to push through to become the level of movie star that he did yeah which is to say that you have to like throw people in front of a train to get 20 million dollars a movie but there is that kind of like perseverance and pressure that does tend to break people yeah and it's interesting that they've gone similar ways to their i mean mark is still alive so he didn't die but it's it's perfect casting philosophically it weirdly like lines up and then this is the movie on the precipice of weird like tentatively going like do i go to hollywood yeah yeah yeah i mean the next film you know uh is living dangerously that's right yeah is an australian american sort of co-production it's a hybrid right yeah in between and then witness is the film after that in which he's basically which is a beautiful Hollywood and he's yeah it's a witness is an incredible film i mean yeah it's one of my favorites do you guys feel that there was something lost in in that in that migration i mean i think that he's an incredible hollywood filmmaker and he made great movies here but yes there is there is something very whole about the those first few films right like there's there is and like that that you don't you know he made really good movies in hollywood but like you don't see it in the hollywood movies in the same way there's a soulfulness to his hollywood movie so that that never goes away yeah yeah but i mean even if you're like fearless has a deep kind of spiritual yeah it does and you know like i guess it's like things like witness fearless uh green card even dead poet society he makes great movies about outsiders like he makes great movies about feeling out of yourself the truman show is like a masterpiece of that right like well yeah i saw that clashing against each other right yeah yeah yeah i saw that one he's very good at that but he also i mean the stories you hear with the you know in our research about the hollywood movies is like he's just an extremely consummate professional like right yeah it's it's you know he's being handed other people's scripts and he's coming in and he's going like yeah i think i know how to do this in a really good way like he it's a little less yeah the story of like oh right i had a weird dream and began a creative process you know like you don't hear that as much you're Right. Few people have successfully like survived that transition better than him. Right. I mean, he had a fantastic career. I mean, the people that I think thrived in the migration to America were the European Jewish community. I mean, they, you know, went across and created film noir in a way. Right. Right. off the back of German expressionism, this kind of bleak way of looking at the world that I don't know if Hollywood would make films like that anymore. That's a great point, though. I think in a way, like the way I look at his career in a smaller quantity is similar to Fritz Lang, where I love his German work so much. Right, and the American films are so, so interesting. But it's like two distinct chapters of his career. They're both great. I would be more frustrated, I think, if we were doing this series and you're like, oh, Peter Weir only made two Australian films before he jumped over to Hollywood. And if the Hollywood films were of a lesser integrity, it would be more frustrating. The fact that he has kind of a whole proper career of Australian films, that he has this five film arc. Right. And I would have loved to see him do more, but but there's also enough there. and then when he goes to Hollywood it's like Fritz Lang doing noir where it's like well this is not entirely driven by his personal motivation but he's finding a way to add a thing to it and he can tell stories in a minor key and like Jennifer's saying that's so new and feels so different and maybe he would have made those kind of films here anyway he would have graduated I'm not saying he could have because we don't have the money we don't have the stars but what I mean is I don't think he was selling out or not being true to himself because you do see a lot of Australian and New Zealand filmmakers go to Hollywood and they make genre movies and they're not bad but I think of Jeff Murphy who's an incredible New Zealand filmmaker but even Philip Noyce is someone who goes from being like oh this guy makes great genre films too oh he's kind of doing paycheck-y stuff. And then when he does rabbit proof fence, it's like now he's getting back to what he cares about versus the paychecks. It did feel like there was a consistency across Weir's entire career. Yeah, and I mean, I know that personally, you know, having turned down many films. Right, I'm sure you got brought. I cannot even imagine. Still, no offense to it, because it's fine. It's fine to make these movies. But you also suffer by not accepting good things. Right, because then they're like, well, you don't want to play the game, then what do we need you for? Well, then, you know, your own the investment in your own projects can mean that there's like longer years between. Right. So I understand when you get offered those types of things. What was the kind of calculation you were doing in sort of like how to test if you felt like there was a worthwhile opportunity there versus, you know, the dangers? I mean, I'm a writer, director, and I would love to direct other people's things. But unfortunately, it's just I haven't had those scripts come that make me go, oh, you know, I get like the goosebump test where I just feel so I have to because I have to be deeply connected to something like on a very deep level because you're going to stick with this story for a number of years. So it has to be meaningful. and you know I didn't watch Marvel films so why would I want to direct them I you know it's it's not it's no slight on that but I know it's knowing and I mean you know I have like six scripts piled up that just no one wants to make but no I mean that's not a tale of money I got a hundred bucks no I mean it's not true because they're they're actually there's a few down it's an investment because there's a few now that are backed up. But I'm very devoted to them. And I think being a writer-director, I mean, these films, actually, I don't know if Peter wrote. Did he write Mosquito Coast? He was always Paul Schrader. Once he goes to America, I feel like Green Card is the rare movie that he wrote himself. By and large, in America, he's making other people's scripts. Now he's working on the scripts or whatever But it's just Green Card and then Master and Commander And then The Way Back, his final film He wrote all of those But obviously in America In Australia He's credited as a writer on Gallipoli he has story credit but not screenplay On Last Wave, Cars that Ate Paris On The Year of Living Dangerously On The Plumber He would collaborate I feel like he's always been a fairly sort of he collaborates with other writers who he gets his talks with or whatever. But not strictly writer-director. He's not a full sort of proper auteur type, you know. That's not really his thing. I'm very close mates with Justin Curzel, who... Oh, yeah. We've covered his film Assassin's Creed on this podcast. Oh, okay. Okay, he probably would. He would laugh about that, I think. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the movie. Not so much the games. Oh, really? Oh, I'll tell him. I'll tell him that. Please do. It's not his finest hour from his perspective. Sure. From our perspective it is. Come on. I think it's so fun. I revisit it all the time. It's such a comfort watch for me. Yeah, Jennifer, the reason we covered it on the show is that Ben had a period of months where he would watch it every night to try to fall asleep. And it wasn't as some backhanded this movie bores me way. It was that he found it so comforting. It was the movie that could calm his anxieties. I was in a bad relationship at the time, and I never played the game. I just was like, assassins. I can fuck with that. But wait, wait, wait, Jennifer, why did you bring up Justin? I'm sorry. I realized. Well, the reason I brought him up is because he's a brilliant director. He is. And he's a, I mean, Nitrum and Snowtown. Well, Snowtown's on my, you know, top ten list. Yeah, incredible movie. he is a great i mean he's also in there i think a director who makes films with other people's scripts it's not like they just mail him the script and then he goes okay and now we're ready to shoot it's very much that feels very personal and individualistic he's very involved in script but um i you know i envious because it means he can make more films right he can take on a project a little faster right Yeah and he may have four or five I can write four or five I can maybe write three scripts maximum a year before I have to go on a holiday and have a sleep But he can, you know, work on more. I think directors who don't necessarily write their own stuff or all of it can be more prolific. You know, I think even Tarantino has said that. He said, you know, I've got to write the thing. Yeah. Yeah. yeah he's actually producing the film that we're making so oh really justin oh curzel yeah yeah i am just realizing in real time jennifer just because ben is uh behind the producer console and he's not on the computer screen i'm realizing just to paint a picture for you ben is kind of an american lyrican wow oh really yeah a little bit a little bit i'm from new jersey kind of outback of the states i was a smoker for many years do you like beer you've had your boisterous days. I like to knock back a couple of cold ones from time to time. The major, I don't know what you would think here, but the major quality of a larrikin, I think, is to bullshit you. Sort of like a trickster, right? Now, Ben, you're very honest, but you also do love bits. And you make your now wife doing a bit. Only for a laugh. I mean, I remember when I watched Barry Lyndon for the first time, I was like, hmm, I'm really relating to this Irish scoundrel. Yes. Yes, it comes from, it actually comes from Ireland. I think it's, you know, we have a huge sort of Irish lineage here. Yes. So, yeah, it's probably an Irish thing, actually. It's all coming together. The other word is mateship, right? Which is sort of like that's a very Australian word for like kind of brotherhood or whatever you want to call it. Oh, yeah, definitely. And that's the essence of Gallipoli, right? That's what Weir says is the essence. Yeah. That's what we realized we were making a movie about was about mateship. Yeah. Which is why they have things like the rugby game. Sorry, Aussie rules football game. Yes. But like stuff like that. Yeah. And I think when I was younger, I was like, oh, bloody mate. You know, this mate, this mate. Boys, right. You know, it's, but I actually understand it. And I think, you know, I think that it's quite peculiar to Australian men. I mean, well, there's probably all forms of it in various cultures. Right, there's versions of it. But mateship does feel like this particularly Australian sort of way that men relate to each other. It took Americans a century to define the bromance. Yeah, like another word is digger. I don't know if you came across this when you were Tom Harris. No, the only reason I know that is also Bluey. They use that word a lot in Bluey. Do they? What do they? Well, just like Lucky's dad is a classic digger, I feel like. And again, I'm only speaking to people. Oh, that's so cute because they're dogs. Dicking bones. Oh, my God. I mean, obviously, you know Blue's parents. Do I know them personally? What do I know about them? The joke is, you know, the dad is an archaeologist. so he did something oh my god wait really yeah really good and then the mom wants to air force security so she sniffs back like that's the joke you know they don't say it but it's really funny i mean blue is so brilliant and they really and jennifer it really bluey did really turn me on to brisbane like i never thought much about brisbane before and like i realized it has its own kind of whatever unique kind of climate and character and the it's so green and it's so beautiful and all you know yeah yeah um and those houses like i live in a bluey house you do you live in one of those it's like a sort of a three-decker or however i've never seen david it's like a french colonial design yeah yeah right yeah yeah i live in like 120 year old house yeah well they're so beautiful though i mean they yeah they are oh they are they're wonderful um yeah i mean i sort of part of the joke of blue is that the house does sort of has like strange physics to it because it's like a kid's view of a house, right? So you never can quite figure out the layout, but yeah. Anyway, is there anything else in Gallipoli we need to touch on? You know, I don't want to keep you here all day, Jennifer, but like are there scenes we haven't talked about that we want to talk about? I thought the color palette was really interesting. It was almost, what do they call the original photography? That had a, that there were some colors that were really vibrant. So it wasn't just all, there was a vibrancy to it. like especially in the the racing scenes when they were doing sprints and stuff you know there were pops of color it wasn't just all sort of beige and gray and it and it got more desaturated like they took they didn't take the color out of the frame and the grade but they took the color obviously out of you know the costumes were no there was no longer any vibrancy yeah yeah so i think that is interesting and just beautifully shot i love the kind of formal quality of it as well and you have like the kind of natural hand held saturation of like the early scenes especially the one where they're finally running off to try to join the war and they're going off into the horizon and it is just like a straight line it is just like you know super bold orange sand and super blue sky yeah right yeah right and it's just a flat line that they're walking towards right yeah there was some sort of lawrence of arabia almost yeah kind of compositions as well so yeah there was something very formal like i felt that he he was you know not conventional just formal and i i dig that as a filmmaker i love that sort of yeah photographic kind of beautifully composed frame um you know you think of war films it's more like handheld and chaotic and it really wasn't like that this film yeah no it's not at all right it's very and the most sort of uh distinctive stuff is stuff like the underwater scene but that's like you know that's like a painting or you know like just these yeah still even though it was handheld by necessity bodies right but it didn't feel um documentary like i I mean, talking about Bergman, you know, he famously says in his autobiography that film can be two things. It can be documentary or it can be dream. And I feel this film really still, it sits in the dream. It's not, even though the subject matter is very historically, it happened. But it's a dream when I watch this film. It's a sad dream. are there any other australian actors i don't really know about here who are because it feels like some of these older guys oh bill hunter bill hunter right like these are guys with a sort of a long uh history in australia bill hunter's this guy oh yeah i mean he was in muriel's wedding he He played the sort of bastard dad. But all those faces are recognizable. Even the man at the Jamboree, the kind of sprinting carnival that they had, who delivers the – like Bill Kerr is – yeah, he was one of those faces. I was thinking, how did these people – they must have come up in theater because they're older men by the time they're in this film. Bill Kerr is interesting because he went to Britain. And he did a lot of work in Britain in the 50s and 60s before he came back to Australia. Yeah, like a lot of them did. And a lot of them, like Robert Grubb, he was a staple on stage when I was studying at NIDA. Just a wonderful character actor. Tim McKenzie, I tried to see what, like I tried to find him. I don't know where he is. Yeah, I don't recognize him. David Argue was constantly in film, independent films and on stage. He's sadly passed away quite recently. Reg Evans is the guy, the athletics official. Do you remember him? Oh, yeah. He's just a wonderful character. The guy who takes the bribe at the beginning? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a top hat and he's a staple in Australian cinema. So, yeah, they're recognizable faces. It's very nostalgic for me watching that because most of them have gone now, you know. Right. Not the younger guys, but the older ones. Griff, are there any things you... I just want to circle back a little. We don't have to go all the way in the deep end. But this whole R&R pictures thing is very fascinating to me, just for how much that Rupert Murdoch has obviously become an evil goblin king, hoarding over our media for decades and decades. We do not enjoy the work of Rupert Murdoch. This is him when he has obviously, like, founded News Corp and made it into a massive company before News Corp has bought Fox and all of that. And this is basically his, like, first serious foray into movies. It's his only foray. I mean, until he buys Fox. I've seen until he just buys a fucking film studio. Right. But he never produces movies himself again. They hired this guy, Francis O'Brien, who was the guy I mentioned, who they sent to sort of investigate the landscape and say, do you think there's a good enough industry here? And he kept on publicly saying, like, this isn't some tax shelter thing. This isn't some like weird like dodge. This is a real belief that there's money to be made in putting more into the Australian film industry. and, you know, was just sort of scanning for, like, who are the filmmakers who are ready for this level up? Who has a project that seems appetizing to us? And that Murdoch's father was a journalist covering the First World War in Australia. Right. And he has this strong attachment to this era and, like, trying to understand what his father lived through and sort of seeing all of this. And so they're giving them a lot of money, but it's, like, not that much on a Hollywood scale. Sure. It feels like a reasonable amount. and they're trying to understand like what's the right business practice for this and i think because of mad max they just thought like if we have mel gibson it'll be an easy sell domestically they set it up at paramount they were ready to go um but they said francis o'brien was there with them the whole time and we are came up with the idea of the big dance hall scene late during filming yeah right right and it was gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars yes for like production but we're is basically like we need a break like we need like something before we're getting to the horror right yeah it's a lyrical break before we go to war and francis o'brien said like if i had been at a desk in hollywood and i got that call i would have said this guy's ego's out of fucking control i'm not giving him a hundred thousand dollars for a dance sequence but being there throughout the productions what you're saying jennifer of understanding the poetry of what he was doing. Oh, yeah. I mean, that scene was so, it was so essential. I think to put a, 100%. To put a marker on the end of that beautiful sort of period of innocence. It's like the loss of innocence. Because the next shot is them all traveling in the dark. Yes. On those boats. You know, it's like a different, not a different film, but it's certainly the beginning of the end. It's a point of no return. it's yeah yeah yeah hard pivot into war i just think the setup of this movie was so unique that the intimacy of the money men in this but it was so tight that even like that guy was sure like yeah 100 000 right check dance sequence not because he didn't care but because they were actually paying attention to the vision of what was happening yeah i thought it was financially prudent to invest but i also think well i mean i can't speak for rupert murdoch but But it obviously didn't continue to have interest in Australian film. So, you know, it must have been like, okay, we can make some money, but we can't make the kind of money we can make in America. I think basically what happens is the film comes out in Australia. It's a big hit. Huge hit. It was the biggest of the year. $12 million, which is a lot for Australia. Many multiples of its budget. It more than makes its money back. But then in America, it's like a modest sort of arthouse film that makes a few million dollars. and that's the, you know, it gets good reviews. But that's the end of it. And they probably were kind of like, right, yeah, that's sort of the ceiling of a movie at this point. And I imagine, I mean, I imagine it would have been seen as a rather sort of underwhelming film in terms of, you know, like an action-packed war film. Right. It wasn't that. It sort of, you know, it got a little bit of attention. It played at the Venice Film Festival. Like it got a Golden Globe foreign film nomination. But it was, yeah, it was not as resonant outside of it. Weir said Paramount bought it, and Paramount had that same season, Reds. And that was their big priority. And that was, here's a big, sweeping, three-hour movie star romantic epic. That made sense to them. They didn't know what to do with Gallipoli. And over, across the lot, Warner Brothers has Chariots of Fire, which, of course, ends up beating Reds for Best Picture. And Weir was saying, like, I kind of wish we were over there. Warner Brothers seems to understand they have this small movie that they need to gradually sell people on. Yeah, but Chariots of Fire is a crowd-pleasing film about triumph. And this is a movie that ends with the main character dying. Yeah, this is like a dark It's as dark as it gets. And also, it's like, I mean Mel Gibson obviously became a huge star but it's like, who are all these foreign actors? We don't know any of them. Yeah, and Gibson's not really a star yet. It's more that this is the origin story and this is part of that early you know it gets good reviews uh yeah and so it should oh my god we're in 86 called it his best film although he also called it his least personal he says there's least with me but i do think i have real confidence and craft and all that i don't know if he continues to feel that way obviously he made a lot of great films after 1986 yeah yeah yeah there's this quote i love from uh francis o'brien when they were trying to sell it before Paramount ultimately ends up buying it when he was showing it to American distributors. And he says three companies liked it. One said great, but would you go back and put a little more romance in it? Another asked if we would mind changing the ending. No problem, I told them. You give us three million, we'll make a film like that, but this one is already made. Oh my god. It's just, isn't it just so dumb? They're so dumb. I do think and it's so trite but this is something we're says but he's also like people couldn't pronounce gallipoli yeah you know like fundamentally it's like should have changed the title in australia everyone knows what gallipoli is but that's not true in america what were you about to say yeah we're gonna say jennifer oh you know we had investors in america who were saying yeah like uh uh you know we want to we want to finance um the nightingale which by the way would never get made in 2026 but a masterpiece but truly one of the bleakest films i've ever seen and they said but can she kill hawkins right can it be a revenge movie yeah right yeah and i said well she can if you want her to die in the final scene and they went no no no no i said well no because that's the whole point of the film is how yeah empty revenge is ultimately these aren't like small changes like would you mind just putting like a little more garlic in the dish it's like what if the base was lamb instead of chicken and you're like well i've already cooked the lamb i chose which thing i was making yeah yeah yeah but um this is i mean hats off to peter for not even just going to say no i mean you can't like okay yeah they are the guys gonna have a love relationship is that what's gonna happen also that's what they were saying in response to watching the final cut it wasn't like them saying that at the script stage they were like we made the movie already if this isn't what you want then you don't have to buy it i i actually feel it was a beautiful love story platonic i agree it is love yeah i mean yeah right the one last thing i want to highlight is that the music the um that he uses uh for the uh you know the the bizet piece the pearl fishers was something where he just went to the opera that was being performed and there's this duet of two male voices and he's like that's frank and archie and he's like i need to put it into you know into the movie and they have to invent like someone having a record player so that he can kind of get it into the film yeah but he was like it spoke to him yeah i thought the music was really beautiful and even that um who's the composer was brian may uh who did that sort of quite vangelis um yes yes that really stuck with me as a kid as well like as soon as i heard that music this time. I was like, oh, of course. You know, some people, I was reading reviews, some people didn't like that, but I loved it. I love it. Yeah. And there was that and the classical piece as well. It's Adagio and G Minor. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And it starts with that, right? The opening credits. The opening credits say this is, get ready. So it kind of preps us with that opening title sequence. yeah we're going to play the box office game Jennifer to wrap up which is we look at the weekend the film came out in America because the American box office is all I have here Griffin's going to try and guess the top five here for late August 1982 oh my god you're going to guess them without knowing what film I'm going to give him some clues Gallipoli's not in the top five here, Griff. Where's it open? I don't know. This is the 80s. It's not in the top 10. But my guess is it opened very limited. It was a small RD film in America. So is this the month that it opened? But we're looking out. Yes, the month it opened. So in Australia, it opened. It actually, it was also around the same time. Australia opened 13th of August 1981, and it came out in America on the 28th of August. Number one, Griff is a hit comedy, one of the big comedies of the year. It got sequels. It was, I think it won an Oscar. This is the first. It gets sequels. It gets a sequel, I guess. So is it Arthur? It's Arthur. It's Arthur. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, okay. It got sequels? It got one. There's one sequel. Arthur on the Rocks? Yes, right. Yeah. I think he loses all his money again. Do you like Arthur, Jennifer? Do you have any take on Arthur? I saw it. And I do love Dudley Moore. I thought he was wonderful in the earlier comedy stuff with Peter Cook. I mean, I remember John Gilgood saying, would you like me to wash your dick for you, sir? He won an Oscar for saying that. They basically handed him the Oscar the second that line was delivered. Yes, that's a brilliant line. I love Dudley Moore. I think that movie is perfectly pleasant enough. I did have the experience watching it of what I thought I was going to feel watching Crocodile Dundee for the first time. I love this guy. No, watching Arthur, I was like, this is fine. This set the world on fire. They elected Arthur precedent. Did that win Oscars, did you say? John Gielgud won Best Supporting Actor for it. It was a little bit of a career award. No, that makes sense. But it got a screenplay now? I think it did. It was a humongous year. It was a big hit. Number two, also a huge hit. Biggest movie of 1981, Griffin. Biggest movie of 1981. Covered on this podcast. Would be Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, brilliant. I mean, well, hats off. That's good shit. Yeah, that deserves it. Hats off? That's the last thing Indiana Jones wants to do. He's a hat-on guy. Number three at the box office is a comedy horror film. Comedy horror. It is a very good film. Is it American Werewolf in London? Yes, it is. Yes. You know, I saw that film as a kid. Too young. Yeah, scary. And I had such bad nightmares, but I loved it. Yeah, because it's got scary nightmare stuff in it. Yeah, yeah. I've got a poster of that, actually, on my wall. You know, Jennifer, how I knew that's what movie it was? What? How? Because David's voice was going up as he was anticipating how to talk about John Landis. That's right. But it's a great film. I love that film. David going, uh, it's coming for a film. And I went, oh, it's a John Landis movie. it's American World from London. It's a very impactful film. It is. Jenny Agusso is really good in that too. So good. God damn gorgeous. So the first three I knew. Number four is not a movie I know at all. It's a comedy drama. It's based on a play. Got some Golden Globe noms. It's not like The Dresser, is it? No, that was a hit. That got Best Picture. and it's a supreme court comedy supreme court comedy yeah um it was and this is the craziest part yeah so it's about a female justice being nominated to the supreme court okay and it was supposed to come out a year later and then reagan nominated sandra day o'connor to the supreme court and they brought up the release to to like sort of her to swearing in to essentially right to to catch up to the news. Let's just do it right now. Do you have any idea what this is, Jennifer? No. So it's based around the woman? It's a fictional film. It's not based about Sandra Day O'Connor. Is it a female lead? The leads are Walter Matthau and Jill Klayberg. Oh. I love her, but I don't know what that is. It's directed by Ronald Neem, great British director who worked with David Lee and did a lot of really good movies including Prime of Miss Jean Brody. I feel like I can picture the poster. I don't know what that film is. I don't know what it is. Is it called Yorana? No, it's called First Monday in October, which is a very bland title. I would actually say quite a bad title. I don't even know that film. I don't know it. I've never heard of it. It didn't get great reviews. And then number five, another movie I don't know. Let's see. Is a American sex comedy. Okay. I feel like this one is called up before it stars sylvia cristel who is um emmanuel you know who's best known as playing emmanuel yeah and it's one of her few american films and i feel like we've discussed this movie because that all rings a bell but i don't feel like you know this movie it's an american sex comedy starring her i mean i don't have any more clues for you you don't have any more clues I don't know. Have to race home and watch it when we find it. Ed Begley Jr.'s in it. Okay, well, that's helpful. What is it? Do you have to tell us? So this is the biggest gross thing. Okay, can I guess? Yeah, sure. Is it called Wowzer? It's called Private Lessons. I do know that tieback. Private Lessons. Private Lessons. I've never heard of it. How saucy. Little double entendre, possibly. Right, right. There you go. There are other movies in the top ten. And you've got a movie called Coming At Ya, which is like a crazy 3D Western movie. Oh, wow. I own that on 3D Blu-ray. You've got Heavy Metal, which I think it's a Ben favorite. The crazy animated anthology movie. Yes. Great weed-smoking movie. You've got a movie I've never heard of called Take This Job and Shove It. That's a great title. Starring Robert Hayes. Wow. That's pretty fun. And then you have Body Heat. One of my favorites. and you've got the Bill Murray movie Stripes oh yeah Stripes I have this opinion that no one remembers what happens in the second half of Stripes you don't do this we played in America Jennifer would be remiss if I didn't ask because I've been so curious for so long you we've been doing this show for 11 years now what? that's crazy I invoke your films a lot as a positive reference point to other things I like in other movies. But you have come up once before on this podcast because of a film you appeared in as an actress. Oh, which, yeah, I think you're going to tell me what it is, but I think I know what it is. Can you guess? Yeah. Babe 2. Correct. Babe Pig in the City. I had quite a large role in that, but as, I mean, before it ended up on the cutting room floor. Right. I was thinking, and I said to people, this is not going to end up in the film, because we were experimenting on animals, and I was really evil in the film. Right, you're right. I mean, it's a dog film. You're in like a mad scientist lab that's full of nightmares. Yeah, and then when I saw it, I was like, yeah, I was right. They cut almost my time roll. But was that fun to make? Did they film that? Oh, it was amazing. I mean, I adore George Miller. I love him. And, yeah, it was fun. And the animatronics were crazy. And the pig training was crazy. They were so beautiful. You know, I remember one was called Erica because they would get them young, you know, and they use clickers and go, back, Erica, back. And this little pig would kind of reverse, you know. And I'm a big animal lover. I love animals. And so, yeah, it was a big thing. I knew, like, as a kid, I always wanted to write, direct, and act. But I grew up in an era where little girls didn't direct films, you know. I didn't have any role models, really. I mean, Jane Campion was sort of just coming through. And, yeah, so it was interesting. Focusing on acting seemed like the clearer path to get onto sex. Yeah, yeah. So here I am. well I'm very eager for whatever you make next I'm really excited to hear that you're working on something it was so wonderful to have you on the show and so good to have an Australian perspective on this show likewise guys and I really thank you for this wonderful couple of hours but also thank you for making me watch Gallipoli again because I wouldn't have watched it and I wouldn't have been so moved Sorry it was upsetting, but it does seem like rewarding. Yeah. Oh, totally. And it just makes me appreciate our lineage of filmmakers here and Peter Weir. He's a real master, and he deserves, you know, I'm glad you're doing this because he deserves more attention. Thank you. And for younger people to get in and watch all of his films. I will also say I imagine almost all of our listeners are very familiar with Mr. Babadook and his work. But if people haven't seen The Nightingale, just because we've invoked it a bunch here, I would say it is similar to Gallipoli in that it is a very devastating watch that I think a very worthwhile watch. And if you've been following us along on these Peter Weir films, I think there's a lot of overlap in sort of subject matter and perspective and working through the kind of Australian diaspora. Yeah, well, well, well, put it put it this way. I think if if Fred Skepsy hadn't made Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and if Peter Weir hadn't made his early Australian films, I don't think I would have had the courage to make that film. So I'm very indebted to those pioneers, you know, who came out of zero films to to in the 70s to this incredible slate. So beautiful. That is just, yeah, it is crazy to think about. Yeah, it is. Right. It's like in the 1970s, America was like, what if we made movies again? We should, we should. Yeah, exactly. And we haven't made them for 40 years. What if we just, you know, flipped the switch and started making them again? I know we've all just been like sitting back watching Australian films for the last three decades. But what if we started making them again? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Likewise. Thank you for inviting me on. Yeah, thank you. And thanks again to Rob Scheer for making this happen. Yes, thank you to Rob. Love, love Rob. The best. Thanks, Griffin. Thanks, David. I hope to see you again. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Your Living Dangerously. Yes, that's right. We'll cut it out if it doesn't happen, but with Tracy Letts. very exciting physical media right keel is a prize winner himself tracy latz oh i love tracy amazing genius we're very excited about this uh and as always ben is an american lyrican see you guys we'll bid you farewell yeah have a good day yes we will go to sleep Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in The Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.