Saturday, May 13, 2006

How not to write an Australian film script

Quest to write the Great Australian Script - Film - Entertainment - smh.com.au

This article in the SMH today has lots of people offering lots of reasons as to why Australian films often seem to have bad scripts. All of these sound plausible to me, as there happens to be an enormous black spot in my cinematic tastes, called "Australian film."

I can't say that I have ever seen an Australian film that I would say has risen above mediocre. Of course, having established this taste by the time I was about 20, I haven't spent a lot of time seeking out Australian films. (But I am always interested in reviews of films whether I intend to see them or not, so I at least know a little bit about most films released.)

It is entirely possible that they have been ones made in the last 20 years that I might like, but then again that would cause a crisis in cinematic belief system. Anyway, it can be more fun to be cranky and unreasonable.

One thing about Australia films not really mentioned in the SMH article, and which bothers me, is their frequently claustrophobic physical scale. Even a "routine" relatively low budget American film will often have busy city street scenes, scenes at train stations, banks or somewhere with lots of actual people in the background. Which is what real life is actually like, for most of us.

It seems to me to be extremely common place that nearly all Australian movies (not counting American movies being made here), even if outdoors, will still not show busy outdoor scenes.

Of course, this is all part of the cost of making a film, and even the cheapest American product is much more expensive than your average Aussie one. So to the extent that it is hard to raise money for Aussie films, it can't be helped. (I wonder if it is hard to get unpaid extras for an Australian film?) It is still a reason why, more often than not, watching an Australian film puts me in mind of watching a play rather than watching cinema.

Finally, in the interests of balance, I have said before that Hollywood is going through a particularly barren number of years at the moment too. Still, I would have to say that mediocre Hollywood is more engaging than mediocre Australian.

1 comment:

naked hand films said...

Steve ---

I think some of your points are valid. Australian cinema has been stale for a long while.

But your astute observation about little extras or busily populated street scenes has nothing to do with it. What you are having problems with (I'm guessing) is the tedious plot exposition, boring middle-class characters who DONT go through anything more than ...average, and struggle to make everything palatable AND plausible.

Tony Ayres said to me once..."It's got to be Plausible".

When was Fellini, Cocteau, Godard, Hitchcock, Peckinpah, Huston...Scorcese if you like...plausible? Cinema is all about stretching what we take as plausible...the nightmare of reality and the reality of nightmare.

That's the problem I suspect. Try watching the new Jennifer Anniston film "The Breakup" and it suffers from similar problems....but still...it's more entertaining and reflective of humanity than something like "Somersault" or "Look Both Ways."