Word: morant
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AMERICAN AUDIENCES are just awakening to the breadth of extraordinary cinematic talent emanating from Australia. Initially, only the films with distinctly Aussie themes made it to this side of the Pacific--films like Breaker Morant and Gallipoli, which depicted with a bloody poignancy the British manipulation of the colony's armed forces during the early part of this century. Other successful films like The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and The Last Wave were classified as uniquely Australian because they delved into the racial tensions between the white settlers of the continent and the Black Aborigines whom they tried to wipe...
...rancher Harrison, capturing the character's stiff formality and paternal desire to raise his way-ward daughter as "a lady." Young Burlinson, with his impish smile and refreshing honesty, is certainly a find, and Jack Thompson, who will seem familiar for his role as the defense attorney in "Breaker Morant," plays a half-cowboy, "half-bloodhound" tracker with panache...
Bruce Beresford, the Australian director making his American film debut, is no subtle stylist. His tendency is to run like hell with a single visual strategy: flossy soft focus in The Getting of Wisdom, low-angled shots for the heroes and villains of Breaker Morant, hyperactive camerabatics to catch the footballers in The Club, and, to emphasize the lonely helplessness of Mac and his kind, a series of longshot landscapes that dwarf the actors. But with his jeweler's eye for casting and a fond patience with his actors, he allows every performance in Tender Mercies to shine through...
...Merlin behind the magic is Gillian Armstrong, the young Australian director who established a reputation for intelligent, graceful and feminist filmmaking with her critically acclaimed debut My Brilliant Carter. That film formed the foundation of the now-thriving Australian movie industry, along with Breaker Morant, Gallipoli and Picnic at Hanging Rock...
...Hollywood. The best directors have been wooed to the U.S. to make the same kinds of films but bigger, and without all those people who talk funny and drive on the wrong side of the road. Fred Schepisi (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith) and Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant) both emigrated to Texas to make western romances (Barbarosa and Tender Mercies). George Miller, daredevil director of the Mad Max movies, is now helming an episode of Steven Spielberg's The Twilight Zone. This is the big leagues, with a more restrictive set of rules. The successful Australian director could...